Arrow Video has released an excellent Blu-ray edition of Georges Franju’s little-known third feature, Plein feux per l’assassin (Spotlight on a Murderer, 1961), which adds surreal touches to a country house mystery centred on the missing body of a dead nobleman and the bickering relatives who gather hoping to inherit.
Arrow Video’s commitment to genre releases is on full display in a selection of recently viewed Blu-rays, each featuring informative supplements: the Japanese juvenile delinquent series Stray Cat Rock, Don Coscarelli’s epic Phantasm series, a pair of Gothic gialli from Emilio P. Miraglia, and Spanish director J.P. Simon’s adaptation of Brit author Shaun Hutson’s gross-out novel Slugs.
With a three disk first volume, Arrow Video embark on an ambitious undertaking with the American Horror Project, which intends to gather together independent, fringe features from the ’70s and ’80s, surrounded by supplementary features which provide context and possibly a cumulative history of this genre niche. Set one gathers three movies of varying quality.
Brief thoughts on some genre movies released on Blu-ray by Arrow Video, plus a couple of interesting books about the making of Cy Endfield’s Zulu and Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.
A mixed bag of recently viewed disks, from an obscure, poetic black-an-white drama to a garishly perverse piece of Greek exploitation, with some gialli and Japanese sci-fi animation thrown in.
Arrow releases yet another impressive limited edition box-set with their dual-format edition of Kinji Fukasaku’s Battles Without Honor and Humanity, a key work in the transition of Japanese cinema from the “classical” post-war period to a more transgressive critique of the nation’s history and culture.
Although I saw fewer movies in theatres than ever, this year offered a rich array of films on disk, belying continuing prophecies of the medium’s demise in the face of on-line streaming.
The visual master Mario Bava virtually invented the Italian genre called giallo, influencing generations of filmmakers who followed and built on his stylistic and thematic example. Arrow video has been releasing a series of impressive editions of Bava’s films on Blu-ray, offering alternative versions and a rich array of supplements to provide a critical and historical context for his work.
The visual master Mario Bava virtually invented the Italian horror film, influencing generations of filmmakers who followed and built on his stylistic and thematic example. Arrow video has been releasing a series of impressive editions of Bava’s films on Blu-ray, offering alternative versions and a rich array of supplements to provide a critical and historical context for his work.
Despite perennial predictions of the demise of movies-on-disk, 2014 offered a rich and varied selection of new and old titles in often impressive editions from many different companies, though not necessarily from major distributors. The cream came from specialty labels like Criterion, the BFI, Arrow, Eureka/Masters of Cinema, Shout! Factory, Olive Films, Kino Lorber, Flicker Alley and Twilight Time.