Edmund Goulding’s Nightmare Alley (1947):
Criterion Blu-ray review

Proud, ambitious Stanton Carlisle (Tyrone Power) has fallen as low as it gets in Edmund Goulding's Nightmare Alley (1947)

Continuing their recent run of classic Hollywood restorations, Criterion have released an excellent edition of Edmund Goulding’s Nightmare Alley (1947), a sordid story of madness and criminality starring Tyrone Power in his best role as an opportunistic carny who cons his way to the top of respectable society only to plunge back down to the lowest depths. A remarkably grim movie to have been made by a major studio on an A-picture budget, it still remains a potent glimpse of existential horror.

Euro Pulp

Delphine Seyrig conveys elegant ennui as the Countess Elizabeth Bathory in Harry Kümel's Daughters of Darkness (1971)

A selection of European genre movies from the 1970s and ’80s ranges from sadistic killers to cannibals to elegant vampires, from bad fashions and electro-pop music to old families sinking into decadence, from masters of exploitation like Sergio Martino, Lucio Fulci, Umberto Lenzi and Ruggero Deodato to the artful Harry Kümel.

Recent Arrow viewing, Part Two

Captain Seafield (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) and sonar expert Nedge Pepsi (Beulah Peters) are shocked by the Lake Michigan Monster (2018)

Yet another wide range of titles from Arrow Video from a restored silent classic to aliens over Tokyo, woods infested with zombies, food which consumes those who eat it, apocalypse in an alternate future Los Angeles, friendship destroyed by political conflicts, rich people facing the loss of their wealth and a naively admiring time capsule of the U.S. on the brink of the ’60s.

Inner Sanctum Mysteries on Blu-ray

The power of Alex Gregor (Lon Chaney)'s mind is deadly in Harold Young's The Frozen Ghost (1945)

Universal’s series of minor B-movies based on Simon & Schuster’s line of fiction and NBC’s long-running radio show called Inner Sanctum gave third-string horror star Lon Chaney Jr. a brief opportunity to get away from the monsters he played in the 1940s. Despite a low critical reputation, these atmospheric little movies are quite entertaining and receive a nice showcase in Eureka’s two-disk Blu-ray set.

Recent BFI releases

The Gamin (Adrienne Barrett) is trapped in a noirish cycle of violence in a city of perpetual night in John Parker's Dementia (1953)

Two new BFI releases present a variety of movies from the fringes of the industry – John Parker’s surrealist noir Dementia (1953), aka Daughter of Horror (1957), and Short Sharp Shocks, a collection of British theatrical shorts with an emphasis on horror and the uncanny made between 1949 and 1980.

Winter viewing: Severin Films

Graf Saxon (Howard Vernon) engages in gruesome medical experiments in Adrian Hoven's Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968)

Bingeing has been my default viewing mode for some time, but it’s only more recently that it’s come to encompass indulging in multiple releases by a particular company – which in turn is a result of those company’s offering regular sales and discount packages of monthly releases. The most prominent examples of this are Vinegar Syndrome and Severin Films, both of which specialize in genre and exploitation titles, pulling me into deep, often sordid, black holes.

Winter viewing: Vinegar Syndrome

Evil magician Avery Lauter (J.P. Luebsen) comes back from the dead in Kevin Tenney's Witchtrap (1989)

Bingeing has been my default viewing mode for some time, but it’s only more recently that it’s come to encompass indulging in multiple releases by a particular company – which in turn is a result of those company’s offering regular sales and discount packages of monthly releases. The most prominent examples of this are Vinegar Syndrome and Severin Films, both of which specialize in genre and exploitation titles, pulling me into deep, often sordid, black holes.

Blasts from the past

Steamy Screen: The Melodramas of Gainsborough Pictures

Five Shades of B

Recent Viewing part 2

The subjectivity of watching: Bertrand Tavernier’s Death Watch (1980)

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