Recent viewing of Arrow Blu-ray releases includes horror, sci-fi, comedy, martial arts and murder from directors Terry Gilliam, John Landis, King Hu, Robert Altman, Takashi Miike and Mario Bava.
Winter 2022 Arrow viewing, part one
Author: Kenneth George Godwin
Alex Cox’s Walker (1987): Criterion Blu-ray review
Criterion’s Blu-ray release of Alex Cox’s masterpiece Walker (1987) revives this deconstruction of America’s self-mythologizing at a time when its themes are more pertinent than ever; imperial attacks on domestic and foreign societies driven by a toxic mixture of religious self-righteousness and unfettered capitalist greed have been on the rise for decades and Walker traces the roots back to the mid-19th Century doctrine of Manifest Destiny.
One-Shot Wonders: samurai slaughter and zombies
When filmmakers attempt to tell a story in a single sustained shot they encounter a number of technical issues because they have to abandon many of the tools developed over the history of cinema. Two recent Japanese movie approach the challenge in very different ways, one (Yuji Shimomura’s Crazy Samurai Musashi [2020]) succumbing to the inherent limitations, the other (Shin’ichiro Ueda’s One Cut of the Dead [2017]) interrogating those limitations with great comic effect.
Juan Diego Escobar Alzate’s Luz: The Flower of Evil (2019)
Colombian filmmaker Juan Diego Escobar Alzate’s first feature Luz: The Flower of Evil (2019) is a poetic slice of folk horror with striking imagery and moments of disturbing violence rooted in a very dark vision of Christian patriarchy.
Early Mexican horror from Indicator
Two new releases from Indicator illuminate the origins of Mexican horror (best known from the work of filmmakers like Chano Urueta, Fernando Mendez and Rafael Baladon in the 1950s and ’60s) in the early days of sound in the 1930s when filmmakers first strove to create an indigenous industry rooted in Mexican history and culture. Ramon Peon’s La llorona (1933), rooted in a local folk legend, was the country’s first sound horror movie, while Fernando de Fuentes’ The Phantom of the Monastery (1934) uses a Twilight Zone-like narrative to teach three characters a moral lesson. Both films have been impressively restored on disks which include a commentary and informative featurettes which illuminate their position and influenbce in Mexican cinema.
Budd Boetticher’s A Time for Dying (1969) from Indicator
Indicator’s recent Blu-ray of A Time for Dying (1969) resurrects the final feature of writer-director Budd Boetticher and actor-producer Audie Murphy, and odd, slightly crippled western made quickly to pay off some debts. Mixing the naivety of young, inexperienced characters with amoral brutality, it ends on a disturbingly note more in tune with end-of-the-’60s cynicism than the moral certainties of an earlier era’s westerns in which this movie superficially seems to have its roots.
Rethinking Kane and Chain Saws
However many times you watch a movie, there’s always a possibility to see something new and find new responses which surprise you out of complacent familiarity – two recent cases in point: Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941) and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974).
Winter viewing 3: Severin and Fractured Visions
Continuing my quick survey of genre movies I watched over the past couple of months, I move on to a number of Severin releases, which include a few transgressive titles from the ’80s, pulpy kitsch from the ’60s and a couple of bargain-basement Italian zombie movies. There are also two excellent poliziotteschi from a relatively new label in the UK.
Winter viewing 2: Vinegar Syndrome partners
Recent releases from various Vinegar Syndrome partner labels offer a wide range of styles, from low-budget direct-to-video horror (Ronnie Sortor’s Sinistre [1995], Charles Pinion’s Red Spirit Lake [1993] and We Await [1996]) to a rediscovered slice of Cold War sci-fi/espionage from Switzerland (Jean-Louis Roy’s The Unknown Man of Shandigor [1967]).
Winter viewing 1: Vinegar Syndrome
A long cold winter, a working-from-home schedule and pandemic-induced malaise means I’ve been watching a lot of undemanding genre movies over the past few months. One of my primary sources in the past couple of years has been Vinegar Syndrome, a company whose dedication to unearthing obscure, often forgotten genre movies equals my own passion for watching them. Although by no means a complete account of my VS viewing, here are brief notes on two dozen titles.
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