Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957):
Criterion Blu-ray review

Louise (Randy Stuart) does her best to accommodate the awkward situation in The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

Criterion showcase a key ’50s sci-fi movie with their extras-loaded Blu-ray of Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking Man. The 4K restoration makes this the definitive visual presentation of the film, while the numerous special features – commentary, interviews, documentary – cover the production and the critical importance of the movie in detail.

Hammer Vol. 6: Night Shadows from Indicator

Catherine Lacey appears briefly as wealthy, reclusive murder victim Ella Venable in John Gilling's The Shadow of the Cat (1961)

Indicator’s sixth box set of Hammer movies, Night Shadows, is a bit of a mixed bag, with a silly but entertaining Old Dark House throwback in John Gilling’s The Shadow of the Cat (1961), an overwrought psycho thriller in Freddie Francis’ Nightmare (1964), a historical adventure in Peter Graham Scott’s Captain Clegg (1962), and a pseudo-Gothic horror in Terence Fisher’s The Phantom of the Opera (1962).

The films of Eloy de la Iglesia

El Jaro (Jose Luis Manzano) turns to petty crime and drugs in Eloy de la Iglesia's Navajeros (1980)

Severin introduces the work of Eloy de la Iglesia, a little-known Basque filmmaker with three releases spanning the period from the end of the Franco regime to the transition to democracy in Spain. Two thrillers with a satirical edge made in the early ’70s give way to a trilogy of violent, neo-realist depictions of youth crime and drug addiction in the early ’80s. Dynamic and visceral, these films are deeply empathetic to members of the underclass – workers and dispossessed adolescents – and unflinching in their treatment of addiction and homosexuality in a repressive society.

Cauldron Films, round three

Altair (Diana Bovio) stands in the midst of a bird storm in Victor Dryere's 1974: La posesión de Altair (2016)

The latest releases from Cauldron Films are a pair of little-known found-footage horror movies which both have their moments, but suffer from the genre’s frequent shortcomings. Mike Costanza’s The Collingswood Story (2002) was the first movie to use on-line video chat as a storytelling medium, while Victor Dryere’s 1974: La posesión de Altair (2016) goes back to pre-video times, using super-8 home movies to show a young married couple under supernatural attack in rural Mexico.

Vinegar Syndrome Partners

Mr. Sunshine (Anthony Dawson) isn't interested in sharing the loot from a bank robbery in Roland Klick's Deadlock (1970)

Vinegar Syndrome distributes a number of smaller labels which offer a wide range of genre releases, from the ultra-low-budget Wakaliwood productions of Nabawana I.G.G. in Uganda to the impressively polished small-budget sci-fi of Chris Caldwell and Zeek Earl’s Prospect (2018), from the gritty ’80s exploitation of Norbert Meisel’s Walking the Edge (1983) to the mythic spaghetti western-noir of Roland Klick’s Deadlock (1970).

Blasts from the past

Second David Lynch eBook published

Tripping, shopping and the airborne multiplex

Julien Duvivier in the Thirties: Eclipse 44

Criterion Blu-ray review:
Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs (1978)

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