Arrow’s recent two-disk Blu-ray set showcases Chad Crawford Kinkle’s distinctive approach to folk horror in his subtle and disturbing features Jug Face (2013) and Dementer (2019), both of which centre on women whose lives are overshadowed by dark religious forces.
The Hughes Brothers’ Menace II Society (1993), an aggressively stylish debut made when the twins were just twenty, is a nihilistically violent depiction of life in Watts in which kids grow up surrounded by violence and learn that there are few other ways to deal conflict. Criterion’s new Blu-ray, mastered from a 4K restoration, is vividly colourful, with a collection of excellent new and archival supplements,
Asian martial arts and fantasy movies can be exhilarating in their strangeness and invention, unbound by Western insistence on rational explanations. Arrow’s new box set Yokai Monsters Collection presents a world in which supernatural presences exist alongside human reality, while in Eureka’s release of Ching Siu-tung’s Duel to the Death (1983) martial artists defy the laws of physics in elaborately choreographed sword fights.
Vinegar Syndrome’s October package included a stylish but frustrating Uruguayan giallo, a catalogue title about a high school girl’s romance with a T-Rex and a box set of three Italian movies from the early ’70s featuring performances from Camille Keaton.
Vinegar Syndrome’s October releases offer a satisfyingly eclectic selection of occasionally obscure genre titles — from mid-’80s gialli to Southern Gothic crime to mutant bugs and a Mayan death cult.
Indicator add another volume to their series devoted to Columbia Studios films noirs, with an eclectic selection of six moves covering post-war espionage, the activities of organized crime and a cop easily turned to the darkside by an attractive woman. Excellent transfers are supplemented with commentaries, March of Time shorts, featurettes on key cast and crew members … and, of course, half-a-dozen Three Stooges shorts.
Arrow releases the uncanny horror-fantasy The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968), showcasing this mix of Japanese folktale and western fairytale directed by Noriaki Yuasa between episodes in Daiei’s Gamera series in a Blu-ray edition featuring a moody transfer and illuminating extras.
New Blu-ray releases from Arrow revive an effective Satanic panic movie from the early ’70s and unearth a forgotten regional slasher from 1982. The former, Bernard McEveety’s The Brotherhood of Satan, is an atmospheric gem; the latter, David Nelson’s Death Screams, is kind of clumsy, though it does have a few effective moments.
Lynne Ramsay’s emotionally devastating first feature, Ratcatcher (1999), is given a superb new 4K transfer on Criterion’s Blu-ray, which includes all the extras from their 2002 DVD with the addition of new interviews with Ramsay and cinematographer Alwin Küchler.
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.