New disk label Cauldron gets impressive launch

Cult henchman Francis (Daniel Green) gets mad in Sergio Martino's genre hybrid American Rickshaw (1989)

New disk label Cauldron has launched with a pair of impressive Blu-rays which firmly declare the company’s devotion to exploitation and genre cinema: the Onetti Brother’s knowing tribute to the classic giallo, Abrakadabra (12018) and Italian genre master Sergio Martino’s unexpected genre blend of giallo, poliziotteschi and supernatural horror American Rickshaw (1989).

Hi-def Italian mayhem

A writhing pile of victims rise from the pit beneath Michele Soavi's The Church (1989)

I just got hold of three Scorpion Releasing special editions of Italian horror movies from the beginning of the genre’s decline in the late 1980s. Despite their flaws, Michele Soavi’s The Church (1979) and The Sect (1991) and Dario Argento’s Opera (1987) are packed with style and Scorpion have made them shine with 2K restorations and hours of informative extras (two disks each for the Soavi titles, and three disks for the Argento) in beautifully designed packages.

Another mixed bag …

Emily (Mariclare Costello) haunts a Connecticut idyll in John Hancock's Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

Another seemingly random collection of movies, this time including some cheap exploitation, cheesy fantasy, horror and noir. I revisit an old favourite, re-evaluate a low-budget Canadian film from the ’70s, and finally catch up with a couple of movies I’ve wanted to see for decades.

Pandemic viewing, Part Two

A psychotic YouTuber goes on a spree in Robert Mockler's Like Me (2017)

Social isolation and “working from home” mean a lot of time for movie-watching … and the volume far outstrips my ability to say anything substantive about many of the films I do watch: so here I mostly just acknowledge what I’ve been viewing in the past 4-6 weeks. Part two of four.

Camp Losey

Liz Taylor as wealthy widow Sissy Goforth clinging to life in Joseph Losey's Boom (1968)

In the middle of a career striving for artistic seriousness, Joseph Losey took a diversion into camp with three movies in the late 1960s. Gorgeously photographed and rife with scenery-chewing, one s a dud, one a great Gothic psychodrama and the third … well, it’s simply unclassifiable.

Blasts from the past

William Castle’s horrors from Indicator

Aleksandr Ptushko’s epic fantasies

Speaking of David Lynch … again!

Miyazaki’s swan song: The Wind Rises

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