Batshit Blu-rays Of The Month- 19 For January

            What a way to begin the new year for Blu-ray lovers! Maria Montez on Blu-ray! Doctor Cyclops! All About My Mother! The Fugitive Kind! The Great McGinty! The controversial Lars Von Trier movie The House That Jack Built uncut! And if that isn’t enough- Two On A Guillotine with Connie Stevens!

Cobra Woman (Kino) “I have spoken!” roars Maria Montez, the “queen of Technicolor” of the 1940s, in one of her best films. She plays Naja, the evil ruler of a volcanic island that worships cobras and delights in throwing villagers into the volcano to appease the “fire God.” Montez, a Dominican beauty, with her thick accent is pretty hilarious as the evil queen. She also plays the “good” twin sister Tollea, who is brought back to the island to restore harmony. Jon Hall plays Ramu, Tollea’s fiancee who follows by boat to rescue his love, and the mischievous Sabu stowaways in order to help. Director Richard Siodmak utilizes sets from other Universal Mummy films to create a heavenly pulp fantasy film that inspired Underground Film legend Jack Smith (Flaming Creatures). The scene where Montez does her cobra dance pointing feverishly at the island citizens she condemns to the volcano is camp bliss. This gorgeous Blu-ray restores the eye-bleeding color and luster to this loony wonder. (When I was in Paris several years ago I made a pilgrimage to Montez’s grave in Montmartre Cemetery and it was indeed a holy moment).

            Body Parts (Shout! Factory) Eric Red began his film career with some superior screenplays like The Hitcher, and with Kathryn Bigeow– Near Dark. His writer/directorial career included the terrific thriller Cohen & Tate. This film, which he wrote and directed, stars an intense Jeff Fahey as a married professor who suffers a horrible car accident. At the hospital, a doctor (the sublime Lindsay Duncan) attaches the arm of a serial killer to him. Before long he suffers nightmares and his arm starts “acting up.” So, he tracks down other recipients of the murderer’s other body parts, who are having similar bizarre occurrences- including Brad Douriff as an eccentric artist, whose new paintings reflect a deranged killer’s mind. The film is a lot better than I remembered it, and there’s a wild car chase at the end with Fahey hanging out the window of a vehicle handcuffed to a psycho driving in another car.

            Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (Shout! Factory) Zohra Lampert plays a woman, returning to her country home from being institutionalized, who fears she is losing her sanity when she begins to suspect fearsome things about a strange female interloper. It’s such a wonderful slow burn of a performance, and gives great depth to this overlooked 1971 horror masterpiece. Directed by John Hancock this is all about atmosphere, and succeeds, like Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, in creating a true, paranoid nightmare.

            Doctor Cyclops (Kino) Could this be the first Technicolor sci-fi movie? This fabulous 1940 film stars Albert Dekker as a mad scientist working in the South American jungle, shrinking animals down by zapping them with radioactive material. A group of scientists travel to his compound and are shrunken by the crazed doctor. The miniature work is inspired as the little people plot to escape and are chased by a vicious cat. This Blu-ray is stunning- the color and sharp detail take your breath away. And the movie itself is just the best.

            The Whisperers (Kino) Edith Evans is extraordinary as an old woman living in squalor in North London slowly losing her grip on reality. She has her daily walks to National Assistance, or to a revival meeting, or sitting in the library with other sad sack vagabonds. But back at her flat she is tormented by hearing imaginary voices through the wireless and/or the faulty pipes. Then the husband who abandoned her begrudgingly returns after she is robbed and left for dead in the street. What rescues this 1967 film, directed by Bryan Forbes, from mawkish kitchen-sink melodrama is Evans, who gives this poor, deluded woman dignity and soul.

            Two On A Guillotine (Warner Archive) God forgive me, but this is the one Blu-ray I am drooling for. It’s a 1965 horror film directed by William Conrad (from TV’s Cannon). Cesar Romero plays a mad magician who accidentally beheads his wife on stage. Whoops! After he dies, years later, his will specifies that his daughter Cassie (Connie Stevens) spend seven nights in his haunted mansion. A reporter (Dean Jones) promises to keep Cassie company but each night is punctuated with weird happenings. One critic called this a “dull, silly, tedious clinker.” But I always thought it was a hoot, and being able to see it restored and in shimmering black & white is a crackpot dream come true. Scream on, Connie!

            Very Bad Things (Shout! Factory) A savagely funny black comedy about a Las Vegas bachelor party that spins wildly out-of-control, leaving bodies to dismember and dispose of in the desert and once back home, friendships to unravel in murderous cover-ups. wonderfully written and directed by Peter Berg, with scalpel-sharp comic timing by the superb ensemble cast, which includes Christian Slater, Jon Favreau, Daniel Stern, Jeremy Piven and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Cameron Diaz is hysterical as a psychotic Bridezilla. The movie straddles the fine line between comedy and Grand Guignol, then merrily pitches headfirst into the abyss.

The House That Jack Built (Shout! Factory) This is the movie that caused an uproar at Cannes, but in actuality it’s simply a sardonically funny, sometimes uncomfortably creepy Lars Von Trier film, about a serial killer in the 1970s, starring Matt Dillon. Told in five chapters, what surprised me most was the subversive humor. True there are things that make you cringe, but hell, it’s about a murderous psycho (with OCD no less). The whole finale with Bruno Ganz in hell is so bonkers it solidified my love for the film. This is, thankfully, the uncut version.

            The Great McGinty (Kino) A bitingly sardonic political 1940 satire by the true comedy master Preston Sturges. Brian Donlevy is just fantastic as a ruffian who is first used as muscle in elections then slowly introduced as a candidate- rising from mayor, then to Governor. He is forced into an arranged marriage with a woman with children, and grows to love her. The joke is that while he is corrupt things run swimmingly, but once he attempts to go straight (to appease his wife) everything goes catastrophically wrong. Sturges won an Oscar for the screenplay, and McGinty’s character was reprised in The Miracle Of Moran’s Creek. This looks just great on Blu-ray and gets better, and funnier. every time I see it.

            The Slasher (Kino) A curious 1952 British juvenile delinquent film, originally titled Cosh Boy. It stars James Kenney as the weasel-like teen terror Roy, who lords over a bunch of bad boys who hit old ladies over the head and steal their purses. A young Joan Collins, with just the right insouciant, brash, beauty, plays the sister of one of Roy’s gang who has a fling with the creep. Roy is such a vicious thug, who torments his loving mother and grandmother, you pray for him to finally get the thrashing he deserves. (Mercifully he does).

House By The River (Kino) An unsung 1950 Fritz Lang thriller about a crazed writer (Louis Hayward) who sexually attacks and accidentally kills the maid while his wife (Jane Wyatt) is out of the house. He convinces his brother to help him get rid of the body and then incriminates him in the crime. Filled with great atmosphere and chilling visual flourishes. It’s criminal that more film fans don’t know how good this film is.

            House By The Cemetery (Blue Underground) Lucio Fulci was king of the Italian splatter horror movie. In this great 1981 shocker, a family rents a creepy house in Massachusetts, once owned by the nefarious Dr. Freudenstein, who may be alive somewhere deep within the cellar. When this gory great first played in America, two reels of the film were switched around (it’s even that way on the old Vestron video release. This limited edition 4k restoration of the original uncensored film negative includes two discs and the CD soundtrack. If you luckily own the new-and-improved Zombie, you know what Blue Underground is gloriously capable of.

            The Fugitive Kind (Criterion) “Wild things leave skins behind them,” says a disheveled, beautiful Joanne Woodward, clutching Marlon Brando’s snakeskin jacket in director Sidney Lumet’s brilliant rendering of Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending. Brando plays Valentine Xavier, run out of New Orleans, who shows up in the racist, small-minded Mississippi town getting a job at a dry goods store run by Lady Torrance (Anna Magnani), who is married to a crippled brute (Victor Jory) who lives upstairs. Joanne Woodward plays a dissolute rich girl, whose wild, drunken antics gets her thrown out of many towns. She also feels a kinship to the rebellious soul Valentine. This play had a rocky history on stage but Lumet creates the perfect hothouse atmosphere and with Boris Kaufman’s extraordinary cinematography combines just the right tragedy and poetry to make it work. Brando is at his most beatific, and Magnani’s earthy sensuality makes their love affair palpable and heartbreaking.

            Demons Of The Mind (Shout! Factory) In this perversely fascinating Hammer film, Robert Hardy plays a Baron in 1830s Bavaria who is convinced that his son (Shane Briant) and daughter (Gillian Hills) are consumed with hereditary evil and locks them away. Patrick Magee plays a psychologist who recognizes the Baron as the mad one. An intelligent, strange film, well directed by Peter Sykes.

            The Mummy’s Shroud (Shout! Factory) Once again a mummy’s final resting place is disturbed by archeologists and transported to a museum. Rising up, he begins to eliminate all those responsible. It’s up to a sexy archeologist (Maggie Kimberley) to uncover the sacred rite that will destroy the ancient creature. Catherine Lacey is a hoot as the crystal-ball-gazing, toothless, cackling, soothsayer. Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb was the next, and last, Mummy movie from Hammer. “Beware the beat of the cloth-wrapped feet!” screamed the ad.

            Black Angel (Arrow Films) A uniquely strange 1946 film noir directed Roy William Neill about Kirk, an innocent man convicted of the murder of female blackmailer. Kirk’s wife (June Vincent) and the victim’s alcoholic ex-husband (Dan Duryea) race around the naked city trying to clear him as his execution looms. Filled with atmospheric sleazy nightclubs and an array of dubious characters, and with a spectacularly bizarre finale. Based on another amazing novel by Cornell Woolrich.

            All About My Mother (Criterion) Pedro Almodovar’s powerful and beautiful film revolves around several “women” in Barcelona: a grieving mom (the spell-binding Cecilia Roth), a diva-esque stage actress (Marisa Paradis), a knocked-up nun (Penelope Cruz), and a silicone-enhance drag queen (Antonio San Juan). To reveal any more would be criminal. Almodovar drenches the film in vibrant colors and Douglas Sirk-like melodramatic flourishes. It’s definitely a celebration of women- actresses, mothers, and men who dress like them- but it’s also about alternative families and how we often have to rely on “the kindness of strangers.”

            The Card Player (Scorpion) The great horror maestro- Dario Argento goes all CSI– Italian style, in this 2004 thriller about a killer who plays video poker with the police department. At stake? His victim’s life. The film has a great electronic score by Claudio Simonetti and Argento hired the cinematographer Benoit Debie (who shot Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible) to shoot the film in (mostly) natural light. It also features a tied-to-the-railroad-tracks finale. This remastered disc finally includes the Italian language version with English subtitles.

            The Phantom Of The Opera (Scorpion) Italian master Dario Argento has a go at the famed Gaston Leroux novel about a madman (handsome Julian Sands) who hides in the bowels of an opera house and becomes fixated on a singer. Asia Argento plays Christine, the beautiful soprano and stand in for the corpulent, diva singer. This gothic romance deviates a lot from the original story. And rats play a bigger part. In this incarnation as a baby the Phantom was found floating in the sewers in a basket and rescued by rats. He lives in the caves deep beneath the Paris Opera house and murders those who discover his lair. He also isn’t disfigured, as in most other versions, and has long hair and a cape.  Christine is torn between her love for a rich nobleman and the Phantom, who she visits in his underground palace and makes love to. Argento already did a variation of the same theme in his brutal but brilliant- Opera. But the production design, cinematography and score are wonderful, and since it is a director I revere I always return to his lesser-liked films in order to discover their strengths. This also includes the Italian language version, which does help a lot.