True, this is not your ordinary holiday season. But thank Christ for these crackpot Blu-rays, released just in time to ease the sting of a Covid-Christmas. From David Cronenberg’s furiously fucked-up- Crash, to the jazz-infused melodrama of Young Man with a Horn; to the 70’s female angst of Puzzle of a Downfall Child & Diary of a Mad Housewife; to a glorious restoration of The Curse of Frankenstein; some offbeat Jack Lemmon comedies; finally, the fabulously stupid Giant from the Unknown and an amazing collection of weirdness from Florida exploitation maverick William Grefe. Why, these stocking stuffers are sure to take your mind off things. At least for a few blissful hours.
Crash (Criterion) David Cronenberg’s icily perverse and bleakly erotic adaptation of J. G. Ballard’s 1966 cult classic. James Spader plays James Ballard, who, after recovering from a hideous car accident is introduced to the sole survivor of the collision (Holly Hunter). She introduces him to a secret sect whose involvement in accidents has flipped an erotic switch on for them. They sit around watching crash dummy videos or re-enact famous car crashes like Jayne Mansfield’s. This may be the ultimate definition of “autoeroticism.” My favorite enthusiast is played by Roseanna Arquette, who wears a full leather & steel body suit, with obscene scars peeking through her fishnet stockings. She’s like Barbarella in traction. James Ballard, with his wife (Deborah Unger) is already involved in sexual games and the couple embrace this sick cult with a vengeance. Their slide further into the abyss is recorded with chilly precision and dark humor by Cronenberg. Elias Koteas is frighteningly intense as Vaughan, the Manson-like leader of the car crash set, whose motto is: “Re-shaping the human body through modern technology,” not a far cry from Videodrome’s “Long Live the New Flesh!”
The Curse of Frankenstein (Warner Archive) Fans have been clamoring for the release of this great, influential 1957 Hammer horror movie that added color, blood and breasts to the famous monsters. Set in the 19th century, Peter Cushing brilliantly plays the arrogant, fiendish Baron Frankenstein, who, at the beginning of the film, is awaiting execution, recounting what brought him to the guillotine. We flashback on his renegade scientific experiments, using dug-up cadavers to stitch together into monstrous creations and bring them to life. Christopher Lee is memorably chilling as the “creature” in this stylish, gruesome classic. This 2-disc set includes a 4K restoration from the camera negative and plenty of features about Hammer studios and the English gothic tradition.
Puzzle of a Downfall Child (Kino) Jerry Schatzberg’s 1970 film about a high fashion model’s mental breakdown. Faye Dunaway, at the height of her haughty beauty, plays Lou Andreas, a damaged soul, holed up at a beach cottage surveying the wreckage of her life, talking into the tape recorder of her photographer friend (Barry Primus). Schatzberg was a fashion photographer and this was his first crack at a feature film. It has all the earmarks of indie films of the 1970s- arty, self-indulgent, personal and kind of fabulous. Dunaway is just stunning, and there is terrific support by actors like Viveca Lindfors, Barry Morse, Roy Scheider. This has been one of those elusive, much-desired titles, never before on home video.
Diary of a Mad Housewife (Kino) Carrie Snodgress was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Gold Globe for her luminous performance as a frustrated, unhappy, suburban housewife. Richard Benjamin plays her abusive, lawyer husband and Frank Langella plays the equally cruel writer that she begins an unfortunate affair with. Based on the novel by Sue Kaufman and directed by Frank Perry with a screenplay by Perry’s wife Eleanor, it’s the unforgettable Carrie Snodgress that breaks the heart. After years of being out of print (and only on VHS) it’s exciting that Kino Lorber is releasing this.
Fellini’s Casanova (Kino) Federico Fellini’s film is based on the life of the 18th-century adventurer, author and lover. Donald Sutherland plays Giacomo Casanova, arrested and tried for debauchery in Venice, who muses in his cell over his many romantic encounters. Fellini had to reshoot many of the elaborate Venice carnival scenes when the reels of film were stolen from a lab. Sutherland had to shave his head and wear a prosthetic chin and nose. Critics were unkind to the film and also Sutherland’s stylistic interpretation but I always remember the scene where he is rowing through a stormy sea of billowing black garbage bags. Worth revisiting, especially now that you have the option to watch the film in Italian language, which plays better somehow.
Giant from the Unknown (The Film Detective) Richard E. Cunha’s cult classic was made with a budget of $55,000 and shot a hundred miles outside L.A. up in the mountains in Big Bear. Famous make-up man Jack Pierce (who did the original Frankenstein) created the dirt-crusted, reanimated Giant. The plot is about an archeological professor (Morris Ankrum) and his daughter (Sally Fraser), who head up to “Devil’s Crag” with another rock specialist (Ed Kemmer), hoping to prove the existence of a giant Spaniard who once roamed the countryside. Unfortunately, they find their giant murderously alive, re-united with its armor and sword, and cutting a path of destruction. The grumpy Sherriff (Bob Steele) has a weird, unnatural, pallor throughout the film and Cunha related to film historian Tom Weaver that the makeup man complained, “it’s not my fault- he told me to do it!” Apparently, the actor believed people of a certain age looked younger with white makeup on- so throughout the film you begin to wonder if the Sherriff is secretly a sneaky little drag queen. There’s a great fight between the hero and the Giant at the end of the film near an old windmill, shot during a light snowstorm, which is surprisingly atmospheric.
Total Recall (Lions Gate) A 4k restoration, 3-disc steelbook of Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 sci-fi hit starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a man haunted by recurring dreams of Mars. He answers an ad for Rekall, Inc., which offers a space age travel plan that implants a memory of a celestial vacation rather than going through the fuss of actual space travel. He chooses a trip to Mars which triggers a nightmarish reaction. The fun of the film is watching the plot unravel from there. Extremely violent with staggering special effects by Rob Bottin; a clever screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon and Gary Goldman; and sardonically directed by Verhoeven.
Good Neighbor Sam (Sony) A rollicking 1964 comedy with Jack Lemmon working as an ad man and pretending to be the husband of their wife’s (Dorothy Provine) friend (the gorgeous Romy Schneider) so she can get an inheritance. With the wonderful Louis Nye, and a car race around the city where they have to disfigure billboards that is a riot.
The Notorious Landlady (Sony) A dark comedy/mystery with Jack Lemmon as an American diplomat who takes a flat in London owned by stunning landlady Mrs. Hardwicke (Kim Novak), who neighbors are convinced bumped off her husband (whose body was never found). With Fred Astaire and a wild chase scene at the end with elderly, goofy Estelle Winwood in a runaway wheelchair.
Vigilante (Blue Underground) A new 4K scan from the camera negative of William Lustig’s (Maniac) 1982 action film about a city ravaged by gangs and some tough neighbors who decide to band together and take the law into their own hands. With Fred Williamson as the leader of the vigilante posse and Robert Forster (Jackie Brown) as a factory worker who joins up when his wife and son are killed. Filled with nostalgic shots of New York years before gentrification when it was scary (and fun). Joe Spinell (Maniac) has a fun supporting role and Carol Lynley plays a prosecutor. Once again Blue Underground’s upgrade is just spectacular.
Versus (Arrow) Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, this mixes Yakuza gangsters, swordplay and flesh-eating ghouls with a kinetic Matrix-like feel and pace. The movie opens in feudal Japan with two embattled samurais facing off. Then it skips ahead to the present day, where some badass gangsters meet up for a showdown near a sacred forest which has the uncanny ability to reanimate corpses. No one stays dead for long. Running from the zombies and gangsters and zombie-gangsters are two escaped prisoners, a kidnapped girl and some of the cutest Japanese actors ever, wearing floor-length leather coats and battling each other in a seemingly endless display of limb-slicing, face-exploding action. With ferocious editing, the movie makes you feel like you’re trapped in some kickass XBox game.
The Dark and the Wicked (RLJE Films) There’s always a sense of impending dread in a film from director Bryan Bertino (The Strangers). A sense that everything is not going to turn out all right in the end. It makes his films memorably darker but often a lot scarier. In his new film a sister (Marin Ireland) and brother (Michael Abbott Jr.) return to their family’s sprawling Texas farm when their father takes a health turn for the worse. Their mother (Julie Oliver-Touchstone) is distracted and angry that they have arrived. “I told you not to come,” she repeatedly tells them, while their father lies comatose with a breathing tube in the bedroom. Then a terrible tragedy occurs and the brother finds a diary of their mother’s where she speaks of a malevolent presence that has invaded the farm and torments her. Soon enough, Louise and Michael begin to suffer horrifying hallucinations and are woken in the night to unnatural howling in the distance and weird occurrences. A strange priest (Xander Berkeley) shows up to warn the siblings that whatever demonic entity their mother was fearful of, “He’s already here.” What Bertino does so well is to visually set the stage (the cinematography by Tristan Nyby is hauntingly evocative). He insidiously creeps you out in intervals, until just the sight of an open front door or a bedroom light mysteriously switched on in the dead of night causes the viewer more and more unease. Then he goes in for the kill. A genuinely frightening movie.
Young Man with a Horn (Warner Archive) Director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) directed this noir-ish melodrama about the troubled life of a trumpet player- Rick Martin (Kirk Douglas). Doris Day plays a big band singer who falls for him. Lauren Bacall is fascinating as the elegant, arrogant, uptown lesbian he unfortunately falls for. Rick descends into alcoholism, but there is a typical movie happy ending which was not in the novel this was based on, or the real life of jazz trumpeter Bix Biederbecke, who tragically died at 28, who the book alluded to. The great Harry James played the actual trumpet on the soundtrack, which is hauntingly effective. Doris Day, Kirk Douglas and Hoagy Carmichael are all just terrific in this delicious 1950 Warner Brothers drama.
He Came from the Swamp (Arrow) An incredible box set of movies by Floridian exploitation director William Grefe. Included in this astounding set is Sting Of Death. (1965) a fabulously cracked horror movie about a marine biologist who transforms into a killer jellyfish monster who attacks partying college kids on spring break. Bikini-clad teens dancing to Neil Sedaka’s “Do the Jellyfish” is a highlight. But the creature itself is a riot- a man in a green diving outfit with an inflated plastic bag on his head with some stringy tentacles hanging off it. You can also clearly see the seam on the bag. Death Curse of the Tartu (1966), is set in the Everglades, where the burial site of a witch doctor is disturbed by some students who experience supernatural payback. The Hooked Generation (1968) is about three low-life drug smugglers. The Psychedelic Priest (1971) is about a free-thinking priest on a road trip who gets dosed with LSD. The Naked Zoo (1970) is the film I have been waiting for- a sleazy little gem starring Rita Hayworth as an unsatisfied woman, whose wealthy husband is in a wheelchair. She begins a torrid affair with a younger man that culminates in murder. The movie was recut and had the band Canned Heat thrown in, not to mention some added nudity. Here we get an approximation of the director’s cut and the release cut. Mako: Jaws of Death (1976) stars Richard Jaeckel as a lonely Vietnam Vet turned marine salvager with a psychic connection to sharks, who tries to protect them from the hands of ruthless fishermen. Whiskey Mountain (1977) is about some kids on motorcycles who get lost in the wilderness and are terrorized by hillbilly drug-dealers. They Came from the Swamp (2016) is a documentary about the director and his colorful career. I had the great pleasure of meeting William Grefe at a Chiller Theatre convention many years ago and he was just terrific- funny, offbeat and incredibly entertaining, much like his films.