Batshit Blu-rays of the Month- 16 for May

            Another batch of loony, celluloid treats on Blu-ray this month, including the phenomenal film noir Nightmare Alley; the deranged spaghetti western Django; a few slasher films from the 80s- Eyes of a Stranger and He Knows You’re Alone; a bizarre movie about a hateful dog- Baxter; a 1954 MGM vegetarian musical (Athena) co-starring muscleman Steve Reeves; some underrated films that deserve to be re-evaluated like Joe Dante’s Explorers; The Night of the Following Day and Honky Tonk Freeway; two fun animals-attack films by William Girdler: Grizzly & Day of the Animals, and a fabulous box set of Euro-sleaze films starring Christopher Lee.

            Nightmare Alley (Criterion) There are “film noirs” and then there’s Edmund Goulding’s 1947 Nightmare Alley, the film Tyrone Power fought to star in (against the advice of studio heads and agents). Thank God he persevered, because he gives one of his finest performances. Power plays a handsome but unscrupulous carnival barker who sleazes his way into the bed of a sideshow mind-reader (Joan Blondell) in order to discover the secret of her act. Afterwards he makes a name for himself with a mentalist act on the nightclub circuit with his devoted, pretty assistant (Coleen Gray). But when he teams up with an even more unscrupulous psychiatrist (Helen Walker), who is willing to spill the secrets of the wealthy to make a monetary killing, he spectacularly crashes and burns. For many years, because of legal dispute between a producer and 20^th Century Fox, this was impossible to see. Criterion’s 4K restoration is a reason to rejoice. Guillermo del Toro just finished filming an all-star remake, but it’s hard to imagine topping this memorably fucked-up masterpiece.

            Baxter (Scorpion) A uniquely bizarre 1989 French film directed by Jerome Boivin about a brooding, hateful dog- a bull terrier bad seed. His inner monologues as we follow him through a series of owners (a frightened old woman; a randy newlywed couple; and a Nazi-obsessed boy) are mordantly funny in creepy ways. Old Yeller this isn’t. 

            The Eurocrypt of Christopher Lee Collection (Severin). Another inspired box set from Severin (who have been hitting it out of the ball park this year). This includes five incredibly rare (restored) films Christopher Lee made in Europe in the 1960s. Included is early directorial work by Michael (Witchfinder General) Reeves– The Castle of the Living Dead (1964); not to mention Lee playing the famed Arthur Conan Doyle detective in Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962); and other titles I have never been able to get my hands on like The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967); Crypt of the Vampire (1964); Challenge the Devil (1963); and 24 episodes from the Christopher Lee-hosted anthology horror TV series Theatre Macabre (1971-1972). 

            Rush Week (Vinegar Syndrome) Stunt man turned director Bob Bralver directs this last gasp at the slasher genre from 1989. Pamela Ludwig plays a college journalist given an assignment by the Dean (Roy Thinnes) to write about “Rush Week,” but she’s more interested in covering the missing female students who may have been killed by a mysterious masked figure wielding a double axe. Gregg Allman plays a stoner professor, and cute Dean Hamilton plays the leader of a disruptive frat house and the 80s fashions and hairdos are priceless. Newly scanned in 2k from the 35 mm interpositive, it looks sensational and includes a chat with actress and singer Courtney Gebhart and “Still Dean Hamilton,” an interview with the lead actor who, after this movie, left acting to produce and direct.

            Honky Tonk Freeway (Kino Lorber) Ambitious, offbeat comedy by director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) about a small town in Florida (and home to a safari park with a water-skiing elephant) who go nuts when the new highway decides not to add an exit ramp to their town. They decide to go to extremes to remedy the problem. Meanwhile a cast of eccentric characters are driving towards a date with destiny with the town. They include two nuns (Geraldine Page and Deborah Rush); two bank robbers (George Dzundza & Joe Grifasi); a woman traveling with her husband’s ashes (Beverly D’Angelo); a children’s book author (Beau Bridges) and an elderly couple (Hume Cronyn & Jessica Tandy). Tandy’s dipsomaniac character is a running joke that had me howling when I saw this in an empty theater in 1981. Sure, it’s Nashville-light in some ways, but there are a lot of pleasures to be had in this oddball film.

            Mr. Blandings Build His Dream House (Warner Archive) Cary Grant and Myrna Loy play a couple who live in a cramped NYC apartment with their two kids who decide to build their dream house in the country only to confront an endless amount of insane, costly, time-consuming problems that fray their nerves and threaten to implode their marriage. Typical “money pit” shenanigans, but Grant and Loy are just sublime and so deft with the dialogue it’s a joy to watch. Many of the farcial situations are genuinely funny in this enjoyable 1948 screwball comedy.

            Athena (Warner Archive). A big, splashy MGM “vegetarian” musical starring Jane Powell and Steve (Hercules) Reeves? Yes, it does exist, and it’s as weird as you can imagine. Edmund Purdom plays a wealthy, conservative lawyer engaged to a high society dame (Linda Christian) who finds himself falling for the eccentric Athena (Jane Powell), who lives with her 6 sisters at a commune-like family and practices strict vegetarianism; anti-smoking; alcoholic abstinence and faith in numerology and astrology. Their grandfather (Louis Calhern) has been religiously training musclemen for the Mr. Universe contest and one (Steve Reeves) he hopes will marry his daughter. With a vivacious Debbie Reynolds as one of the sisters; Vic Damone; and songs like “The Girl Next Door,” and “Love Can Change the Stars,” Jane Powell, as always, is lovely, warm, and radiates a gentleness of spirit in this crackpot 1954 romantic comedy that might have been re-titled “Seven Brides for Seven Carrots.” 

            The Night of the Following Day (Kino Lorber) Strange little 1969 film about the kidnapping of an heiress (Pamela Franklin) at the Paris airport. She is whisked to a remote beach house by the crew holding her for ransom- “Friendly” (Jess Hahn); his junkie, stewardess sister (Rita Moreno); her boyfriend and fake chauffeur (Marlon Brando); and a menacing sadist (Richard Boone). Directed by Hubert Cornfield (who does audio-commentary on the Blu-ray) and with a nightmare Dead of Night-like ending, this didn’t get much love critically, but I was always rather fascinated by it. A blonde Brando is still riveting, Richard Boone is really chilling and Rita Moreno has a scene stoned in a bathtub that is stunningly good in this twisty treat.

            Deep Blood (Severin) Notorious Italian director Joe D’Amato’s own Jaws rip-off, shot on location in Florida (and in a swimming pool in Rome). A bunch of kids are given a holy artifact from a Native American to help combat a fearsome creature soon to rise from the sea, which they bury in the sand. But years later the friends might have to unearth it when one of gang is chewed up by an elusive great white shark. It’s hard to describe how whacky these Italian/American sharksploitation films are, with stupefying dialogue and acting that could kindly be described as “inept.”

            Eyes of a Stranger (Scream! Factor) Jennifer Jason Leigh made her film debut as a blind and deaf girl who becomes the target of a serial killer when her TV reporter sister Jane’s (Lauren Tewes) investigation into the killer makes her suspect her neighbor (John DiSanti). Especially when Jane accidentally sees him changing out of a blood-stained shirt in the parking garage. The killer makes repeated obscene phone calls to his victims before he strikes. Tom Savini was hired for gore effects but most were cut before the film opened in theaters in 1980. Directed by Ken Wiederhorn, who made the excellent horror film- Shock Waves, which shows up on TV in one scene.

            He Knows You’re Alone (Scream! Factory) Yes, Tom Hanks did do a slasher film. Granted it’s a minor role. Originally his character was supposed to get killed off, but Hanks was so likable that was changed. It’s all set around a wedding on Staten Island, with a sicko serial killer stalking the bride (Caitlin O’Heaney). Directed by Armand Mastroianni, there’s a cool kill set in a movie theater with a bride-to-be watching a horror film.

            The Hand (Scream! Factory) Oliver Stone’s second feature (after Seizure), and again it’s a psychological thriller about an artist’s descent into madness. Michael Caine plays a successful comic book illustrator who loses his hand during a road accident. He suffers depression; paranoid fantasies and eerie hallucinations about his missing hand. Much like The Beast with Five Fingers, the movie is a guessing game as to what is real. After this Stone directed the electrifying Salvador starring James Woods and then, the very personal, award-winning Vietnam war film, Platoon.

            Day of the Animals (Severin) A hiking party in the Sierra mountains led by Christopher George, which includes Leslie Nielsen and Lynda Day George, suffer the radioactive effects of the depletion of the ozone layer and they come under attack from mountain lions, owls, hawks, dogs, bears, rats and snakes.

            Grizzly (Severin) Director William Girdler’s shameless rip-off of the mega-hit Jaws– I’m surprised they just didn’t call it Paws. Christopher George plays a forest ranger watching over a nature park when tourists start getting chomped and torn apart by a very pissed-off 15-foot grizzly bear. The brawny beast even swats at a helicopter and in one jaw-dropping scene rips the leg off a little boy playing outside, while his frantic mother beats at it with a broom.

            Django (Arrow) In this wildly influential 1966 spaghetti western directed by Sergio Corbucci, a mysterious, blue-eyed stranger Django (frighteningly handsome Franco Nero) crosses the desert dragging along a coffin behind him. What’s in it, you ask? Well, just wait. He ends up in a violent town on the Mexican border and in the middle of a bloodthirsty feud between revolutionaries and racists. And then the coffin opens. Sublimely nuts on so many levels, and while this was followed by hundreds of Django retreads by other directors (right up to Quentin Tarantino & Takashi Miike), this original remains gritty, nasty fun. The jam-packed limited edition Blu-ray includes a 4K restoration of the film and a million extras. Even another Franco Nero western- Texas, Adios, where Nero plays a sheriff hell-bent on revenge for his father’s death who travels across the border into Mexico with his younger brother.

            Explorers (Shout Select) Joe Dante’s ambitious, under-appreciated 1985 sci-fi film about a bunch of kids who build a working space ship to explore the stars. A young Ethan Hawke plays Ben, who dreams the sketches to build the spacecraft. River Phoenix plays his brainiac pal and Jason Presson plays their punkish sidekick. They fashion the ship out of an amusement park Tilt-A-Whirl car. The studio rushed the movie in order to open in July, and it bombed at the box office which is tragic because it’s got so many great things in it. The finale where they meet up with aliens is so much like a live-action Warner Brothers cartoon it’s wonderful. The Blu-ray includes the home video and theatrical version and a new deleted scene with commentary by Joe Dante.