Those of us still suffering from the PTSD of Christmas can take comfort is some exciting Blu-ray releases this month. Including a great, sexy new film by Bruce LaBruce– Saint-Narcisse; one of my favorite creature features from the late 80s- The Kindred; a rare Spanish film (and favorite of Pedro Almodovar)- Arrebato; a provocative homoerotic prison film set in Chile- The Prince; the final Thin Man film- Song of the Thin Man; an under-appreciated Alfred Hitchcock thriller- Stage Fright; some rarely seen 1930s mysteries- A Crime of the Century and Double Door; an early Roger Corman sci-fi classic; the final feature from the great Italian maestro of horror Mario Bava– Shock, the collected short X-rated films of transgressive director Fred Halsted, and one of the most appalling (and fabulous) shockers from the 1970s- Don’t Go In The House!
Saint-Narcisse (Film Movement) (DVD) Provocative Canadian queer-core pioneer Bruce LaBuce’s new film is his best yet- a twisted masterpiece about sexy, self-obsessed, Polaroid-popping, motorcycle-riding Dominic (Felix-Antoine Duval) who tracks down the mother he never knew was alive- a witch who lives deep in the forest with her ageless female lover. He then spies a brooding, cigarette-smoking monk named Daniel (also played by Felix-Antoine Duval) who he frighteningly resembles. Daniel is sexually involved with an obsessive older priest who is unwholesomely fixated on the handsome young man being connected with Saint Sebastian. LaBruce weaves this incestuous melodrama with erotic tension and dark humor in all sorts of inventive, unexpected ways and the ending is sardonic and sublime.
The Kindred (Synapse) I cannot tell you how thrilled I am to see this gorgeous, restored version of a terrific 1987 creature feature directed by Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow. Handsome David Allen Brooks (who I’ve been a fan of since his days on The Edge of Night) plays the scientist son of a famed geneticist (the great Kim Hunter) who begs him from her hospital bed to travel to her country home and destroy a dangerous ongoing experiment. He corrals friends (terrific Peter Frechette, Timothy Gibbs, Julia Montgomery) and girlfriend (Talia Balsam) plus a mysterious scientist (sexy Amanda Pays) who has a secret agenda. But there are more secrets in the house- including a fearsome monster who strikes out at the group in frightening ways. Great (non-CGI) special effects, a winning cast and even Rod Steiger as an over-the-top villainous scientist who gets slimed by the creature. I saw this on opening night with a group of friends and we just loved it and this impressive “steelbook” from Synapse, with copious extras and interviews with the cast, is more than I could have hoped for.
Arrebato (Altered Innocence) You can see why director Pedro Almodovar is a fan of this incredible strange 1979 film directed by Ivan Sulueta. Almodovar ended up using several of the movie’s stars in his own films and gave a moving eulogy at the director’s funeral. It’s about a drugged-out, low-budget horror director named Jose (Eusebio Poncela/Law of Desire) involved in a toxic relationship with his equally chemically-challenged girlfriend (Cecilia Roth/All About My Mother). He becomes obsessed when he meets this incredibly bizarre, eccentrically effete, 8mm filmmaker named Pedro (Will More). Together they go down the rabbit hole into the vampiric nature of film itself and its mysterious power. I know I’m not explaining it well but it is a confounding, really eerie experience to sit through. It’s beautiful, often weirdly homoerotic and yet somehow it gets at the core of the filmmaking obsession. This never got much of an International release and I had read about it for years with great curiosity but was unprepared for how fascinatingly odd it really was.
Day the World Ended (Shout! Factory) Roger Corman visualizes a bleak dystopian future with a weird rag-tag band of strangers (after a nuclear holocaust) who attempt to survive despite hideous mutants skulking in the radioactive fog that surrounds them. Paul Birch plays a Navy commander living with his daughter (Lori Nelson) who have stockpiled their home with provisions. Suddenly all these disparate characters- a geologist (Richard Denning, a hood (Mike “Touch” Connors) and his girlfriend (Adele Jergens), even an old prospector (Raymond Hatton) and his beloved mule “Diablo” descend on them. Can they all survive? To have this 1955 sci-fi film (shot in 10 days) on Blu-ray is absolute heaven!
The Prince (Artsploitation) This brutal, intense, sensational film directed by Sebastian Munoz is set in 1970 in a run-down, scary prison in Chile. Sweet-faced Jaime (Juan Carlos Maldonado) is the new naïve “fish” and immediately becomes the sexual property of the “Stallion” (Alfredo Castor), an older man in his cell who gains the respect of the other prisoners. What’s so thrilling about the film is the way it reflects the prison pecking order and how Jaime slowly comes to care and respect the “Stallion” and transforms into the “Prince.” We also see flashbacks to his frustrating, closeted relationship with a male friend and the tragically violent crime he committed that landed him in jail. Be sure to watch the deleted scenes on the Blu-ray- they certainly are startling in their explicitness.
The Fabulous Dorseys (Film Detective) Movies with or about band leaders were popular during the 40s but this film about the turbulent Dorsey brothers is interesting because real siblings Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey play themselves. Raised in a coal-mining town by a father (Arthur Shields) who disciplined them to play musical instruments, the brothers grew into two very talented musicians, first playing with the popular Paul Whiteman band before creating their own orchestra. Unfortunately, sibling rivalry split the two into two separate bands- both wildly popular. The real brothers are not that riveting on screen, but when they play- like during a jam session sequence at a club with the great Art Tatum– it’s thrilling. Janet Blair plays a childhood friend who becomes lead singer with the band, and William Lundigan a piano player who joins the orchestra and falls for her while secretly working on an ambitious concerto. Sara Allgood plays the supportive mother who states, “There is only one thing worse than being Irish, and that’s not being Irish. This hard-to-find film looks great on Blu-ray and comes with a fascinating documentary about big bands on film.
The Crime of the Century (Kino) Rare, frightfully fun 1933 pre-code mystery about a “mentalist” (Jean Hersholt) who goes to the police and begs them to lock him up before he commits the perfect murder. Soon the bodies start mysteriously piling up. Stuart Erwin plays the dogged crime reporter Dan McKee. Frances Dee the doctor’s beautiful daughter. Directed by William Beaudine, this was based on a play so there’s a certain staginess about it but my favorite is the sequence where the movie is interrupted by an announcer with a one-minute countdown for the audience to guess the killer. Audio commentary by film historian Lee Gambin and costume historian Elissa Rose.
Double Door (Kino) This was based on a successful theatrical hit (“the play that made Broadway gasp”) about a wealthy, manipulative, grasping old woman Victoria van Brett (the unforgettable Mary Morris) in a gloomy Manhattan mansion who refuses to release her control over the family by carefully dangling the purse-strings over their heads. When her younger brother (Kent Taylor) dares to defy her by marrying a pretty nurse (Evelyn Venable), Victoria sadistically imprisons the young bride in a secret soundproof room that she has built just for situations like this. Anne Revere plays Victoria’s terrified sister. A surprisingly chilling film that has been virtually impossible to see properly for decades. Directed by Charles Vidor, the opening credits are absolutely sensational and the ending is definitely pre-Code and satisfyingly shocking. Two audio commentaries- one with film historian Tom Weaver and the other with David Del Valle and Stan Shaffer.
All My Sons (Kino Lorber) Based on the award-winning Arthur Miller play and set after World War II, Burt Lancaster plays Chris Keller, back from the war and secretly in love with his missing (and presumed dead) brother Larry’s fiancé Ann (Louise Horton). Edward G. Robinson plays Chris’s industrialist father Joe. Ann’s father is serving time in prison for selling defective parts to the army, a crime Joe was exonerated for. But a monstrous secret unravels the family to the core. Mady Christians is affecting as the haunted mother who refuses to believe Larry is dead. Robinson is magnificent in this moving drama.
Don’t Go in the House (Severin) A 2-disc special edition of one of the more notorious horror films from 1979 starring Dan Grimaldi as Donny, a deeply disturbed young man who was abused by a psychotic mother who repeatedly held his hand over an open flame when he was naughty. Now with the demise of monster mom, Donny’s morbid obsession with fire has him create a steel-walled room in his house where he lures unsuspecting victims into and takes a flame-thrower to them. Well-directed by Joseph Ellison and with a strong lead performance by Grimaldi as the deranged killer. It’s a film that dares to go too far as a nightmarish wallow in obsession and madness, but it’s actually really damn good. I admit it shook me when I saw it in a theater but have come to repeatedly revisit it through the years with great admiration. With a checkered career on DVD and Blu-ray, this ultimate edition includes the theatrical cut but also the integral cut and has a host of extras including audio commentary by Stephen Thrower (Nightmare USA) and interviews with the director and archival commentary by actor Dan Grimaldi.
L.A. Plays Itself: The Fred Halsted Collection (Altered Innocence) A fantastic assemblage of the transgressive work of Fred Halsted, whose arty, avant-garde, intense, gay X-rated films have been restored by The Museum of Modern Art. In the 70s there were a bunch of real filmmakers dabbling in gay porn- visionary directors like Wakefield Poole, Joe Gage, Jack Deveau, and, of course, the handsome, S & M devotee Fred Halsted, who performed in some of Joe Gage’s early film. This invaluable set includes L.A. Plays Itself which begins with a romantic/sexual encounter with two men hiking in the mountains finishing with ironic shots of bulldozers plowing down nature. The second part is about a young man, new to L.A. and a disturbing S & M encounter. Mixed with nature shots, clever audio conversation loops, this is hardly your usual gay porn. Sextool is even more experimental and outlandish and includes a boundary-pushing scene with a sailor ravaged by some leather men and Sex Garage finishes the trilogy with a sexual encounter with a young man and his girlfriend which morphs into several unexpected, incredibly horny male visitors to the garage. Packed with plenty of extras including a video rip of a rare Halsted film- Truck It.
Song of the Thin Man (Warner Archive) The last of the six–movie series based on the Dashiell Hammett-created characters of suave, sardonically amusing detective Nick Charles (William Powell) and his witty, utterly charming wife Nora (Myrna Loy). It also opens with a sultry, Gloria Grahame as a singer aboard a gambling cruise ship singing “It’s Not So Easy to Forget.” Soon enough a band leader is found murdered and the sleuths are off and running. A young, cute Dean Stockwell plays their willful son Nick Charles Jr. in this enjoyable comedy/crime drama.
Stage Fright (Warner Archive) Set in post-War London Jane Wyman plays an aspiring actress at the Royal Academy of the Dramatic Arts who helps hides Jonathan (Richard Todd), who she secretly loves, from the police for a murder he says he didn’t commit. She brings him to her father’s seaside home (played by a delightful Alastair Sim). He relates the story of his famous married, actress girlfriend (Marlene Dietrich) who showed up at his flat wearing a bloody dress confessing that she killed her husband. “Why do women marry abominable men?” she asks him. She gives him the key to her flat and asks him to get her a fresh dress and when he is seen by the maid he ends up a suspect in the murder. Michael Wilding plays a wily detective in this under-appreciated Hitchcock film.
Shock (Arrow) The great Italian director Mario Bava’s 1977 last feature film is a spellbinding, claustrophobic chiller with a stunning performance by beautiful Daria Nicolodi (Deep Red) as a wife and mother who is driven mad in her new house by ghostly apparitions and her fear that her young son (David Colin Jr.) has been possessed by the vengeful spirit of her former husband. “I’m going to have to kill you mommy,” her sweet-faced son says, even slicing up her underwear. The airline pilot husband (John Steiner) is never around and the poor mother really becomes unhinged. This includes a spectacular shock moment at the end that is incredibly simple yet effectively scary. This a brand new 2K restoration from the camera negative with newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack. It also includes a new interview with Lamberto Bava, who worked with his dad on this film before striking out with a series of great horror movies of his own (Demons, Macabre, A Blade in the Dark).
The Punisher (Lionsgate) This is a 4k UHD Blu-ray of a great 2004 action films starring Thomas Jane playing FBI agent Frank Castle, whose undercover sting caused the death of mob boss Howard Saint (John Travolta’s) son. So, Saint sends his main henchman (Will Patton), and a weaponized team, to wipe out Castle’s entire family at a huge reunion in Puerto Rico. Shot and left for dead, Castle is nursed back to health by an island hermit, who sends him off with, “May God be with you.” “God is going to sit this one out,” Castle replies with a throaty growl. Wearing a skull-faced black tee shirt (a gift from his late son), and moving into a ramshackle apartment building filled with misfits (Ben Foster, Rebecca Romijn, John Pinette), Castle sets into motion a byzantine plan of revenge in this ultra-violent action film directed by Jonathan Hensleigh. I’ve got to admit, I love looking at Thomas Jane, even covered in blood with a knife sticking out of his chest. This movie had the right dark, mythic fury, and was a bloody blast. This includes deleted scenes and audio commentary by the director. The sleek Steelbook is a Best Buy exclusive.
I love how you go from The Fred Halsted Collection to The Day the World Ended and All MY Sons. You love every film that was ever made.
THE KINDRED!