The hotter it gets the more I crave reasons to stay inside with the air conditioner blasting in my face and new Blu-rays to watch. This month has some unexpected treats- with new 4K UHDs of films I love- it will be a thrill to experience them in brand new ways. From Mario Bava’s wildly entertaining pop art action fantasy- Danger: Diabolik, to the ultra-suspenseful Danish thriller Nightwatch, to Lizzie Bordon’s feminist cry of rage- Born in Flames, to Gaspar Noe’s trippy Enter the Void, or Osgood Perkins’ gleefully gruesome take on a Stephen King short story- The Monkey, to Experiment in Terror, an exceptional suspense tale by Blake Edwards, or the comic genius of Amy Sedaris in Strangers with Candy, not to mention plenty of oddball cult classics. These are my fireworks for the 4th this year.
Danger: Diabolik (Kino Lorber) A gorgeous 2-disc 4K UHD Blu-ray & Blu-ray & extras of a wild pop-art 1968 action fantasia directed by Mario Bava and based on a comic book by Luciana and Angela Giussani. John Phillip Law plays the masked criminal (in a full head-to-toe black latex), planning incredible jewel heists with his beautiful partner (Marisa Mell). With wild art direction, incredible costumes, fabulous sports cars, hidden underground lairs, rolling around naked in stolen cash and a fabulous score by Ennio Morricone, this is a sexy blast from beginning to end. The extras include vintage audio commentary with actor John Phillip Law moderated by Tim Lucas. There’s also a terrific audio commentary by film historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson. A fun featurette: Danger: Diabolik- From Fumetti to Film. Plus, a music video by the Beastie Boys: Body Movin’.
The Nightwatch Collection (Arrow) Writer/director Ole Borendal’s white-knuckle 1994 Danish thriller Nightwatch stars a young, frighteningly cute, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Game of Thrones) as Martin, a law student who takes a job as night watchman at the Institute of Forensic Medicine to help fund his schooling. His actress girlfriend Kalinka is played by the wildly talented Sofie Grabol (The Killing) and his wild-child best friend is Jens, played by the sensational Kim Bodnia (The Bridge). The spookiness of the medical facility at night; a serial killer on the loose targeting prostitutes; not to mention the creepy cord in the morgue which will only ring if someone is not all that dead, all add up to a terrifying last half hour of this superb suspense tale. Director Bornedal returned for a sequel in 2023 with Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau is back as an older, damaged Martin, still grieving for late wife, popping pills, unemployed and barely cognizant of his medical student daughter Emma (well played by the director’s daughter Fanny Leander Bornedal). Emma perversely takes her dad’s old job as night watchman at the Institute, and visits a mental hospital to confront the killer from the first film, now blind and seemingly harmless. But poking that bear ignites a new series of killings. Included is a vintage “making-of” featurette plus several video essays that are best watched after seeing both films.
Born in Flames (Criterion) Lizzie Bordon’s fabulous 1984 feminist fable is set in New York, “10 years after the social-democratic revolution.” After an imprisoned black revolutionary’s questionable suicide, factions of radical women’s groups fight oppression, eventually banding together to form an army. “We have the right to violence. All oppressed people have the right to violence. It’s just like the right to pee,” states extremist Flo Kennedy. This thrilling movie- still potent after all these years- features and explosive (and weirdly prophetic) finale at the World Trade Center. With Honey, Jeanne Satterfield and Ron Vawter, look for cameos from director Kathryn Bigelow and Eric Bogosian.
The Monkey (Neon) “Turn the key, see what happens,” are the instructions for an oversized, sardonically grinning toy monkey that two young twins, Hal & Bill (both played by Christian Convery) discover among their errant father’s possessions. But when they do turn the key and the monkey ominously brings down its drumstick on the drum, random people die in rather hilariously horrible ways. Director Osgood Perkins (Longlegs) uses the Stephen King short story this is based on as a springboard to tell a very different kind of horror tale. One infused with tragedy and grief and loss not to mention absent fathers, hateful brothers, and a malevolent toy that is difficult to get rid of. Hal chops it up with a cleaver and the brothers even toss it down a well, but, like a bad penny, it keeps reappearing. Even 25 years later, Hal (an excellent Theo James) keeps a cool distance between himself and his son Petey (Colin O’Brien) for fear of the boy coming to harm from the diabolical toy. His brother Bill (Theo James) is also out for revenge on his brother, mistakenly thinking him responsible for their mother’s death. A tip- the monkey doesn’t take requests. Its kills are random- like life. But they are outrageously bizarre in a Final Destination, Rube Goldberg-like way. The film is a free-wheeling, gleefully gruesome blast, but there are these undercurrents of genuine heartfelt sadness beneath the dark humor. Hal and Bill’s no-nonsense mother Lois (Tatiana Maslany) explains this to them- “Everyone dies,” but what you have to do then is just “dance.”
Enter the Void (IFC) A major psychedelic mind fuck from Gaspar Noe (Irreversible). Set among the lurid neon of Tokyo, Oscar (Nathaniel Brown) is a drug dealer living with his stripper sister Linda (Paz de la Huerta). When a drug deal goes bad with police he is shot to death and his spirit leaves his body and hovers over the city, restless and waiting to be reborn. There’s definitely a Tibetan Book of The Dead vibe to the movie. But the subjective camerawork recalls the 1947 movie Lady in The Lake, but on ‘shrooms. With logic and gravity-defying cinematography- dollying over buildings, over ceilings, down walls, up from manholes, even inside a vagina watching a penis ejaculate. The result is so hallucinatory it puts you in a trance. You’ll never be able to hear the phrase “death is a trip” without thinking of this film. Extreme, insane, and kind of amazing.
Strangers with Candy (Shout! Factory) The bizarre brainchild of Stephen Colbert, Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris– this wonderful warped series ran on Comedy Central for three glorious seasons. National treasure and comic genius Amy Sedaris plays Jerri Blank, former jailbird, prostitute and junkie who returns home 32 years later to find her dad in a coma. She decides to return to high school to start things over, even joining in the State Science Fair in order to jolt her dad back to health, despite the disparaging remarks from her born-again Science teacher (Stephen Colbert). With her overbite, scary 70s fashion sense, and professional golfer’s hairdo, Sedaris has created a cracked comic marvel of a creation. The movie plays out like an “After-School Special” gone bananas and while some of the laughs fall flat but there are scenes that are flat out hilarious.
Experiment in Terror (Sony) In Blake Edwards’ 1962 suspense classic we watch Lee Remick (as San Francisco bank teller Kelly Sherwood) driving to her suburban home on a cul-de-sac, ironically named “Twin Peaks,” with that seductive yet ominous Henry Mancini score in the background. She pulls into her garage and is grabbed from behind by a shadowy figure with an asthmatic, wheezing voice who threatens her life, and the life of her teenage sister (Stephanie Powers), if she doesn’t rob her bank of $100,000. He says he has eyes and ears everywhere, and that may be true. Thankfully a thwarted call to an FBI agent (Glenn Ford) alerts the authorities to the problem and the feds try to keep she and her sister alive. Ross Martin (The Wild Wild West) is just terrific as the creepy killer in this impeccably directed, taut thriller.
Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay (Mondo Macabro) A truly unique oddity, this 1971 French fable-like tale is about two young women driving through the country who run out of gas and end up sleeping in a barn. The next morning one goes missing and the other follows a gray-haired hunchback dwarf in a purple velvet tunic through the forest to a lake where a boat takes her to a strange castle of women ruled over by a witch named Morgana, who offers eternal beauty and youth. But it comes at a price- your soul. And God forbid you piss off Morgana- she transforms you into an old hag and banishes you to the dungeon of the castle with the other damned souls. Beautifully done, with plenty of girl-on-girl action but it’s more artful than sleazy- like a loony fairy tale, but with breasts. Directed by Bruno Gantillon who is interviewed on the disc. But the real treat is a lengthy interview with Dominque Delpierre, who played the evil Morgana. She discusses her lengthy film career. She made over 30 movies and became good friends with Henry Miller while doing the film Tropic of Cancer (he even wrote the preface to one of her books). She also was five months pregnant when she did this film and admits that a lot of dark things happened to the people connected with the movie afterwards, including her own mother’s suicide.
Café Flesh (Mondo Macabro) More art house than adult X, this wildly stylish 1982 film is set in the post-apocalyptic future where 99% are Sex Negatives. They want to make love but the mere touch of another makes them violently ill. The lucky one percent are Sex Positives left with healthy libidos. “After the Nuclear Kiss, the Positives remain to love, to perform and the others…can only watch…can only come…to…Cafe Flesh.” There they put on sex tableaus for a voyeuristic tormented crowd. This was the brainchild of director/co-writer Stephen Sayadian and Permanent Midnight author Jerry Stahl who attempted to make a visually surreal non-porno/porno film. A provocative crackpot sex film. Fun and revealing Interviews with Sayadian and Stahl explain the creative process of this strange hybrid, which became more of a cult film. The restoration is thanks to UCLA Film & Television Archive with special thanks to the Kinsey Institute.
Bohachi Bushido: Code of the Forgotten Eight (Mondo Macabro) In the ultra-stylized opening credits a master swordsman Shino (Tetsuro Tanba) dispatches a bridge-full of assassins and then opts to leap off into the water to his death. He awakens being massaged back to life by two nude women and a sinister clan of pimps who ask him to join their Bohachi clan. “To be cast out of human society is part of the Bohachi way.” But after a while even these depraved fiends begin to bore him with their treachery. Not to mention putting him through a series of tests to prove he is as nihilistic as they are in this outrageous 1972 Japanese action/sex saga by the legendary Teruo Ishii. It ends in a brutal and bloody showdown in the snow with Shino drugged on opium but still able to slice off ears, hands and heads with his trusty sword. A brand new 4K restoration with plenty of extras like an archival interview with actress Yuriko Hishimi and audio commentary with Japanese film expert Tom Mes.
His Kind of Woman (Warner Archive) A 1951 film noir starring Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell that was originally directed by John Farrow but RKO Studios head honcho Howard Hughes was dissatisfied with the final product. He demanded rewrites, re-castings (Raymond Burr was interjected as a mob boss in exile), and reshoots which cost a fortune. He even strong-armed director Richard Fleischer by threatening not to release his film Narrow Margin if he didn’t go along with the re-shoots. And even with all this it’s still a wildly entertaining movie. Mitchum plays a gambler, down on his luck, who accepts a mysterious, but well-paying, unspecified job in Mexico. He flies down in a chartered plane with a lounge singer (Jane Russell) to a remote resort waiting further instructions. Vincent Price plays a ham actor at the resort, who is dating Russell’s character, even though he has a wife who unexpectedly shows up, throwing a monkey wrench into their affair. It’s a convoluted plot about gangsters and plastic surgeons and secret federal agents and hired killers. Even a romantic walk on the beach at night with Mitchum and Russell ends with them finding a body. Vincent Price has a campy high time as the over-the-hill actor and even races to the rescue at the end of this incredibly fun mess.
Silent Scream (Kino Lorber) A 4K UHD of a 1980 gothic chiller about some college kids who rent rooms in a gloomy mansion by the sea from an aged woman (Yvonne De Carlo) and her weird son (Brad Rearden– with glasses and a Prince Valiant hairdo) who are hiding a terrible secret within the house. Cameron Mitchell and Avery Schrieber play two cops investigating a brutal stabbing of one of the students. And Barbara Steele has a nice showy part later in the film. Directed by Denny Harris who had to reshoot a great deal of the film (with help by writers Ken & Jim Wheat). Rebecca Balding is very appealing in the lead in this above-average thriller.
Frailty (Lionsgate) The late, great, Bill Paxton directed and stars in this fascinating 2001 gothic thriller as a religious fanatic father who trains his sons how to kill people he believes are marked by Satan. He also kidnaps strangers and kills them with his trusty ax and devoutly believes God has commanded him to rid the world of demons. Is he really delusional? Or does he know something we don’t? A creepy, extremely well-made film that so deserves rediscovery. This 4K UHD Collector’s Set comes with 2 discs- one 4K, the other Blu-ray. The extras include a printed reproduction of the original script, stories from the Frailty set plus audio commentary by director Bill Paxton and writer Brent Hanley. Also, deleted scenes and “Making of Frailty” featurette.
Ma and Pa Kettle Film Collection: One (ViaVision). When people ask what movies are my guilty pleasures I’m usually stumped. Because for years I have written about movies I’ve loved which could be considered deplorable and awful which I proudly admit loving no matter what. But, to be completely honest, there are a couple of films I have great fondness for that I might not mention because their titles even embarrass me. At the very top of the list is the Ma & Pa Kettle movies that Universal put out in the 1950s. The Egg & I was a best-selling novel by Betty MacDonald about a housewife who settles down with her husband on a farm she is ill-equipped to handle. It was made into a genial comedy starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray. But the memorable characters from that movie were the neighbors Ma & Pa Kettle, played hilariously by Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride. They lived in a ramshackle, run-down farmhouse. Pa was lazy (but lovable) and sat in his rocker smoking a pipe full of tobacco while Ma cooked and cleaned for 15 kids, shooing chickens off the table before shouting “Come And Get It!” at dinnertime. (I always thought that breeding was what Pa was best at). Their segments in the film were such a hit that Universal cranked out many films about the Kettles. This set (in stunning Blu-ray) includes The Egg & I (1947) and the first three Ma & Pa Kettle films. The Further Adventures of Ma & Pa Kettle (1949) is where Pa wins a contest writing a jingle for a tobacco company and they are rewarded with a riotously modernized home; Ma & Pa Kettle Go to Town (1950) is where they win a trip to New York and wrangle with a bunch of crooks; Ma & Pa Kettle Back on the Farm (1951) is when the Kettle’s son Tom (Richard Long) and his wife (Meg Randall) have a baby but the snooty mother-in-law (Barbara Brown) forces the Kettles out of their own home for “hygiene” purposes. I’m probably the only person on the planet that immediately bought this set but I pray to the Gods that there will be a “Part Two” with some of my favorites- like when they go to Paris and Waikiki and Ma tangles with mean old Birdie Hicks (wonderful Esther Dale) at the fair.
