Upcoming David Lynch UK Blu-rays

Further to the previous information at Grim Cellar (posted here) regarding the fantastic news that Lynch's seminal Eraserhead is on its way to UK Blu, it seems that Universal are treating UK fans to a batch of the unique director's films:  On their merry way are also discs of Dune (not sure which cut but I'm guessing the theatrical), Lost Highway, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, Blue Velvet, and Wild at Heart.  I'll certainly be looking out for all of those, with the exception of Dune, which I wanted to like but ended up being transformed into cowdung through the sheer boredom of it all, and Wild at Heart, which features, er, Nicolas Cage.  Good news is the fact that these discs seems generally to be carrying a few extras to make them doubly worth picking up.  Lost Highway's one of my favourites of the great auteur so I think that will be top of my list (replacing the reasonable two disc DVD, which had a slightly dissatisfying transfer that was very soft and a tad indistinct as a result).

Upcoming UK Blu-rays of interest

April:
The Revenant - another zombie film - this used to be my favourite genre but seems to have been hijacked by the mainstream over recent years.
Dark Relic: Sir Gregory, The Crusader - perhaps Black Death has started something in the history horror hybrid genre?
The Howling Reborn - I can think of much more interesting stuff to exhume than the stale Howling series.
Grave Encounters - something actually happens on one of those reality TV ghost-hunting shows, at last!
Demons and Demons 2 of course - can't wait!
Shaun of the Dead - "augmented reality" edition - what the hell's that all about?  Great film but I'd rather them put out older stuff that's not already out on Blu-ray than repeatedly releasing the same titles.
The Mummy - ditto (I think you can guess which version this is...).
Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark - could be interesting; stars Guy Pearce and has had Guillermo Del Toro's participation.
The Wicker Tree - follow up to The Wicker Man (sans Nicolas Cage!) of course.
The Ghoul - the 1933 version; this is more like it!

May:
Underworld Awakening (in 3D) and predictably a simultaneous Underworld 1-4 boxed set.
House by the Cemetery (dual DVD/BD format and LE) - on of my favourites.
Mask Maker
Strippers Vs Werewolves - they do get around these strippers...
Hansel And Gretel - Eastern variety.
The Plague of the Zombies and The Reptile - two Hammer favourites.
Osombie
American Werewolf in London (Play.com steelbook edition)
Intruders
Island of Lost Souls - I would have held off buying the Criterion version had I known at the time this was coming out: will be available in both conventional and steelbook packaging.
From Dusk Till Dawn 2, 3, and complete boxed set varieties.

June:
Return of the Living Dead and Eraserhead as previously reported at The Grim Cellar.
Mimic 2
Zombie Apocalypse - come up with some new ideas, people!
The Woman in Black - Daniel Radcliffe meets Hammer!

Till Death

1974, US, Directed by Walter Stocker
Colour, Running Time: 71 minutes
Review Source: VHS, PAL, VideoForm; Video: 1.33:1, Audio: Mono

Wet rag Paul has dreams of driving along at night and spotting a woman in white near the roadside. Parking up to catch up with her he’s led to a tomb where he finds what may have been the woman lying in an open coffin, at which point the rotting corpse awakens to grab him. Back in reality Paul is getting married to a similarly soppy woman and the two of them set off in his car for a horny honeymoon, the comprising activities of which would make conventional sex addicts everywhere transform to dark matter in an instant. After hours of driving the dazed man almost hits a truck, swaying off the road in a horrific crash. While he sustains minimal injuries his new wife is killed instantly. Weeks or months of rehabilitation pass before Paul manages to build the strength of mind not only to leave the hospital but to visit his wife’s burial place. Arriving at the lonely cemetery he’s told by the caretaker that they close up in thirty six minutes so he should be out of the crypt by then, at which point the grief-stricken man heads down into the deathly tomb to mourn. Upon believing that he can hear a woman - his wife? - crying he collapses and knocks himself unconscious. The caretakers arrive some time later and, thinking he’s left the place to desertion, they lock up the crypt for the night before heading off home. When Paul awakens it’s a stormy night and he realises he’s stuck down there, but perhaps not alone! Certain that he can hear his wife moaning from behind the stone block between them, he grabs a pick axe and smashes it open where his wife appears to be alive…

A highly obscure, super-low-budget American film shot in the early seventies, this is something built out of modest film-making skills and ambitions that don’t step too far outside of the available finances. Because of the crew’s lack of experience there is a certain naivety about the production whereby conventions are inadvertently lost in the attempt to construct their own little chiller, for example the odd manner in which the opening credits suddenly appear around ten minutes into the film (against the soundtrack of a depressing country tune). The many scenes that take place early on in Paul’s car are merely filmed against a black background with fog drifting across the shot - the film itself probably cost more to process than paying for what’s actually captured by the camera. Mundane thespian abilities aside, once Paul gets himself locked in the strange little crypt he spends the rest of the film there - an unusual plot device, but one which builds a noticeable degree of creepiness as the storm outside kicks in and you realise that the main man really isn’t going anywhere for the duration of the night. An obvious ambiguity lies in the arrival of his ‘dead’ wife - is she a ghost, a reanimated corpse, or something inside his crazy brain? He did after all knock himself unconscious and has also been through a life-altering trauma, both of which could explain hallucination or unhinged thinking. Explanations are sensibly kept to a minimum, providing the story with a level of mystery that keeps it riding along in the manner of a Twilight Zone episode. Despite the clear limitations of the resources available at the time, Stocker managed to create a moody piece that, had he persevered, almost could have dragged him out of the first-time director pit (he never directed another film).

So obscure is this that I’m certain it’s never even received a legitimate DVD release anywhere. The review was taken from a pre-certificate videotape released in Britain some time around the early eighties and, image-wise, is a mass of speckles and scratches throughout, this somehow adding to its curiosity value. If this ever makes it to High Definition I’ll eat my hat, and my missus’ bra too (actually that last bit sounds quite appealing…).

Upcoming UK Demons Blu-ray

The Demons steelbook being released at the end of April by Arrow (in the UK) looks highly desirable.  Containing both 'proper' Demons films, this is a steelbook set bundled with a collector's booklet, both films mastered in HD on Blu-ray with (now this looks interesting...) Italian and English language audio tracks (not sure if I can tear myself away from that classic English dub, but it will be cool to see how the films appear in what is effectively their native tongue), English subtitles natch, interviews with Dario Argento (who of course produced the films), Claudio Simonetti, Luigi Cozzi (Black Cat please, Arrow?), Sergio Stivaletti, alongside audio recollections from Lamberto Bava (director of the two films if you weren't already familiar with them) and the cast/crew.  There also appears to be an Italian horror documentary tracing roots (from Mario Bava himself) through to the end of the classic era (which aptly reaches where Lamberto Bava was at the time).  Both films are to be available individually on Blu-ray and plain old DVD, but this steelbook looks like the thing to have (though unfortunately it seems as though the specially commissioned 'Demons 3' comic that is bundled with the individual Blu-ray releases is not going to be included with the steelbook, due to the dimensions... still the price difference of buying the steelbook over separate purchases kind of compensates for this).  It also actually costs less than what I originally paid for the imported uncut R1 Anchor Bay Demons DVD when it first came out back around 1999 - how times have changed!  Here are the cellar reviews for episode 1 and episode 2.

Upcoming Jean Rollin Blu-rays, Wave 2

Great news: following the recent batch of five Jean Rollin titles released on Blu-ray by Kino/Redemption (four of which I now have) they've now announced for May a further three titles: Rape of the Vampire/Viol Du Vampire (his first B&W feature, which effectively began life as a short film and was later extended), the much more interesting (IMO) Demoniacs, and one of his crowning acheivements Requiem for a Vampire.  Can't wait!

Axe

1974, US, Directed by Frederick R Friedel
Colour, Running Time: 68 minutes
Review Source: DVD, R2, Hardgore; Video: 1.33:1, Audio: DD Mono

Three criminals are on the loose in California and the story opens with them waiting for a couple of losers to return home so they can teach them a lesson for some wrongdoing. After beating and killing the losers the mobsters (one showing off a terrible afro that resembles him to Oddbod in Carry on Screaming) head out on the run across the state, stopping only to humiliate a shop assistant in their ongoing search for amusement in the suffering of others. Later through their journey they discover an old farmhouse populated only by what appears to be the helpless combination of a young girl and her paraplegic grandfather - a seemingly perfect opportunity to hold out for a few days. After making themselves unwelcome by asserting their newly claimed territory one of them decides to have his wicked sexually-charged way with the innocent female, only to have his throat slashed following a struggle. After tricking one of the other wayward fools into hiding the body for her she’s soon accosted by one of the others and right in front of her lifeless grandfather too - minutes later the lawless man is finding himself on the nasty end of the titular Axe as his blood is splattered around the room (including the poor grandfather's face!). The group have chosen the wrong house to hide out in it seems…

The opening minutes might bear a vague similarity to an infamous segment of Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, though perhaps Axe has a little less sheen to it… I was prepared to write this movie off after around half an hour - very little happens and the acting is almost revolting. In fact for the first eight or nine minutes virtually nothing happens and bearing in mind the running time only extends to just over an hour that’s a significant proportion of the total that we’re sitting around effectively watching the paint of the opening set’s walls dry. The three stooges are such a charismatically challenged bunch too that we’re descending into almost irreversible boredom by the twenty five minute mark. Their brief interruption of serenity at a roadside shop - where they proceed to throw fruit, harass the assistant, and fire guns at an apple on her head - is a fairly pathetic affair and it can’t stop our diminishing confidence in the product from dropping out of sight. Then they come across the farmhouse and the oddball family of two that live there and some juice is injected at last. Lisa (the young girl) could be Rosalie from The Child albeit a couple of years older - quite a cold little girl, distanced from her own emotions and disconnected from normal social tendencies partly by her geographically isolated location: a perfect candidate for someone to be pushed over the edge towards homicidal revenge. Her minimal pleasures in life have resulted in a person with little to lose, except virginity, which the criminals are intent on taking. By the conclusion the story has revealed itself to be a very limited but to-the-point exercise which conversely doesn’t really seem like it actually has a point to make anyway. Its existence is based on the moderately brutal despatching of several people who didn’t need to be on the planet in the first place, and preventions beyond that are entirely absent. Hence the short running time. If it wasn’t for some of the hopeless acting on display this perhaps could have been more widely recognised as a noteworthy film, coming as it does from the same era and mode of thinking as the likes of Last House on the Left and Texas Chain Saw Massacre, but its technical and artistic limitations will always prevent an audience of any reasonable scale from being interested in such a molecular dot in the history of cinema. Amidst the rubble that this film creates in its wake there are a couple of satisfying glimmers of light, or darkness, that keep it from drowning in its own occasional gore.

It’s hard to believe British authorities took offence to this one two decades ago and banned it on VHS, but that’s what happened (the highlight sequence - Lisa‘s dismemberment of one of the bodies - is admittedly quite darkly visceral). I’m sure Axe will never be high on anyone’s list for priority restoration so Hardgore’s DVD is almost as good as we might get. Many of these no-budget seventies exploitation flicks look appropriate with an opened-up fullframe negative and that’s pretty much what we have here I believe. Quality is acceptable whilst not providing demonstration material and the weird soundtrack survives equally. Extras are almost non-existent (a theatrical trailer), as is to be expected. Something Weird released a DVD in the US years ago that was quite padded out with little bonuses but most of it had nothing to do with the film in question, however they at least gave the package a little more value seeing as you’re not getting very much film for your money here (SW also generously added a complete bonus film, The Electric Chair, for real masochists). If you can find Hardgore’s DVD cheap enough you might want to check it out, and use it for a coaster if you discover it’s not been a good way to spend an afternoon on a first date (I wouldn’t recommend it…).

Upcoming: Eraserhead UK Blu-ray

Of great interest to David Lynch fans will be the fact that his seminal debut Eraserhead is finally due to appear on Blu-ray in June courtesy of Universal, and on UK shores too!  The film itself is reportedly remastered, and hopefully it's really going to come alive like never before - no news on how the distinctive industrial soundtrack is going to be presented as yet.  Extras are set to include a feature length documentary on the great director, and four of his short films ("Six Men Getting Sick", "The Alphabet", "The Amputee Take 1" and "... Take 2").  Looks like a pretty essential disc.