A struggling artist buys a talisman that transforms his fortune without realising the true nature of the deal he has struck in the fascinating horror-tinged Faustian drama from 1943, The Devil’s Hand [La Main du diable]. Slarek keeps an appointment with a bureaucratic Old Nick with Eureka’s typically fine new Blu-ray.
Second Sight has announced the May release of Erik Skjoldbjærg's Nordic crime thriller Insomnia and Sean Byrne's psychological horror The Devil's Candy, both on Limited Edition UHD and standard edition UHD and Blu-ray.
recent reviews, articles and blogs
Erotic gameplaying with Peter McEnery, Diane Cilento and Glenda Jackson in Negatives, the debut feature of Peter Medak, made in 1968. The BFI have released it on Blu-ray as Flipside number 53. Review by Gary Couzens.
A mild-mannered bookkeeper steals a valuable gem and is pursued across Europe by professional investigator Milo March in The Man Inside, director John Gilling’s adaptation of the novel of the same name by M.E. Chaber. Slarek finds himself in two minds about the film but has no such qualms about Indicator’s typically strong Blu-ray.
Being a film music aficionado can sometimes introduce you to some intriguing, never before heard of films. On Camus’ watchlist for decades was an oddly titled 1963 curio, scored by Jerry Goldsmith, called The List of Adrian Messenger directed by John Huston. Camus finally caught up with it… Release the hounds!
Richard Rush’s 1980 The Stunt Man was ten years in the making and almost went unreleased when the studio didn’t know what to make of the result, but it’s reputation as a key work of American 70s cinema is now set in stone. It arrives on 4K in a dual UHD/Blu-ray package from Radiance on the Transmission label, and is reviewed by long-time fan Camus, with Slarek handling the technical specs and the majority of the special features.
Vernon Sewell’s accomplished B-movie from 1962, Strongroom, has a restoration and a new release on Blu-ray from the BFI, including among its extras his film from the previous year, The Man in the Back Seat. Review by Gary Couzens.
Emerald Fennell’s stock-in-trade is revenge intrigue with a smear of soft-porn perversion. Her high camp take on Emily Brontë’s Gothic firecracker should sizzle with transgressive heat but is curiously cold, conservative and phlegmatic. All artifice and no soul, it is a fleeting thing of the moment. If it is a sign of our times, Jerry Whyte wonders what it signifies.