Jason X – Director: James Isaac (Arrow Video)
A madcap slapstick remix of the Jason Voorhees franchise, Jason Goes to Hell features the masked villain body-hopping his way back to Crystal Lake in an attempt to be reborn. Jason X just throws the formula out the window altogether and takes place 400 years in the future, introducing some wild sci-fi into the mix with a cryogenically frozen Jason.
Unique production design, elaborate kills, hilariously unpredictable narratives, seemingly unending special features, and stunning Dolby Vision transfers make these the two best home media releases of the franchise. – Matt Mahler
The Keep – Director: Michael Mann (Imprint)
Coming in at over eight pounds, Imprint’s limited edition, four-disc box set for Michael Mann’s 1983 oddity The Keep is one of the most exorbitant releases you’ll see for a single film. The epic set weighs as much as a newborn baby thanks to its inclusion of a bespoke zinc alloy cross meant to replicate the crosses in the titular structure of the film, along with its many other supplements – a graphic novel, a hardcover booklet, an early draft of the script, the 1983 press kit, a full-sized poster, and more.
The Dolby Vision and HDR10 reissue of the film on 4K UHD looks incredible, and the Tangerine Dream score sounds fantastic (the release comes with the soundtrack). The supplements contain most of the special features from Vinegar Syndrome’s excellent release of the film, but add much more, including four new commentaries and an invaluable feature-length documentary about the production, A World War II Fairy Tale: The Making of Michael Mann’s The Keep.
With its specifically ‘80s vibe, weird continuity and performances, and odd mish-mash of Nazis and sci-fi fantasy, The Keep remains a deliriously campy fever dream. It’s a love-it-or-hate-it film. If you’re in the “love it” camp, this release is an absolute keeper. – Matt Mahler
The King of Kings – Director: Cecil B. DeMille (Flicker Alley)
Cecil B. DeMille’s monumental The King of Kings (1927) is an emotionally powerful synthesis of incidents and ideas about the life of Christ, as seen in a positively glorious Technicolor restoration. Two versions of the film are offered, and they show DeMille in brilliant control of every element.
It’s brilliantly done. DeMille sometimes receives critical smirks for the Barnum-like showmanship with which he plays to the groundlings and for his belief in straight-faced kitsch, but he does all this seemingly with deep conviction, not cynicism. It’s a form of compartmentalizing, perhaps, but he feels obligated to give the public what it wants to lap up, and he feels right and proper about it.
The King of Kings needs no apology or contextualizing. It’s effective and emotional from the get-go, as the stunning clarity of this restoration reveals in all its splendor. The film moved audiences in 1927 and retains its power to do so. – Michael Barrett
See also: “Erich Von Stroheim and Cecil B. DeMille’s Fetishistic Films“, by Michael Barrett.
Laurel & Hardy Year Three: The Newly Restored 1929 Silents (Flicker Alley)
Flicker Alley and Blackhawk Films have been painstakingly gathering the silent shorts of Stanley Laurel and Oliver Hardy in sequential order, often using multiple sources to assemble the best possible print. Year One and Year Two are essential for fans of silent comedy and anyone who likes to fall down laughing, and Year Three again hits the bull’s eye. 1929 was the duo’s transition year, as audiences finally began to hear the boys’ distinctive speaking voices, but we mustn’t forget that they were already major stars from their brilliant silent work, and the reasons are evident here.
Of the nine silents in this set, we call special attention to Big Business, one of the funniest escalations of anarchy in cinema. The boys play door-to-door salesmen hawking Christmas trees, and their encounter with an angry customer doesn’t leave much room for the holiday spirit. The set even includes the alternative silent version of the talkie masterpiece Berth Marks, in which the boys’ attempts to change clothes in a train’s upper berth lead to blissful riot. Truly, it’s all classic, and Flicker Alley’s double-disc Blu-ray offers bonus films and informative commentaries. – Michael Barret
Malpertius – Director: Harry Kümel (Radiance)
A dark and lustrous gem of Belgian gothic, Malpertuis (1971) continues a longstanding filmic tradition of playing to Orson Welles’ idiosyncrasies. An actor who was known for straddling a line between a deeply method and internal approach and ambitious scene-stealing theatrics, Welles is a maniacal deus here, subdued but effectively unnerving whilst surrounded by a garishly baroque cast and set.
Based on a horror novel by Jean Ray, director Harry Kümel (best-known for his gothic vampire classic, Daughters of Darkness) pulls out all the stops on the grotesqueries that run rampant across the screen. An excessive reinterpretation of Greek myth through an Early Netherlandish filter (think a Hieronymus Bosch painting come dangerously to life), Malpertuis tells the story of a dying patriarch who seeks to divide his estate among his descendants. His dark and twisted secret? He’s entrapped the souls of Greek gods in the bodies of the townsfolk.
His sailor nephew (played by Mathieu Carrière), who has wandered into the proceedings, finds himself the unwitting participant in the ensuing madness. Radiance Film releases a fantastically sumptuous Blu-ray edition, featuring a bevy of extras (11 in all) that delve deep into the film’s mythos and construction. It features two cuts of the film: a version that debuted at Cannes and the original cut, beautifully 4K-restored in all the film’s painterly glory. Limited edition sets include a lavish 80-page essay book that dissects the film from both aesthetic and thematic angles. – Imran Khan
See also:
“‘Malpertuis’ Is Ragged and Dizzy Arthouse Horror” by Michael Barrett.
“Gothic Nightmare ‘Malpertuis’ Seems Tailored for Orson Welles” by Matt Mahler.
Merry-Go-Round – Directors: Rupert Julian and Erich von Stroheim (Flicker Alley)
From 1925, Merry-Go-Round was one of Erich Von Stroheim’s elaborately observed, over-budget, jaundiced views of class, sex, and the human condition—until Universal fired him and replaced him with Rupert Julian, who finished the picture without ditching Von Stroheim’s notes.
The story at large centers on people who work at the Prater, Vienna’s outdoor amusement park, which features a Ferris wheel. Mary Philbin, who would team up again with Kerry in Julian’s monumental The Phantom of the Opera (1925), plays the winsome organ-grinder, Agnes, who functions as our innocent heroine.
It must have been Erich Von Stroheim’s idea to intersperse the plot developments with a symbolic motif of a ripped and shirtless laughing devil or perhaps a faun, in either case a symbol of nature and libido that won’t be controlled by civilization, who stands in the center of an endlessly twirling circle of little models on an existential wheel.
The devil drives home the point that the characters of Merry-Go-Round are mere playthings of either mechanical forces or whimsical and malevolent Fate, or both. They’re no more in control of their destinies than ordinary people are in control of whether their countries go to war, and that’s a harking back to Old Heidelberg.
A bonus is the inclusion of John Emerson & D.W. Griffith’s Old Heidelberg (1915), an important stepping stone in Von Stroheim’s career. – Michael Barrett
See also “Erich Von Stroheim and Cecil B. DeMille’s Fetishistic Films“, by Michael Barrett.
Michael Haneke Collection (Umbrella)
If you drooled over Curzon’s box set of films by the great Austrian director Michael Haneke but were ostracized by its Region B coding, fear not – Umbrella has an even better release. The Michael Haneke Collection features 15 of the cold master’s films, including a miniseries and a TV movie, which is nearly everything the director has made. Housed in a beautifully designed die-cut rigid case and a 100-page hardback book of essays, the Blu-rays are perfectly packaged and include a haunting canvas poster.
Each of the films looks excellent, and while 4K UHD remasters may have been nice for certain titles (especially The White Ribbon, with its crisp black-and-white cinematography), 1080p actually works well for much of Haneke’s chilly, formalist imagery. The audio commentaries are excellent throughout, but the biggest draw (aside from having the filmmaker’s whole oeuvre in one place) is the video essays that accompany each title.
Given Haneke’s subject matter, the essays are suitably intellectual and metaphysical, presenting a panoply of perspectives from an array of wonderful critics. The whole set is a must-have for any cinephile. – Matt Mahler
In the Moscow Slums – Director: Karen Shakhnazarov (Deaf Crocodile)
Karen Shakhnazarov’s In the Moscow Slums (2013), a peculiar and topsy-turvy murder mystery from Russia, is based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1890 novel The Sign of Four but interprets its source material from an entirely separate universe. It’s a loose adaptation, as it also interpolates the works of writer Vladimir Gilyarovsky. This doesn’t exactly hijack Doyle’s original narrative, but it skews it enough so that we see how far creative liberties can stretch when they are taken with abandon.
aims, despite its bizarre leanings, for the kind of commercial accessibility that keeps afloat the many Netflix programs that have taken up the better part of America’s viewing pleasure these days. Karen Shakhnazarov keeps his mystery-caper humming with a manic energy expressed in rich Impressionistic color and a clutch of charmingly unlikable characters.
Its very Russianness adds something to the atmosphere, which seems to be reaching for the seriousness of a writer like Ivan Bunin, but often falls considerably short. What is left after the triumphs and follies of In the Moscow Slums is an enjoyably good yarn; always attractive to the eye and never too smug about its cleverness.
In the Moscow Slums is bathed in sumptuous hues, with deep burgundies, emerald greens, and ruby reds lushing up the frames. Deaf Crocodile’s Blu-ray is a very clean, smooth transfer that especially showcases the film’s use of color. – Imran Khan
See also “Russian Director Karen Shakhnazarov Keeps It Surreal in These Absurdist Films“, by Imran Khan.
Mysteries / Pasterol 1943 – Directors: Paul de Lussanet / Wim Verstappen(Cult Epics)
The Dutch film industry doesn’t get nearly as much limelight as the French and Italians do in the canon of European cinema. During the 1970s, however, the Netherlands was on a roll, thanks to two of its rising stars, Rutger Hauer and Sylvia Kristel.
Hauer, who had starred in the Oscar-nominated Dutch film Turkish Delight (1973), would go on to international stardom with 1982’s Blade Runner, while Kristel cemented her celebrity status as the star of the arthouse-erotica smash, Emmanuelle (1973). Cult Epics releases a double-feature of two of the actors’ lesser-known Dutch-language films from 1978: Mysteries and Pastorale 1943. Each actor stars in both. – Imran Khan
Pastorale 1943, a war drama about the German occupation in the Netherlands and the resistance group that fights them, is of interest for a look at the Dutch involvement in WWII. A film focused mostly on its narrative, Pastorale 1943 is spare in its visual schema but complex in its study of a European nation under threat from Nazi rule. An engaging drama, the film serves as an appendix to other films of the era (The Tin Drum) that explore similar themes of conflict and opposition during the Third Reich.
It is Mysteries, however, that proves the more involving work. A lavishly-dressed period drama, Mysteries is an adaptation of a Knut Hamsun novel (best-known for his 1890 novel, Hunger). Mysteries tells the story of an enigmatic stranger, Johan (Hauer), who arrives in a coastal town in the Netherlands. Staying in a hotel by the sea, he soon befriends a little person (David Rappaport) who introduces him to the community. Johan spies the lovely, prim Dany (Kristel) on an afternoon walk one day, and an affair slowly blossoms before withering into grisly tragedy.
If it sounds run-of-the-mill, it truly isn’t, for director Paul de Lussanet mines a deeply mystical property in Hamsun’s source material that imbues the story’s air with a chilly, all-pervasive pall. De Lussanet also employs an expressive stroke in color, the costuming and décor frilled and sheeted in lush burgundies and maroons to immerse viewers in a sort of luxurious gloom. Cult Epics’ Blu-ray release offers beautiful 2K restorations of each film, and archival interviews with both Hauer and Kristel. – Imran Khan
No Man of Her Own – Director: Mitchell Leisen (Kino Lorber)
As directed by Mitchell Leisen from a novel by Cornell Woolrich, No Man of Her Own is an exciting, stylish, suspenseful, and satisfying combination of noir and “woman’s film” starring Barbara Stanwyck as a poor woman, pregnant out of wedlock, who stumbles into a dangerous masquerade. We suspect this spellbinder would be more famous if it carried Woolrich’s title, I Married a Dead Man. Who wouldn’t rather watch that?
Anyway, here’s your chance to remedy that oversight. It’s included on Kino Lorber’s three-film box Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XIX. The other two films in the box aren’t snoozers either: William Dieterle’s Dark City (1950) stars Charlton Heston and Lizabeth Scott getting in over their heads. Harry Horner’s Beware My Lovely (1952) stars Ida Lupino and Robert Ryan in a not-so-merry Christmas tale. – Michael Barrett
See also “The Long Dark Reach of Cornell Woolrich’s Noir Thrillers“, by Michael Barrett.
The Ogre of Athens – Director: Nikos Koundouros (Radiance)
Dismissed upon its 1956 release, this darkly comic noir has become one of the defining moments in Greek cinema. A story of paranoia and persecution, The Ogre of Athens stars Dinos Iliopoulos as Thomas, a meek office worker who discovers his own uncanny likeness to a wanted criminal whose face is splashed all over the newspapers.
Fraught with fear and spurned by the general public, Thomas spends his days wandering Athens, haunting the local pubs while dodging police and the discriminating looks from passersby. At some point, he gets caught up in his own infamy, slowly realizing the advantages that can sometimes come with scrutiny.
Filmmaker Nikos Koundouros, a film festival favorite of the 1960s and ‘70s, walks a careful balance between comedy and pathos, never allowing the story to devolve into moral pontificating. Rather, he employs the subtle touch of personifying emotions through a particular framing of action; scenes are often cropped in uncomfortably tight mid-shots to convey the world around Thomas narrowing by the minute.
Despite taking a more sober approach to the comedic elements, Koundouros doesn’t stifle the humor with his seriousness. The story’s slapstick and subtle pantomime pretensions tip a hat to silent-era Hollywood; witness the main character’s Chaplin-esque evasions of the police, or how occasional song-and-dance numbers momentarily lift the subdued airs.
The Ogre of Athens marks an unusual entry in Greek Cinema – one that bridges the aesthetics of French New Wave with the socio-political Greek drama. All the while, it stands unequivocally on its own as a point of inspiration for other Greek-language filmmakers (Michael Cacoyannis).
Radiance Films’ Blu-ray release features a pristine transfer of the film, beautifully capturing all monochromatic gradations of its black-and-white presentation to give it a hearty cinematic texture. The supplements include features on the history of Greek cinema, an introduction to the film by author Jonathan Franzen, and an essay booklet discussing the film’s merits. – Imran Khan