Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Review: Crawl / Cert: 18 / Director: Paul China / Screenplay: Paul China / Starring: Georgina Haig, George Shevtsov, Paul Holmes / Release Date: Out Now

Hands up if you’ve ever seen a Coen brothers film? Yup, so has Paul China. In an unknown rural Australian town, seedy bar owner Slim Walding (Holmes) has hired a mysterious Croatian hitman known only as the Stranger (Shevtsov) to kill a local garage owner over a business deal that has gone awry. Whilst leaving town with his bounty, the killer finds himself in an accident and shacks up in the home of one of the barmaids, Marilyn Burns (Haig). What was meant to be a romantic evening with her boyfriend for Burns turns into a battle for survival between her and her unwelcome houseguest. Meanwhile, Slim tries to quite literally get away with murder as the police start to investigate the garage owner’s death.

The problem with Crawl is that it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a noir thriller? Is it a home invasion movie? Is it a crime film? It tries to take elements of all of these and cram them into a Coen brothers love letter. Even the Croat hitman is a poor rip-off of Javier Bardem’s character in No Country for Old Men.

The pace is plodding and disjointed and instead of having fun with a twisted killer holding the smart waitress prisoner, we are lurched back and forth between a brooding atmosphere in the house and the bar, where we are reminded for the umpteenth time that Slim is sleazy and not to be trusted. There’s no real build-up of tension and any pay-off is left flat.

The director uses the title very literally on three separate occasions, highlighting how we all end up crawling in this life one way or another, regardless of whether we are dying, fighting for our lives or just trying to get through another day. This is the only real interesting or clever part of this film. Noir is supposed to be slow-burning, but if you don’t remember to switch the kettle on, it’s never going to boil.

Extras: None

Review: The Six Million Dollar Man – Series 1 / Cert: PG / Director: Various / Screenplay: Various / Starring: Lee Majors, Richard Anderson, Alan Oppenheimer / Release Date: February 25th

What an staggeringly incredible and unimaginable amount of money six million dollars must have seemed back in 1973, when Universal brought the protagonist of Martin Caidin’s “Cyborg” novels to TV in a series of television movies.

That’s right – television movies. The Six Million Dollar Man featured in three feature-length films before becoming the series that would epitomise a mixture of super heroics and science fiction in the early to mid seventies and made Steve Austin (the bionic man) a much sought after action figure twenty years before Steve Austin (the WWE wrestler).

But back to the princely sum of six million dollars – that price tag, which probably wouldn’t even cover his extended warranty these days, is just about the only thing that’s dated about what must surely be RoboCop’s cybernetic grandfather.

It’s intriguing to see how the character developed from the first pilot, which is the origin story. Lee Majors plays Steve Austin as an amiable astronaut who comes across as a likeable country boy. He suffers a devastating crash on a NASA test flight and becomes part of an experiment led by Oliver Spencer, the mysterious head of a secret government department. The film deals with Austin’s emotional struggle to come to terms with his traumatic experiences, before being duped by his shady government handlers into undertaking a suicide mission to Saudi Arabia.

The second pilot, Wine, Women and War, sees a major casting change which would last for the remainder of the show’s five year run – Richard Anderson as Oscar Goldman. Alan Oppenheimer steps into the role of Dr Rudy Wells for a couple of years (taking over from Martin Balsam) before the part was recast in 1975. Here, Austin himself is more of a suave Bond-type character, complete with groan-worthy quips, a tuxedo, Britt Ekland as co-star and a truly awful Bond-like title song performed by Dusty Springfield. It’s also strange to see his bionic abilities absurdly underplayed. The occasional swimming at the speed of a torpedo, a glimpse of an infrared eye for sneaking about in the dark and a display of one-armed super strength are all we get. The slo-mo runs, the bionic vision and the associated sound effects would all come the following year – or in this case, the next disc.

The third pilot – The Solid Gold Kidnapping – again sees Austin in more of a 007-type of caper as the series presumably struggled to find its direction before, in 1974, it launched its first proper season of 13 fifty minute episodes and became the show we all know and remember fondly.

As the series progresses, ex astronaut and super spy Austin is teamed up with TV’s most famous ex-astronaut, late of the Starship Enterprise, William Shatner, also Gary Lockwood of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame and another super spy, Mission: Impossible’s Greg Morris as Majors fearlessly takes on robot doubles, assassins, mad scientists, nuclear threats and snoopy journalists with future Mrs Majors, the late Farrah Fawcett, also making the first of a couple of appearances.

The nostalgia level is off the scale here, and the series is deserving of the long overdue digital re-mastering that has taken place for this release. Thankfully, we won’t have to wait around for the second season as it’s released on the same day.

Extras: Real Bionics & Iconic Opening featurettes / Season One VIPs: A Celebration of Six Million Dollar Man guest stars / Bionic Breakdown / A profile of executive producer Harve Bennett

Review: La Poison / Cert: PG / Director: Sacha Guitry / Screenplay: Sacha Guitry / Starring: Michel Simon, Jean Debucourt, Jacques Varennes, Jeanne Fusier-Gir / Release date:  Out Now

This offering from Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series represents the first ever UK video release of this black comedy from Russian-born auteur Sacha Guitry, until now almost forgotten outside of France. And perhaps there was never one more worthy of the appellation – in over thirty films he acted as screenwriter, director and actor. He also wrote and acted in over a hundred plays.

La Poison marks a slight exception to the rule, with Guitry relinquishing the lead role to a popular character actor of the day, the Charles Laughton-esque Michel Simon, another prolific board-treader, best known for his work with the likes of Jeans Renoir and Vigo. Guitry does appear in the film, however, as himself, spending the first five minutes actually introducing his cast and crew to the viewer before the story begins, in what was by then a time-honoured Guitry film convention.

In a sleepy small town, Paul Braconnier wants nothing more than to do away with his wife (Germaine Reuver) – a slatternly, corpulent, and ill-tempered drunkard. However, it must be said that our Paul certainly isn’t the most magnificent of catches himself, and she too has the same idea, procuring enough rat poison to ‘kill seven people’ from the local chemist. Paul is too fearful of the consequences of committing such a dark deed; until he happens to hear a radio interview with one Maître Aubanel (Jean Debucourt), a Paris lawyer celebrating his hundredth acquittal, of which many were domestic, ‘crime of passion’ murderers. A quick visit to the lawyer to find out the best way of dispatching his trouble and strife ensues, but who will murder who first and will they get away with it?

Running almost like a Gallic Ealing comedy, La Poison stands up incredibly well today, with a sharp wit, a snappy pace, and great performances from all concerned ensuring the viewer is kept entertained throughout its brisk 85 minute runtime. Despite being at times loathsome and idiotic, Simon’s lead character still somehow manages to retain our sympathy; likely because we know that we’re witnessing a powerhouse performance from a highly seasoned actor, or, just as likely, simply because the man is very, very funny. The supporting cast of small-town weirdos, excited by the new-found fame and prosperity that a murder brings to their principality, add a further dimension of questionable fun to the proceedings.

Revered in France prior to World War II, director Guitry found his popularity take a nose-dive after the occupation, during which he was accused of collaboration. Although officially absolved of this, the mud stuck and he found himself completely out of favour with the public and art world taste-makers alike. Whatever the case, La Poison reveals him to be in fact a key filmmaker of his generation, and hopefully this and subsequent releases planned by Eureka will lead to a critical rediscovery of his huge body of work.

Extras: 60 minute documentary on Guitry and the film / Substantial booklet containing archival imagery

Review: City of Women / Cert: 18 / Director: Federico Fellini / Screenplay: Federico Fellini, Bernardino Zapponi, Brunello Rondi / Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anna Prucnal, Bernice Stegers, Ettore Manni / Release Date: Out Now

In their time, Fellini’s films in colour were greeted as milestones in what was seen as his ongoing decline into senility and decadence, but if a title like City of Women came out these days, critics would fall over themselves to hail it as a masterpiece. It’s brave, imaginative, inventive, and plays freely with the medium of cinema, while saying arresting things about gender and sexuality. And over 30 years on, it’s so far out there it makes Holy Motors look like a tame afternoon TV movie.

It starts off with a randy middle-aged man, Snaporaz (Mastroianni), flirting with an attractive woman on a train (Stegers), then following her off it, only to lose sight of her and find himself at an hotel in the throes of a noisy feminist convention. With yoga, lectures on the vagina and lessons in how to kick men in the testicles, it’s clearly the last place he should be, but his attempts to make his way back to the train station end in farce. Besides, there’s no escape really, as we discover that the whole country is now in control of a lesbian elite.

Summed up in this way, the movie sounds like some kind of anti-feminist tract, but it’s much more than that. It’s full of sequences which you can tell have been plucked straight out of Fellini’s subconscious, and this gives it an authenticity and cohesion far beyond the limitations of any particular agenda. A bit, for instance, where Snaporaz is in the clutches of a bunch of hippies smoking dope in a 2CV next to an airport, under the flight path of the incoming planes. Or a scene in a grand master bedroom, with storm-tossed trees pressing against the window and Snaporaz’s half-naked wife Elena (Prucnal) engaging in menacing Butoh moves. These moments aren’t about scoring points or serving a prospectus, they’re just there, bringing an icy chill with them.

And when it comes to the presentation of women, this film has nothing to be ashamed about. Snaporaz may want to see them as sex objects, but the female characters shirk that role with a shrug or a mocking giggle and emerge as forceful independent beings. Nor is Snaporaz quite the out and out chauvinist he might seem – you can read his unease when he is forced to take shelter overnight with the creepy Katzone (Manni), an ageing playboy whose house is full of guns and erotica.

What really impresses with City of Women, though, is the degree of risk-taking. Check out the bravura sequence where Snaporaz goes on a literal roller coaster of memory and emotion – it’s a wonderful vindication of cinema. The film glows with life in this HD restoration, and comes jam-packed with extras which give fascinating insights into Fellini’s working methods and abiding obsessions.

Extras: ‘A Dream of Women’ – 31 min ‘making of’ documentary / ‘Notes on City of Women’ – 61 min documentary / ‘Dante Ferretti: A Builder of Dreams’ – 22 min documentary about the film’s production designer / 12 min discussion with Tinto Brass about the picture / Substantial booklet containing archival imagery

Review: Dracula / Cert: 12 / Director: Terence Fisher / Screenplay: Jimmy Sangster / Starring: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Melissa Stribling, Carol Marsh, John Van Eyssen / Release Date: March 18th

Arguably one of the most pivotal films in British horror cinema, Hammer’s 1958 re-imaging of Dracula comes to Blu-ray/DVD in a new, much heralded, 2012 version, incorporating footage thought long lost. The extra material, amounting to less than 30 seconds of screen time, is nevertheless a wonderful discovery for fans of the picture, and make this an essential purchase.

Sangster’s streamlined screenplay dispenses with a lot of the familiar plot points from Bram Stoker’s novel, for budgetary reasons rather than aesthetic; so there is no Demeter running aground at Whitby, no Carfax Abbey, and only one vampire bride. The action itself takes place in the Carpathian area near Klausenberg, and here, Jonathan Harker (Van Eyssen) is in cahoots with Dr Van Helsing (Cushing), posing as the Count’s (Lee) new librarian; thus the action never has to leave the region. When his mission to kill the bloodsucker fails, he falls victim to his bite, which in turn puts his fiancée Lucy Holmwood (Marsh) and her brother and sister-in-law (Gough and Stribling) in danger as Dracula looks to find another bride.

Despite being over 50 years old, the original Hammer Dracula still hits the mark, providing chills (largely down to James Bernard’s rousing score and Lee’s screen presence), action (at under 85 mins it is very pacey), and more than a touch of the erotic, although nothing as blatant as would come later in Hammer’s legacy. The transfer is fabulous, the colour more natural than ever, while keeping that luscious Hammer ‘look’ we all grew to love. It’s worth noting that despite the reduction from X certificate to 12 (a reflection on changing standards and attitudes), the drama and, especially, the sexual tension are still quite potent, but may be lost on the younger viewers.

The extras included on the disc give ample background for anyone new to the Hammer version, while still having lots for seasoned fans to devour. The commentary from Hammer Historian Marcus Hearn and critic Jonathan Rigby is especially fascinating, as is the Christopher Frayling featurette, with the academic giving a new perspective on the film. The inclusion of the four Japanese reels, presented ‘as is’ before any restoration is maybe a little superfluous (especially as the other featurettes contain the unrestored footage), but does show what a mammoth task the restoration team had, and to their credit, the inserted footage is seamless.

Extras : Two versions of the film; the 2007 BFI restoration, and the 2012 Hammer restoration / “Dracula Reborn” – new 30 min. featurette about the film’s creation and history, featuring, among others Jimmy Sangster, Kim Newman, Mark Gatiss, Jonathan Rigby and Janina Faye (Tania in the film) / “Resurrecting Dracula” – new 20 min. featurette about the film’s restoration, from the BFI’s 2007 restoration through to the integration of “lost” footage, featuring interviews with key staff at the BFI, Molinare and Deluxe142. Also covers the February 2012 world premiere of Hammer’s interim restored version including “vox pop” interviews with fans after the event / “The Demon Lover: Christopher Frayling on Dracula” – new 30 min. featurette / “Censoring Dracula” – new 10 min. featurette on the original cuts to the film ordered by the British Board of Film Censors / Commentary / All 4 surviving “Japanese reels” (6 – 9) unrestored (40 mins)/ The World Of Hammer episode: Dracula And The Undead / Janina Faye reading a chapter of Stoker’s novel at the VAULT festival / Stills Gallery of over 100 fully restored and rare images / Booklet by Hammer archivist Robert J. E. Simpson (PDF) / Original shooting script (PDF)

Review: Lisa and the Devil / Cert: 18 / Director: Mario Bava / Screenplay: Mario Bava, Alfredo Leone / Starring: Elke Sommer, Telly Savalas, Alida Valli, Alessio Orano / Release Date: Out Now

The great Italian director Mario Bava had his struggles and disappointments in his later years, never more so than with Lisa and the Devil – a film that, while not technically his last, has the feeling of a swansong. It’s not his most accessible movie, but it shows this wonderful auteur bowing out in style.

This baroque and puzzling tale sees the eponymous character (Sommer), a tourist, getting lost on an excursion and having a series of increasingly bizarre encounters, which finally result in her spending the night in the splendid but intimidating abode of a blind Countess (Valli) and her son, Maximilian (Orano), who seems to mistake her for an old flame called Elena. Her presence triggers a re-enactment of some unresolved drama of infidelity, murder and lost love. Or so it seems – it’s hard to be sure of anything, because, years before David Lynch and decades before Holy Motors and Berberian Sound Studio, the film twists and turns in accordance to an elusive dream logic.

There’s a pervasive air of melancholy and unease, undercut with a vein of surreal, absurdist comedy: an elaborate feast is interrupted by heavy footsteps upstairs and a wine bottle crashing to the floor. As usual, moments of brutal violence act as a foil to the dreamy lushness of the visuals, but this this time they seem to come out of thin air – a wife repeatedly drives over her husband with a car, crushing him to a pulp, only to fall foul of a mystery assailant herself. It’s cryptic, perturbing, challenging, but, as always with Bava, you come away with a haul of unforgettable imagery (a bunch of bloodstained cadavers sitting around a dining table, a skeleton laid out in a rotting four-poster bed) and it has sequences as fine as any he made. The last reel, in particular, matches for hallucinatory intensity anything conjured up by Dario Argento, the director who stole Bava’s crown as Italy’s prince of cinematic darkness.

The film wasn’t a hit, and later on it was re-cut with new footage into one of those pasta possession flicks that rode the wave of The Exorcist. Both versions are present and correct in glorious HD on this release and treated to fascinating audio commentaries (including contributions from Elke Sommer), with a ‘making of’ tying everything together nicely. While you feel sorry for Bava, there’s a certain fascination in seeing how the material was reshaped, and he would be delighted with the stunning transfers – the depth of Blu-ray immerses you in his strange, valedictory drama more completely than ever, and it’s like you can touch the brocade on Alida Valli’s dress.

Extras: Both version of the film – ‘Lisa and the Devil’ and ‘The House of Exorcism’ producer’s cut / Audio commentary on ‘Lisa and the Devil’ by Bava biographer Tim Lucas / Audio commentary on ‘The House of Exorcism’ by producer Alfredo Leone and star Elke Sommer / Introduction to both films by author and critic Alan Jones / ‘The Exorcism of Lisa’ – the making of both versions of the film / Deleted scene / Original trailers

Review: The Bay /Cert: 15 / Director: Barry Levinson / Screenplay: Michael Wallach / Starring: Kristen Connolly, Will Rogers, Christopher Denham, Kether Donoghue / Release Date: March 18th

The Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, is officially 40% lifeless. Decades of pollution – chemical contaminants, agricultural and urban waste – have contributed to the worrying deterioration of a once-pristine body of water which brought pleasure to hundreds of thousands of locals and American holidaymakers. Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson (Rain Man; Good Morning, Vietnam) became so concerned by the toxic devastation wrought on one of his favourite childhood haunts that he decided to highlight the bay’s plight by dramatising it as an ecological horror movie, merging the conventions of the found-footage format with a specific element of barbed social commentary. But where The Bay undoubtedly works as a gruesome and disturbing body horror, the overriding sense of ‘this couldn’t really happen’ inherent in the film’s outlandish dramatic scenario ultimately serves only to detract from the very real-world problem Levinson is trying to bring to his audience’s attention.

Three years after a hushed-up viral outbreak in Claridge, Maryland, reporter Donna Thompson (Donohue) has managed to liberate and assemble all the recorded film footage – CCTV, camera phones, private video recordings – to tell ‘the true story’ of an infestation of parasitic ‘isopods’ which have thrived on the bay’s plentiful sources of waste material, specifically torrents of chicken excrement routinely (and really) dumped into the water. These squirmy little buggers grow inside the human body, which sprouts suppurating boils and pustules, eventually driving the host mad as they’re eaten inside out. Before long the whole town is littered with the dead and the recovered footage shows the attempts of the local medical authorities and the Centre for Disease Control to isolate the cause of the infection and ease the suffering of the infected and the attempts of those unaffected to stay alive as all around them falls apart.

Levinson himself calls The Bay a ‘cautionary horror tale’ but in reality it’s just another forgettable entry in the found footage genre. Levinson’s message, worthy as it may be, is lost amongst the blood and gore and the pure sensationalism of a story which is often so bereft of real scares it has to resort to a couple of obvious and uncharacteristic ‘jump shock’ moments just to remind us we’re watching a horror movie and not something filmed on a cheap camera phone. The Bay manages to convey a sense of panic and horror but anything more meaningful and, indeed, cautionary, is lost in the general lo-fi schlockery of the entire enterprise.

Extras: Making of documentary / Trailer

Review: Come Out and Play / Cert: Not rated / Director: Makinov / Screenplay: Makinov / Starring: Daniel Gimenez Cacho, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Vinessa Shaw / Release Date: June 18th (US) (Available on US VOD now)

Remakes are a bad idea to begin with when there’s so much original material out there to pull from. It’s even worse when one person has full control over everything during prep, production and post and he has no one to answer to but himself. Such is the case with Come Out and Play, a remake of the cult horror classic Who Can Kill a Child? from 1976 (see our 10 More Obscure Halloween Treats feature).

The film is basically a Xeroxed copy of the original movie (an experiment that was tried on the colour, shot-for-shot remake of Psycho with disastrous results). The only difference is that the story now takes place on an island off Mexico instead of Spain.

Francis (Moss-Bachrach) and his pregnant wife Beth (Shaw) travel to this remote island on vacation, only to discover that it is devoid of adults and populated by children. The reason being that the children have turned into homicidal maniacs and killed them off. Now stranded on the island, the couple have to fight off these demon kiddies and make their escape before they become the next victims.

Makinov missed the boat here by not giving the children an underlying motive for their outrages. The kids are creepy and vicious enough, but what made them that way? Why are they so bent on death and revenge? As a result, Come Out and Play just becomes a paint-by-numbers shocker. Moss-Bachrach and Shaw turn in excellent performances for what they have to work with and there are some intense scenes with moderate gore, but Makinov just doesn’t deliver the goods in this film. In his first feature, he has clearly taken on too much responsibility and the movie suffers for it. He’s a competent director and if all the duties he assumed during filming had been delegated out to others, he could have had a winner. Our advice: watch the original.

Extras: None

Review: Black Sunday / Cert: 15 / Director: Mario Bava / Screenplay: Ennio De Concini, Mario Serandrai / Starring: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Arturo Dominici / Release Date: Out Now

Black Sunday (aka The Mask of Satan) was Italian maestro Mario Bava’s feature debut, and the film where he set out his stall of dazzling themes and imagery. It remains one of the great cinematic exercises in Gothic horror, and now it’s back in a release that will have mysterious hooded figures assembling at midnight in celebration.

In brief, it’s the tale of a 17th century Moldavian witch reeking revenge from beyond the grave upon the descendants of her own aristocratic family who brutally put her to death. Scream queen Barbara Steele plays the dual roles of the hateful Princess Asa and Katia, her 19th century lookalike who will be the vessel for her reincarnation, and the British actress’ eerie china doll looks were never put to better use.

What sticks in the mind, though, isn’t the plot or the performances, but a series of stunning tableau. The gruesome pre-titles sequence, in which a grotesque metal mask is nailed onto Asa’s face by a musclebound executioner with an oversized mallet. Then, two centuries on, Asa lying in the tomb of her ancestors, her eyeless face crawling with insects, her porcelain skin puckered with nail-holes. Or the moment when Javutitch (Dominici) (Asa’s consort, slain at the same time) rises from the grave, cobwebs trailing free as he rips the mask of Satan from his papery-white visage.

Bava was a master at painting with shadow and mist, but more than that, he was a genius at using his directorial flair to suggest morbid and disturbed psychological states. Witness the virtuoso sequence where the self-satisfied Dr Krujavan (Checchi) is escorted by Javutitch through a series of corridors which slowly grow more menacing and Escher-like – mirroring the inner state of a man soon to be lost morally and spiritually. And its these undercurrents of subtext that give his films such power to move and disturb.

Arrow Video have done Bava proud with this Blu-ray release. Not only do you get two versions of the film (the official European cut and the rarely seen Stateside edit, with an alternate score), there’s also an absolutely amazing extra in the form of I Vampiri (1956). This was the film that gave Bava – then a cinematographer – his big break when its temperamental director, Riccardo Freda, stormed off set never to return. It’s a classic in its own right and almost as good as Black Sunday. Throw in a hugely informative audio commentary from American critic and Bava expert Tim Lucas and a bunch of other stuff including a reel of delightfully lurid trailers for the maestro’s other films, and you have what amounts to an unmissable package for horror buffs and lovers of beautifully wrought cinema.

Extras: Two versions of the film / Audio commentary with Tim Lucas / Introduction by author and critic Alan Jones / Interview with Barbara Steele / Trailers / ‘I Vampiri’ (1956) / Trailer reel / Collector’s booklet

Review: Onibaba / Cert: 15 / Director: Kaneto Shindo / Screenplay: Kaneto Shindo / Starring: Nabuko Otowa, Jitsuko Yoshimura, Kei Sato / Release Date: February 25th

In Seven Samurai, Toshiro Mifuni’s character describes how seemingly helpless peasants have a nasty habit of ganging up to kill any wounded samurai they come across. That’s the subject of this swelteringly claustrophobic Japanese movie which is the Patient Zero of J-horror.

It’s a period of civil war. Everyone is starving and desperate. Abandoned by her son, Kichi, who has been dragged off unwillingly to fight, a middle-aged mother (Otowa) and her daughter-in-law (Yoshimura) are forced to fend for themselves by becoming murderers, ambushing the exhausted samurai who stray every now and then into the fields of towering susuki grass where they live, then tossing their bodies into a pit and trading their valuable armour for bags of millet.

Together, the duo are an unstoppable killing machine (and woe betide any wild dog who crosses their path, because they’ll be having it for dinner). But when Kichi’s friend Hachi (Sato) returns from the war, things change. Hachi claims that Kichi is dead. He’s an untrustworthy layabout, a permanent leer plastered across his face, but all the same the daughter-in-law believes him and starts to fall for his feckless charms. Fearful and jealous, the mother decides to take action…

Inspired by a Buddhist fable, Onibaba retains the raw simplicity and jolting abruptness of a folk tale, but it’s also a near-perfect piece of filmmaking. Kiyomi Kuroda’s deep focus cinematography makes great play with the endless vistas of grass, which seem to crackle and stir to the brewing drama, and sudden extreme close-ups where you can practically count the beads of sweat on the characters’ faces (and it’s never looked better than in this superb HD, 2.35:1 aspect ratio transfer).

The cast all give out of their skin performances. With staring eyes and a white streak in her hair, Otowa is as ferocious as an angry badger, and disturbingly sexual too (witness the bit where she humps a tree). Yoshimura is extraordinarily sensual and iconic as a girl who has reverted to a primitive, almost feral state, only for her womanhood to be reawakened by her romance with Hachi. And then there’s Hikaru Hayashi’s percussive score of tribal drums and primal shrieks to add a final touch of savagery to proceedings.

Onibaba was a huge hit on the international art house circuit when it was first released, partly because it gave young men a rare change to see bare breasts (in black and white! Who would have thunk?). Nearly 50 years on, it still makes for compulsive viewing – a film as lean and mean and unrelenting as its scary protagonists. This wonderful release comes bolstered with a whole array of top extras, including an entertaining introduction by Alex Cox, illuminating audio commentary with the venerable director and his stars, and a full forty minutes of fascinating behind-the-scenes footage.

Extras: Audio commentary by director Kaneto Shindo and actors Kei Sato and Jitsuko Yoshimura / Video introduction by Alex Cox / 8mm footage shot on location by Kei Sato / Theatrical trailer / Production stills and art gallery/ 36 page booklet