Eighteen Years In Prison (1967 aka 18 Years In Prison/MVD/Radiance Blu-ray)/Peeping Tom 4K (1960/Criterion 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray)/13th Summer (2023/Indican/Decal DVD)/True Detective: Night Country (2024/HBO/Warner Blu-ray Set)

4K Ultra HD Picture: B+* Picture: B-/B/C/B- Sound: B-/B-/C+/B Extras: C+/B/C-/C+ Main Programs: C+/A-/C+/B

Here's a group of string thrillers, including an all-time classic....

Tai Kato's 18 Years In Prison (1967) is considered a more brutally realistic Japanese film set in prison and in its time, that is definitely the case, but it still cannot avoid some cliches of the subgenre and there is a narrative twist here in that only one man gets caught when two 'friends' steal valuable copper wire and the military police catch them. Kawada (Noboru Ando, who had a criminal past in real life he uses well here) gets locked up, while Tsukada (Asao Koike) escapes with the goods and does nto just cash in, but starts his own yakuza gang!

Kawada is going to get out and get him, but has to escape first and deal with a brutal warden (Tomisaburo Wakayama) and other prisoners as out of control as he is. So just by being from Japan and being set post-WWII, that makes it a nice variant on the prison film that Warner Bros. became so well known for since sound arrived in the 1930s and this has some of the energy of the Japanese new wave of the time. Certainly worth a look, keep its limits in perspective, expect some believable, viable, smaller subplots and you'll enjoy it if this is your kind of film.

Extras include:

• Appreciation by critic and programmer Tony Rayns (2024)

• A visual essay on Japanese prison films by author Tom Mes (2024)

• Original Theatrical railer

• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow

• and (in the Limited Edition version only) a Limited Edition booklet featuring new writing by Ivo Smits and an archival interview with Noboru Ando by Mark Schilling.

Michael Powell's Peeping Tom 4K (1960) is one of the most important, smartest and creepiest thrillers ever made, a major solo outing by the former half of The Archers with Powell and Emeric Pressberger. The opening scene, shades of the Jack The Ripper murders, has a prostitute in the middle of an opening transaction, but being filmed this time. She is murdered, but with a strange twist. We discover that it is by a filmmaker cameraman named Mark (Carl Bohem) who is trying to 'capture death' on film and as a result, the authorities feel a new serial killer is on the loose. Of course, semi-copycat or not, they are correct.

Being part of a respectable enough profession, especially in the analog era where he also handles still film, he remains invisible at first and the authorities are stumped. But he falls for a female neighbor, starts to get a little sloppy in his killings and there are other twists and turns in what is as much of a character study as it is a thriller. Everyone here is great, Powell is in great form holding his own as a solo director, the look of the film is full color, yet creepy and Noir-like. Moira Shearer, Anna Massey, Michael Goodliffe, Sally Anne Field and Nigel Davenport do some of the best work of their great careers here.

The film remains very shocking even today and so upset people at the time, the British Government pretty much took Powell's camera away from him and his directing career never recovered. That makes it still one of the ugliest moments of a film artist being censored in cinema history and yet oddly, it is not remembered as part of the great thrillers or horror films of the time like Hitchcock's Psycho or Clouzot's Diabolique, but is their equal and pier. Still as ahead of its time, Peeping Tom is a remarkable film and maybe finally, more than those in the know will finally catch up with it.

Extras includes a high quality paper pullout with illustrations, tech info and an essay by author Megan Abbott, while the discs add:

• Two feature-length audio commentaries, one featuring film scholar Laura Mulvey and one featuring film historian Ian Christie

• Introduction by filmmaker Martin Scorsese

• Interview with editor Thelma Schoonmaker

• Documentary about the film's history, featuring interviews with Schoonmaker, Scorsese, and actor Carl Boehm

• Documentary about screenwriter Leo Marks

• Program on the film's restoration

• and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

Tam Sainsbury's 13th Summer (2023) is another one of those smaller thrillers, this time from Australia, that you hope might be a surprise and this one is a close call, but it just misses the mark midway and does not totally know where to go despite interesting casting and an interesting local.

A couple (Nathan Philips and Hannah Levien) go to visit their friends at their beach house, only to discover a stranger visiting (Ben Turland) there instead, slightly eccentric, but agreeable enough (at first) to just about convince them he is not lying. Still, the boyfriend is not so sure and eventually, things start to go odd and bad.

Then the screenplay takes a lame turn and while the actors and pace hold, the writing never recovers and without going further, I was disappointed and worst of all, I thought the ending was especially bad. Otherwise, it at least started smart and its too bad it could not keep things going, but that is sadly better than most such films lately. Thus is the glut of good thrillers of late, yet I still started to see the missed opportunities pile up before it was too late.

Extras include trailers for five other Indican releases.

Last but not least is the fourth iteration of a huge hit HBO series. True Detective: Night Country (2024) is another winning arc, but this time, the big buzz came out of the lead who took it on an rarely does any television. Jodie Foster plays the main detective trying to find out how a bunch of scientists have turned up dead, together as a group, frozen to death and nude!

Still strongly associated with Jonathan Demme's Silence Of The Lambs, her participation in any kind of thriller is always provocative to fans and viewers, a genre she rarely dabbles in (skipping the Hannibal sequel, but taking the lead in David Fincher's minor classic Panic Room) and then this is et in a place that has no sunlight for a matter of weeks. The dead bodies turn up just before this and the teleplay insinuates supernatural horror from the start.

All this brings up everything from the two big, classic theatrical film versions of The Thing, the two different and impressive versions of Insomnia and classic episodes of everything from The X-Files to Kolchak: The Night Stalker and these six episodes live up to that. Then we get great character development, a star-making turn by Kali Reis as a fellow investigator who has a history with Danvers (Foster) and both know something is wrong and has precedents. Then we get to know the scientific installation and what they were working on is part of one mystery. We have native protesters mad at the corporation they feel is degrading their sacred environment.

Cheers to writer/producer/director Issa Lopez for pulling this off, making it as rich and dense as intense and suspenseful and for HBO to financially back what was not a cheap production. This is grade-A all the way (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are producers on this as well, as is Foster) and it ids one of the only major dramatic TV events of late that anyone will remember or that will hold up down the line. The final episode tries to tie it all up and nearly succeeds, but once you start watching, it will be hard to stop.

Extras include:

• Meet the True Detectives: Cast Q&A

• New Chapter: Issa Lopez (Showrunner/Writer/Director) and cast discuss Night Country's unique role in the series.

• Exploring Indigenous Themes: Delves into Alaska Native culture and how it has informed this season.

• Max Inkblots: Get to know cast through show-themed inkblot interpretations.

• Setting Featurette: Sets up Alaska as a pivotal character in the story.

• and Atmospheric Teases: Social environmental shots to tease key moments from the series.

Now for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.66 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on Peeping Tom 4K is stunning from a 6K scan of the original 35mm Eastmancolor negative and though a few shots show the age of the film, this has never looked so good on home video and we have suffered faded and issued-laded copies since Criterion issued their old 12-inch analog LaserDisc of the film decades ago. The restoration at its best is stunning in its best moments with superior color range and demo moments that rate above my letter rating. A few of those will even stun viewers, thanks in part to stunning work by Director of Photography Otto Heller, B.S.C. The 1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image in the Blu-ray version is still solid, but no match for the 4K by any means. The PCM 2.0 Mono on both versions sounds as good as this film ever will, come off of the original optical negative soundmaster and very impressive for its time.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Prison can show the age of the materials used and the anamorphic lenses used (likely Kowa dubbed 'ToeiScope') show the expected distortion and limits, yet color is pretty consistent and some softness is built in from the production. However, other shots just show how the original camera materials may bot have aged well in parts, while the PCM Japanese 2.0 Mono sounds good and as good as this film ever will.

The 1080p 2.00 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on True Detective are well shot and can look good, but the shows often have more softness in more shots than io would have liked, making me suspect maybe the production would look better in 4K. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on the episodes fare better and though they are not DTS: X or Dolby Atmos, this is one of the best-sounding TV shows of late.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Summer has decent color, consistent compositions and us well edited, but it is just too soft too often and made me wish it was in HD, while the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo sound mixes are about even and both better than the image. It sounds more like it was conceived as stereo.

- Nicholas Sheffo