The
Creature
(1977/Severin Blu-ray)/Longlegs
(*)/Million
Eyes Of Sumuru 4K
(1967/Blue Underground 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray**)/Mothers'
Instinct
(*both 2023/NEON/Decal Blu-ray)/Zero
Woman: Red Handcuffs
(1974/Cauldron/Neon Eagle Blu-ray/**both MVD)
4K
Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B Sound: B-/B/B-/B/B-
Extras: C+/B-/B-/D/B- Films: B-/B-/C+/B-/C+
These
creepy, often challenging, female-centered films include two new
releases and three past gems, all worth visiting and revisiting...
Eloy
De La Iglesia's The
Creature
(1977) is a drama with some wild moments as a loving couple starts to
have issues when she has a miscarriage. She (Ana Belen) also sees a
black dog on her trip and on the beach recuperating with her husband
(Juan Diego) sees another one of the same kind, though he is in
healthy shape versus the one at the gas station they stopped at,
which was chained up and not doing as well. They take him in.
As
the child issues start to get worse and he starts having an affair,
she becomes more attached to the dog and he slowly is unhappy with
that, among other things. The situations slowly gets worse until the
conclusion of it all, but it also becomes a character study of a
relationship that goes bad when it likely might not have under other
circumstances.
I
should note that the dog, the title character more or less, is not
Satanic, is not a killer dog, does not have mental telepathy or some
special supernatural connection with the wife or anything exploitive
or genre-oriented like that. He still has some natural instincts and
becomes more of a counterpoint to all involved. You'll have to see
the movie, but its well done and another solid film by De La Iglesia.
Extras
include:
A
Strange Movie:
Interview With Assistant Director Alejo Loren
Gaspar
/ Eloy:
Interview With Filmmaker Gaspar Noe
and
an Introduction By Gaspar Noe At Cinematheque Francaise (7/20/2023)
And
for more on the films of Eloy De La Iglesia, try these links for the
Blu-ray releases of:
Cannibal
Man
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15952/Cannibal+Man+(1972/Severin*)/Chariots+Of+The
Murder
In A Blue World
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16209/Murder+In+A+Blue+World+(1973/Cauldron/**all
Quinqui
Collection
(Navajeros,
El
Pico,
El
Pico 2)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/15955/Breaker+Morant+(1980/Umbrella+Region+Free+I
Osgood
Perkins'
Longlegs
(2023) is essentially a film that wants to be the supernatural
version of a serial killer film, every serial killer film (Silence
Of the Lambs,
Se7en,
Zodiac,
Manhunter,
Hannibal,
The
X-Files
et al) by way of Kubrick's The
Shining
and when it should have been a rip-off disaster, actually is more
effective than expected and became one of the year's surprise hits in
a year that needs all the help it can get.
A
new, young FBI agent (a star-making turn for Maika Monroe) lands up
on a case where she starts to notice patterns that are not
necessarily visible, though she has no special psychic powers or the
like. This impresses her boss (the underrated Blair
Underwood) and they start to see if they can stop the next family
from being killed off by a mysterious force or influence.
They
discover a serial killer is at least partly behind it all (Nicolas
Cage as the title character) but suspect there is more to this.
They're about to find out.
Very
consistent, well shot and never letting up, it is a film all fans of
thrillers should see at least once and I give Cage credit for holding
back, making his character more effective. This is still not typical
of any film in the genre it is trying to be, yet much will be
familiar. It is not a dark sendup or deconstruction either, but
you'll have to see for yourself to see why everyone is talking about
it. Cheers to all for pulling off what they did, even if some of it
might not be all on.
Extras
include:
Feature
Length Audio Commentary with writer/director Osgood Perkins.
On-set
interviews with cast and crew.
Five
Featurettes
On-Camera
Interviews with Perkins, Monroe, Underwood and Alicia Witt.
Original
Theatrical Trailer
and
Original Theatrical Teaser Trailer.
Lindsay
Shonteff's The
Million Eyes Of Sumuru 4K
(1967 aka
The
Million Eyes Of Su Muru)
We
covered the film in its older Blu-ray version with its sequel, The
Girl From Rio,
here:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/14182/Bulldog+Drummond+(1929/United+Artists/Samuel
And
we also covered The
Girl From Rio 4K
in its nice Ultra High Definition upgrade here:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16347/Bad+City+(*)/Girl+From+Rio+4K+(1969/Blue+Un
As
I noted in my Blu-ray coverage of the film, Sumuru ''is
a sadistic terrorist out to kill anyone who stands in the way of her
power or crosses her, including the command of the loyalty of a
female army, any of those women who defect must die and only Frankie
Avalon can stop them! No kidding, he co-stars with George Nader as
the spy out to stop her, Wilfred Hyde-White, Maria Rohm and another
unique turn from Klaus Kinski make this a hoot of an action film in
the spy mode worth seeing just on its own.''
Its
as fun to watch now as it was then or ever was, now part of one of
the best 4K double features you can get and this is an extended
version that makes the film play better, if not stunningly so.
Still, both films belong on the same shelf as all the Bond films, so
definitely check it out, especially if you can in 4K.
Extras
include:
NEW!
Audio Commentary #1 with Film Historians David Del Valle and Dan
Marino
NEW!
Audio Commentary #2 with Film Historians Nathaniel Thompson and Troy
Howarth
NEW!
England's
Unknown Exploitation Film Eccentric: The Schlock-Cinema Legacy of
Lindsay Shonteff:
A new feature-length documentary directed by Naomi Holwill (101
Minutes.)
Theatrical
Trailer
Poster
& Still Gallery
and
NEW! RiffTrax Edition: THE
MILLION EYES OF SUMURU
Riffed by Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett & Kevin Murphy (71
Minutes.).
Benoit
Delhomme's Mothers'
Instinct
(2023) casts two of the best actresses today in a remake of a French
thriller (also based on a French novel) in which neighbors (now set
in a U.S. suburb in 1959) have Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain as
married neighbors with one son each as the next Presidential Election
is taking place and they are both doing well, middle-upper class.
One day, one of their sons dies in an unfortunate accident,
shattering their suburban serenity.
At
first, they all suffer the collective shock, but things start to get
odd with both gals and then the rest of them. Then something else
happens and one starts to question what else is wrong... or about to
go wrong.
The
leads are great here, as expected and though there are a few loose
ends and I did not totally buy the ending, depending on what it
means, it is still a really good film that should have found a much
larger audience and still might thanks to this new Blu-ray release.
There's even an interesting chemistry Hathaway and Chastain achieve
that adds to the tension and back in the day, this would have been a
film the critics would have been able to support and help get to an
audience. We don't have the critics we used to have, sadly. Josh
Charles leads the rest of the solid cast and I definitely recommend
it.
There
are sadly no extras.
And
finally, we have Yukio Noda's Zero
Woman: Red Handcuffs
(1974) in which a police woman (Miki Sugimoto) goes for broke to get
revenge against the powers that be, corrupt as they are, by going
undercover to free a politician's kidnapped daughter. To do this,
she plays a victim too and is also kidnapped, taking in a complex
situation that lands up also being one filled with violence, sexual
violence and more.
A
hit in its time and a classic of its brief-lived 'pinky violence'
cycle, the sex, sexual violence, general violence and excessive blood
will shock even those used to such things or used to watching such
films, but Toei Studios came up with this kind of more graphic film
in the early 1970s and ran with it for a few years before it ran out
of steam. It is still well shot, well cast, well acted and bold for
reasons sometimes more than the makers may have intended, but
especially for a film with a female lead. An attempt to remake and
revive the film happened in the 1990s (reviewed elsewhere on this
site) but it did not work out since the shock of this film had long
passed and the remake was not as fearless.
Zero
Woman: Red Handcuffs
wold easily get an NC-17 today, but here it is uncut for you to see
finally. In some ways it is too much, which is the point, but that
has its limits. Still glad I saw it.
Extras
include:
A
Feature Length Audio Commentary by film historian Samm Deighan
Sex
+ Violence = Pinky Violence:
TokyoScope
author
Patrick Macias on Zero
Woman: Red Handcuffs
Image
Gallery
and
a Reversible Blu-ray wrap with alternate artwork
Now
for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 2.35 X 1, Dolby
Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition
image on Sumuru
4K is
great, sometimes stunning and includes demo shots above my letter
grade, making it absolutely worthy of The
Girl From Rio 4K.
Color is superior and will challenge the best 4K systems out there,
plus it will make Bond fans hope films from the same time period will
look this good when they eventually arrive on 4K disc. Some will
consider this one of the best back catalog 4K releases of the year
and I would not disagree with them. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High
Definition image is not bad and not as sharp, but as good as it will
get for the now-older format and is slightly sharper than the older
Blu-ray by a narrow margin. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 Mono lossless mixes on both formats for
the film sound about as good as the film ever will, though I wished
this had 2.0 Mono.
The
rest of the regular Blu-rays look just as solid, including 1080p 1.85
X 1 digital High Definition image on The
Creature
with fine color, some demo shots and fresh look throughout that
impresses all the time with accurate flesh tones, nice depth of field
and decent detail. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is well-restored and
the best this film will ever sound.
The
1080p digital High Definition image transfer on Longlegs
starts with a color 1.33 X 1 frame and eventually becomes 1.85 X 1
after a brief black & white moment. The older color looks very
naturalistic, but with its rounded corners, suggests someone
projecting 16mm film on a projector, while the rest of the film is
dark like Fincher's Se7en.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix has some fine sound design
and has the best sonics on the list. Hope to see it soon in 4K.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Instinct
has a very impressive reproduction of period color throughout and is
a pleasure to watch all the way through, making wish this were 4K and
keeping me more involved as it went on. Compositions are also
impressive and I liked the depth and detail. The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is really good and
consistent with a consistent soundfield. Which is not bad for a film
that can be quiet and dialogue-based often, as you would expect with
a period thriller. The combination melds well.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Zero
Woman
has some great color, especially where red is concerned, obviously so
important to the film and including the blood that often shows up.
It also has no major issues with its scope framing or the lenses
used, so that also impresses. The
Japanese DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix is
well-restored and also the best this film will ever sound.
-
Nicholas Sheffo
