Beast With Five Fingers (1946*)/Black Eye (1974/*both Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Blue Christmas (2024/VCI Blu-ray**)/2020 Texas Gladiators 4K (1983/Severin 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray + CD)/Underworld Beauty (1958/Radiance Blu-ray/**both MVD)

4K Ultra HD Picture: B+ Picture: B+/B/B-/B-/B Sound: B+/B-/B-/B-/B- Extras: B/D/C+/B-/B- Films: B/B-/C-/C+/B-

PLEASE NOTE: The Beast With Five Fingers and Black Eye Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

Now for more crazy action and suspense, including with some odd offerings in the mix...

The Beast With Five Fingers (1946) gets a new 1080p Blu-ray presentation in this limited release from Warner Archive. Films like Idle Hands and The Evil Dead have taken this concept since and certainly took inspiration from this blueprint making film of the genre.

Set in an isolated Italian villa after the death of a wheelchair bound piano player, his severed hand returns from the grave and strikes back, seeking to kill everyone in the villa in an act of revenge. Of course now, this type of revenge thriller is pretty common, but back when this was made this concept was still being explored. Of course the addition of Peter Lorre, a classic cinematic personality, helps elevate this otherwise typical monster movie.

The film also stars Victor Francen, Robert Alda, and Adrea King.

The Beast With Five Fingers is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a full frame aspect ratio of 1.37:1 and an English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono (48kHz, 24-bit) lossless mix. The black and white presentation looks great on disc here and if you are fan you will definitely want this upgrade if you're a classic monster movie fan. The amount of damage done to the film negative over time is minimal and the presentation is smooth in 1080p resolution.

Special Features include :

Commentary by Author / Film Historian Dr. Steve Haberman and Filmmaker / Film Historian Constantine Nasr

Classic Cartoons The Foxy Duckling and The Gay Anties

and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

The Beast With Five Fingers is a fun Peter Lorre film that's worth revisiting in this new release from Warner Archive.

Jack Arnold's Black Eye (1974) is the great genre journeyman director's rare foray into urban action fiction, with Fred Williamson as private investigator Shep Stone, who lands up getting unintentionally involved in a murder that starts as a series of killings over a silver-handled cain that has something special about it. Shep wants to know why, before he or someone else he knows is the next victim.

Not a Blaxploitation film outright, it has some elements of that cycle, but is also a legitimate mystery tale and we get a few gay stereotypes, a little more than expected. When the film gets away from all that, it has its moments as Arnold proves he still could helm an effective film. Teresa Graves shows up as the sexy neighbor to Stone who might be involved with another woman and more. Rosemary Forsyth, Floy Dean, Belinda Balaski, Richard X. Slattery, Larry D. Mann, Teddy Wilson, Frank Ashmore and Richard Anderson are also really good here, so this is not just another moderately budgeted actioner. It is a fun film that deserves to be rediscovered and to see it restored and looking and sounding so good is a plus. Nice that Warner Archive is being so thorough with all their titles.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Black Eye rarely shows the age of the materials used, but the film was one of the last films in the U.S. issued on 35mm film in dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor prints and though it is an urban thriller, you can see how good the color could be in more than a few places here. It also looks good considering its limited budget. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix has also been restored and the film sounds as good as it ever will.

There are very sadly no extras.

Blue Christmas (2024) is an honest independent film effort that mixes A Christmas Carol with a Film Noir spin from Max Allan Collins, the creator of Road to Perdition, and adds some of its own elements too - including Elvis of course, with the title being named after one of his songs.

The film stars Rob Merritt, Alisabeth Von Presley, and Chris Causey.

In 1942 Chicago, private eye Richard Stone is visited on Christmas Eve by the ghost of his late partner, murdered a year ago. Escorted by three spirits, Stone must visit his past, present and future to find the killer and clear his name. Sounds like a plot that we have maybe seen before?

The film tries to mimic the same type of dialogue that you would see in an old mobster movie. The end result is a more theatrical play type of feature that feels pretty cheesy and overall quite poorly acted especially the lead who is telegraphing his lines a bit too much and comes across as phony. The visual style isn't there and it suffers from a lot of indie film tropes that don't really work. Its effort is honest, but the execution isn't solid.

Blue Christmas is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and PCM 2.0 Stereo. The film is clean looking on disc given its production's limitations. The overall layout of the menu screens are simply an eye sore as is the design of the cover that is a graphic designer's worst nightmare. There was definitely minimal effort in putting this film out on disc as you can tell from the execution here.

Special Features :

Commentary by Writer / Producer and Producer / Editor

Q and A Highlights from Advanced Screenings

and a documentary featuring Max Allan Collins .

All in all, Blue Christmas isn't terrible for being a very low budget film and would have worked better as a theater production than a movie. Knowing how hard it is to make something, the effort was there. The film simply doesn't read as smoothly as it might read on a page and is devoid of style and cinematic traits inherent in the style of film it's trying to be. Had it been done in black and white with high contrast lighting, an edgier lead and maybe a name actor or two, this could have bared a better result. The final film feels like a bunch of indie film friends and local theater actors collaborated and made something for under 50K.

Joe D'Amato's 2020 Texas Gladiators 4K (1983) is actually a post-apocalyptic film about a near-future sci-fi action fiasco in the Lone Star State where a fascist regime is trying to run what is left of the state after so much of it was destroyed in an unspecified catastrophe. This also involves several different groups of fighters battling each other with frequent regularity, and especially in this uncut version of the film, sporting all kinds of nudity, violence and madness.

The problem is that the screenplay is all over the place, the budget is obviously limited, only redeemed by the fact that any phony visual effects are not digital and you can see how hard the makers were trying with limited resources. It also is trying to be Mad Max with a near X (aka NC-17) rating, something several films in the wake of that Australian classic tried and never quite succeeded in pulling off. This is one of the rawest attempts and the unknown cast was and only would still be known by diehard B-movie genre fans of the time. The acting skills may be limited, but cheers to all of them for not being afraid to get their hands dirty.

Since so many bad digital rip-offs of Mad Max have happened in the decades since, the film almost has a kind of charm at times, but in limited amounts. Of course, 2020 has come and gone and only some really bad things have happened akin to the film and its 'predictions' of the future. But who knows, maybe Texas could still get this messed up, but not in the same 1980s style. Worth a look for fans of the genre who want to see a rip-off that had no shame in its exploitative aspects. At least it does not play as a safe, formula rehash of Mad Max.

The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 1.85 X 1, HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on Texas can look pretty good considering how cheap and gritty the film was intended to look and how it looks because of said low budget. Color is not bad and it looks much better than the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on the regular Blu-ray. That tends to be softer and more lacking in color range than expected. The PCM 2.0 Mono tracks included on both disc versions are in English and Italian, both sounding good in this case, especially as some dialogue was Italian, more of it was in English than expected. Try both, but I liked the English a little more this time around.

Extras include the bonus CD soundtrack and a double-sided poster card, while the discs add...

• Shoot Me: The Real Story Of The Italian Texas Gladiators: Archival Interviews With Director Joe D'Amato, Assistant Director Michele Soavi, Screenwriter Luigi Montefiori And Actor Al Cliver

• Gladiator Geretta: Interview With Actress Geretta Geretta

• and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

That leaves us with Seijun Suzuki's Underworld Beauty (1958,) an earlier feature film from the now-celebrated director, with two old thieves reuniting years later to grab a fortune in diamonds they hid years ago after a successful heist. One was permanently injured and crippled during the heist, but they hope to reunite to split the goods and finally close this chapter of their lives. However, their old crime boss head wants to get involved to help them, but he is only really interested in getting every stone they snagged.

Gunmen show up to interrupt their business and the injured partner swallows the loot to make sure they cannot get it, but he dies, so can his old partner and his crazy sister get the diamonds before a bunch of Yakuza creeps do?

Suzuki was finding his footing as an auteur and it starts to show in films like this one, which has some good moments and a few flat ones, but it should be thought of with his best films and helped spawn the Japanese New Wave that would soon follow the French New Wave with Suzuki one of its key artists. The cast includes Michitaro Mizushima, Mari Shiraki and Shinsuke Ashida who are all good here, with a screenplay that gets into (to some extent at least) private spaces, toxic behavior, fetishes and the like. Some may think the title is about a woman or some women, but after watching, it is as much about the seedy locations and this has the visuals to back that up. Definitely worth a good look!

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital black and white High Definition image on Beauty is an anamorphic shoot (likely Kowa lenses) that may have some flaws and limits, but the film looks so good so often that it rides over such issues. The PCM 2.0 Japanese Mono sound is as good as this film will ever sound, so the combination is up there with the Criterion Branded To Kill and Tokyo Drifter, plus Radiance's Tattooed Life, a lesser-known film of his like this one. The 1959 short Love Letter has the same specs as the feature and is in rougher shape, but once again, his use of the scope frame is superior.

Extras include...

• A NEW interview with critic Mizuki Kodama (2024, 15 minutes)

• Bonus feature: Seijun Suzuki's Love Letter (1959, 40 minutes)

• Audio commentary on Love Letter by Suzuki biographer William Carroll (2024)

• Trailers

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

• and for now, a Limited Edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Claudia Siefen-Leitich and an archival review of the film.

To order The Beast With Five Fingers and/or Black Eye Warner Archive Blu-rays, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20

- Nicholas Sheffo (4K, Eye, Beauty) and James Lockhart

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/