FRIGHTMARE (1974) - Kino Lorber

Frightmare
Kino Lorber / Kino Cult

Original Release Date November 6th, 1974 (UK)
Written by David McGillivray, based on a story by Pete Walker
Directed by Pete Walker
Starring Paul Greenwood, Kim Butcher, Deborah Fairfax, Sheila Keith, Rupert Davies
Language English

Purchase your copy HERE from Kino Lorber

by "Doc" Hunter Bush,
MovieJawn Staff Writer & Podcast Director, cohost of the Hate Watch/Great Watch Podcast

The Movie: Average

Frightmare (1974) opens in black and white, in 1957, with a prologue set in a British carnival that's shuttered for the winter and ends with an unseen couple being sentenced to a very long stint in a mental institution. It promptly jumps forward nearly twenty years where we're introduced to some young miscreants causing trouble in a local pub. After being denied alcohol by the barman, Debbie (Kim Butcher) blows the interaction out of proportion to her boyfriend and after being ejected from the establishment, they wait for the barman to leave, then jump him. The coppers are called and when the dust settles, they're all in the wind and the injured barman can't be found.

We're also introduced to young psychiatrist Graham (Paul Greenwood) at a dinner party where he's been set-up to meet the lovely Jackie (Deborah Fairfax). It's when Jackie returns home that night when we realize that Jackie is Debbie's older sister and caretaker. Some track is laid about how their parents are dead and Debbie was raised in a convent until Jackie was old enough to take care of her. It is at this point that I started to suspect I knew where Frightmare was headed.

This is the film's biggest hurdle. Before much of the run time has passed, any savvy filmgoer or horror hound is going to start getting excited for what's coming. Especially when we find out that Jackie is making clandestine late-night trips to a lonely farmhouse outside the city with packages of meats for her very much alive father Edmund (Rupert Davies) and equally not dead stepmother Dorothy (the great Sheila Keith) whom, tying back into the film's cold open, were the couple once sentenced to that mental institution for (drum roll, please) cannibalism!

By the time the film has dropped the cannibalism hammer on the audience, you're practically salivating to see where this goes. But anyone expecting something akin to the pacing of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (another cannibal film released in 1974) will be disappointed. The bulk of Frightmare is spent with various characters getting caught up to what the audience has known for an increasingly long time. It's a frustrating viewing experience, though there are thrills and chills along the way.

Frightmare plays with what would become the slasher formula codified over the next decade: unlikeable youths, and the occasional innocent, meeting violent ends. Though they avoid gore, there's an absolutely dynamite pitchfork kill that feels incredibly brutal thanks entirely to the editing (by Robert C. Dearberg, who also edited one of my favorite movies, 1972's Horror Express!). There's also a lot of incidental fun to be had with the stiff-upper-lip British accents, as when someone explains to Graham about Dorothy's past: "She et people."

The Packaging: Good

This is a pretty standard Blu-ray case, but it does come with a cardboard slipcover. Both the slip and regular cover feature an updated version of the most prevalent Frightmare poster: a wild-eyed Dorothy pointing a bloody drill directly at the viewer! It's a striking image, and this version, with all the negative space left empty (where the original poster had review quotes) makes it actually more eye-catching.

It's currently VHSeptember, a time of year when all of us who maintain VHS collections of any sort get to show them off on various social media. Frightmare, and other assorted titles in Kino Lorber’s Kino Cult label, with their slip covers recreating the pulse-raising poster imagery, really comes very close to the aesthetic appeal of a shelf full of scandalous VHS covers looking back at you.

The Audio + Video: Good

Frightmare looks great throughout. Director Pete Walker isn't showy, but the guy sure knows how to handle a scene. Frightmare is, at times, filled with deep shadow, but everything important is always very clear and easy to follow. There are some very striking visual compositions, and it's all supported by the transfer. There is film grain present, as there should be, but even in lower light scenes and sequences, I never really noticed it much. Even in the higher contrast opening flashback sequence (in black and white), the blacks were crisp and deep without feeling flat and, aside from obvious artifacts from originally being on film from fifty years ago (meaning the occasional small scratch or mark) it looks fresh.

The audio I similarly had no issues with. There's a certain kind of compression that exists in older films' audio, where it frankly just sounds like an older film. That is, of course, present here, but there is no muffling or distortion; all the dialogue, sound effects, and score come in nice and clear. Composer Stanley Myers, who also worked with director Pete Walker on Schizo (1976) and House of Whipcord (1974), and would go on to score such films as The Deer Hunter (1978) and The Witches (1990), crafts a score for Frightmare that evokes a seasick feeling of dread throughout.

Special Features: Average

I always value bonus content that provides me with context, and I would have liked to see a little bit more of that here. For example, director Pete Walker is a bit of a cult figure with whom I am only vaguely familiar. I know that he began his career in so-called sexploitation films, before transitioning to horror and has a pretty positive reputation among genre film fans. One of the commentary tracks features Steve Chibnall, author of the book Making Mischief: The Cult Films of Pete Walker, and while the commentary track is full of interesting tidbits about Walker, most of them center around Frightmare. I'd have loved a little bit of a career overview from Chibnall to give me a better idea of who Walker is.

Beyond that admittedly minor quibble, I found the rest of the features to be very informative and overall really pleasant. Everyone seems to have had a blast making this film which, for the era, was seen as quite vulgar.

• Commentary by Stephen R. Bissette
• Commentary by Pete Walker, director of photography Peter Jessop, and Steve Chibnall
• For the Sake of Cannibalism (11:56)
• Sheila Keith: A Nice Old Lady? (13:53)
• Interview with editor Robert C. Dearborn (8:02)
• Interview with actor Paul Greenwood (8:57)
• Theatrical Trailer (1:16)

In Summary: Buy it on sale

I wouldn't say Frightmare is a must-see film. It's good, don't get me wrong, but the issue of getting so far ahead of the plot so early means you spend a lot of the runtime mostly waiting for things to coalesce. Occasionally you are pleasantly distracted by small moments; some character interactions, or interesting shots, or the kills. But by and large the pacing is a little pokey.

The highlight for me was Sheila Keith's performance as Dorothy. She seems genuinely unhinged (to the point that it calls into question how anyone thought she was fit to return to polite society) and, according to numerous comments across the various bonus features, as well as the one dedicated to her specifically, called A Nice Old Lady?, she was someone who was the exact opposite and really enjoyed playing such a w-i-l-d character. The film might be worth seeing for her performance alone.

TROY (2004) - Arrow Video

Troy
Disc Releasing Company

Original Release Date May 14th, 2004
Written by David Benioff, based on The Iliad by Homer
Directed by Wolfgang Petersen
Starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson
Language English

Purchase your copy HERE from Arrow

by "Doc" Hunter Bush,
MovieJawn Staff Writer & Podcast Director, cohost of the Hate Watch/Great Watch Podcast

The Movie: Good

Before there was The Odyssey, there was Troy. No, seriously. This is true on multiple metrics; not only was Troy (screenplay by Game of Thrones co-creator David Benioff) released to theaters over twenty years earlier than Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, but it's based on The Iliad by Homer, which follows Achilles (played here by Brad Pitt) and thousands of other Greeks as they arrive on the beaches of the city of Troy and wage the Trojan War. The Odyssey, meanwhile, is the story of Odysseus as he and many others attempt to return home from the war.

As a film, Troy is incredibly solid. I watched approximately six hours of Troy across two successive days (the 2 hour & 43 minute Theatrical Cut one day and the 3 hour & 15 minute Director's Cut the other) and I was actually never bored. And that's not including the bonus features! The story moves well, manages to balance a great number of characters and their interests, all while holding MY interest. It doesn't hurt that the thing looks fantastic.

Director Wolfgang Petersen had previously passed on making Gladiator (2000), but upon seeing the popularity, critical acclaim, and awards that production had accrued, longed to make his own sword & sandals epic and then just a few years later, here comes Troy. Peterson (and crew) really deliver on the epic scale of what is, really, a very personal story. When all's said and done, the Trojan War happened because one of the princes of Troy, Paris (Orlando Bloom) is beefing with Greek king Menelaus (Brendan Gleeson) over a girl, Menelaus' deeply unhappy and unsatisfied wife, Helen (Diane Kruger). So Menelaus gets his brother and fellow king Agamemnon (Brian Cox) to rally a thousand ships' worth of Greek soldiers to make it everybody's problem.

Almost everyone in the cast is great, as well. Cox and Gleeson, of course, but also Bloom who I am not usually very hype about, Eric Bana as Paris' brother Hector, Peter O'Toole as their father Priam, and Sean Bean as the aforementioned Odysseus! The only person who I wasn't at all vibing with here, weirdly, is Brad Pitt; an actor I usually enjoy. He just feels very flat to me throughout. Diane Kruger (in her breakout role!) is a little underserved, considering she is essentially the inciting incident, but otherwise I found the writing to effectively be doings its job.

Troy is really well-made, and entertaining, even across multiple viewings, but having now mainlined roughly a full 8-hour work-day's worth of it, I can't imagine having much of a desire to watch it any time soon. But should that desire ever rear it's head, the Arrow release has got my back!

The Audio + Video: Excellent

I legitimately loved the look of Troy. It's a very warm-toned film, visually, with all the beaches, the deep armor and bronzed skin of the numerous warriors, but the sky is always a beautiful azure blue, the greenery within the city of Troy is always vibrant and verdant, and overall the color balance is just excellent. A few scenes are a bit on the dimly lit side of things for me, but it never ends up in Too Dark To See territory. I never once thought about or noticed any real film grain issues, and as I frequently say: it's only an issue if it's distracting.

Similarly, I found the music to be well-balanced, even when I wasn't enjoying it. There is a lot of thematically-appropriate sounding instrumentation in both scores for Troy (more on that in a second) but for my money, James Horner's score (which accompanies the Theatrical Cut) sounds too "American Action Movie" to me. On the other hand, original composer Gabriel Yared's score (included with the Director's Cut) has an appropriately eclectic sound, with movements that evoked a more "Greek Epic" feel, for me. Regardless which one you prefer, the audio package treats them both very well. I will mention that some other music cues (including one from Gladiator, if I remember correctly) are used to fill out the Director's Cut, which caught me off guard from time to time.

Special Features: Excellent

There are a LOT of bonus features, mostly archival, which I mention only so that you are prepared for the gloriously early-2000s computer generated menu animations and transitions included in some of them. So obviously, if you're a Troy completist and already own whatever previous release(s) these originated from, you won't be getting much new content, but if this is your first go-round with owning the flick, you're gonna have a lot of stuff to sort through. There's about an hour and a half, all told, and that's not including the picture-in-picture commentary "In Movie Experience", which, in the interest of transparency, I will say that I haven't checked out yet.

My favorite aspect of Troy are the battle sequences. They're enormous! Watching them, I was genuinely curious as to how much of the armies onscreen could possibly have been real and how much was digital crowd expansion (a tactic that had been around for some time, but had really reached new heights with Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in 2002). Luckily, the bonus features disc is quite expansive on the topics of both the effects AND the battle scenes. It's obviously a mixture of both, but the process shown in the various featurettes is actually really interesting.

• In Movie Experience
• Troy in Focus (13 discrete features) (23:09)
• In the Thick of Battle (17:14)
• From Ruins to Reality (14:03)
• Troy: An Effects Odyssey (10:55)
• Attacking Troy (15:12)
• Gallery of the Gods (12 discrete bios of Greek gods) (10:50)
• Theatrical Trailer (2:08)
• Image Galleries

In Summary: Buy it on sale

Are you a Greek history / myth super fan? Or a scholar of historical warfare? If so, I would honestly recommend Troy pretty strongly. As a borderline fantasy epic (the film tones down the presence of the gods, and attempts to make Achilles' nigh-invulnerability feel more realistic) Troy succeeds, and is chockablock with great small moments and performances, but Brad Pitt feels weirdly unengaged and that makes it hard for me to care about the main character.

The film also does a really cheap bait-and-switch involving Garrett Hedlund as Achilles' "cousin" Patrroclus, which I haven't mentioned because it's a pretty big spoiler (yes, for a film that's over twenty years old, and based on a book that is thousands of years old), but I just do not enjoy being so obviously hoodwinked. This is a relatively minor complaint however, obviously. If you are considering a blind buy, I would still recommend checking it out overall. 

SHANGHAI BLUES (1984) - Film Movement Classics

Shanghai Blues
Film Movement Classics

Original Release Date Oct. 11th, 1984 (Hong Kong)
Written by Koon-Chung Chan, Cheuk-Hon Szeto, Raymond To
Directed by Hark Tsui
Starring Sylvia Chang, Kenny Bee, Sally Yeh, Ching Tien, Man Huang
Language Cantonese (English subtitles available)

Purchase your copy HERE from Vinegar Syndrome

by "Doc" Hunter Bush
MovieJawn Staff Writer & Podcast Director, cohost of the Hate Watch/Great Watch Podcast

Overview:

Shanghai Blues comes to 4K Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome partner label Film Movement's Classics line. Directed by cinema legend Hark Tsui, who has made films in many genres, Shanghai Blues is a love letter to screwball comedies. Film Movement Classics' release of Shanghai Blues boasts a very impressive video transfer and audio package with an excellent audio commentary track to back up the bonus features.

The Movie Itself: 4 stars

Shanghai Blues is an impressive work from a filmmaker with a very diverse array of skills and interests. With nods to films like Bringing Up Baby (1938) and the works of Preston Sturges, Shanghai Blues is Hark Tsui exploring his screwball comedy interests. Inspired by the stories told on a vacation with friends, Tsui wasn't even sure if he wanted to return to directing (he considered becoming a novelist) but the studio strong-armed him: if he wanted to see Shanghai Blues get made, he'd have to be the one to make it.

As a film, and an example of this type of comedy, Shanghai Blues fires on all cylinders. There's slapstick physical comedy, mistaken identities, big characters, lavish locations, plenty of action, a lingering love story, and even some danger thrown in for good measure, but it still manages to maintain a light-on-its-feet feeling throughout. 

Kenny Bee stars as Tung Kwok-Man (also called Do-Re-Mi), who quits being a clown to enlist in the war effort. When the city is bombed and the power goes out, he takes shelter under a nearby bridge along with a young woman named Shu-shu (Sylvia Chang). It's a real war-time meet-cute, as the two fall in love and promise to meet under the same bridge when the war is over. Ten years later, when Tung returns, life has set Shu-shu on a different path. She's now a dancer at a club where she meets Stool (Sally Yeh), a young, ditzier girl who swiftly moves in with Shu-shu. Little do they know that Tung, whom they refer to as Do-Re-Mi, is the handsome gentleman living in the apartment above them. The movie asks us to believe that it was too dark on that night, ten years ago, for either of them to have a clear recollection of what the other looked like.

As far as ridiculous set-ups go, this premise checks all the boxes, but there's also tuba-related physical comedy, a dance number where the dancer onstage doesn't realize her dress has a hold burned in the backside of it, and at one point, Stool wins a contest to become the Calendar Queen of a local department store. She attends a big, fancy mixer where she meets many other such Queens: a Toilet Paper Queen, a Biscuit Queen, a Toothpick Queen, an Insecticide Queen, and more. This leads to the one thing in Shanghai Blues that deserves a bit of a heads-up:

In a lot of screwball comedies, there is a mistaken identity component at some point, in some form and the mistaken romance is a reasonably common one; maybe the wealthy dowager accepts the romantic advances of our lovable loser lead because she thinks he's someone else, etc. Well, in Shanghai Blues, this trope is a little more objectionable. One of the wealthy sponsors of the various Queens intends to roofie Stool and sleep with her, only for her to inadvertently swap drinks with a hoity-toity socialite and fellow sponsor, Madame Yu (Man Huang). So the lecherous sponsor wakes up the next morning expecting to find Stool in bed with him, only to realize he'd "spent the night" with a different, older, lady. It's an uncomfortable moment in a film that's otherwise very sweet and light, but it's done with the tone that it's just another slapstick misunderstanding.

If that's a hard pass for you, I totally understand and I'm glad I took the time to bring it up. It really caught me off guard and cast an unpleasant pall on my first viewing. If you can acknowledge that it's messed up, and still try to approach it in the spirit that it was offered, i.e. with no ill will or ill intent, then Shanghai Blues has a lot of other, better qualities and moments to counter it.

The Packaging: 3.5 stars

This comes in your standard sturdy, black 4K case with a lovely painted cover illustration from Sean Longmore, showcasing a collage of characters and moments from the film. It really highlights how much of the film's settings and costumes are intricate and filled with details, from the clubs and the dancers' outfits to the less extravagant apartments and their neon-lit rooftop. There's also an included booklet with an essay from John Charles, author of The Hong Kong Filmography 1977-1997, that examines Hark Tsui's career at the time of making Shanghai Blues and the film's lasting place in HK cinema.

The Video: 4 stars

As mentioned above, the film is a smorgasbord of fine details, from the fabric patterns and embellishments on clothing to the colors and textures of the locations. The meticulously constructed world all around the characters is a visual treat and this transfer treats all of that detail very well. Film grain, when it’s appropriately calibrated, is almost unnoticeable; it becomes a facet of the film you're watching, a texture present in everything. I personally enjoy its presence (I do not know if this is even a remotely hot take). To that end, there are only a few, short moments where I noticed the grain at all, and they were each over quickly.

The world here is full of heightened colors and dramatic light, at times feeling akin to Burton's Batman (1989) or Beatty's Dick Tracy (1990), though not quite as heightened. There is frequently a slight peach tint that I've encountered in other Hong Kong films from time to time, that gives everything this very pleasant feeling, like an old photograph taken on a bright summer day. There are occasional shots where the focus is a little soft, but nothing beyond what you'd see in a Barbara Walters interview special back in the day. It's enough to notice, but wasn't enough to bother me.

The Audio: 4 stars

Music plays a large part in Shanghai Blues, both textually and subtextually, so the sound mix is very important here. I never noticed any real issues with my three-channel soundbar. The dialogue and sound effects of the main characters are a little loud in the mix from time to time, but it's really only noticeable in some of the more chaotic scenes; ones set in busy shopping districts, or at the fancy gala. In those cases, I noticed it, but it makes the important dialogue very easy to pick out, which is great.

My favorite aspect of the audio mix is that, when Kwok, and/or Shu-shu and Stool are in their apartments, you can always hear music playing softly. It comes across as though someone in a neighboring building is playing a radio at a reasonable volume, and adds to the immersion and reality of these locations, even as we're seeing zany physical comedy like a rat bouncing from person to person across apartments, with everyone freaking out about it.

The Supplements: 3.5 stars

This is a quality over quantity situation. There aren't a LOT of bonus materials, only two interviews adding up to about 45 minutes total, but they're actually very informative. What I look for in special features is anything that adds context for me, and the proverbial horse's mouth is a pretty great source. Hark Tsui talks extensively about his inspirations and impetus for creating Shanghai Blues, and assistant director O Sing-Pui offers even more information about the production itself. I also found the commentary track with Hong Kong cinema expert Frank Djeng incredibly useful as this was where the connections between the mistaken identity roofie scene and the larger history of screwball comedies were highlighted for me. It didn't make me like the scene, but now I understood where it was coming from, which helps.

This is all in addition to the aforementioned booklet and essay. That essay, and the two included interviews really helped me make the connection between Shanghai Blues and Tsui's later film Peking Opera Blues. Side note: yes, I know it was only released two years later AND it contains the "Blues" qualifier in the title, but my brain did not immediately connect those two dots. I'd only seen Peking Opera Blues for the first time a few years ago, but I absolutely l-o-v-e-d it! Once the correlation was pointed out to me, I realized how much connective tissue the two share, with Peking Opera Blues simply adding more operatic martial arts.

• Interview w/ Hark Tsui (26:01) (HD)
• Interview w/ O Sing-Pui (19:12) (HD)
• Restoration Trailer (1:45) (HD)

Final Thoughts: Recommended

While I overall really enjoyed Shanghai Blues, I will acknowledge that it's more of an acquired taste. The screwball comedy subgenre isn't as ubiquitous as it once was, and since that aspect, along with the love story, is the most central theme and tone of the film, it might not fully appeal to the widest audience. If, however, you are a fan of these comedies, or you're looking for a new bit of pure production eye-candy, I can't recommend Shanghai Blues strongly enough. It's just the right amount of silly and sweet (that one sequence aside, of course) that it's genuinely delightful to watch. And if you do watch, and enjoy it, I'll also recommend you check out Peking Opera Blues.

PHILADELPHIA UNNAMED FILM FESTIVAL 2026 - Wrap Up

PHILADELPHIA UNNAMED FILM FESTIVAL 2026
The eleventh PUFF comes to a close

by "Doc" Hunter Bush,
MovieJawn Staff Writer & Podcast Director, cohost of the Hate Watch/Great Watch Podcast

Summer camp is over; the eleventh installment of The Philadelphia Unnamed Film Festival has come and gone. This year's fest featured the debut of Camp Puff, a viewing party hosted by Philly filmmaker Jack Stallion that embraced both meanings of the word "camp" by screening Cramps! A Period Piece (a nü-camp feminist classic), and Friday the 69th (a crowd-pleasing summer camp slasher parody)!

This year, the fest and the crowds were treated to lots of eyeball trauma (within the films, not the films themselves, which were by and large quite good), more than one gag about pornographic climax countdowns, and a lot of criticisms of influencer culture. Also, complaints from a grumpy neighbor IRL, but hey, everybody has a bad day sometimes.

Below I've rounded up some of my favorite flicks, both big and small. Speaking of, this year the shorts reigned supreme for me. While I saw a bunch of great features, PUFF's short film curation is incredibly strong and very diverse (shoutout to Maria!) I always recommend attending PUFF, but especially if you're a short film appreciator. 

So let's start with the shorts. Some of the shorts this year were tremendously funny. CHÄIR (dir. Chris McInroy) about a demonic IKEA-style chair, is a simple concept, but the pacing and editing elevates it to legitimate laugh-out-loud material. A Bigfoot Christmas (dir. Kelly O'Connor) is a stop motion animated short done in the style of a Hallmark Channel film that uses our familiarity with the clichés specific to that genre to advertise a sadly, nonexistent film that would probably clean up for real around the holidays. Bike Short (dir. Kevin McDevitt) is a very silly story, based on true events, about a disagreement between two cyclists over a pair of the titular shorts. A Dish Best Served Hot (dir. Josh Kay) about a "cool boss" whose wife only allows him to eat one hotdog a year, is tremendously funny, and odd in all the right places. So much so that you can never be sure you know what will happen next. Personally, I laughed hardest at Really Good Deal (dir. Jon Plester), about the lengths folks, especially musicians, will go to for a cheap second-market purchase.

But shorts, like full-length features, can be many things, sometimes at once. I Think Something Followed Me Out (dir. Catherine Rieg) is haunting, but not frightening; an art piece utilizing video collage and poetry to capture the melancholy feeling of wandering through an abandoned mall. Pan & Stove (dir. Scott Kane) acknowledges the limitations of its amateur computer animation origins, and leans into them with a short, sweet, funny tale of the dangers of love. Or maybe it's about Capitalism. Sunspark (dir. Danny Bourque) is a much more polished computer animated story about robots and love, but is really more about what someone is willing to sacrifice for another person, and how we all have unique traits that we can use to help those we love. HVAC (dir. Jackson McKeehan), about a father and son repairing the air conditioning in a theater the night of a big performance, strikes a really fine balance between unsettling and deeply sad. Lady Puritan (dirs. Gustine Füdickar & Justin Streichman) tells an impressionistic story of the conflicts inside of us utilizing gorgeous and arresting visuals. See You on the Beach (dir. Christopher S. Bickel) is a proof-of-concept for Bickel's upcoming feature, about a film fanatic obsessed with finding the star of the film he's making. Bickel's last film, Pater Noster and the Mission of Light is a pretty gonzo experience and, if this short is anything to go off of, what he's got planned will be just as entertaining. But, perhaps my favorite, was In the Palm of Her Hand (dirs. Greta Guthrie & Jake Lazarow) which starts off silly and spooky, but in just 7 minutes manages to strike a poignant note about what it means to be included.

Now let's talk about the features.

EDIE ARNOLD IS A LOSER
Directed by Megan Rico & Kade Atwood
Written by Megan Rico

Edie Arnold is a Loser is a tremendous flick. Funny, touching, creative, and light on its feet, it follows Adi Madden Cabrera as the title character, a Catholic schoolgirl and outcast who, at the urging of her best friend Frances (McKenna Tuckett) forms a punk band. Not for fame, not for glory, but mostly to impress a nice punk boy, and also because it's something to do. Complications arise involving a dreamy altar boy, the school's clutch of mean girls, the instruments they've borrowed from school, and the very strict Sister Myra (Star Herrmann), but the girls will not be deterred: they're gonna open for The Sex Pistols. Yes, in 2026. Apparently, Edie Arnold is a Loser is the first film in PUFF's 11-year history that was unanimously voted for inclusion in the fest: every one who saw it loved it, and thought it should be included in this year's lineup. And I get it. This coming-of-age, punk rock, Catholic schoolgirl comedy is one of the best films I've seen all year. 

ASSETS AND LIABILITIES
Directed by Zach Weintraub
Written by Zach Weintraub

On the eve of selling his childhood home and evicting the tenants that live there, family man Zach (writer / director Zach Weintraub) is unsettled by the realization that he is no longer young, cool, and carefree. Finding himself with a family-free day, Zach decides to treat himself: masturbation, day-drinking, at-home-karaoke, and drug use ensue, as well as a trip to the skatepark he haunted in his youth. There, Zach finds that he can still relate to the youths, and even makes a friend (Arsenio Salvante) before finding out that this new friend is actually a tenant in the house Zach intends to sell and will soon be evicted. Too high to object, Zach takes part in a black magic ritual to curse himself and, once back at home, he finds out just how far he'll have to go to set things right. Assets and Liabilities manages to find a balance between some really diverse styles of humor (props, sight gags, physical and gross-out gags) while making a satirical statement about the follies of chasing a youth you'll never recover.

CRAMPS! A PERIOD PIECE
Directed by Brooke H. Cellars
Written by Brooke H. Cellars

Writer / director Brooke H. Cellars has created something really special and unique here. Cramps! A Period Piece gets compared to the work of John Waters a lot, which is warranted, but imagine Waters's love of camp and shocking tendencies combined with Anna Biller (writer / director of The Love Witch)'s manicured aesthetics and b-movie horror throwback tone and you're much closer. I loved the world created here. Sheltered Agnes Applewhite (Lauren Kitchen) pulling away from her judgmental family by taking a new job at a salon staffed by free-spirits, just wanting to meet a nice boy and feel at home in her body, all the while being terrorized by that very same body. I'm in love with cupcake pink Satanist Teddy Teaberry (Wicken Taylor), but all the performances are across-the-board fantastic. The dialogue is fun and quippy, the characters are arch, and it all just works, and looks great doing it.

Honorable mention must be made to two films: First is The Killing Cell (dirs. James Bessey & Karsen Schovajsa), a found footage film that makes hugely ambitious choices for a low-budget, urban exploration style flick and sticks the landing really well, anchored by really solid lead performances. I know found footage is not everyone's jam, and I totally understand, but I've never (*knocks wood*) had a bad experience with a found footage film shown at PUFF (shoutout to Madeline!) The other film is The Barn Part III (dir. Justin M. Seaman). The Barn films, which I've only recently watched to prepare for this third installment, are tonally like if a Spirit Halloween exploded (complimentary). The thing that sets them apart from the tons of other, similar-enough low budget films, is that everything is done in-house by writer / director Justin M. Seaman and his crew, just over yonder near Pittsburgh PA. And, not for nothing, the effects work is pretty damned good. I love the dedication to the DIY spirit, especially when it's this grand in its ambitions.

That's it for this year's PUFF coverage, and as always I look forward to next year. I hope I'll see you there and I hope you'll check out any or all of the above films at your earliest convenience. Speaking of, the filmmakers behind Edie Arnold is a Loser intend to tour the film down the east coast and should be passing through Philly sometime in October, so keep your eyes peeled for that one.

Until next time, Long Live the Movies!

DEATH WISH Collection - Kino Lorber

Death Wish Collection
Kino Lorber

Directed by Michael Winner (1-3), J. Lee Thompson (4), Allan A. Goldstein (5)
Starring Charles Bronson, Jeff Goldblum, Laurence Fishburne, Alex Winter, Danny Trejo, Michael Parks
Language English

Purchase your copy HERE from Kino Lorber

by "Doc" Hunter Bush
MovieJawn Staff Writer & Podcast Director, cohost of the Hate Watch/Great Watch Podcast

The Collection: Excellent

Released over the course of 20 years, the five Death Wish films follow Paul Kersey (Charles Bronson) and his many doomed loved ones and friends. Beginning in New York with 1974's Death Wish, Kersey's wife and daughter are attacked during a robbery, leaving his wife dead and daughter catatonic. Paul spirals into paranoia and violence, becoming known in the papers as “The Vigilante”. This is the most introspective film, and seems to actually be trying to address the corrupting effect of violence on a person's humanity. At the film's end, Paul has nearly died and is forced to leave town, and has lost a lot of his humanity, but importantly, not his job as an architect (which is perhaps the ultimate "movie job").

As a franchise, it's pretty inconsistent overall. The sequels can't even decide whether they're using Arabic or Roman numerals (I will exclusively be using Arabic numerals for clarity). Their settings bounce back and forth from New York to L.A. with very little explanation, aside from Paul's company having branches in a number of cities, and find Paul regularly romancing a beautiful blonde woman and sometimes taking on the responsibilities of a surrogate dad. These folks almost always meet a horrible fate, which is almost always the inciting incident that brings the Vigilante back and allows him an excuse to go on another vengeance rampage. 

There are exceptions to these truisms. Death Wish 5: The Face of Death's love interest is the lovely brunette Lesley-Anne Down, playing a former model and head of a high-fashion empire. Death Wish 2's Geri (played by Jill Ireland, Bronson's real-life partner) manages to escape Paul's romantic orbit with her life, merely realizing that her dude is a maniac and leaving him. In Death Wish 3, the inciting incident is actually Paul arriving at an old Army buddy's apartment to find he has just been murdered by a local gang. Don't worry though, they all meet much the same fate as anyone who crosses Kersey's path while he's in one of these increasingly frequent blood fugues.

The Death Wish films have a very strange relationship to violence. Star Charles Bronson seemed largely to be against the graphic depictions of it in these films, and often clashed with Michael Winner who directed the first three. Winner apparently had a habit of writing in changes to the script to include more instances of violence with an eye on making that violence more brutal. In the first film, there is a sexual assault that is depicted with restraint and discretion towards the audience. The second film however, seems to revel in another such assault, the scene going on for minutes. But at the very least, each of these incidents serves a narrative purpose (as thin a justification as that is) by motivating Kersey's vengeance. In Death Wish 3, there is yet another assault that, while shot with greater discretion than the sequence in Death Wish 2, doesn't even serve any narrative purpose. It takes the franchise's depiction of violence from being merely brutal into actively being cruel.

It's a sour note in a film that should otherwise have been a big, dumb, 1980's action movie power fantasy. The finale of Death Wish 3 is an elaborate shootout between Kersey and other tenants of the besieged apartment block against the local gang, and both sides are armed with military grade weapons! The movie has a Chekov's rocket launcher, for Pete's sake! It should be a big violent fantasy but is ultimately tainted in my eyes by the unnecessary cruelty.

I'm pointing all of this out in case, like I was, you aren't fully familiar with the franchise as a whole, so much as with its cultural footprint. The Death Wish films veer wildly across lines of taste and logic with Kersey at times showing regret and being depicted as a human being, while at other times seeming like a serial killer akin to Michael Myers (but with guns, rocket launchers, and at one point an exploding, radio controlled soccer ball!) It's a mixed bag but there is genuine fun of the "big, dumb" variety to be had at points.

The Packaging: Excellent

When taken as a whole, as one object, the collection is modest, but perfect: the cover is a very unsubtle illustration of Charles Bronson's catcher's mitt face (complimentary) and a hand gun against a stark white background with bold black text reading 'BRONSON' and bold red text reading 'DEATH WISH', and then smaller text blocks listing the titles. It's blunt and direct and no nonsense which fits the vibe of the franchise overall (even if the individual films waver a bit from this pseudo mission statement).

Inside the sleeve are two of the sturdier Blu-ray cases and that's where things get just a little odd. One case holds the Michael Winner Death Wish installments and the cover for that one looks like the kind of bootleg you'd buy off of a blanket on the street in Kersey’s New York: three cropped images of Bronson from the posters, next to the appropriate logo. I don't mind this, like at all, but it strikes me as odd. The other case contains the latter two films, but as far as I can tell just features the artwork for Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, and aside from including both logos, makes no allusion to the final film. That's especially odd, and weirdly discordant in style from the other included disc, but not so much that I would knock this release for it. It just struck me as an odd choice(s).

Both cases feature slim booklets with essays about the appropriate films from film historian Paul Talbot, author of the Bronson’s Loose! series of books, one of which is dedicated exclusively to the Death Wish films. He also provides a commentary track for each film, so if the essays are anything to go by, those should be well researched and highly informative (but in the interest of full transparency, I haven't gotten to any of them yet).

The Audio + Video: Good

This is a situation where the less you notice the transfer the better it inherently is. The only times I actively thought about it was when something was off. There are a few bumps in the road but honestly not many for a five film franchise. Death Wish 2 for instance, has a few moments with a distracting amount of film grain. They are all extremely short, and all when Paul goes to various safe houses to either pick up guns or make a fake I.D. I'm guessing these sections of the original film must have been damaged, since other similarly low-light sequences look great. Beyond those, I never had issues with the look of the films at all.

Sonically, I again largely had no problems. The one huge exception was Death Wish 4: The Crackdown which just has an awful balance. The dialogue varies in base volume from scene to scene, and all the action is dialed up WAY louder, meaning I spent my entire viewing riding the volume button on my remote, and constantly being pulled out of the film because I'm too busy not hearing the first sentence of a conversation, then anticipating that the next story movement might get painfully loud again. Beyond that, I never thought about the mix at all. In some of the other installments, there is some obvious disparity occasionally between bits of dialogue that had obviously been recorded later and weren't perfectly replicating the sound of the scene they had been placed in, but nothing egregious.

Personally, I never mind film grain until it becomes a distraction, by which I mean it looks like the drugs just kicked in and you can see every atom dancing. Similarly, I'm not bothered by older audio not being crystal clear. The audio for the original Death Wish was recorded a half century ago; a little fuzziness or barely audible hiss is to be expected. These things, while maybe not ideal, are certainly understandable and make the film feel more real and human. So-called “perfection” is boring.

Special Features: Good

There aren't really very many special features aside from commentary tracks (seven of them spread across five films) and trailers for other Bronson films (a whopping sixteen films, with a few duplicate titles on multiple discs), but what's here is enjoyable. There are interviews with supporting actors John Herzfeld (a subway mugger in Death Wish) and Kirk Taylor (The Giggler in Death Wish 3), both theatrical and unrated cuts for Death Wish 2, and the alternate ending for Death Wish 3 with optional commentary.

Would I have liked more features talking about the evolution of the franchise, from installment to installment? Sure, but I'm guessing the aforementioned commentary tracks from Paul Talbot will be able to scratch that intellectual itch for me, when I finally dive into them.

• Commentaries on all five Death Wish films from Paul Talbot
• Commentary on Death Wish 2 with film historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson
• Commentary on Death Wish 3 with film historians Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson
• Interview with actor John Hertzfeld (18:24)
• Interview with actor Kirk Taylor (8:27)
• Death Wish radio spots (1:31)
• Death Wish TV spot (1:04)
• Death Wish 3 alternate ending (11:01)
• Trailers:
• Death Wish (1974) (2:21)
• Death Wish 2 (1982) (1:55)
• Death Wish 3 (1985) (1:41)
• Death Wish 4: The Crackdown (1987) (1:35)
• Death Wish 5: The Face of Death (1994) (1:01)
• Violent City (1970) (3:54)
• Cold Sweat (1970) (2:36)
• Chato's Land (1972) (2:10)
• The Valachi Papers (1972) (3:24)
• Mr. Majestyk (1974) (1:34)
• Breakout (1975) (1:34)
• Breakheart Pass (1975) (3:07)
• The White Buffalo (1977) (1:52)
• Caboblanco (1980) (2:50)
• Murphy's Law (1986) (1:31)
• Assassination (1987) (1:58)

In Summary: Buy it on sale

I'm rating the collection as a whole very highly because Kino has done a very thorough job with it, but obviously each individual film's content and quality varies, as mentioned above. If you're a Death Wish fan or Charles Bronson completist looking to acquire nice transfers of the franchise in one handsome package, this is your chance. If you've seen one or two and are curious about the rest, I'd still recommend it, but it really depends on how flexible your enjoyment-o-meter is.

I think the first film is the best one as a film, even if I feel like it misses its own point in the end. Death Wish 2 is the worst overall, with very little showcasing Paul Kersey as anything resembling a human being. Death Wish 3 is fun in an over-the-top way, but does feature that one moment of unnecessary cruelty, which is a bummer. Death Wish 4: The Crackdown feels so much like an anti-drug PSA mixed into a Death Wish movie, which is so odd that it actually becomes enjoyable. Finally, Death Wish 5: The Face of Death embraces a cartoonish quality in both the villains and Paul's methods of dispatching them that it really ends up being entertaining (hot take: if the villains from 5 were in the drug storyline from 4, you'd have the best sequel by a mile). I'd love to know your rankings.