The Ten Essential Blu-Ray's of 2011

Throughout 2010 I had resisted the urge to dip my toe into the waters of High Definition film presentation. But in January 2011 I finally took the plunge and immersed myself in the world of the blu-ray. My main motivation for doing so was that the discs had become more affordable, and a far greater selection of older and interesting titles were seeing the light of day courtesy of niche distributors such as Arrow Video and Eureka . The first blu-ray I purchased also happened to be the same title that marked my first DVD purchase; John Carpenter’s wonderful 1982 remake of The Thing. Oddly my awakening to blu-ray has also gone hand in hand with a need to seek out and view rare films in which print condition was a secondary condition. 2011 has been both a year of pristine visual beauty, and murky monstrosities. I rarely do list based articles on The Celluloid Highway, mostly because I find it terribly unimaginative and pointless, and frankly who cares (other than me) what my ten favourite westerns or horror films are? However this particular list will hopefully be slightly more useful than other redundant ego-trip lists you might see elsewhere. Naturally due to the archive nature of The Celluloid Highway, the ten blu-rays under discussion here are older titles. A quick note to my American readership - the discs listed here are all UK releases, however I would welcome with open arms anyone from the States who would like to share their own Top 10 US released blu-rays…please feel free to leave a comment. For that matter I invite anyone from anywhere to do the same. Without further ado I present The Celluloid Highway’s ten essential blu-ray’s of 2011.

Giallo Timeline

5 Dolls for an August Moon (Mario Bava, 1970)

Compiling a definitive list of those films that come within the giallo cycle is nigh on impossible. Part of the problem is the generic fluidity of the form. From 1980 onward there was a very fine line between gialli and slasher films, some might argue no line at all, and the 1980’s and beyond is a particularly under-researched area of the cycle. This list was hard work and a glowing testament to what can be achieved under the influence of boredom. Those titles highlighted in yellow indicate a film I consider important for reasons that are wide and varied. The 1990’s and 2000’s is particularly barren and I feel that despite my best efforts I have probably missed out loads of titles. If you notice any omissions (be there glaring or obscure) please let me know in the comments box and I can add it. Hopefully this can become one of the most definitive lists on the net. A quick note on titles; I’ve tried wherever possible to use the title that I consider to be the most well known. This of course is fraught with potential error, so once again if I’ve used a less common title let me know and I can correct it. This piece wouldn't have been possible without Adrian Luther Smith's Blood and Black Lace: The Definitive Guide to Italian Sex and Horror Movies (Stray Cat Publishing, 1999). Thanks for reading!

1963

The Girl Who Knew Too Much - Dir Mario Bava

1964
Blood and Black Lace - Dir Mario Bava
Death on the Fourposter - Dir Jean Josipovici and Ambrogio Molteni
Marked Eyes - Dir Robert Hossein

1965
Assassination in Rome - Dir Silvio Amadio
Libido - Dir Ernesto Gastaldi and Vittorio Salerno
Monster of Venice - Dir Dino Tavella
Night of Violence - Dir Roberto Mauri
The Possessed - Dir Luigi Bazzoni and Franco Rosselini

An Introduction to the Italian Giallo

The Bloodstained Butterfly (Duccio Tessari, 1971)



January 2011 marks the first anniversary of The Celluloid Highway and what better way to celebrate this minor milestone than with a month dedicated to that most fascinating of Italian filone the giallo. The term filone recognises gialli as a cycle rather than a self-contained genre. An indigenous attitude to the production and distribution of popular cinema in Italy which goes some way to explaining the hybridity of the form and the cross pollination with other popular cycles. This month long festival of black gloved psychopaths, eye watering camp fashions, bourgeois artisans and their neurotic women, and exaggerated acts of eroticised violence is due in no small part to my readership who voted for it. As a result I am consigned to walk the plaza’s and squares of European capitals in search of madness and murder. The age of DVD and Blu-Ray has given audiences uncut and pristine transfers replete with supplementary material and many of the titles have acquired cult followings. Films that were at one time barely remembered obscurities are now presented as lovingly as the Italian art films which took all the critical plaudits in the 60’s and 70’s.

British Horror Cinema: A Literary Guide

The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)



For decades the study of British horror cinema lay in an arid literary wasteland. During the period of the British horror films greatest commercial success (which can be put at 1957-76) just a single dedicated volume was published. This was David Pirie’s landmark polemical A Heritage of Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946 - 1972. Pirie’s was a solitary voice in an empty ocean. Ironically when the second edition of this book was published in 2007 it largely got overlooked in a market overcrowded with yet more substandard books on Hammer Film Productions. British horror had been sustained through the 1980’s and first half of the 1990’s by genre specific magazines and fan publications (the best of which still remains Little Shoppe of Horrors) before a relative deluge of material flooded the market. Much of it was of poor quality, for example of the huge number of books dedicated to Hammer, I consider only five of value. The increasing popularity of horror cinema on undergraduate degree courses, and the continued ascendancy of the study of cult film has enabled publishers to take advantage. But the question still remains; where to begin? This guide is intended to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to offer the best overall library of books for the appreciation of British horror. There are over one hundred books on the subject, this guide reduces that number to fifteen. This will probably be a contentious selection, but I hope it helps people to make informed decisions, that will also hopefully save them a few pounds or dollars.

A Lycanthropic Halloween Collaboration



It's almost no more days to Halloween (thank god we wont have to hear that advertising jingle for another year!), so its time to slip on your Silver Shamrock masks (make sure you load up on bug killer first!) and head on over to The Film Connoisseur for the in-depth article Werewolves of the Blogosphere: 20 Werewolf Movies to Watch Under the Full Moon. I was invited to fly the flag for the United Kingdom, and to explore British horror cinemas relationship to our tragic hairy friends. Also in attendance in this monstrous collaboration was Brian from the brilliant Cool Ass Cinema, and Johnny Thunder from Johnny Thunder's Midnite Spook Frolic, a blog I've yet to explore, but will be certain to do so now. This is no trick, but its certain to be a treat!

The Ten Most Overrated Horror Films of All Time



October is the month to wax lyrical about the horror genre, a time to celebrate a misunderstood and much maligned form of cultural and cinematic expression. In the total opposite spirit of Halloween I’m proud to present The Celluloid Highway’s guide to the most grossly overrated and over-appreciated horror films in cinema history. Those films which critics, academics, and fans have convinced us over many years are essential landmarks in the development of the genre. This article is partly inspired by a recent post celebrating the most influential horror films from the 1930’s to the 1980’s by Brian over at Cool Ass Cinema, and partly by my own review of Night of the Living Dead (1968). I was finally able to get my dissatisfaction with Romero’s over rated debut film out of my system, and in so doing discovered that my dislike of this sacred cow could be joined by numerous others. If you’re one of these mentally ill people who actually get upset when a film you like is criticised you may wish to avoid this article. Or it might help you just to repeat this mantra - To avoid fainting repeat….Its only a blog post, only a blog post, only a blog post…you get the drift.

DRACULA (Tod Browning, USA, 1931)



This version of Dracula, which features a side splitting performance by Hungarian ‘actor’ Bela Lugosi is a cinematic disaster. At no point does Tod Browning’s turgid direction escape the stiff and static theatricality of the play upon which the film was based. This is a film of immobile and stagnant tableaux, with a camera that lacks the courage to do anything other than stay motionless. It also lacks the valour to explore the manner in which Dracula deals death, and in one of horror cinema’s most unforgivable decisions has Dracula vanquished off screen. The concurrent Spanish language production directed by George Medford and featuring Carlos Villarias as the bloodsucker is far superior. The only people too emerge with credibility from this incredibly dull film is Karl Freund due to his expert lighting (and who was rewarded with the direction of The Mummy (1932)), production designers John Hoffman and Herman Rosse and actor Dwight Frye who provides some distraction as Renfield.

Top 5 Stand Alone Sci-Fi Films w/ The Film Connoisseur

It was a great privilege recently to be invited by The Film Connoisseur to come up with my Top 5 stand alone science-fiction movies. It was a challenging task because the rules of inclusion dictated that films that were a part of a franchise or series had to be excluded. So before I had even got down to thinking out went 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Village of the Damned (1960), Alien (1979) and The Terminator (1984). All films that might have otherwise qualified. My list eventually began to take shape and I began to realise the extent to which the tradition of franchising had shaped the cinematic landscape for sci-fi from the 1970’s onwards. My awareness that sci-fi could be a cerebral, philosophical, metaphysical, and allegorical form of cinematic expression was highlighted at the age of 17 when I followed up a viewing of Men in Black (1997) with my first viewing of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. A light bulb went off in my head, and from that point onwards my attitude to the genre and to the potentialities of cinema was altered forever. 2001 might be boring to some, but one cannot underestimate the breadth and scope of its ideas. In many ways that film alone led me on a path that would eventually end in the libraries of academia and my steadfast belief that cinema is the great art form of the 20th century and beyond. It was a film that truly altered my perception of cinema - and it was science-fiction. All this week The Film Connoisseur will be counting down our selections until the unveiling of the No 1 film on Friday. If you haven’t already I urge you to check out Francisco’s excellent blog, which is always well written, lively, intelligent and overflowing with enthusiasm for the wonderful world of cinema. Follow the links below for the results.

Number 5

Number 4

Number 3

Number 2

Number 1

© Shaun Anderson 2010