* indicates that this title is also available to rent, stream, or purchase on various platforms. Please note that streaming options may differ from these home video presentations in terms of visuals, supplemental features, etc.
“Inglourious Basterds” * (2009, Arrow Video) Violent but meticulously crafted action-drama allows writer-director Quentin Tarantino to rework World War II to his liking, this time as a revenge-fantasy/classic Hollywood tribute, with Jewish-American GIs going further than John Wayne by hunting Nazis and a movie theater-owning French woman (Melanie Laurent) bringing down Hitler himself, no less. The gambit is audacious, and the posturing by Basterds Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, et al, wears thin (though at this particularly foul juncture in time, watching Fascists take their lumps is a pleasure), but Tarantino buttresses the flashier material with his still-astonishing ear for dialogue and intricate plotting, which allow Laurent and Christoph Waltz to craft memorable (and in Waltz’s case, Oscar-winning) performances. There’s no doubt that the more pickle-pussed digital obsessives will find minute fault in Arrow’s 4K UHD/Blu- presentation, but a) I couldn’t care less and b) the movie looks beautiful; the plentiful extras include both new material (observant commentary by Tim Lucas, interviews with actor Omar Doom and FX legend Greg Nicotero) and vintage supplements (extended scenes, interviews with Pitt and Rod Taylor, a nod to the 1978 Enzo Castellari actioner that provided the title). The sizable liner notes include top-notch writing by my pal Dennis Cozzalio and Bill Ryan and choice ephemera, including a beer mat and a recipe for strudel.
“Delicatessen” * (1991, Severin Films) The distinctions between haves and the have-nots — or, more accurately, the diners and the dined-upon — are examined with morbid good cheer in this French fantasy by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“Amelie”) and Marc Caro. Dominique Pinon is a circus performer in a post-apocalyptic Paris who discovers exactly why his new boss (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) seems to have trouble retaining employees: he’s feeding them to the starving occupants of his apartment building. Pinon’s attempts to stay off the tenants’ menu and Dreyfus’s drive to keep them under his control by providing them with food fuels the film’s relentless energy and dazzling visual anarchy, though it’s hard to miss its alarmingly prescient subtext about a wrongheaded leader keeping his misguided flock in check with violence disguised as benevolence. Severin’s Limited Edition 4K UHD presentation spreads the film and six hours of extras over three discs; Jeunet and Caro are featured separately and together in numerous new and archival interviews and making- of featurettes (Jeunet is solo on the set’s commentary), while Dreyfus and Terry Gilliam (who “presented” the film in the States) are also interviewed. There’s also a rare look at Jeunet’s 1981 short “Bunker of the Last Gunshots,” which takes place in a far less charming future than that of “Delicatessen.”
“The Hungry Snake Woman” * (1986, Mondo Macabro) After mauling his girlfriend, Burhan, who could be charitably described as a world-class rotter with upwardly mobile aspirations, flees into the Indonesian jungle. There, he encounters the Snake Woman, who directs him to the Snake Queen as the person who can answer his craven prayers. The Snake Queen — who lives up to her name by transforming from a colossal serpent into the more palatable form of Indonesian horror/fantasy favorite Suzanna — bestows upon Burhan the wealth and fame he desires. What’s the catch, you ask? Burhan has to drink the blood of three women, which he does in full Dracula drag (cape and all), but being the cad that he is, Burhan also wants out of the arrangement with the Snake Queen. This requires an out-to-lunch scheme (involving a needle during a very personal moment), which is met with the full force of the threadbare but scrappy might of the Indonesian special effects industry. One of several Indonesian fantasy films in which Suzanna played the formidable Snake Queen, a.k.a. Queen of the South Seas, “Snake Queen” adheres the Indonesian genre movie template with its wild genre mashups (grisly horror, sword-and-sorcery, crime drama, exploitation, and confusing flashes of comedy) and outrageous special effects (of which a flying chariot and levitating throne are perhaps the most subdued examples), though the most impressive element remain Suzanna herself, who retains her remarkable capacity to seem at once formidable and sympathetic (Suzanna, who played numerous long-suffering horror heroines who pay back their male betrayers via supernatural means, is also profiled in a feature-length documentary, “Suzanna: Queen of Black Magic,” on Severin’s recent “All the Haunts Be Ours Vol. 2” box set). Mondo’s Blu-ray, culled from the original negative, offers both English- and Indonesian-language audio options.
“Door-to-Door Maniac” (1961/66, Film Masters) Nihilistic crook Johnny Cash’s plan to extort bank manager Donald Woods by holding his wife (co-writer Cay Forrester) hostage hits a snag when Woods not only balks at paying the ransom, but encourages Cash to kill her — all the better to sneak off to Las Vegas with his mistress (James Mason’s real-life wife, Pamela). Those intrigued by the bop-pill-addicted portion of Cash’s biography may appreciate his sneering, sadistic performance in this low-budget thriller; Cash invests his performance with the same country Gothic menace heard in songs like “Folsom Prison Blues,” which enlivens an otherwise routine suspense programmer. With Ron(nie) Howard, fellow country star Merle Travis, and Vic Tayback; “Maniac” is actually 1961’s “Five Minutes to Live,”* which was reissued by AIP in 1966 shorn of a few minutes but also featuring a tawdry additional scene that sees Cash’s simmering lust for Forrester come to (PG-rated) fruition, which casts a pall over the original film’s ludicrous ending. Film Masters’ remastered (and polished-looking) Blu-ray includes a second B-thriller, 1963’s “Right Hand of the Devil,” which stars bit player Aram Katcher (who also directed, produced, edited and even did hair and makeup) as an alleged criminal mastermind who recruits a quartet of thugs to help steal the box office take from a boxing match at the Hollywood Sports Arena. As with Cash’s scheme, things do not go according to plan, and Katcher is forced to utilize his convenient bathtub of acid. Devoid of budget but brimming with aspiration, “Devil’s” best moments are location shots of Los Angeles circa ’63, including a scene inside Dino’s Lodge on Sunset. Commentaries are provided for both films, as well as a visual essay on “Devil” and liner notes.
