What to watch at home in January | Little White Lies

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What to watch at home in January

10 Jan 2024

Words by Anton Bitel

Collage of performers in theatrical costumes and makeup; includes a masked figure, a woman with blonde hair, a woman in a sequined dress, and a man with long hair.
Collage of performers in theatrical costumes and makeup; includes a masked figure, a woman with blonde hair, a woman in a sequined dress, and a man with long hair.
Pagan rit­u­als, a Michael Pow­ell clas­sic and killer alli­ga­tors are on the agen­da in the first of 2024’s home ents guides.

Anton Bitel pro­vides a look at six titles head­ing to stream­ing and phys­i­cal media releas­es this month that you should add to the top of your view­ing list.

A hooded figure silhouetted against a large bonfire, its flickering flames illuminating the darkness.

All is as was,” recite var­i­ous locals from the Eng­lish vil­lage of Berrow, in this lat­est genre fea­ture from William Brent Bell (Orphan: First Kill). Their words encap­su­late the very spir­it of folk hor­ror, where ancient lore over­laps with mod­ern, let­ting con­tra­dic­tions uncan­ni­ly clash.

The Rev­erend Rebec­ca Hol­land (Tup­pence Mid­dle­ton) has recent­ly moved into the vic­arage with her hus­band (Matt Stokoe) and their young daugh­ter Grace (Evie Tem­ple­ton) – but when Grace dis­ap­pears from a four-day pagan fes­ti­val where she had been cho­sen to be the Har­vest Angel’, Rebec­ca is sent on a fran­tic search. This puts Rebec­ca at odds not only with Joce­lyn Abney (Ralph Ine­son), who, as the masked Lord of Mis­rule, heads wor­ship of the old goat-skulled god Gal­low­gog, but also, even­tu­al­ly, with all the villagers.

A miss­ing girl. Runic sig­ils. A cul­tic con­spir­a­cy. Pup­pets, jesters and peo­ple in ani­mal masks. And of course, sac­ri­fi­cial rites. Yep, this plays out like a reimag­in­ing of Robin Hardy’s The Wick­er Man, although that film’s uptight male Chris­t­ian cop­per has become a laid-back female vic­ar whose mater­nal sta­tus chal­lenges the original’s patri­ar­chal val­ues, and allows for a dif­fer­ent end­ing, with a real deity hor­rif­i­cal­ly appeased and har­mo­ny restored.

Lord of Mis­rule is avail­able now on dig­i­tal plat­forms via Sig­na­ture Entertainment

A man in a black jumper stands over a woman lying on the floor in a tiled, turquoise corridor.

Piero Schivazappa’s psy­che­del­ic alle­go­ry of sex­u­al divi­sions was first released in the UK as The Laugh­ing Woman (a lit­er­al trans­la­tion of its Latin title Fem­i­na ridens), but lat­er rere­leased as The Fright­ened Woman. Both titles equal­ly apply in this film of two halves, as the roles in its BDSM sce­nario reverse.

The open­ing sequence shows a gigan­tic sculp­ture of a female nude – like the one in Yasu­zo Masumura’s sado­erot­ic The Blind Beast, from the same year – with a queue of enthralled men lined up between the legs to get a clos­er look. If the woman’s supine, spread­ea­gled pose sug­gests avail­abil­i­ty and sub­mis­sion, her vagi­na is con­spic­u­ous­ly den­ta­ta, set­ting a tone of male anx­i­ety. For although respectable-seem­ing phil­an­thropist Dr Say­er (Philippe Leroy) spends his week­ends sadis­ti­cal­ly ter­ror­is­ing and tor­ment­ing sex work­er Gida (Loren­za Guer­ri­eri), he is less misog­y­nist than gyno­phobe, ter­ri­fied of infer­til­i­ty, emas­cu­la­tion and out­right redun­dan­cy in what is increas­ing­ly a woman’s world.

One week­end Say­er instead abducts his new PR Maria (Dag­mar Las­sander) – who had been writ­ing an arti­cle on male ster­il­i­sa­tion – to show her who is boss. Yet in this sur­re­al bat­tle of the sex­es, tables will be turned, and this ini­tial­ly entrapped, imper­illed woman will have the last laugh.

The Fright­ened Woman is avail­able on Blu-ray via Shame­less

A smiling man with dark hair and a regal expression, wearing a patterned shawl.

You’re a good man,” says blind Lady Chise (Hiroko Saku­ra­machi) to the rōnin Kiba Ôkaminosuke (Isao Nat­suya­gi). You pre­tend to be bad. You want peo­ple to think you’re a bad guy.”

Kiba is wan­der­ing through Arai vil­lage, a remote relay sta­tion on an impor­tant trans­port route – and with thugs killing Chise’s employ­ees en route, with the Shōgun’s mes­sen­ger (Tat­suo Endô) manoeu­vring to dis­place Chise, with killer-for-hire Akizu­ki Sanai (Ryôhei Uchi­da) in town, and with sev­er­al peo­ple out for revenge against past trans­gres­sions, Kiba is soon caught between mul­ti­ple fac­tions and dou­ble-cross­es in an ever more com­pli­cat­ed scenario.

Much as Toshi­a­ki Tsushima’s score mix­es a koto and Japan­ese per­cus­sion with a har­mon­i­ca and gui­tar, Hideo Gosha’s chan­bara is both east­ern and west­ern, plac­ing itself in the same tra­di­tion as Aki­ra Kurosawa’s Yojim­bo, while also draw­ing on the spaghet­ti oaters that Kurosawa’s film had already inspired.

Kiba is a good man, cash­less but will­ing to work for his keep, respect­ful to women and only killing in self-defence. Yet as Akizu­ki, who has long since bro­ken bad, recog­nis­es of his oppo­nent: Anoth­er five years and you’ll be just like me” – and so Kiba, unable to set­tle, is in flight from himself.

Samu­rai Wolf (1966) releas­es on Blu-ray with Samu­rai Wolf II (1967) as a 2‑disc set from 22 Jan via Eure­ka

Close-up of a woman's face partially obscured by a purple and white patterned scarf, with the woman's eyes visible and a pink and purple colour scheme.

We’ve become a race of Peep­ing Toms”, said Stel­la (Thel­ma Rit­ter) in Alfred Hitchcock’s scopophilic Rear Win­dow (1954), What peo­ple ought to do is get out­side their own house and look in for a change.”

Six years lat­er, Michael Pow­ell would push this the­sis fur­ther in a film which, along with Hitchcock’s Psy­cho in the same year, would stretch the notions of filmic deco­rum to a point of no return, chang­ing cin­e­ma for­ev­er. Both films would even­tu­al­ly engen­der the slash­er genre, although only Powell’s, ini­tial­ly exco­ri­at­ed for its shock­ing con­tent, would effec­tive­ly end his career.

The peep­ing tom here is Mark Lewis (Karl­heinz Böhm), glam­our’ pho­tog­ra­ph­er, stu­dio focus puller and would-be direc­tor whose for­eign accent, social awk­ward­ness and ever-present cam­era all mark him as an out­sider. He is also a ser­i­al killer, with a modus operan­di that allows him simul­ta­ne­ous­ly to ter­rorise, kill and film his female prey, in an attempt to work through the sim­i­lar­ly record­ed abuse that he endured as a child at the hands of his psy­chi­a­trist father.

Here voyeurism itself looks out­wards and inwards, con­found­ing per­pe­tra­tor and vic­tim, film­mak­er and view­er, cam­era and phal­lic weapon, while observ­ing a pathol­o­gy as metacin­e­mat­ic as it is psychiatric.

Peep­ing Tom releas­es on Spe­cial Edi­tion UHD, Blu-ray and DVD from 29 Jan via Stu­dio­canal

Two women wearing dark clothes and standing on a path in a garden setting.

When his archae­ol­o­gist broth­er Mune (So Yamanake) van­ish­es short­ly after return­ing from an expe­di­tion to Egypt, feck­less layabout Taka (Shô Mineo) receives a mys­te­ri­ous cas­sette record­ing on which a woman instructs him where to res­cue Mune and find a box. Assailed on all sides by well-armed, kick-ass women, hope­less Taka joins forces with the home­less Take­zo (Yûya Mat­suu­ra) and the enig­mat­ic Ayane (also played by Ayane, who is hard­ly play­ing herself).

This mad­cap adven­ture is the debut fea­ture of writer/​director Rei­ki Tsuno, whose pre­vi­ous col­lab­o­ra­tions with Tro­ma show in a film that wrings all it can from its low bud­get, while cling­ing by the claws to its trash cre­den­tials. Giv­en the promi­nence of the cat­nip of Bastet”, it is hard not to think of Pitof’s Cat­woman (2004), except that here, rather than a woman tak­ing on feline pow­ers, a clow­der of she-cats has assumed human form while retain­ing their nine lives and being aggres­sive­ly out for revenge against humankind (espe­cial­ly pet shop owners).

All at once a sur­re­al road movie, and a series of vari-weaponed cat­fights, this also includes a very good dad joke – how­ev­er unap­pre­ci­at­ed by the oth­er char­ac­ters – about a cock­roach and a centipede.

Mad Cats (2023) releas­es on Blu-ray/dig­i­tal from 29 Jan via Third Win­dow

Man dressed in costume holding basket of yellow round objects and wearing sign that says "ALEXANDER THE GATOR"

One for them, one for me’ is a prin­ci­ple embod­ied by ear­ly John Sayles, who would write oth­er direc­tors’ rip-off schlock to fund his own indies – except that even cash-in scripts for Piran­ha, Bat­tle Beyond the Stars and The Howl­ing showed a sub­ver­sive intel­li­gence that made its own toothy mark on the genre landscape.

Like Piran­ha, Alli­ga­tor came in the wake of Jaws, while pre­sent­ing as vicious par­o­dy. A baby alli­ga­tor (named Ramone) is flushed down the toi­let, only to emerge 12 years lat­er super­sized owing to its inges­tion of ille­gal­ly dumped exper­i­men­tal growth hor­mones – but then this whole town is tox­ic, from the preda­to­ry press to the cor­rupt may­or, police chief and big­wig indus­tri­al­ist. Only guilt-rid­den cop David Madi­son (Robert Forester) and her­petol­o­gist Marisa Kendall (Robin Rik­er) stand in the way of this toothy killer.

Few oth­er crea­ture fea­tures include a hero whose mas­culin­i­ty is con­stant­ly under­mined by a run­ning com­men­tary on his male pat­tern bald­ness, a great white hunter’ (Hen­ry Sil­va) who uses rep­til­ian mat­ing calls to flirt with a reporter, or an ago­nis­ing­ly taboo-bust­ing child death. Earthy, bizarre and full-blood­ed, Lewis Teague’s B‑movie brings its A‑game and is no crock.

Alli­ga­tor (+ TV cut) releas­es with Alli­ga­tor II: The Muta­tion (1991) on 4K UHD/Blu-ray from 29 Jun via 101 Films Black Label

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