What to watch at home in September | Little White Lies

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What to watch at home in September

15 Sep 2023

Words by Anton Bitel

Collage of 5 portraits: smiling woman, young woman with dark hair, orange background, man in leather jacket, man in outdoor scene.
Collage of 5 portraits: smiling woman, young woman with dark hair, orange background, man in leather jacket, man in outdoor scene.
Ken Rus­sell, Peter Bog­danovich and Nico­las Cage’s first star­ring role are among this mon­th’s bevvy of excit­ing home ents releases.

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.

Three figures in period dress, a man in a white shirt, a woman in a pale blue dress, and another man with a moustache.

In 1816, England’s most famous poet Per­cy Bysshe Shel­ley (Julian Sands), his lover Mary God­win (Natasha Richard­son) and her step­sis­ter Claire Clair­mont (Myr­i­am Cyr) vis­it­ed the self-exiled Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) and his biog­ra­ph­er Dr John Poli­dori (Tim­o­thy Spall) at Vil­la Dio­dati in Gene­va – and from this meet­ing would emerge Mary Shelley’s 1818 nov­el Franken­stein and Polidori’s 1819 short sto­ry The Vampyre. 

Ken Rus­sell and his screen­writer Stephen Volk reimag­ine these events as a hal­lu­ci­na­to­ry psy­chodra­ma of the cre­ative process. With Byron play­ing dev­il­ish, omni­sex­u­al mas­ter of cer­e­monies, the five – all under the heady influ­ence of lau­danum – engage in child­ish games and regres­sive rit­u­als, beck­on­ing the spark of cre­ation” for a sto­ry­telling con­test. In a cas­tle full of goth­ic props – cob­webs, skulls, suits of armour, automa­ta, mir­rors, a mask, a goat and a snake – trau­mas are trig­gered, night­mares come to life, there are visions of future doom and a trip­ping, ter­ri­fied Mary will be gal­vanised into merg­ing her past grief and present pan­ic into a sto­ry of mon­strous rebirth. 

Russell’s exu­ber­ant style is per­fect­ly suit­ed to a lib­er­tine sto­ry which finds entire­ly visu­al means for show­ing the com­plex, often grotesque work­ings of an author’s imag­i­na­tion. It is a reflex­ive orgy of future horrors.

Goth­ic is released on Blu-ray, 18 Sep­tem­ber via BFI

Two people, a man and a woman, gazing intently at each other in a dimly lit room.

I def­i­nite­ly need some­thing new,” Val­ley girl Julie Rich­man (Deb­o­rah Rich­man) tells her female friends as she con­tem­plates dump­ing her long-term, local­ly envi­able boyfriend Tom­my (Michael Bowen) whom she is start­ing right­ly to recog­nise as a total pukoid’. To replace him, Julie has anoth­er San Fer­nan­do Val­ley brat­boy lined up, but then trip­pindic­u­lar’ Hol­ly­wood punk Randy (Nico­las Cage, in his first star­ring rôle) comes crash­ing into a Val­ley par­ty and into her life – and the rather naïve Julie will have to decide between pop­u­lar­i­ty among her peers, or embrac­ing dif­fer­ence in pur­suit of love.

Self-con­scious­ly mod­elled on Romeo and Juli­et (a neon sign for which is vis­i­ble at one point on a Sher­man Oaks the­atre mar­quee), Martha Coolidge’s fea­ture offers all the dilem­mas and trans­gres­sions of a com­ing-of-age romance. As Julie takes her walk on the wild side – the real world’ of cen­tral Los Ange­les from which the Val­ley has shel­tered her – we are also get­ting a time-cap­sule view of two dif­fer­ent sub­cul­tures (three if you count Julie’s age­ing hip­pie par­ents, played by Colleen Camp and Fred­er­ic For­rest) as well as a whis­tle-stop tour of LA hang­outs from the ear­ly Eight­ies. Great sound­track, too.

Val­ley Girl is released on Blu-ray, 18 Sep­tem­ber via Eure­ka!

Two individuals lying on the floor, surrounded by scattered objects.

While rob­bing the home of a restor­er of reli­gious art, brutish Ismael (Kar­ra Ele­jalde) is dis­tract­ed by a paint­ing of a moth­er and child with the can­vas between them slashed, and when the restor­er inter­rupts him, he shoots her dead, and her young daugh­ter too. Many years lat­er, Ismael is unre­formed – abu­sive to his girl­friend Maite (Lio), and mur­der­ous to oth­ers – but when he spots the lit­tle girl Leire (Ana Alvarez), alive as though res­ur­rect­ed and all grown up, but mute and child­like owing to her head injury, he is not sure whether he wants to mur­der, fuck or par­ent her.

Juan­ma Bajo Ulloa’s sec­ond fea­ture is a baroque melo­dra­ma about more than one bro­ken fam­i­ly. Clas­si­cal­ly craft­ed and at times near Hitch­cock­ian in its sus­pense, the film catch­es us between a rock and a hard place, in this case a man who seems utter­ly irre­deemable, and a young woman so affect­less and unre­spon­sive (except to blood or choco­late) that any char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion can be pro­ject­ed onto her. Ismael keeps promis­ing to kill Leire, but some­thing keeps stop­ping him – and so this vio­lent dev­il will also, para­dox­i­cal­ly, end up an icon­ic, stig­ma­tised Jesus, whose dam­age is in need of restoration. 

The Dead Moth­er is released on Blu-ray, 18 Sep­tem­ber, via Radi­ance Films

Two men in dark coats aiming rifles at the camera in a grassy field.

Byron Orlok is an old-school hor­ror icon so plain­ly mod­elled on Boris Karloff (who plays him) that excerpts from an actu­al Karloff film (Howard Hawks’ The Crim­i­nal Code, 1930) are here express­ly used as part of his own fil­mog­ra­phy. As Byron con­tem­plates retir­ing from act­ing, young direc­tor Sam­my (Peter Bog­danovich) tries to per­suade him that there is still a place for him in mod­ern cin­e­ma. Mean­while, fam­i­ly man Bob­by (Tim O’Kelly) goes on a shoot­ing spree that will end at a dri­ve-in pre­sen­ta­tion of Byron’s lat­est movie. 

My hor­ror isn’t hor­ror any­more,” Byron tells Sam­my, offer­ing as con­trast a news­pa­per arti­cle about a super­mar­ket mas­sacre. Com­ing out in the same year when Rosemary’s Baby and Night of the Liv­ing Dead would ush­er in a new age of hor­ror, Bogdanovich’s sophis­ti­cat­ed, meta cin­e­mat­ic fea­ture debut brings into con­fronta­tion Karloff’s era of cas­tle goth­ic (which Byron com­plains is now viewed only as high camp’) and a more con­tem­po­rary, ripped-from-the-head­lines real­ism that is find­ing its way into the genre, and into films like this one. Itself loose­ly drawn from the recent Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas Tow­er Shoot­ing, this is a sly, seri­ous exam­i­na­tion of the vio­lent inter­sec­tion between dif­fer­ent hor­rors, fan­ci­ful or real.

Tar­gets is released on Blu-ray, 25 Sep­tem­ber via BFI

Two men conversing in a dimly lit room, one standing and one sitting at a table, both wearing casual clothing.

The past is nev­er real­ly the past, it stays with me all the time,” says Nor­man Bates (Antho­ny Perkins, also direct­ing for his first time). It is not just that his long-dead moth­er lives rent-free in his head while being lit­er­al­ly mum­mi­fied in the old goth­ic house behind the run­down motel that he man­ages, but also that his lat­est guest, Mau­reen Coyle (Diana Scar­wid), shares both her appear­ance and ini­tials with Mar­i­on Crane, whom Nor­man both fan­cied and mur­dered 22 years ear­li­er. Mean­while jour­nal­ist Tra­cy Ven­able is dig­ging for miss­ing local woman Emma Pool (from Richard Franklin’s Psy­cho II), while grift­ing musi­cian Duane Duke (Jeff Fahey) is look­ing for any mon­ey-mak­ing angle. 

Mau­reen has her own inter­nal con­flicts, as a novice nun forced from her reli­gious order after her doubts and desires led to the death of her Moth­er Supe­ri­or. Where Nor­man imag­ines Moth­er is still alive and still mur­der­ous­ly jeal­ous, Mau­reen has a vision of her dragged-up would-be killer as the Holy Vir­gin – and so these two, both torn between lust and guilt, both with respec­tive moth­er issues, seem odd­ly com­pat­i­ble. Yet this know­ing sequel, unable to free itself of its estab­lished ser­i­al tropes, is inevitably a trag­ic romance.

Psy­cho III is released on UHD and Blu-ray, 25 Sep­tem­ber, as part of Arrow’s Psy­cho Col­lec­tion boxset

Carved wooden pumpkin figure with exaggerated features, surrounded by fiery orange glow.

It’s every­thing you ever want­ed,”, says doc­tor­al stu­dent Steve (Colm Hill), after lay­ing out his plans for their next five years togeth­er. His younger girl­friend Frankie (Kel­ly Bas­tard) is not so sure – after all, Steve is con­trol­ling, and she still fan­cies old flame Jon­ah (co-writer Michael Mit­ton). Now, a third man has entered her life – an inchoate man­nequin whose path of super­nat­ur­al vio­lence will help her deter­mine what she real­ly wants.

Frankie, this is your dream”, Jon­ah says, inad­ver­tent­ly decod­ing the night­mar­ish illog­ic of this hor­ror from direc­tor/­co-writer Micheal Bafaro (also appear­ing as old expos­i­tor Vik­tor Mal­ick). It cer­tain­ly plays out like a sur­re­al remix of hor­ror motifs. It fol­lows,” Frankie says (twice) of the man­nequin, uncon­scious­ly cit­ing a major influ­ence. For like the Annabelle doll, and espe­cial­ly like Doc­tor Who’s Weep­ing Angels, this inex­orably mur­der­ous stalk­er is nev­er seen mov­ing, but rad­i­cal­ly changes posi­tion every time it is unwatched, as an uncan­ny antag­o­nist of cin­e­ma itself. 

Mean­while, after Kelly’s friends are shown watch­ing The Shin­ing on tele­vi­sion, Steve goes all Jack Tor­rance, talk­ing to a bar­man who isn’t there and writ­ing the same word over and over in his the­sis. Still, as Frankie says, Dreams can change.”

Don’t Look Away is released on dig­i­tal, 25 Sep­tem­ber, via Cen­tral City Media

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