Magic, Myth & Mutilation: The Micro-Budget Cinema of Michael J. Murphy, 1967–2015

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There is a more detailed breakdo\wn of the restoration details in the accompanying book, but this swallows up two densely packed pages that I'm not about to reproduce here. Certain items can take longer to source than the estimated week, particularly during busy trading periods and may take longer to arrive at our warehouse. It's likely for these reasons that there are a few glum looking exteriors in the UK-set 16mm films, but when the light is right, the film format really shines.

A psychodrama that oddly feels simultaneously plausible and a bit of a stretch, one whose situation I became more invested in than the characters, particularly the ominous clues that are dropped in the early scenes. This is more like it, a trailer that captures the essence of the film, makes the drama and characters look interesting, and it chooses a choice line to sign off with. For me, this proved a fascinating and often surprising journey, with the films I expected to like the most overshadowed at seemingly every turn by ones I would not have expected to have warmed to so readily. Make no mistake, I'm a horror fan, and being old enough to remember when admitting a fondness for low to medium budget horror would invite the scorn of serious cineastes, it's great to see the critical turnaround that sees the genre treated as seriously as any other. I should note, as ever, that all comments are purely personal ones shaped by my own taste in films and my viewing experience, and in this case my years working on amateur productions and with student filmmakers.Precise framing with this camera was nigh-on impossible because the viewfinder was slightly out of line with the lens, and the camera was so noisy in use that he would often shoot silent and have the performers dub their lines in post-production. My usual approach would be to look at the transfers, restorations and whatnot for each of the films in this set individually, but given the sheer number of titles, the multiple formats used and the various technical issues the restoration team faced, a more generalised approach would probably be appropriate. Lyndon emphasises the importance of character, and Duncan – who's closer to the mic this time – admits preferring this film to Invitation to Hell. Murphy kicks off by outlining why he will not be attending the festival in person, and it seems so typical of this humble and immensely likeable filmmaker that one of the reasons is that he's just not comfortable being the centre of attention in front of a crowd of people.

He also says of his earlier work, "As I get older, I look back on some of these films I made, and some of them I think, 'what was I thinking of? When selecting the Play option here, you are offered the chance to watch either the original version, or the revised version prepared to Murphy's instructions for the film's 2008 Sarcophilus Films DVD release, completing some previously unfinished 'red eye' visual effects.screens of production stills, posters, video and DVD covers, and even competition programme clippings for the films included on this disc. Even in a world where we have massive Blu-ray box sets devoted to filmmakers like Andy Milligan, Ray Dennis Steckler, Norman J. The fact that Murphy shot many of his 16mm films on a clockwork Bolex only adds to the sometimes inescapable air of artificiality. Fireworks stand in for volcanos, and the sword used for the beheading was clearly constructed by covering the blade of a plastic weapon with tinfoil. I also shouted at the screen when he used the word 'super' in place of 'very', though thankfully only once – the English language dies a slow death one word at a time.

None of which should take anything away from a release that I genuinely can't easily see anyone topping this year. There's more than a whiff of Beauty and the Beast to the fantasy folklore element that edges its way into the film and that may be real or the product of the troubled Helen's imagination, and it's she that provides the film with its emotional core. In 2023, Indicator delivered the most unlikely labor of love in Blu-ray history with a sprawling ten-disc set comprising the 26 surviving Murphy films (mostly under the banner of the company he co-founded Murlyn), and a very comprehensive slate of bonus features shining a light on a fascinating and distinctive voice in homemade genre cinema.Good-looking 21-year-old Paul (Russell Hall) hires a holiday apartment in Greece and starts a friendship with his older married landlady Gill (Carol Aston), one that quickly develops into something more. But when two of the actors, Dave (Clifford Gardiner) and Rita (Nanda Adkin), nip upstairs for a quick one while their characters are off-stage, events take a particularly nasty turn. In this final segment of Murphy's Lore, several individuals pay tribute to Murphy's work and reveal how they first discovered it (usually through the double-bill of Invitation to Hell and The Last Night) and how it influenced them. This is really just the setup for a plot that has more twists than I was expecting, and it's this and the oddly ominous atmosphere that hangs over many scenes that held my interest throughout.