Tim Lucas - Video Watchdog founder/editor, novelist (Throat Sprockets, The Book of Renfield, The Man with Kaleidoscope Eyes), author of Mario Bava - All the Colors of the Dark, contributor to magazines from Sight & Sound to Cinefantastique and Fangoria, and audio commentator on more than 200 DVD, Blu-ray and 4K releases worldwide.

"Arrow’s library of offbeat, peripheral and gnostic cinema is such a rich trove that I could easily select any title at random and come up with another four that are related to it, by director or writer, actor or cinematographer, or in some still more subterranean way. Whatever you need from Arrow - a jukebox, a roller coaster, or a resource of higher education - it’s here for you, in plenty."

A BAY OF BLOOD
Thirteen characters, thirteen murders (is that with or without the fly that drops into the bay after the main titles?), this film had almost as many different titles: THE ECOLOGY OF CRIME, BEFORE THE FACT, CHAIN REACTION, CARNAGE, TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE (!) and LAST HOUSE, PART 2. The “Ecology of Crime” title is an arty way of saying that the film’s unusually high body count could be Nature’s way of cleaning up after itself, as a covetous married couple sets out to clear their path to inheriting the valuable real estate properties on a picturesque bay. Though former cinematographer Mario Bava always supervised the look of the films he directed, this is one of the few he photographed himself, and a masterclass in keeping the eye alert and gratified. Seen 50+ years after its initial release, A BAY OF BLOOD could almost be seen as a MAD Magazine satire of the 1970s-80s slasher films it inspired.

BRAM STOKER’S COUNT DRACULA
Don’t think of this as a Dracula movie. It’s a Jess Franco film, and he’s not interested in doing what’s been done before. He wants to improvise (or should I say “vamp”) on a theme, to inhabit the story’s 19th century space like a 20th century hipster ghost. This is why Pedro Portabella’s VAMPIR (CUADECUC), an abstract black-and-white documentary about the filming, seems like the more honest representation of what this film is. It was Franco’s last film for producer Harry Alan Towers (who was clearly after a proper Dracula movie), and a launching pad for his later, weirder and more fulfilling jazz riffs on Stoker’s character, as seen in VAMPYROS LESBOS, DAUGHTER OF DRACULA and DRACULA, PRISONER OF FRANKENSTEIN. Worth seeing for Soledad Miranda’s performance as Lucy alone. 

CRIMES OF PASSION
Alternately terrifying and hilarious, this is without question the most unflinching American film ever made about sexual fantasies and relationships. What Ken Russell’s movie only obliquely admits ("I'm you") is that Kathleen Turner (as a repressed fashion designer who leads a double life as a hooker) and Anthony Perkins (as a pervert masquerading as a priest) are essentially playing the two warring sides of a single schizophrenic personality, which makes the film - in addition to everything else it is - a true heir to PSYCHO. Its shot-on-a-shoestring artistry is bolstered by an audacity which has only intensified with the passing years.

THE FIFTH CORD
The notes on the back cover of this Arrow Video described it as “arguably the most visually stunning giallo ever made,” which certainly primed me for an argument - but silly me: this is Vittorio Storaro, folks, before the mainstream discovered him, and a fully evolved example of his impeccable cinematography. I would even call this a sterling example of what I’ve called Continental Op - meaning Op Art-influenced European cinema. The human characters consistently occupy abstract, mesmerizing, geometric backgrounds and settings, all remarkably natural and which conjure the feel of a labyrinth in which protagonist Franco Nero must find and confront his Minotaur.

MESSIAH OF EVIL
I was impressed by this film from the time I first saw it at a local drive-in as RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD in 1978. The newspaper ads proclaimed it “a horror classic” and I left feeling no reason to argue. 35mm Technicolor widescreen is nothing to sneeze at, but seeing it again in all its restored digital glory, I feel the need to come right out and call it the most visually stimulating of all American horror movies shot in color. It’s like a 90m stroll through an art museum, a carousel of candy-colored images that tantalize and amaze even more than unsettle. It’s almost the LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD of horror with its painted friezes, its utter disconnection from anything outside its own proposed reality, and its irregular, almost trap-like returns to luminous palatial structures like the supermarket, the streets lined with long-dead franchise businesses, and the movie theater. It also makes a great co-feature to LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH, should you get a chance to see them together. 

SEASON OF THE WITCH
Though a far cry from NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, this would rank high on my list of George A. Romero’s best work. I’m glad he didn’t remake it, as he wanted to, because there are a few performances here too perfectly of their time and station to be recreated. I don’t know how familiar Romero was with the work of Joe Sarno, but this film captures something of the encounter-group fields of exploration that Sarno sometimes tapped into.

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MISS OSBOURNE
I find Walerian Borowczyk’s revisionist version of the famous Robert Louis Stevenson story an uncanny masterpiece; it simultaneously seems to desecrate and exalt the book, wanting to both obliterate all past productions while at the same time pursuing their themes to their darkest and most perverse logical extremes. It’s also consistently funny as the story ruthlessly goes about picking out the next group of viewers to chase away with brazen offense, leaving only the truest devils in their seats to savor the grand finale.

TENDER DRACULA
Before seeing this, I imagined Peter Cushing getting this script and calling his dear frined Christopher Lee to apologize for trespassing on his turf, but no longer. The man was an actor, a glorious one, and he inhabits his Dracula cape with panache and authority. This is not only his testament, it’s his VAMPIR/CUADUCUC, his UMBRACLE; a European art film in his image. I thought I was going to hate it, but it’s a gem worthy of nestling close to THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS and THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW.

TENEBRAE
Coming after the ambitious DEEP RED, SUSPIRIA and INFERNO, this less pretentious giallo is a cheerful return to basics and, at the same time, a thrilling exercise in style for its own sake. It’s arguably his most vibrant picture, greatly energized by the charm of Tony Franciosa’s almost jaunty performance, a downright danceable soundtrack, and Luciano Tovoli’s elegant cinematography with its steady emphasis on blues, whites, and reds. The Louma crane sequence that takes a tour of the full exterior of a murder scene before the crime is committed is a career highlight. Being an Argento picture, the characters are also kooky as hell.

TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN
If you’re looking for a double feature, pair this one with Romero’s SEASON OF THE WITCH. Everything I hold most dear about 1970s horror and independent filmmaking looms large in TOYS ARE NOT FOR CHILDREN. Both were made around the same time for similar budgets under similar production constraints, yet both use the exploitation film as a platform for sharing uncomfortable truths about what really lurks behind the façades of suburbia. Like SEASON, this is psychological melodrama, not really horror, and it’s not especially graphic in terms of sex or violence, but I’d be surprised if you didn’t squirm throughout.

*not all titles are available in all territories