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

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It includes newly filmed interviews with Phil Lyndon, Judith Holding, Patrick Olliver, Steve Longhurst, and June Bunday, and extracts from the interview on Disc 3 with the ever-cheerful Murphy, whose anecdotes are always informative and entertaining. Credibility is stretched like loose elastic here, but Murphy is clearly having a ball staging cheapjack takes on a range of horror works, as the drama is repeatedly put on hold so that Alistair can watch tapes of movies featuring those on whom he intends to wreak his wrath. While all this is going on, the two escaped criminals, Mike (Steven Longhurst) Gary (Colin Efford), sneak in and make their way up to the loft with the aim of hiding out there for a few weeks after the performance ends and the theatre closes. A small collection of surviving clips from the 2001 production that were provided to Sarcophilous Films as an extra feature for its DVD release of the 2009 remake.

Quite a few outtakes have been included, all of which and more can be viewed in the collection detailed below. Fitfully available on videotape, and barely represented on DVD, this comprehensive and long-gestating ten-disc Blu-ray collection seeks to rectify that situation once and for all. This will see me swim against the prevailing tide a little, as while Murphy's minor cult status is built around his horror works, for me, there are far more interesting films in his oeuvre. I should note that it's one that the interview material in this set tends to suggest that Murphy shared.As noted above, a detailed breakdown of all of the restoration work done on the films in this set is also provided. On a sleepy Greek island, Vicky (Caroline Aylward) is fed up with looking after her abusive and handicapped grandmother, and uses every opportunity to sneak off and spend time with her lover, Steve (Michael Cattle).

Two versions of the film have been supplied for your edification here, the original 109 minute version and an 88 minute recut by Murphy himself that removes twenty minutes of footage to create a tighter version. But it's very interesting to compare it with the completed 2007 version, because aside from having the same source script they're otherwise completely different - actors, locations, visual treatment, you name it. The will states that Vicky will only inherit her grandmother's money if she keeps the house and lives in it for 11 months of each year. 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. Unfortunately, the sole film elements of three of his better-known titles ( Avalon, Death Run and Legend of a Hero) were destroyed in a fire at a storage facility - thankfully after they'd been telecined, so at least they survived in some form.Here the screenplay occupies 47 screens and announces at the start that "This is a basic dialogue script. The influence of Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les diaboliques is evident, and there's a neat whiff of the later Misery to a couple of scenes, and the result is an interesting and intermittently surprising work, handsomely shot by Murphy himself and making evocative use of the sun-drenched Greek locations. The soundtrack clarity has seen better days, and here the optional subtitles really came to the rescue for this tinnitus-afflicted viewer. Yes, the production must have cost about as much as you'd pay for a rusty car with no engine (sea journeys are done on a papier mâché boat with a sheet for a sail in the darkness of night to avoid having to show the surrounding water), but once you make appropriate allowances for this, Tristan (or if you prefer Legend of a Hero) is really something.

The relevant disc includes all the footage that did get processed, which turned out to be a fair bit more than Murphy's anecdotes suggested, although it's all silent because Murphy invariably post-synced his soundtracks and obviously never got to that stage. 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. The jovial tone of the whole thing is perfectly illustrated when he's asked if he enjoys working repeatedly with the same group of actors and he responds without missing a beat, "Well, I can't get anybody better," before smiling and providing a more truthful answer.There were no lightweight LED lights back in the 1970s, and the ones we did have ate electricity and generated insane amounts of heat. That may be a little misleading, as while Skare is well served, especially the remake, all Roxi gets is a single DVD cover. If he wins, the King has pledged the hand of his beautiful daughter Iseult (Catherine Rowlands) in marriage to the ageing King Marc in a move that would will cement an alliance between the two lands.