The Killing Kind:

A captivating tale of psychological torment from Night Tide director Curtis Harrington, The Killing Kind has gone largely unseen due to a bungled distribution deal that found it screening in a handful of small southern theaters before being quietly locked away in a Hollywood vault - it’s quite a shame, too, considering this tense little thriller features a smart script from screenwriters Tony Crechales and George Edwards, and a pair of powerhouse performances by John Savage and Ann Southern. Cast as a mother and son whose twisted relationship ultimately turns tragic, Savage and Southern play off one another beautifully; their ambiguously incestuous, eerily symbiotic relationship steadily building steam like a broken pressure cooker of dysfunction set on high, and ready to blow at any second. Watching the film, this viewer couldn’t help but feeling that it shared quite a bit in common (both tonally and thematically) with Bob Clark’s masterful 1974 anti-war frightener Deathdream. Not only did the two films make their original premieres within a mere year of one another, but they both explore the complex family dynamics experienced by young men returning home after a particularly traumatic experience (the Vietnam War in Deathdream, and a forced rape that resulted in an extended prison sentence in The Killing Kind), while highlighting that there’s no easy exit once one has been subjected to such profound psychological torment. The chilling final scenes in both films - each providing a key moment of realization between mother and son - are striking similarity as well.

A lengthy interview with director Harrington – included as a bonus feature – reveals just how much painstaking effort went into making this effective little indie (budgeted at just over $200,000), and offers a heartbreaking, first-hand account of a film ultimately doomed to obscurity thanks to a pair of insecure financiers and one fatally incompetent distributor. While unrelated to this particular film, Harrington’s comments concerning the similarly sad fate of his 1977 film Ruby are also quite compelling – offering a tantalizing glimpse of what that film may have been had the film not fallen victim to the overeager shears of misguided producer Steve Krantz. It’s sad to think that Harrington died in May of 2007 without ever having seen his original vision fully realized on the silver screen, but who knows - if Mario Bava’s Rabid Dogs can finally get completed over two decades after the fact, maybe there’s hope for Ruby yet.

Murder by Decree:

Speaking of the Bob Clark, mystery fans thirsting for some atmospheric, gothic-flavored chills are encouraged to seek out this masterfully macabre whodunit pitting the literary world’s greatest detective against history’s most notorious serial killer. Set atop the rainy, cobblestone streets of fog-shrouded London, this expertly-paced tale of murder is not only memorable for it’s playful take on the relationship between Holmes and Watson (wonderfully portrayed by Christopher Plummer and James Mason respectively), but an impossibly creepy sequence in which a haunted psychic recalls his first visions of the Ripper, and a thunderous final confrontation between Holmes and none other than the Prime Minister himself! Plummer brings a great air of compassion and humanity to the role of Holmes, Mason’s crestfallen expression when his pea gets prematurely popped is absolutely priceless, and [AMGID=P 9433]Genevieve Bujold[/AMGID] is riveting in the small but unforgettable role as the tragic figure at the center of this absorbing, compellingly watchable mystery.