Glenn Erickson's Reviews: Month: January 2026

Sirius  (Szíriusz) 01/06/26

Dennis Bartok’s Deaf Crocodile Films keeps coming up with surprises from Eastern Europe. This Hungarian fantasy throws us for a loop — it’s a time travel story using an actual mechanical time machine, but filmed way back in 1942, in the middle of WW2 when the country was fighting alongside the Nazis. Ninety percent of the show is a costume romance set in 18th-century Austria-Hungary — with songs and dancing, in grandiose studio sets. The extras explain how it came to be, but it’s still difficult to take in. On Blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile Films.
01/06/26

Illustrious Corpses 01/06/26

Watergate prompted Hollywood to launch a wave of paranoid thrillers about vast conspiracies, but Italian filmmakers long before presented the status quo as corrupt from the inside out. Director Francesco Rosi’s adaptation of a fiction novel skips the escapist thrills. Incorruptible detective Lino Ventura intuits that his superiors don’t want him to solve a series of killings of high-level judges. Impeccably directed for a kind of nagging, uneasy suspense, Rosi’s picture draws Ventura’s dogged hero into a bigger, more sinister frame. With Charles Vanel, Max von Sydow and Fernando Rey, and music by Piero Piccioni. The original Italian title is not reassuring: Cadaveri eccelenti. On Blu-ray from Radiance Films.
01/06/26

Alfred Hitchcock Presents  The Legacy Collection 01/03/26

The best suspense TV of the 1950s has been released again, in a monster set with dozens of discs … and its just the kind of thing that collectors need when streaming options are nil. Hitchcock, Joan Harrison, and Norman Lloyd combined Hollywood experience, good taste and a wicked sense of humor to make murder a weekly household pastime. The 263 (!) episodes in this Legacy Collection put a wealth of talented star power to excellent use; each 24-minute drama has character depth, and often a powerful narrative twist. Hitchcock’s mordant introductions are a feast in themselves. “Good Evening!” On DVD from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
01/03/26

Scars of Dracula  –4K 01/03/26

Any 4K Hammer release gets special attention; this one has Christopher Lee as Dracula so will spike the radar of collector completists. Its reputation is not high, but it does predate the company’s woeful attempts to update the franchise in a contemporary setting. Kino & StudioCanal’s presentation can’t be faulted — the 4K remaster flatters the film’s cinematography, and the main new extra is a Tim Lucas commentary. Jenny Hanley, Patrick Troughton, Anouska Hempel, Michael Gwynn and Michael Ripper co-star. On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
01/03/26