he takes to be responsible for Jenny’s delicate condition. As a result of this attack, Vanessa asks Father Cutler to move in, thus establishing a rather unorthodox ménage, with Cutler cohabitating with two young, nubile women. It’s a situ- ation that Walker plays to the hilt when he has Cutler cooking breakfast for the ladies bare- chested. In a tidy parallel, Fa- ther Meldrum’s home situation is a peculiar one as well. Weepy young couples are constantly being shown out of his study at the presbytery, while steely housekeeper Miss Brabazon (Walker mainstay Sheila Keith, with one lens of her spectacles gone dark) takes inordinate de- light in torturing his invalid mother (Hilda Barry), whether it’s force-feeding her watery gruel or playing the gramophone over and over at top volume. Complications arise in Fa- ther Meldrum’s quest to bend Jenny to his extra-ecclesiastical will, complications of the kind that lead to a mounting body count, with the slaughter com- mitted in fittingly sacerdotal fashion: Viewers are treated to the impious spectacle of a blud- geoning with fiery censer, stran- gulation by rosary beads, even a poisoned Eucharist or two. Ever the agents provocateur, Walker and frequent scriptwriter David McGillivray amp up the sacrilege in these set pieces, yet there’s some methodical social commentary in the seeming madness. The script clearly wants us to know that Meldrum’s insanity (and Miss Brabazon’s not-so-casual sadism) stem from sexual repression, with Meldrum’s condition exacerbated by the Church’s rule of celibacy among the priesthood and ce- mented by his unquestioning obedience to his disapproving mother.
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Father Cutler, on the other hand, stands in for an impulse to reform, exemplified by his crepuscular conversation along the Embankment with Father Duggan (DEAD OF NIGHT’s Mervyn Johns). Duggan, a con- trapuntal voice of reason within the clergy, ultimately advises him to renounce his vows rather than break them. As the film ap- proaches its downbeat denoue- ment, Cutler finds himself unable to resist Meldrum’s authoritarianism, meekly ac- cepting his patently implausible version of events before shuffling off into the night. In a final ironic twist, Meldrum pulls on his black leather gloves one last time, free to continue his reign of terror. Redemption Films’ 1080p/ AVC-encoded Blu-ray represents a considerable improvement over the earlier Media Blasters Region 1 DVD. As you might expect, the biggest boost can be seen in the image’s black levels and color density. Redemption’s high defi- nition transfer does well by DP Peter Jessop’s expressive lighting and incarnadine color palette. The linear PCM mono track is quite serviceable, capturing dia- logue cleanly, and putting across Stanley Myers’ moody score. The audio commentary with Walker and film historian Jonathan Rigby, author of EN- GLISH GOTHIC, relates a lot of intriguing information about the casting process and shooting lo- cations (among the choice tidbits: Peter Cushing was originally ap- proached to play Sharp’s heavy but wasn’t available; one of McGillivray’s suggestions for the title was MASS MURDERS). To put the film into its proper perspec- tive, Rigby quotes extensively from contemporary critical re- views. This is a consistently en- gaging track, never lapsing into protracted silences. The inter- view piece “Pete Walker: An Eye
for Terror, Part 2” (11m), con- ducted by Elijah Drenner, isn’t film-specific; instead, Walker discusses his entry into film- making via standup comedy, his preference for “terror” rather than “horror” films, and puts forward some ideas about how his films would be made today. Redemption also provides a se- lection of trailers for their other Pete Walker titles.
THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN
2012, Disney, 104m 21s, $29.99 DVD-1, $39.99 BD-A/DVD-1 By Michael Barrett
Once you get past the strange premise, this film unrolls as a pleasantly predictable family fan- tasy distinguished by an under- utilised cast of A-listers and warm, beautiful photography from a modern master.
Cindy Green (Jennifer Gar- ner) and husband Jim (Joel Edgerton) live in Stanleyville, a picture-perfect town defined by a pencil factory whose imminent closure heralds a serious crisis. On the day they’re told that their attempts to conceive a baby have come to nought (insert pencil joke here), they write down character- istics of a fantasy child and bury it in the garden, which sounds like behavior out of an old folk tale. The rains come and Timothy (CJ Adams) presents himself naked, begrimed, with leaves growing out of his shins.
It’s already autumn and leaves are falling all over. What will hap- pen as the boy begins defoliating one deciduous appendage at a time? We are well set up for something bittersweet, because a wiser Cindy and Jim are telling the whole thing in flashback to an adoption counsellor (Shoreh Aghdashloo) whose role is to tell them to get on with it. Thus,
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