Criterion Collection released two horror films on DVD and Blu-ray in November 2010, director Lars von Trier’s 2009 Antichrist and the 1955 movie The Night of the Hunter.
Antichrist
The controversial drama Antichrist, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg (The City of Your Final Destination) and Willem Dafoe (Platoon), on Nov. 9.
The art house movie, which premiered at the 2009 Cannes International Film Festival, is a graphic psychodrama about a grief-stricken man and woman who retreat to a cabin deep in the woods after the accidental death of their young son. Instead of solace, they find terror and violence at the hands of nature and then each other.
Criterion gave Antichrist a new, restored high-definition transfer for the DVD and Blu-ray release, approved by Von Trier and supervised by director of photography Anthony Dod Mantle. The Blu-ray has a DTS-HD soundtrack.
Special features on both the DVD
- audio commentary by Von Trier and professor Murray Smith
- video interviews with Von Trier, Dafoe and Gainsbourg
- collection of videos about the production of Antichrist, including behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Von Trier and members of the crew
- Chaos Reigns at the Cannes Film Festival 2009 documentary about the film’s premiere plus interviews with Dafoe and Gainsbourg
- and a booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Ian Christie.
The DVD as priced at $29.95 and Blu-ray at $39.95.
On Nov. 16, 2010, Criterion debuted its DVD and Blu-ray of The Night of the Hunter, the only movie directed by actor Charles Laughton (Spartacus). The 1955 horror film stars Robert Mitchum (Cape Fear) as a traveling preacher whose nefarious reasons for marrying a widow (Pete’s Dragon‘s Shelley Winters) are uncovered by her young children. The Night of the Hunter also stars Lillian Gish (The Birth of a Nation).
The 93-minute black-and-white film also will received a new, restored high-definition digital transfer with, on Blu-ray, uncompressed monaural sountrack.
The special features are:
- audio commentary with assistant director Terry Sanders, film critic F.X. Feeney, archivist Robert Gitt and author Preston Neal Jones
- Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter two-and-a-half-hour archival outtakes of the film
- new documentary featuring interviews with producer Paul Gregory, Sanders, Jones and author Jeffrey Couchman
- new video interview with Simon Callow, author of Charles Laughton: A Difficult Actor
- clip from The Ed Sullivan Show in which cast members perform a live scene that was cut from the movie
- 15-minute episode of the BBC show Moving Pictures about the film
- archival interview with cinematographer Stanley Cortez
- gallery of sketches by author Davis Grubb
- new video conversation between Gitt and film critic Leonard Maltin about Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter
- and a booklet with essays by critics Terrence Rafferty and Michael Sragow.
The Night of the Hunter was priced higher than Antichrist, at $39.95 on DVD and $49.95 on Blu-ray.
The same day as Hunter, Criterion released Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times on DVD and Blu-ray.
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Buy or Rent Antichrist
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Buy or Rent The Night of the Hunter
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Never saw these… I’d like to!