After BFI Flipside's SHORT SHARP SHOCKS VOL. 1 became one of the BFI's best-selling Blu-ray releases of 2020, they raided the archives again! Return once more to the heyday of the supporting programme with a second cornucopia of eerie, eccentric and edgy short films.
This strange cinematic journey traverses uncanny stories, twists in the tale, low-budget weirdness, stylish spectacle, peculiar public information, monstrous music and provocative experiment - all with oodles of atmosphere, and in High Definition too. Plus there are new interviews with some of the writers and directors. The films and special features are:
QUIZ-CRIME NO 1 Ronald Haines, 1943
Can you beat master sleuth Detective Inspector Frost at his own game? Take his vintage whodunit test, in the case of the golfing-holiday murder and the affair of the slain showgirl.
QUIZ-CRIME NO 2 Ronald Haines, 1944
'Everyone likes a detective story,' chuckles the Detective Inspector. But can you crack the cases of kidnap in the Soho backstreets and a bloodily botched boarding house murder?
THE THREE CHILDREN 1946
The public information film takes an eerie turn in this disquieting child-peril frightener crafted to unsettle neglectful post-war parents.
ESCAPE FROM BROADMOOR John Gilling, 1948
An insane killer is on the run (Dad's Army's John Le Mesurier in an edgy early role) in this weird, torn-from-the-headlines thriller by John Gilling (The Plague of the Zombies).
MINGOLOO Theodore Zichy, 1958
A clockwork dog with a sinister secret haunts the dreams of all who see it. What is the nightmarish answer to its riddle?
JACK THE RIPPER WITH SCREAMING LORD SUTCH 1963
Joe Meek-produced rock'n'roll and tasteless Hammer-inspired theatrics collide in a bloodcurdling proto-music video.
THE FACE OF DARKNESS Ian FH Lloyd, 1976
A politician (Lennard Pearce, Only Fools and Horses) out to reinstate the death penalty stirs a malignant medieval spirit.
THE DUMB WAITER Robert Bierman, 1979
A woman (Geraldine James, Beast) receives a mysterious phone call, beginning a night of knife-edge terror in this debut shocker from the director of cult favourite Vampire's Kiss.
HANGMAN David Evans, 1985
Industrial accidents are presented with graphic glee by a mysterious masked executioner, who seems to enjoy his work, in a video nasty-era public information film like no other.
THE MARK OF LILITH Bruna Fionda, Polly Biswas Gladwin, Zachary Nataf 1986
Black lesbian filmmaker Zena becomes involved with Lillia, a white undead wraith in a radical dismantling of the cinematic vampire mythos.
The Blu-ray will be launched with a special screening at BFI Southbank on Wednesday 27 October at 18:10 in NFT1 where The Face of Darkness, The Dumb Waiter and The Mark of Lilith will be shown.
