MGM Home Video deserves some kind of medal for releasing a series of strange and often B-grade movie fare onto two-for-one DVD packages. I came upon quite a fun combo recently at Boîte Noire that involved The Attic, a bizarre little horror entry about one depressed fortysomething gal (Carrie Snodgress) who was left at the altar by her groom many, many years earlier. She’s stuck taking care of a very grumpy father figure (Ray Milland, in one of his typical roles as a corrupted patriarch) and is being retired early from her job as a librarian because of her nutty behaviour. The two leads are fantastic, and the script’s touches are beautifully unexpected (including Snodgress adopting a chimpanzee), but this is less Wes Craven than Tennessee Williams. Pretty depressing stuff. On the flip side is Crawlspace, in which Klaus Kinski plays the evil offspring of a Nazi whose lineage leads him to torture and slaughter the sexy female tenants of the apartment building he owns. One of those films that’s so rotten and lurid it’s actually rather appealing, in its own rotten, lurid way.

» Matthew Hays