Catacombs (The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die) - Imprint Films Limited Edition [AU Import]

Catacombs, aka The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die, seems to owe a debt to Alfred Hitchcock. The style, the twists and turns that the plot takes, all seem to scream “Hitchcockian.” Heck, the director, Gordon Hessler, began his career in television as a story reader for Alfred Hitchcock Presents—he even gives himself a little walk-on cameo not unlike the Master of Suspense, himself. But Catacombs is reminiscent of another genre, the thriller that toys with expectations of supernatural elements. At once, it feels like a new spin on an old classic like Diabolique, or one of the many films produced by Val Lewton, where the mere idea that the supernatural may exist is more terrifying than any vengeful spirit may actually be.

Ellen Garth (Georgina Cookson) isn’t an evil woman, simply a domineering one. She has a way about her. She’s a successful businesswoman and likes her life, and the people who populate it, to be just so. Everything must be perfect. She’s a loving woman, but a controlling one, and it’s all a bit too much for the people close to her to take. And, it seems, just about everyone in her life wants her dead. Whether it’s her husband Raymond (Gary Merrill), who resents the idea of being a kept man, or her assistant Dick (Neil McCallum, who also produced the film).

Raymond and Dick begin plotting. They want to keep it simple: She’s planning a business trip to Italy. Who’s to say she doesn’t have a little car accident while she’s out of town and they split what’s left to them in her will? Things, of course, don’t happen so simply. Raymond, you see, is planning on having an affair with her beloved niece (Jane Merrow) and she’s caught them in the act. Ellen has no interest in keeping Raymond in her life, or in her will. Raymond kills her then and there, and the murdering duo have to make excuses as to why she’s not available for functions she signed up for. She must be witnessed leaving town, so they hire an actress to dress like her, walk on a cane like her, faking a bad hip, and for their plan to work, there must be a body in Italy. So, the poor actress is killed, too.

One woman. Two dead bodies. And, worse yet, her spirit may be haunting Raymond. He can hear her tap-tap-tapping along the corridors of her empty house. Her perfume can be smelled. Her brand of cigarettes, freshly smoked, are filling up the ashtrays.

Catacombs also feels like a “modern” spin on an Edgar Allan Poe classic, The Tell-Tale Heart with the ghostly sounds of Ellen gnawing at Raymond’s guilt, driving him mad. It’s also not without a certain amount of self-awareness and tongue-in-cheek humor. The movie delights in the twists and turns it dreams up and then runs rampant with. It is also aware of how over-the-top, silly, and outlandish the plot is. After the film wraps and the credits roll, it’s best not to think about the plot, it doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. Catacombs is well aware of this, so it moves at a pace brisk enough that the audience isn’t left the time to draw connections or realize how silly it all is. The movie lays enough groundwork that we’re willing to suspend our disbelief and leave it at that.

Catacombs is not a masterpiece, but it doesn’t need to be, nor does it set out to be. It’s a nasty little thriller that’s about the evil that humans are capable of. It feels like the kind of picture you’d watch late one evening on Turner Classic Movies and remember years later by the lurid, wonderful tagline that describes it as, “The story of a girl who twice returned from the grave!” Movies like Catacombs are a fun discovery, to happen upon this forgotten hidden gem with a macabre story that unfurls with viciousness. The production is top-notch, with excellent acting from all players involved and sharp, snappy dialogue. Gordon Hessler had an active career directing television, and made a handful of feature films, but his technique here is refined and shows a real talent behind the camera.

Vital Stats: The Blu-ray
Catacombs comes to a gorgeously-realized Blu-ray courtesy of Imprint Films. The feature, and its supplements, are found on a single Blu-ray disc, housed in a standard case with some impressive artwork. The removable slip adorns poster art of a Grim Reaper-like specter, with a woman’s leg, complete with high heel, emerging from the cloak. There are a number of special features to be found within that give an interesting perspective on the film’s production history, release and special place in its era.

The 1080p HD presentation on Catacombs is stellar. The film, which was shot on 35mm black and white, was restored for ths Blu-ray from its original film nitrate negative. What we see is razor sharp, with a healthy amount of film grain visible throughout. The blacks of the shadows in nighttime scenes, where our characters stalk around hallways and corridors, are a deep, pitch black. Faces and bodies are lit in a noirish silhouette so that everything is always draped in mystery. Whatever one’s feeling of the story may be, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who finds the video quality here anything less than incredible.

If only the audio were as stellar as the video presentation. Make no mistake, the LPCM 2.0 mono mix found on this disc is good, decent and faithful reproduction of the existing audio, it just suffers from some stylistic choices that were popular at the time Catacombs was made. 90% of Catacombs is dialogue-driven and voices are clearly mixed and easy to understand, but during a scene where the music blares out at the viewer or an exciting bit of action happens, like an exploding car, it's mixed way, way, way above the dialogue and you'll be fumbling with your remote to turn it down. This issue is not unique to the film, and a lot of movies of the era feel like this, where a sudden blast of music or a gunshot suddenly overwhelms the soundstage. If you have a sound system that supports any sort of dynamic range control, which I tend to recommend against, you may want to consider here, just to keep everything at an even level throughout. 

The mix is far from bad, however, and the good vastly outweighs the bad. 

Catacombs was a fun one to review, because it was one I hadn't heard of before, and Imprint Films' release has provided a robust offering of features to give me a comprehensive understanding of the film's production history, release, and disappearance into relative obscurity. It was considered a nothing-special film at the time of its release but has found followers and defenders in the years since. The audio commentary, courtesy of film experts and authors Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons, contains numerous tidbits about how the film came to be and how Gordon Hessler became involved. The many interviews with the cast and crew go into depth on behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

Special Features

• Audio Commentary by authors Jonathan Rigby and Kevin Lyons 
• "Merrow and Merrill” – Interview with actress Jane Merrow (HD, 10:05)
• "The Glynne-Miller Story” – Interview with “continuity girl” Renée Glynne and sound editor Colin Miller (HD, 7:42)
• "Martelli and Martell”- Interview with composer Carlo Martelli (HD, 10:43)
• Photo Gallery

Imprint Films has put in some amazing work on their release of what could have been just a forgotten B-movie. Through their restoration, and research in assembling their supplemental features, Catacombs has a chance to be seen again, and rediscovered by a new generation of film lovers. Though not a "classic" by any stretch, it is a fun flick, with a twisted sense of fun, and a winking eye toward the audience at all times. Some of the twists are predictable, some of them are a fun subversion of common tropes, but half the fun is seeing where this crazy story is going to wind up. Imprint Films' release of Catacombs comes Highly Recommended.