It began with a Freudian script by Poe fan, playwright and cryptographer Leo Marks, who considered his role as a (famous) WWII codebreaker a highly voyeuristic one. It was such a personal project for director Michael Powell that he cast himself and his son as (abusive) father and (disturbed) child. It was famously condemned by critics of the time: Sight & Sound’s Derek Hill likened it to concentration camp atrocities, while, in 1994, Dilys Powell boldly admitted it was a masterpiece, reversing the hatred she expressed decades earlier.

Released as HAUTE TENSION in its native France in summer 2003, Alexandra Aja’s calling card modern slasher enjoyed huge festival buzz en route to its U.K. release as SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE and (censored) U.S. bow as HIGH TENSION. This intense, stripped-down cat-and-mouse game between brutish, relentless killer Philippe Nahon and repressed, resilient Cecile de France heralded a cycle of “extreme”, ultra-violent French horror films that would peak with the despairing MARTYRS in 2008. These, of course, ran parallel to America’s own post-9/11 hard-R splatter movie trend, itself including Aja’s Hollywood debut – a savage reworking of THE HILLS HAVE EYES.

Located in New Scotland Yard, the Black Museum is an all-encompassing archive of criminal memorabilia that has been collected over the years by the police; a ghoulish collection of various pieces of evidence including murder weapons that have in many ways left their mark on British society. Culturally it has a small number of fictional counterparts, a 2017 episode of Black Mirror and a far future equivalent located in Mega City One that features regularly in the Judge Dredd Megazine. One of the earliest examples however, and perhaps the one that cemented its place in pop culture is this 1959 British horror, nicely remastered and presented here on Blu-ray from Studio Canal.

Steve A. Wiggins, author of “Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies”, brings a fresh perspective to Robin Hardy’s film via Auteur’s prolific “Devil’s Advocates” series of genre monographs – now in handsome hardback format!