News

This remarkable black comedy is often listed as a horror film yet it has more nervous laughs than shivers. It’s a solid idea: cruelly marginalized old folks get madder than hell and just won’t take it any more. Or maybe they simply go nuts. The cast of ‘over seventies’ playing over eighty is just marvelous, and one murderous little pixie is a delight: Paula Trueman. Things do become absurd but the universally-understood premise stays firm. . . we’ll all be there sooner or later. “A Murder A Day Keeps the Landlord Away.”

Homebodies

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date November 2, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Peter Brocco, Frances Fuller, William Hansen, Ruth McDevitt, Paula Trueman, Ian Wolfe, Linda Marsh, Douglas Fowley, Kenneth Tobey, Wesley Lau.

Cinematography: Isasdore Mankovsky

Art Director: John Retsek

Film Editor: Peter Parasheles

Original Music: Bernardo Segáll

Written by Larry Yust, Bennett Sims,...

This remarkable little black comedy is often listed as a horror film yet it has more nervous laughs than shivers. It’s a solid idea: cruelly maginalized old folks get madder than hell and just won’t take it any more. Or maybe more accurately, they simply go nuts. The cast of ‘over seventies’ playing over eighty is just marvelous, and one murderous little pixie is a delight: Paula Trueman. Things do become absurd but the universally-understood premise stays firm. . . we’ll all be there sooner or later. “A Murder A Day Keeps the Landlord Away.”

Homebodies

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1974 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date November 2, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Peter Brocco, Frances Fuller, William Hansen, Ruth McDevitt, Paula Trueman, Ian Wolfe, Linda Marsh, Douglas Fowley, Kenneth Tobey, Wesley Lau.

Cinematography: Isasdore Mankovsky

Art Director: John Retsek

Film Editor: Peter Parasheles

Original Music: Bernardo Segáll

Written by Larry Yust,...

One of the lesser-sung items among umpteen offbeat little ’70s movies was Larry Yust’s “Homebodies.” That 1974 black comedy on the cusp of horror was about a community of frail old retirees who turn out to be surprisingly vigorous — even homicidal — in defending their homes from the callous forces of market-driven “progress.” A similar premise is the starting point for “Bingo Hell,” which alongside “Black as Night” kicks off the second quartet of genre features premiering under the “Welcome to the Blumhouse” umbrella on Amazon Prime. This first full-length solo directorial project for Gigi Saul Guerrero exchanges the Cincinnati grit of “Homebodies” for the hotter palette of a Southern California desert town.

The comedy and horror elements get amped up as well — maybe too much so. In any case, what starts out looking like another caustic commentary on gentrification at the expense of the elderly soon takes a turn into half-baked Stephen King territory,...