KISAPMATA aka IN THE WINK OF AN EYE (1981) - Blu-ray Release of Filipino Psychological Horror Classic

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Product Description: One Sunday in November, Mila (Charo Santos) announces to her father Dadang (Vic Silayan), a retired police officer, that she is pregnant, asking for permission to marry her co-worker Noel (Jay Ilangan). The noose further tightens as Dadong's unreasonable expectations for a dowry are not met and he exhibits an increasingly authoritarian streak. The couple marries and soon, Mila's father begins a game of exclusion and manipulation in the hopes of reasserting control over his kin.

Based on the true crime reportage "The House on Zapote Street" penned by Nick Joaquin, Mike De Leon's KISAPMATA, beautifully restored in 4K by L'Immagine Ritrovata, is a stunning example of psychological horror; a film that meticulously tighten the noose around its characters' neck until the outcome feels inevitable — culminating in a brutal, unflinching portrait of the horrors of patriarchy at its most pathological. Voted the 3rd Best Filipino Film Of All Time by the Pinoy Rebyu (SFFR), it stands as one of Mike De Leon's most unsettling and politically resonant films.

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Find out more about this DVD/Blu-ray release after the jump.

New on Blu-ray: KARNAL / OF THE FLESH (1983)

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Product Description: A fork in the road brings Narcing (Phillip Salvador) back to his hometown of Mulawin, rumored to be located not so far from Hell. Freshly married, he arrives from Manila in the hopes of introducing his wife Puring (Cecille Castillo) to his relatives. Gusting (Vic Silayan), the family’s domineering patriarch, does not welcome the couple kindly. Still scarred by the suicide of wife, Gusting immediately resents his son for what he perceives as a betrayal: the loss of land-owning heritage to the vulgarity of city women. Spite mingles with jealousy, turning to something altogether more sinister when Narcing’s behavior begins mirroring that of his father who, in turn, begins noticing Puring’s uncanny resemblance to his wife.

Following Brutal (1980) and Moral (1982), Marilou Diaz-Abaya closes her informal feminist trilogy with KARNAL, a striking example of Filipino Gothic set in the 1930s. Inspired by a sordid true crime story, what begins as archetypal Filipino melodrama soon turns to horror: a Village of the Damned-inspired study of the places that turn people into monsters and of the cruel, feudalistic patriarchy that continues to have deadly repercussions for Philippines politics today. The latter is embodied brilliantly by Vic Silayan, on the heels of a similar, monstrous turn as a tyrannical father in Kisapmata (1981).

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Find out more about this DVD/Blu-ray release after the jump.