Magic, Myth & Mutilation: The Micro-Budget Cinema of Michael J. Murphy, 1967–2015

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Indeed, the early films shot in Greece, where the sunshine that reflects flatteringly off of white-walled buildingsgives the films a most attractive look.

This second 2008 audio commentary from Murphy, Lyndon and Duncan is every bit as engaging as the first, with a mix of technical details – we learn that a wheelchair was used for dolly shots, and that the film was shot silent on a Bolex camera and the dialogue and sound effects post-dubbed – and comments on the film, the story, and Murphy's approach to writing and filmmaking in general.One for us older viewers, as a Phil Lyndon pretends to be Judith Chalmers visiting Loggos in Greece in one of her sunny location reports from the long-running holiday series Wish You Were Here. Now try to imagine how it was for budding filmmakers like Murphy back when they started making their own movies. In 2023, Indicator delivered the most unlikely labor of love in Blu-ray history with a sprawling ten-disc set comprising the 26 surviving Murphy films (mostly under the banner of the company he co-founded Murlyn), and a very comprehensive slate of bonus features shining a light on a fascinating and distinctive voice in homemade genre cinema. When out walking one day, however, she finds herself in the woodland lair of Alexandro Constantino, a masked local legend who requests that she remain with him to help break the curse under which he has been placed.

Not great, but rather fun, and as the special features reveal, Murphy was really getting something off his chest here. Some oft-repeated elements are revealed in the special features to be signature traits that Murphy was fully aware of, and include a fondness for shots filmed through the flames of firelight and the use of Gaelic fonts for titles and credits, and a complete disregard for the 180 degree rule. Boasting all-new 2K restorations from archival 16mm and 8mm elements, as well as a number of new digital captures from Murphy’s personal tape masters, this extensive retrospective of the obsessive auteur’s work is bolstered by a wealth of bonus features, including surviving fragments from lost films, and a 120-page book, all of which provides the definitive account of the weird and wonderful worlds of Britain’s great unheralded DIY filmmaker.

Over the next five decades, Murphy would go on to make many more films across a variety of genres, dividing his production time between Greece, Portugal, and the UK, with family, friends, and local stage performers becoming his regular cast and crew in exchange for holidays in the sun. The original opening scene, main title and closing credits from Skare before Murphy finished fine-tuning the film in 2009, which was the version released on DVD by Sarchophilus Films.

I should note that it's one that the interview material in this set tends to suggest that Murphy shared.The will states that Vicky will only inherit her grandmother's money if she keeps the house and lives in it for 11 months of each year. The influence of Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les diaboliques is evident, and there's a neat whiff of the later Misery to a couple of scenes, and the result is an interesting and intermittently surprising work, handsomely shot by Murphy himself and making evocative use of the sun-drenched Greek locations. Initially clunky dialogue becomes functional at best, and by the halfway mark I had all the information I needed and from then on felt like I was marking time.