NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Radiance Blu-ray (October 2025): Radiance have transferred Harry Kümel's Malpertuis to Blu-ray. "Malpertuis" boasts a new 4K restoration overseen by director Kümel. This upgrade delivers gorgeous visuals that are textured and dense, mirroring the labyrinthine mansion's organic qualities, with deep and rich colors, fine detail, and appropriate film grain that shine through without any intrusive artifacts. Cinematographer Gerry Fisher's (The Holcroft Covenant, Wolfen, Wise Blood, Fedora, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Mr. Klein,) work is pivotal, delivering painterly lighting and outstanding photography that enhances the film's surreal, dramatic quality. Iconic imagery includes Orson Welles' weary, regal face against scarlet bedsheets, symbolizing decay, and the house's flickering gas torches illuminating narrow halls that lead to unpredictable discoveries. The 1080P is on a dual-layered disc sand supports the film very pleasingly.

NOTE: We have added 64 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Radiance use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original Belgium / Flemish. The restoration efforts preserved the original magnetic sound from 35mm negatives, ensuring fidelity to Kümel's vision. While specific details on sound design are sparse, the film is characterized as "full of sound and fury," invoking a Shakespearean intensity that amplifies its chaotic narrative and atmospheric dread, with elements like escalating murders and surreal encounters heightened by auditory chaos. Georges Delerue's (Police Python 357, A Man in Love, One Deadly Summer, Mister Johnson, Jules et Jim, The Woman Next Door, Cartouche, The Last Metro, Day For Night,) disturbing and outstanding score comes through with clarity, amplifying the film's tense and surreal moments without distortion, though the authentically flat mono format. This score enhances the film's grotesque density and emotional depth, underscoring moments of horror, passion, and revelation with terrific originality. Radiance offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

Radiance Films packs this limited edition Blu-ray with an exhaustive array of supplements that excel in depth and variety. Highlights include a 2005 audio commentary by Harry Kümel and assistant director Françoise Levie; - a newly filmed 2025 interviews with Kümel (20 minutes) candidly discussing the adaptation, casting, edit, and more, and with gothic horror expert Jonathan Rigby (author of American Gothic: Six Decades of Classic Horror Cinema) on production background, themes, and Jean Ray's novel. There is a 2005 archival documentary "Malpertuis Archive" (shy of 40 minutes) featuring Kümel, Mathieu Carrière, Gerry Fisher, and others on the film's genesis as an international co-production. "Orson Welles Uncut" runs 25 minutes and is a revelatory featurette on Welles' casting with cast/crew interviews and rare outtakes that humorously contrast negative anecdotes with professional footage. "Susan Hampshire: One Actress, Three Parts" runs a dozen minutes - a 2005 interview with the actress including screen tests and comments from Kümel and Fisher. A 1971 archival TV interview with Michel Bouquet (The Cop) and Kümel (less than 1/4 hour) covering the Cannes presentation and Welles; "Jean Ray, John Flanders 1887-1964", an archival discussion of the novelist's life and methods; "Malpertuis Revisited", where Kümel tours 2005 locations. Included is the rejected Cannes cut (1:43:52 in SD) in English or French with subtitles, utilizing different takes and Welles' original audio. Lastly are Kümel's 1965 short "The Warden of the Tomb" - over 35 minutes - adapting Kafka's themes of mortality and alienation; plus a trailer for Malpertuis. Physical extras round it out with a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow, plus a limited edition 80-page booklet with new writing by Lucas Balbo (An Erotic Vampire in Paris,) Maria J. Pérez Cuervo, David Flint (author of Sheer Filth!: Bizarre Cinema, Weird Literature, Strange Music, Extreme Art,) Willow Catelyn Maclay, and Jonathan Owen (Avant-garde to New Wave: Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties.)

Adapted from Jean Ray's 1943 novel of the same name, Harry Kümel's Malpertuis explores the confines of a sprawling, enigmatic mansion where reality bends under the weight of myth and madness. Directed shortly after Kümel's acclaimed vampire tale "Daughters of Darkness," "Malpertuis" amplifies his fascination with atmospheric dread and psychological ambiguity, featuring a commanding performance by Orson Welles as the occultist patriarch Cassavius. Its cult following stems from its bold ambition, merging Greek mythology with gothic intrigue. At its core is Jan (Mathieu Carrière - Young Torless, Love Rites, The Aviator's Wife,), a young sailor who returns to an unnamed European port seeking his childhood home, only to be abducted and drawn into Malpertuis after a contrived altercation in a seedy bar. There, he encounters his dying uncle Cassavius, whose will binds a motley assembly of relatives and eccentrics - including taxidermists, mad inventors, and enigmatic women - to remain within the house's walls forever, under penalty of disinheritance. "Malpertuis" delves deeply into themes of fate, illusion, and the entrapment of the human (or divine) spirit, drawing heavily from Greek mythology to symbolize modern existential struggles. The blend of myth and horror evokes a sense of inevitable doom, where characters are pawns in a cosmic game, echoing influences from Luis Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel" in its portrayal of inescapable social confinement and Werner Herzog's nihilistic worldview. Welles, reportedly given directorial freedom over his scenes, infuses the role with Shakespearean weight, portraying a collector of "rare treasures" that prove far more sinister than art. Susan Hampshire (Baffled!, Night Must Fall, Houdini, Coronet Blue, The Time Tunnel,) shines in triple roles as three women - Euryale the Gorgon, a nurse, and a seductive figure - each embodying facets of temptation and terror, her "lubricious" performance adding erotic undertones to the gothic chill. Radiance's Malpertuis Blu-ray package to a must-own for collectors - the ambitious film's dense, dreamlike wanderings that don't fully coalesce, are defined by the package's technical excellence and extensive supplement value. For fans of cult cinema, surreal Euro-horror and Orson Welles this is hard to resist.

Gary Tooze