Overview: Jan (Mathieu Carrière, Police Python 357), a sailor newly arrived onshore, is unsure about returning to land but makes the journey to visit his childhood home only to find it no longer there. He goes to Bar Venus and joins his friends but an altercation leaves him knocked out cold. He wakes up in Malpertuis, a gothic mansion presided over by his uncle, Cassavius (Orson Welles).

All the inhabitants of Malpertuis are waiting for Cassavius to die and the opportunity to inherit his vast fortune. But Cassavius wishes anyone who inherits to stay there forever. Jan investigates as those who leave meet with mysterious deaths. Harry Kümel’s (Daughters of Darkness) phantasmagoria is a Matryoshka doll of fantastic ideas, realized with stunning photography by Gerry Fisher (The Exorcist III) and scored by Georges Delerue (Contempt).

Newly restored and overseen by Kümel, it is released on Blu-ray for the first time in the world.

Blu-ray Verdict: In the opening shot, we see our hero, Jan, disembarking from his ship for a night of shore leave. He’s being spied on by two shifty looking characters, who for reasons unknown, hatch a plot to lure him to his ancestral home, Malpertuis. Sometime later, he is present for the reading of his uncle’s deathbed will, along with the other members of the extended family. Cassavius’s considerable fortune is to be divided among them on one condition: they must stay in Malpertuis forever. The last two who outlive all the others will inherit the house and the entire bequest.

It sounds like it’s all set up for a Battle Royale, last man (and woman) standing scenario, but the way it actually plays out is quite different. To say any more about the plot would be to spoil it though; the less you know going in, the better. It’s actually a shame the synopsis here on LB gives away as much as it does - on the slim chance you’re reading about the film for the first time in this review, I’d highly recommend taking the plunge without even glancing at any synopses.

I somehow managed to do that, and the experience was so much more rewarding as a result - you can really get wrapped up in the beguiling mystery of all it. I’m not sure if it’s the best version, but for the record, I watched Kümel’s post-Cannes re-edit, in Dutch, rather than the shorter international version in French or English.

Shot on location in Bruges and Gent, this Belgian slice of Gothic surrealism is relentlessly quixotic - it’s not really a horror, but the look and feel of it places it in the realm of Eurohorror; the one film it brought to mind more than any other is A Virgin Among the Living Dead. It doesn’t have the level of fantastically WTF sleazy eroticism Virgin brings, but certain plot points and the general gauze of unreality make it comparable to my mind.

The cinematography, with a fluid camera tracking lithely through weird angles and high contrast lighting are all reminiscent of Bava’s visual style. Some of the vertical shots, looking down into the abyssal void of the spiral staircase or up into the dark recesses of the rafters are stunningly beautiful.

The word dreamlike is perhaps tossed around too readily, but it’s hard to describe this film in any other way. It’s not just the grand old house itself that seems like an oneiric nexus; right from the outset, everything seems vaguely unreal - the altogether too-clean sailors disembarking from the pristine ship; the strangely empty streets, echoing with the sound of Jan’s footsteps, recall the waking dream world of de Chirico, while Malpertuis itself is like something out of an M.C. Escher drawing, delineating an impossible architecture forever folding in on itself.

There’s one static shot, which the film keeps coming back to, of all the guests assembled in one room, all locked in position and pose, that also has a painterly quality - like courtiers frozen in place for an interior study.

The film is crammed full of bizarre and intriguing characters, with Orson Welles giving it his all as the fearsomely eccentric occultist Cassavius, playing a strange game of eugenics in his dying days. He puts his faith for the future in his blonde-haired, blue-eyed protégé, ominously telling Jan he must continue his work. Mathieu Carrière as Jan is something of a blank slate, but keeps things grounded and provides a focus for the madness unfolding around him.

Among a lot of enjoyably off the wall supporting roles, it’s Susan Hampshire who steals the show, playing five (!) different characters. It’s a disorienting move that works to further blur the boundary between the real and the imaginary - from the moment Jan enters Malpertuis it seems like that boundary has dissolved and his viewpoint has shifted irrevocably to a weird Möbius strip of existence. The house represents another place, but also another time; another dimension in fact. When it finally gives up its secret, it becomes clear why. [W.A.]

BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:
New 4K restoration of the film overseen by director Harry Kümel
Audio commentary by Harry Kümel and assistant director Françoise Levie (2005)
New interview with Harry Kümel (2025)
New interview with author and gothic horror expert Jonathan Rigby (2025)
Malpertuis Archive - an archival documentary on the making of the film featuring Kümel, actor Mathieu Carrière and director of photography Gerry Fisher among others (2005)
Orson Welles Uncut - a featurette on the casting of Welles, including rare outtakes of the actor (2005)
Susan Hampshire: one actress, three parts - an archival interview with the actress, including screen tests and contributions from cast and crew (2005) Archival interview with Michel Bouquet and Harry Kümel from Belgian television (1971)
Jean Ray, John Flanders 1887 - 1964 - an archival interview with the source novelist and co-writer of Malpertuis (2005)
Malpertuis Revisited - Harry Kümel revisits locations from the film (2005, 4 mins)
Malpertuis: The Cannes cut - the rejected version of the film which premiered in Cannes(100 mins, SD)
The Warden of the Tomb - Kümel’s early film based on Franz Kafka’s play (1965, 37 mins)
Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow
Limited edition 80-page perfect bound booklet featuring new writing by Lucas Balbo, Maria J. Pérez Cuervo, David Flint, Willow Catelyn Maclay, Jonathan Owen
Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in rigid box and full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

Official Purchase Link

www.radiancefilms.co.uk