Beauty and the Beast (Panna a netvor) (Blu-ray) Second Run

From Juraj Herz, director of The Cremator and Morgiana, come this singular adaption of the classic tale – an altogether darker interpretation than we’re used to. Light years from Disney, Herz’s Beauty and the Beast (also known more provocatively as The Virgin and the Monster) follows the familiar story – innocent girl presents herself as sacrifice to a cursed man-beast hiding in exile, and learns to live with, and eventually love her captor – but is transformed into something entirely more twisted and terrifying in Herz’s macabre re-imagining.

Aided by wonderful set and costume design, superb cinematography and evocative score, this is a fairy-tale-turned-horror story from Czechoslovak cinema’s most wryly subversive artist.