Beware My Brethren [Region B] [Blu-ray]

Product Information

This listing is for the standard edition Blu-ray/DVD combo. The limited edition slipcover (designed by Earl Kess) was limited to 1,500 units and is sold out. The two versions are identical, aside from the slipcover. period hues and outdoor activities, which maintain appealing greenery. Delineation is acceptable, preserving frame information. Grain is fine and filmic.

The Fiend as originally released runs for 98 minutes, but an edited version of 87 minutes (removing most of its more graphic content) was produced for the American market. The film was released on DVD in 2005; however the DVD uses the cut version. SPECIAL FEATURES
• INCLUDES FIRST PRESSING MATTE LAMINATE SLIPCASE with NEW ARTWORK BY SIMON PRITCHARD

Widow Birdy Wemys has become a devoted member of a fundamentalist fire-and-brimstone religious sect called "the Brethren", led by the charismatic Minister. Birdy has turned her sizeable home over to the Brethren for use as a church and a recruiting ground, and her son Kenny has also fallen under their spell. Kenny is a troubled individual, dominated by his overbearing mother, introverted and socially inept. He has taken the teachings of the Minister to heart, and feels repulsed by what he sees as sin, lust and temptation being openly flaunted by the young women he sees as he goes about his daily business. The murder of the prostitute (Terry Quinlan) in toned down in the Derann version (she's beaten around the head off-screen). The BBC version however includes some nasty shots of Kenny ramming his torch into the girl's mouth. Her death from being beaten around the head is no longer shown totally off-screen in the BBC version either. The 1972 British horror feature, Beware My Brethren (The Fiend), directed by Robert Hartford-Davis (Corruption), unveils its strongest sequence right out of the starting gates by intercutting a ghastly strangling…

Kenny descends into a frenzy of killing. One day at the pool, he is outraged when a young woman removes her bikini top and later follows her home to exact retribution for her Godless ways. While on his nocturnal beat he stumbles across a prostitute servicing a client, and she too is brutally despatched. Naked female bodies turn up across London in bizarre circumstances, dropping out of a cement mixer or dangling from a meat hook. A new religious cult has taken over the church, and all hell is unleashed on the unsuspecting community & congregation, as a psychopath seeks his own interpretation of the Lord's vengeance! The following scene where Quinlan's body is discovered in cement, is different in the two versions. The BBC version represents this scene with two shots of nudity (the actress obviously found it hard to hold her breath). The Derann version represents it with an odd, (still photograph?) close-up on the girl's face.

Now I did say that he stays away from the ladies, but that's not strictly true because he does have a bit of a mission to clear up the streets, you know the… There is certainly a fine opening scene where scenes of a girl being pursued, strangled and drowned, which is intercut with a baptism and a singer singing a hymn, where Robert Hartford-Davies cuts at appropriate points between lines like “With His blood, set me free … I know what my punishment must be/I have sinned with my every breath and my punishment must be death … And I know with my death I’ll be free.” of the churchgoers. While there's no choreography, Hartford-Davis stages the moment like a musical number, cutting between the performance in the Vinegar Syndrome (Blu-ray & DVD) (US R0 HD/NTSC), Odeon (DVD) (UK R0 PAL), Image (US R1 NTSC) / WS (1.78:1) (16:9)

It's that old nutshell of the mother love plot mixed with religious extremism and a ton of symbolism with something to offend the few people who will probably see this film. we open with a church service and a very upbeat Christian song that sounds like it could make the pop charts, and then we see the son of the church's organist going out and killing women he considers unworthy of Christ's grace. Mom has a breakdown then confesses to the Reverend, Reverend punishes mom, and son pays for his sins. Orndorf, Brian (29 November 2018). "Beware My Brethren Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com . Retrieved 14 January 2020. solitude has destroyed Kenny's perspective on normality, with his need to spread the good word turned into serial killing, unable to deal with the sin Having recently bought a copy of the 2010 release of this lost gem, finally available fully uncut and beautifully presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 - Odeon Entertainmant ODNF162 - I can't recommend it enough. Taking into consideration the very strict censorship laws and general climate the time of it's production, it's easy to see why it was butchered and suppressed at the time of it's initial release in 1972, the Mary Whitehouse brigade would have soiled themselves collectively at the subject matter alone. And the murder scenes, whilst fairly tame compared to some in todays more enlightened times, were way out there for early 70's Britain.

Birdy (Ann Todd) is a widow who's granted access to the Brethren, an Evangelical cult, to build a church inside her house. She's a devout believer, a damnation just don't have the punch they should, with most of "Beware My Brethren" coming across as a television movie that's occasionally