David Farnor | On 05, Nov 2016

Heard of BFI Player? Well, there’s also BFI Player+, a subscription service that offers an all-you-can-eat selection of hand-picked classics.

Every Friday, Mark Kermode highlights one of the collection’s titles with a video introduction. This week, it’s Bullet Boy, Saul Dibb’s sharp urban drama.

Kermode highlights Ashley Walter’s eye-catching lead performance, reassessing the film in the context of both men’s careers.

What else is available to stream? Every week, we bring you a round-up of the latest titles on BFI Player+:

Orphee

Jean Cocteau retells the Orpheus myth, with Jean Marais playing a famous poet scorned by the Left Bank youth, and in love with both his wife Eurydice (Marie Déa) and a mysterious, black-clad princess (Maria Casarès).

The Living Dead Girl

The BFI’s Jean Rollin collection expands once more with this 1983 horror about a dead girl who comes back to live after toxic waste spills on her grave.

Nosferatu the Vampyre

Werner Herzog’s remake of F.W. Murnau’s vampire classic proves that there’s always a way to take another look at a familiar tale. Klaus Kinski dons the pale make-up of Murnau’s iconic monster, with Bruna Ganz playing Jonathan Harker – with copyright issues surrounding Bram Stoker’s original novel no longer an issue, Herzog was, unlike the German expressionist director before him, able to use the book’s actual names.

Twins of Evil

Still craving Hammer Horror? John Hough’s 1971 sees a pair of innocent twins come under the influence of the evil Count Karnstein. Real-life twins (and former Playboy Playmates) Mary and Madeleine Collinson play the twins, with Peter Cushing inevitably co-starring.

Julius Caesar (2012)

After directing David Tennant in Richard II and Hamlet – and bringing together the BBC’s extravagant live show in April 2016 to mark the 400 years since Shakespeare’s death – Gregory Doran once again proves himself one of the most interesting adaptors of the Bard’s work around with this 2012 take on Julius Caesar, which transplants the play’s action to post-independence Africa.

Man in Fear

The always-excellent Luke Treadaway stars in this short film about a paranoid man convinced he will be the victim of a “conceptual art accident”.

The Castle of Otranto

Never seen a Jan Svankmajer stop-motion? Start correcting that now with his 1977 short adaptation of Horace Walpole’s Gothic novel.

 

A BFI Player+ subscription costs £4.99 a month with a 30-day free trial. For more information, visit http://player.bfi.org.uk.
 

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