Magic, Myth & Mutilation: The Micro-Budget Cinema of Michael J. Murphy, 1967–2015

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It was because the idea of capturing stories on film and entertaining an audience was always something that completely fascinated me. This happened to Murphy and not only wrecked the film he was making but cost him thousands of pounds that he could ill afford and was unable to retrieve. Instead I'll provide an overview of the challenges the good people at Indicator faced and my general impressions of what has been achieved, sometimes against all odds.

In this final segment of Murphy's Lore, several individuals pay tribute to Murphy's work and reveal how they first discovered it (usually through the double-bill of Invitation to Hell and The Last Night) and how it influenced them. The influence of Henri-Georges Clouzot's Les diaboliques is evident, and there's a neat whiff of the later Misery to a couple of scenes, and the result is an interesting and intermittently surprising work, handsomely shot by Murphy himself and making evocative use of the sun-drenched Greek locations. It is easily Indicator's most ambitious and challenging project to date and it will be the definitive for the entirety of this auteur's work - that spanned 50-years! Precise framing with this camera was nigh-on impossible because the viewfinder was slightly out of line with the lens, and the camera was so noisy in use that he would often shoot silent and have the performers dub their lines in post-production.But for the sake of this utterly knackered reviewer, can you leav This is more like it, a trailer that captures the essence of the film, makes the drama and characters look interesting, and it chooses a choice line to sign off with. Not a 'making of' featurette in the usual sense, this consists of a single blue-screen shot of Murphy talking straight to camera in which he reflects on the experience of making Atlantis.

But for the sake of this utterly knackered reviewer, can you leave it just a little while before hitting us with the next one?What subsequently unfolds is driven by mounting suspicion and paranoia on the part of all three family members, as one seemingly bad decision fuels another, delivering a handful of genuine plot surprises on the way.

It certainly prompted me to give the film another look and yes, see it in a more forgiving light, but I completely disagree with his assertion that it's a far superior film to The Last Night. You're acting now," Murphy says to Bunday at her first on-screen appearance, to which she replies, "Ooo, am I? Tonight is the final night of a run of a play with the ominous title Murder in the Dark, and as the members of an amateur theatre group prepare to go on stage, a birthday surprise is being planned for one of their number, Helen (Catherine Rowlands, formerly credited in Murphy's films as Catherine Aylward and now as Caroline MacDowell).It's impressively scripted (by Murphy masquerading here as Carl Humphries) in that poetic olde English that probably has more to do with literary tales of ancient times than how people actually spoke, and while the dialogue is always delivered in a precise theatrical manner, this is one genre in which that doesn't feel remotely out of place. Lyndon emphasises the importance of character, and Duncan – who's closer to the mic this time – admits preferring this film to Invitation to Hell. Fireworks stand in for volcanos, and the sword used for the beheading was clearly constructed by covering the blade of a plastic weapon with tinfoil. A largely structureless collection of behind the scenes footage, fascinating for Murphy's microbudget working methods, particularly the watering can used to create the effect of rain in front of the camera. He shot on a variety of formats over the years, including 8mm and 16mm film, standard definition mini-DV, and HD video, but it turns out there's a lot more to it than that.