Sleepwalker (Flipside 027) (DVD)

When wealthy couple Richard and Angela visit Marion and Alex in their decaying family home, their differing social and moral attitudes create uneasy tensions. A fractious evening of drunkenness and sexual rivalry soon turns bloody as the guests fall victim to an unhinged attacker.

Featuring a rare performance from director Bill Douglas (Bill Douglas Trilogy, Comrades), and starring British screen greats Joanna David and Heather Page (both of whom would go on to work with Douglas in Comrades), Sleepwalker is an outrageous mix of biting satire and bloody horror that is at once reminiscent of otherwise unlikely bedfellows Lindsay Anderson and Dario Argento. The stellar cast also includes Nickolas Grace, and features cameos by Fulton Mackay, Michael Medwin (O Lucky Man!) and Raymond Huntley.

Remastered from the only surviving print, this unique twist on the British horror genre is presented with two shorts by Saxon Logan and the rare 1971 mid-length fantasy, The Insomniac, directed by Rodney Giesler.

Browse more BFI Flipside titles

• The Insomniac (Rodney Giesler, 1971, 45 mins): a man experiences a night-time world that is part foreboding nightmare, part sexual fantasy
• Stepping Out (Saxon Logan, 1977, 10 mins): a couple's untraditional early morning ritual is observed in a short drama which originally supported Polanski's The Tenant in UK cinemas
• Working Surface: A Short Study (with Actors) in the Ways of a Bourgeois Writer (Saxon Logan, 1979, 16 mins): Bill Douglas plays a writer struggling with a script about two women (played by Joanna David and Heather Page)
• O Lucky Man: Saxon Logan in Conversation (2013, 72 mins): exclusive, feature-length interview with the director of Sleepwalker.