Nostalgia Kinky

Visual Vengeance are gearing up to release Laurin, the 1989 Hungarian cult favorite from director Robert Sigl as an expansive special edition Blu-ray. Absolutley PACKED with hours of quality bonus features. two versions of the film and expansive packaging, this Blu-ray edition will absolutely thrill fans of this folk horror tale. Among the best archival releases of the year, Laurin can be pre-ordered now from MVD.

I really wanted to love Laurin.
In fact, I was fully expecting to love Laurin.
And there are, in fact, things that I do very much love about Laurin. First and foremost, wow, what a lovely-looking film this is. I fell immediately in love with cinematographer Nyika Jancsó’s work on Laurin, making this is one of the best-looking film discoveries in recent memory. From the first frame to the final, Laurin is one of the eeriest and most evocative-looking films I have seen in some time.

I completely get why Laurin is such a fan favorite, especially for folk horror admirers. Perhaps my relative disinterest in the genre as a whole stopped me from ever being fully captivated by Laurin. Whatever the reason, despite my great admiration for the film’s look and general mood, I just never connected with the film, ultimately finding it very pretty to look at but frustratingly uninvolving.

Clearly a passion project for him, Sigl wrote the script for Laurin along with Ádám Rozgonyi.
It feels,
skeletal.
An easily solvable mystery, Laurin’s script feels like an afterthought compared to the film’s extraordinary visuals. It’s a shame, as to my eyes at least Laurin fails as a feature mostly due to a story seemingly designed for a short.

Laurin is blessed with a great lead performance by child actor Dóra Szinetár, who became a pop star after appearing in the film. The rest of the ensemble is fine, although the film’s incredible visual styling overwhelm them at times. Hoping for a breaout his, the film was released in English. I personally preferred the original German voices heard on the VHS rough cut Visual Vengeance has included in this package.

Direction wise, Sigl does more than adequete work behind the camera here. While I found parts of his debut frustrating, there is still much to admire about Laurin. Watching him on the disc’s extras, you can tell he loves film and he’s attempting something pretty poetic with Laurin and he often succeeds, despite the script’s issues.

While Laurin as a film didn’t blow me away, this Blu-ray certainly did. Visual Vengeance has pulled out all the stops here making this easily one of the best packages of the year. On top of the beautiful 2K restoration of the film, we have hours of interviews, behind the scenes footage, rare photos and so many more goodies. Best of all is the VHS sourced Rough cut, which runs nearly fifteen minutes longer than the feature. Also, on hand in this lovely slip-covered edition are postcards and a poster. Hesitations about the film aside, Laurin on Blu-ray is an absolute knock out of the park for one of the most underrated boutique labels.

-Jeremy Richey, August 2026-