StudioCanal, out now

A trio of scientists plan to create a self-replicating, immortal, hermaphrodite using the Final Programme developed by a dead, Nobel Prize-winning scientist. 

Writer/director/designer Robert (Dr Phibes movies) Fuest’s 1973 sci-fi caper gets a BluRay upgrade from StudioCanal in this new restoration. Based on Michael Moorcock’s 1968 novel of the same name, it’s very much a product of its time, with Jon Finch as physicist playboy and anti-hero Jerry Cornelius

It’s a mash-up of 70s camp like Jason King, with the surrealism of The Avengers (Fuest directed seven episodes) and any number of late-60s spy movies. The plot involves an upper-class dandy in a velvet suit and ruffled shirt, his mad brother, the quest for missing microfilm, the creation of a new messiah and a Nazi submarine.

There’s fun to be had in recognising familiar genre faces like Harry Andrews, Graham Crowden and Ronald Lacey. Jenny Runacre is female lead Miss Brunner, a fur-clad escapee from a Bond movie – her MO is to consume her lovers – and the whole thing bounces along agreeably for 90 minutes.

StudioCanal’s HD transfer pumps up the colour of the psychedelic frame, and there’s new interviews with actor Jenny Runacre and cult film aficionado Kim Newman.

Verdict: An enjoyable time capsule of a movie that ticks multiple genre boxes and doesn’t take itself too seriously. 7/10

Nick Joy