One of Robert Altman’s greatest masterpieces, Images is a tour de force of psychological horror. Dealing with hallucinations and apparitions, the film deftly blends reality with nightmare as Susannah York’s children’s author is terrorised by visions of mayhem and murder. On its release, Images reaped accolades although it has now become one of Altman’s lesser known works, so this Arrow Academy release marks the perfect time to rediscover it.

The early seventies were a period of remarkable activity for Robert Altman, producing masterpiece after masterpiece. At the time he came to make Images, MASH and McCabe & Mrs. Miller were behind him, with The Long Goodbye, California Split and Nashville still to come.

Originally conceived in the mid-sixties, Images concerns a pregnant children’s author (Susannah York, who won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival) whose husband (Rene Auberjonois) may or may not be having an affair. While holidaying in Ireland, her mental state becomes increasingly unstable resulting in paranoia, hallucinations and visions of a doppelgänger.

Scored by an Oscar-nominated John Williams, with “sounds” by Stomu Yamash’ta (The Man Who Fell to Earth), Images also boasts the remarkable cinematography of Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind).

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