BAIT was a Cornish conversation about gentrification and, perversely, the beauty of the Cornish landscape. In ENYS MEN Mark Jenkins returns to his homeland with a horror film that is part experiment, part nightmare and part historical meditation. Now usually I am less enamoured with films championed by the Kermode business model. I was once an acolyte and now I am dulled. His voice and fingers lead to success for those films that find his favour but at what cost to other, harder fought films?

ENYS MEN is set in 1973 on a Cornish island. This island is both uninhabited and remote to anyone but those with a sense of adventure. Botany and wildlife volunteer (Mary Woodvine) is one person happy to explore and lives on the island taking daily observations of a rare flower that is perched on a cliff. This means temperature reads, generator feeds and a night with an obscure monument in the distance. Suddenly it takes a darker turn into the strange and metaphysical world of history and horror. Filmed on location, with Jenkin putting to use a 16mm colour film stock and imposed sound to create a sonic and sensory drama that will haunt your nights and days.

ENYS MEN does something rather poetic in its capturing of the haunted spaces we inhabit. Through memory, history and imagination, we can often conjure up those things that are hidden. Jenkins reflects this with a space that is both empty of life and full of it. A dichotomy not lost on him or his creation as he charts in his diaries. When director Mark Jenkin and film critic Mark Kermode sit down to talk about ENYS MEN, you see they focus as much on the folklore magic of cinema as that of Cornwall. This is very apt. There are a bunch of motifs, reflections and images in the film that are of course present in bigger (and better) films of the genre. I preferred this energetic and balanced conversation to the later interview of the director and his lead actor. Now for me, the very best thing on the disc is a film I watched from the CFTF called Haunters of the Deep. This inspired Jenkins and is also a great film in its own right!

• Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition
• Audio commentary with director Mark Jenkin and film critic Mark Kermode
• Mark Jenkin’s audio diaries (2022, 90 mins): the director charts his filmmaking process
• On-stage interview with Mark Jenkin and Mary Woodvine by film critic Mark Kermode at BFI Southbank (2022, 29 mins)
• Film Sounds with Mark Jenkin and Peter Strickland (2022, 86 mins): the director of Enys Men in conversation with filmmaker Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, Flux Gourmet) as they discuss the subtleties of sound in film
• Recording the Score (2022, 6 mins): a short clip of Mark Jenkin at work
• Haunters of the Deep (1984, 61 mins): a Children’s Film Foundation adventure that shares many of the same West Cornwall locations as Enys Men, and made quite an impression on its director.
• The Duchy of Cornwall (1938, 15 mins): a rapid survey of early Cornish history looks at the county’s language, landscape and industries
• Trailer
• Image gallery
• English subtitles for the Deaf and partial hearing and audio description (feature only)
• **FIRST PRESSING ONLY** Fully illustrated booklet featuring new essays by Rob Young, Tara Judah, Jason Wood and William Fowler