THE BALLAD OF TAM LIN (FLIPSIDE) - BLU-RAY

The Ballad of Tam Lin (Blu-ray)
Hollywood enchantress Ava Gardner (The Killers) casts a glamorous, beguiling spell across this eerily evocative, unjustly overlooked folk horror. Loosely based around the traditional Scottish ballad, and shot in the border country, it would be the sole directorial credit of legendary Planet of the Apes actor, Roddy McDowall.
Swinging-London photographer Tom Lynn (Ian McShane, Lovejoy), the current bedroom favourite of beautiful, wealthy widow Mrs Cazaret (Gardner), joins his lover and a kooky coven of bright young things for decadent debauchment at a remote Scottish moorland retreat. But when Tom falls instead for local girl Janet (Stephanie Beacham, Dracula AD 1972), daughter of the local vicar (Cyril Cusack, Farenheit 451), he must face the fiery fury of a woman scorned: drug-fuelled, dangerous, deadly games…

Special features / extras

• Presented in High Definition
• Audio commentary by BFI Flipside co-founders William Fowler and Vic Pratt (2021)
• Love You and Leave You For Dead (2021, 11 mins): Ian McShane on Tam Lin
• An Eerie Tale to Tell(2021, 10 mins): Stephanie Beacham on Tam Lin
• Ballad of a B-Movie: Revisiting Tam Lin (2021, 12 mins): interview with Roddy McDowall biographer David Del Valle
• Legendary Ladies of the Silver Screen: Ava Gardner (1998, 17 mins): Roddy McDowall remembers Ava Gardner and The Ballad of Tam Lin in this adoring archive introduction
• Adventures Along the Way (2022, 32 mins): actress Madeline Smith looks back on being one of the coven
• Listening In (2022, 27 mins): Jacqui McShee, lead singer of the seminal British folk group Pentangle, recalls the writing and recording of the film's cult soundtrack
• Hans Zimmer on Stanley Myers (2021, 20 mins, audio only): the much-loved composer discusses the work of Stanley Myers
• Red Red? Red (Jim Weiss, Chris Maudison, John Phillips, 1971, 34 mins): an impressionistic study of a commune in Devon where people dress up, play instruments, make love and take part in strange revolutionary games
• Border Country (26 mins): rare short films from the BFI National Archive reveal rural lifestyles at Scotland's edge
• Theatrical trailer