Most of the carping over Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was due to the film’s lack of substantial character development between action sequences in the 2½- hour theatrical cut. That problem has been rectified, at least somewhat, by the 3-hour Ultimate Edition now available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Overall the film is neither the best nor the worst of the myriad Superman and Batman films that have been made since 1978 when Christopher Reeve flew into our lives and our hearts in Superman – The Movie. That film plus 1981’s Superman II, also starring Reeve, and 2006’s Superman Returns starring Brandon Routh were the best of the Superman movies. 2013’s Man of Steel gave us a worthy Henry Cavill in the lead, but the film, directed by Snyder, was much darker than previous films about the beloved character.

On the other hand, all the Batman films since Michael Keaton put on the bat suit in 1989’s Batman and 1992’s Batman Returns have been dark, but those films, too, were good, unlike the subsequent Batman films of the 1990s. Even more memorable were the three Christopher Nolan iterations, 2005’s Batman Begins, 2008’s The Dark Knight, and 2012’s The Dark Knight Rises, all starring Christian Bale.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice brings back Henry Cavill as Superman, but gives us a new Batman in the form of Ben Affleck. Both Affleck and Cavill are quite good. Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, the third superhero in the film, isn’t quite in the same league, but we do get expanded characterizations of Superman/Clark Kent’s mother (Diane Lane) and co-reporter/girlfriend (Amy Adams). Jeremy Irons is also a welcome addition, following in the footsteps of Michael Gough and Michael Caine as Batman/Bruce Wayne’s butler. I recommend seeing it at least once.

I don’t recommend Miracles From Heaven, the latest of Hollywood’s new-fangled faith-based films about a child who dies, goes to Heaven, and comes back to tell us about her experience. In this instance she doesn’t die until the last reel, after her poor mother (Jennifer Garner) has had a crisis of faith within her new age church and the bleak assessments made of the daughter’s (Kylie Rogers) terminal illness which goes into remission after she falls into the hollow of the family tree. We actually don’t see her die since she is in the hollow for a while until the firemen rescue her, so her time in Heaven could be hallucinatory, but that wouldn’t explain the miracle cure. I recommend a re-watch of The Song of Bernadette instead, in which this kind of thing was handled with much more substance and style.

At the other end of the religious spectrum is Ken Russell’s bizarre 1984 cult classic Crimes of Passion in which Anthony Perkins plays a demented street preacher out to save the soul of Kathleen Turner’s sportswear designer by day/hooker by night. John Laughlin co-stars as a married man with a frigid wife (Annie Potts) who also becomes obsessed by her. Turner is astonishing in the role that won her the L.A. Film Critics’ award for Best Actress of the year and second place in that year’s National Society of Film Critics voting.

Arrow’s dual release gives us both the unrated director’s cut of the film and theatrical release version in both a 2K Blu-ray and a standard definition DVD. Extras include seven deleted scenes and brand-new on-screen interviews with screenwriter Barry Sandler and composer Rick Wakefield.

William Castle was the self-proclaimed Master of Fright. In Hollywood since 1939, the producer-director didn’t become a household name until 1958 when the low-budget Macabre became a box-office hit due to its gimmicky promotion in which Castle got Lloyds of London to insure filmgoers for $1,000 in case they died of fright. Subsequent small budget hits, The House on Haunted Hill and The Tingler, led to a contract at Columbia and bigger budgets. Four of those films have been newly released on Blu-ray in packs of two.

1960’s 13 Ghosts is paired with 1963’s 13 Frightened Girls while 1961’s Homicidal and Mr. Sardonicus are paired together.

The gimmick with 13 Ghosts was a pair of plastic glasses in which, when the black-and-white screen turns blue, you look through the red part if you believe in ghosts to see them or the blue part in which they can’t be seen if you don’t believe in them. The Blu-ray, as with the previously released DVD, shows the ghosts in red against the blue background.

Donald Woods, Rosemary DeCamp, Charles Herbert, and Jo Morrow are the members of a family that inherits a house from Woods’ late uncle complete with a mysterious housekeeper (Margaret Hamilton) and 13 ghosts. Hamilton, who young Herbert suspects is really a witch, has the last laugh grabbing her broomstick in tribute to her iconic role in The Wizard of Oz.

The gimmick with Homicidal has Castle interrupting the film near the end, giving audience members 45 seconds to leave the auditorium and obtain a refund if they were too frightened to watch the ending. If they did, they would have to wait in a “coward’s corner” until the rest of the audience left. No one took advantage of the offer.

Joan Marshall, on screen since childhood, was re-named Jean Arless for this film only. Later best known for her third of five marriages to Hal Ashby, Marshall AKA Arless has never been better than as the homicidal maniac who hires a bellboy to marry her in the middle of the night for $2,000, after which she stabs the justice-of-the-peace to death in this take-off on Psycho. Glenn Corbett, Patricia Breslin, and Eugenie Leontovich co-star.

The gimmick with Mr. Sardonicus has Castle coming on screen after the action has seemingly concluded, asking the audience if the villain has been punished enough and adding another scene when the audience votes he has not.

With a premise taken from 1928’s The Man Who Laughs, Mr. Sardonicus is set in 1880s middle Europe where Guy Rolfe has been afflicted with a hideous permanent grin on his face. Ronald Lewis is the English doctor sent for to cure him, Audrey Dalton his estranged wife and Oscar Homolka as Sadronicus’ faithful servant co-star.

There is no gimmick in 13 Frightened Girls, but the plot about a 16-year-old ambassador’s daughter who dabbles in espionage is itself awfully gimmicky. Kathy Dunn stars as the girl who is in love with 40-year-old master spy Murray Hamilton although his friend, her dad, Hugh Marlowe has no idea. It appealed mostly to young girls of fifty-three years ago, some of whom may still remember it fondly.

This week’s new releases include Deadline U.S.A. and Five Miles to Midnight.