Arrow Video have released their schedule for February 2018 and it will be another month of DVD, Blu-ray and dual format releases. Below you will find the February 2018 release schedule for U.K., U.S.A. and Canada releases.
If you missed what Arrow Video released in January 2018 you can find all the details HERE.
THE GRUESOME TWOSOME
Release Date: 5th February 2018 (U.K. Release)
6th February 2018 (U.S.A. Release)
Format: Blu-ray
Directed by: Herschell Gordon Lewis
OH, YES… OUR WIGS ARE MADE FROM GENUINE HUMAN HAIR… AND HOW!
After dabbling in the unlikely world of children’s entertainment with the likes of Jimmy, the Boy Wonder and The Magic Land of Mother Goose, in 1967 “Godfather of Gore” Herschell Gordon Lewis returned to genre he helped create with the delightfully depraved The Gruesome Twosome!
The young women of a small-town American college have more than just split-ends to worry about… Down at the Little Wig Shop, the batty Mrs. Pringle and her socially-inept son Rodney are procuring only the finest heads of hair – by scalping the local co-eds! Can they be stopped before they clear the entire campus of luxuriant-haired ladies?
Also including HG Lewis’ Dracula-inspired vampire epic A Taste of Blood as a bonus feature, this is one Gruesome Twosome that’s well worth flipping your wig over!
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Bonus Feature! 1967’s A Taste of Blood
• Introductions to the films by HG Lewis
• Archive audio commentaries for both films by HG Lewis
• Peaches Christ Flips Her Wig! – San Francisco performer Peaches Christ on The Gruesome Twosome
• It Came from Florida – filmmaker Fred Olen Ray (Scalps, The Alien Dead) on Florida Filmmaking
• HG Lewis vs. the Censors – HG Lewis discusses some of the pitfalls of the blood-and-guts business including local censorship and angry moviegoers
• Trailers and radio spot
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by The Twins of Evil
DETAILS
Region: Free
Rating: 18
Genre: horror
Duration: 72 mins
Language: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: Mono
Colour
Discs: 1
THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE
Release Date: 12th February 2018 (U.K. Release)
Format: Blu-ray and DVD
Directed by: Dario Argento
In 1970, young first-time director Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria) made his indelible mark on Italian cinema with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage – a film which redefined the ‘giallo’ genre of murder-mystery thrillers and catapulted him to international stardom.
Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante, We Own the Night), an American writer living in Rome, inadvertently witnesses a brutal attack on a woman (Eva Renzi, Funeral in Berlin) in a modern art gallery. Powerless to help, he grows increasingly obsessed with the incident. Convinced that something he saw that night holds the key to identifying the maniac terrorising Rome, he launches his own investigation parallel to that of the police, heedless of the danger to both himself and his girlfriend Giulia (Suzy Kendall, Spasmo)…
A staggeringly assured debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage establishes the key traits that would define Argento’s filmography, including lavish visuals and a flare for wildly inventive, brutal scenes of violence. With sumptuous cinematography by Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now) and a seductive score by legendary composer Ennio Morricone (Once Upon a Time in the West), this landmark film has never looked or sounded better in this new, 4K-restored edition from Arrow Video!
Blu-ray SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• Brand new 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative produced by Arrow Video exclusively for this release
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Original lossless mono Italian and English soundtracks
• English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
• New audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films
• The Power of Perception, a new visual essay on the cinema of Dario Argento by Alexanda Heller-Nicholas, author of Devil’s Advocates: Suspiria and Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study
• New analysis of the film by critic Kat Ellinger
• New interview with writer/director Dario Argento • New interview with actor Gildo Di Marco (Garullo the pimp)
• Eva’s Talking, an archival interview with actor Eva Renzi (Monica Ranieri)
• Original Italian and international theatrical trailers
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Candice Tripp
DVD SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• Brand new 4K restoration of the film from the original camera negative produced by Arrow Video exclusively for this release
• Standard Definition DVD presentation
• Original mono Italian and English soundtracks
• English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
• New audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films
• The Power of Perception, a new visual essay on the cinema of Dario Argento by Alexanda Heller-Nicholas, author of Devil’s Advocates: Suspiria and Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study
• New analysis of the film by critic Kat Ellinger
• New interview with writer/director Dario Argento
• New interview with actor Gildo Di Marco (Garullo the pimp)
• Eva’s Talking, an archival interview with actor Eva Renzi (Monica Ranieri)
• Original Italian and international theatrical trailers
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Candice Tripp
DETAILS
Region: B and 2
Rating: 15
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Duration: 98 mins
Language: Italian/English
Subtitles: English/ English SDH
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audio: Mono
Colour
Discs: 1
SCALPEL
Release Date: 19th February 2018 (U.K. Release)
27th February 2018 (U.S.A./Canada Release)
Format: Blu-ray
Directed by: John Grissmer
HE LOST THE FACE OF THE WOMAN HE LOVED… SO HE GAVE IT TO SOMEONE ELSE.
US television staple Robert Lansing (Star Trek, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone) stars as a deranged surgeon in this twisty-turny psychological thriller from Blood Rage director John Grissmer.
In Scalpel, Lansing plays Dr. Phillip Reynolds, a man whose daughter Heather (Judith Chapman, As the World Turns, General Hospital) has run away from home a year prior following the suspicious death of her boyfriend. When he happens across a young woman one night, her face beaten beyond recognition, the unhinged Reynolds sees his an opportunity to put his trusty scalpel to use – hatching a plan to “reconstruct” her face in the image of his missing daughter, and so claim her sizeable inheritance.
Photographed by celebrated cinematographer Edward Lachman, who would go on to serve as DP on the likes of Erin Brockovich and The Virgin Suicides, Scalpel is an exemplary slice of Southern-fried gothic, filled finally rescued from VHS obscurity in this revelatory new Blu-ray edition from Arrow Video.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• Brand new 2K restoration from original film elements
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Original Uncompressed Mono Audio Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Brand new audio commentary by film historian Richard Harland Smith
• Brand new crew interviews
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by The Twins of Evil
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet with new writing on the film by Bill Ackerman
DETAILS
Region: B
Rating: 15
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Duration: 95 mins
Language: English
Subtitles: English SDH
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio: Mono
Colour
Discs: 1
DER TODESKING
Release Date: 26th February 2018 (U.K. Release Only)
Format: Dual format Blu-ray & DVD
Directed by: Jörg Buttgereit
The second feature film from German provocateur Jörg Buttgereit, director of Nekromantik and Nekromantik 2, Der Todesking (“The King of Death”) presents seven suicides across seven days of the week.
As a chain letter from the self-proclaimed “Brotherhood of the 7th Day” circulates encouraging its recipients to end their lives, a series of grim murder-suicides unfold. In one vignette, a young woman massacres a room of concert-goers before turning the gun on herself; in another, a man, driven to madness by some unspecified mental disturbance, repeatedly slams his head into a wall before collapsing in a pool of his own blood… These are just some of depictions of death and despair that make up the tortured fabric of Der Todesking.
Regarded by many as director Jörg Buttgereit’s most accomplished work, Der Todesking is an existential masterpiece – a powerfully haunting howl of rage from one of the genre’s most underrated filmmakers.
3-DISC DIRECTOR-APPROVED LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
• Director’s approved HD transfer from the original 16mm negative
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
• Original Stereo Audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
• Optional English subtitles
• Limited edition packaging featuring new artwork by Gilles Vranckx
• Limited edition certificate featuring original artwork
• Replica “Brotherhood of the 7th Day” Chain Letter
• Der Todesking Soundtrack CD
• Limited Edition 60-page book
DISC 1 [BLU-RAY] & DISC 2 [DVD] – ‘DER TODESKING’
• Audio commentary by Jörg Buttgereit and co-writer Franz Rodenkirchen
• From Bundy to Lautréamont – Jörg Buttgereit in conversation with journalist Graham Rae at the 2016 Manchester Festival of Fantastic Films
• The Making of Der Todesking – vintage production featurette
• Footage from the original 1990 Berlin premiere
• Corpse Fucking Art – 1992 documentary bringing together the making of featurettes of Nekromantik,
• Der Todesking and Nekromantik 2 Der Gollob (1983, 25 mins) – short film by Jörg Buttgereit, newly transferred in HD and viewable with optional director’s audio commentary
• Two short films by producer Manfred O. Jelinski: Die Reise ins Licht (1972, 27 mins) and Geliebter Wahnsinn (1973, 7 mins)
• Still Gallery Jörg Buttgereit
• Trailer Gallery
DISC 3 [CD] – ‘DER TODESKING’ SOUNDTRACK – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE
• CD featuring the complete Der Todesking score
60-PAGE BOOK – LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE
• Exclusive perfect-bound book featuring new writing on the film from Graham Rae and Kat Ellinger, all illustrated with new artwork and original archive stills
Region: B/2
Rating: 18
Genre: Horror
Duration: 95 mins
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audio: Stereo
Colour
Discs: 3
BASKET CASE
Release Date: 27th February 2018 (U.S.A. Release Only)
Format: Blu-ray
Directed by: Frank Henenlotter
A riotous and blood-spattered midnight movie experience, now immortalized in a lavish new 4K restoration by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
THE TENANT IN ROOM 7 IS VERY SMALL, VERY TWISTED, AND VERY MAD.
The feature debut of director Frank Henenlotter (Brain Damage, Frankenhooker), 1982’s Basket Case is perhaps his most revered – a riotous and blood-spattered midnight movie experience, now immortalized in a lavish new 4K restoration by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
Duane Bradley is a pretty ordinary guy. His formerly conjoined twin Belial, on the other hand, is a deformed, fleshy lump whom he carries around in a wicker basket. Arriving in the Big Apple and taking up a room at the seedy Hotel Broslin, the pair set about hunting down and butchering the surgeons responsible for their separation. But tensions flare up when Duane starts spending time with a pretty blonde secretary, and Belial’s homicidal tendencies reach bloody new extremes.
Filmed on a shoestring budget against the backdrop of 1980s New York (where the movie would become a staple of the infamous 42nd Street grindhouse circuit), Basket Case has clawed its way from its humble origins to become one of the most celebrated cult movies of all time.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
• Brand new 4K restoration from the original 16mm negative by MoMA
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• Original Uncompressed Mono Audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Brand new audio commentary with writer/director Frank Henenlotter and star Kevin Van Hentenryck
• Basket Case 3-1/2: An Interview with Duane Bradley – Frank Henenlotter revisits Duane Bradley decades after the events of the original Basket Case
• Seeing Double: The Basket Case Twins – a brand new interview with Florence and Maryellen Schultz, the twin nurses from Basket Case
• Brand new making-of featurette containing new interviews with producer Edgar Ievins, casting person/actress Ilze Balodis, associate producer/effects artist Ugis Nigals and Belial performer Kika Nigals
• Blood, BASKET and Beyond – a brand new interview with actress Beverly Bonner
• Belial Goes to the Drive-In – a brand new interview with film critic Joe Bob Briggs
• Outtakes Featurette
• In Search of the Hotel Broslin – archive location featurette
• Slash of the Knife (1972) – short film by Frank Henenlotter
• Belial’s Dream (2017, 5 mins) – brand new Basket Case-inspired animated short by filmmaker Robert Morgan
• Behind-the-scenes of Belial’s Dream
• Trailers, TV Spots and Radio Spots
• Extensive Still Galleries
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Sara Deck
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet with new writing on the film by Michael Gingold