We have rounded up some of the latest horror/science fiction genre DVD & Blu-ray releases in the UK for the week beginning 12th December 2022.
JU-ON: THE GRUDGE COLLECTION
“Ju-On”: the name given to a deadly curse spawned when someone dies in the grip of a violent rage. All who come into contact with it are doomed… Collected together for the first time, writer-director Takashi Shimizu’s Ju-On: The Grudge series represents the flesh-crawling pinnacle of Japanese chillers that swept the globe at the turn of the millennium.
The films introduce the anonymous family house in the suburbs of Tokyo where an unspeakable evil lingers alongside its residents, the ghastly mother-son pairing of Kayoko and Toshio Saeki. Shimizu’s disconcerting approach to plotting, unnerving eye for the uncanny details in the dark corners of the frame and an innate talent for effective jump scares so impressed Evil Dead director Sam Raimi that he invited the director to helm two Hollywood remakes.
The quintessential J-horror series make its Blu-ray debut with a brand new 4K restoration of Ju-On: The Grudge and a wealth of new and archival extras, including Shimizu’s two The Curse straight-to-video precursors (previously unreleased outside Japan) and the White Ghost/Black Ghost diptych of tales unfolding within the same terrifying universe.
Out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video
GHOSTWATCH
101 Films presents Ghostwatch (1992), a BBC production that terrified Britain on 31st October 1992. Despite being part of BBC Drama’s Screen One series, the presence of trusted presenters, along with the quality of the production, convinced thousands of people that the events depicted on screen were genuine, and taking place live. Title 028 on the 101 Films Black Label, this 30th anniversary edition includes a new documentary on the making of Ghostwatch.
Sarah Greene and Craig Charles report from a reputedly haunted London home for the outside broadcast, while Michael Parkinson and Mike Smith stay in the warmth and “safety” of a BBC studio. The Early family are allegedly being harassed by the ghost ‘Pipes’, so named as his banging and crashing were initially attributed to bad plumbing. After a deliberately slow start the tension gradually builds, culminating in a terrifying crescendo. Although entirely fictional, the masterly combination of great scripting, intuitive direction and perfect casting made the supernatural pastiche appear frighteningly real.
An inspiration to a generation of filmmakers, and years ahead of the profusion of found footage movies that would follow, Ghostwatch is regarded as a classic of the genre and remains as relevant, as terrifying, and as inspirational today.
Out now on Blu-ray from 101 Films
CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST
Primitive savagery meets the brutality of the modern world in Ruggero Deodato s timeless slice of visceral horror – Cannibal Holocaust, a film so violent and depraved that the director was charged with killing his own cast! Anthropologist Harold Munroe is hellbound as he travels into the green inferno of South America s rainforest in an attempt to find a documentary crew lost months before. Instead of survivors he discovers a world of cannibalistic excess beyond his wildest imaginings but when he returns home and screens the footage left behind by the eviscerated filmmakers, chaos erupts as the screen is filled with some of most disturbing images ever committed to celluloid. The ultimate video nasty is now presented as never experienced before -remastered in 4K from original sources.
Out now on 4K ULTRA HD Blu-ray from 88 Films
CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST
Primitive savagery meets the brutality of the modern world in Ruggero Deodato s timeless slice of visceral horror – Cannibal Holocaust, a film so violent and depraved that the director was charged with killing his own cast! Anthropologist Harold Munroe is hellbound as he travels into the green inferno of South America s rainforest in an attempt to find a documentary crew lost months before. Instead of survivors he discovers a world of cannibalistic excess beyond his wildest imaginings but when he returns home and screens the footage left behind by the eviscerated filmmakers, chaos erupts as the screen is filled with some of most disturbing images ever committed to celluloid. The ultimate video nasty is now presented as never experienced before -remastered in 4K from original sources.
Out now on Blu-ray from 88 Films
THE OUTER LIMITS (The Complete Original Series)
THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOUR TELEVISION SET… DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ADJUST THE PICTURE…
From the moment Vic Perrin’s omniscient “Control Voice” first proclaimed, “There is nothing wrong with your television set,” on September 16, 1963, The Outer Limits was destined for greatness.
The dazzling, long-beloved series was a daring experiment in “omnibus” TV, trading the speculative fantasies of The Twilight Zone for farther-out sci-fi concepts.
This new boxed collection includes all 49 episodes. Packed full of additional material including audio and video material, audio commentaries, actors interviews & more.
Out now on Blu-ray and DVD from Mediumrare
SILENT RUNNING
In 1968, visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull (The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of the Third Kind) contributed to the ground-breaking special photographic effects of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Four years later, he stamped his own indelible mark on the science fiction genre with his mesmerising directorial debut – Silent Running.
In the not-so-distant future, Earth is barren of all flora and fauna, with what remains of the planet’s former ecosystems preserved aboard a fleet of greenhouses orbiting in space. When the crews are ordered to destroy the remaining specimens, one botanist, Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern, The ’Burbs), rebels and flees towards Saturn in a desperate bid to preserve his own little piece of Earth that was, accompanied only by the ship’s three service robots.
Featuring a captivating central performance by Dern, visual effects that rival anything in 2001 and a powerful ecological message, Silent Running is a haunting and prescient sci-fi classic that resonates even more strongly today than it did at the time of its original release.
Out now on 4K ULTRA HD and Blu-ray from Arrow Video
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