We have rounded up some of the latest horror/science fiction genre DVD & Blu-ray releases in the UK for the week beginning 17th October 2022.
GOTHIC FANTASTICO: FOUR ITALIAN TALES OF TERROR
While Mario Bava remains the best-known purveyor of Italian Gothic horror, many other filmmakers tried their hand at the form throughout the 1960s. Gothic Fantastico presents four titles from this classic period, all of which demonstrate Italy’s ability to expand genre beyond the classic literary monsters that dominated elsewhere.
Gaslighting abounds in Massimo Pupillo’s Lady Morgan’s Vengeance – a tale of romance and mystery sprinkled with sadism and the supernatural – as newlywed Sir Harold Morgan tries to destroy his bride with help from his sinister maid. Meanwhile, the perverse influence of Poe is used to great effect in Alberto De Martino’s The Blancheville Monster – a tale of family curses and madmen in the attic, as Emilie de Blancheville returns home to her brother Roderic and finds her own family out for her blood. Mino Guerinni’s The Third Eye features an early role for Italian cult icon Franco Nero and a plot that borrows elements from Hitchcock, layered with a whiff of necrophilia. Finally, Damiano Damiani’s The Witch takes a more avant-garde approach, when a young historian is lured to work for an ageing woman, only to be held captive when he becomes obsessed with her beautiful daughter.
Madness, obsession and messed up families are the order of the day in these four lesser-known monochrome gems from Italy’s peak Gothic period, restored in 2K from their original negatives for the first time alongside an array of in-depth extras.
Out now on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Arrow Video
THE RING
One of the most iconic modern-day horror films, THE RING celebrates 20 years with this collectible Blu-ray™ steelbook. The bizarre death of a teenage girl leads journalist Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) to investigate a mysterious urban legend. Within the cabin is a videocassette containing disturbing imagery, and anyone who views the tape receives a chilling phone call from an unknown voice stating “seven days.”
Out now on Limited Edition Steelbook Blu-ray from Paramount Home Entertainment
THE AMUSEMENT PARK
Recently discovered and restored 46 years after its completion, George A. Romero’s The Amusement Park stars MARTIN’s Lincoln Maazel as an elderly man who finds himself disoriented and increasingly isolated as the pains, tragedies, and humiliations of aging in America are manifested through roller coasters and chaotic crowds.
Out now on Blu-ray and DVD from Acorn
SUSU AND THE HOUSE OF SECRETS
Two Chinese girls take a film transcription job at a heritage English countryside mansion. Discovering entangled family secrets about the Kunqu Opera star Susu, they find it almost impossible to escape, physically and emotionally.
Out now on Blu-ray from Screenbound Pictures Ltd.
MURDER HOUSE
A group of crime scene cleaners struggle to escape a murder house after becoming trapped by an ancient Nordic demon that is hell-bent on driving them insane.
Out now on DVD from HIGH FLIERS
THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION
The Atrocity Exhibition – Adapted from J.G.Ballard’s infamous 1968 novel, The Atrocity Exhibition is a brave, unsettling and unconventional film. In a mental research institution, things have gone terribly wrong. A doctor has enlisted patients and staff in staging a series of bizarre micro-dramas. Is it a record of his own mental breakdown, or a collapse between the outer world of reality and the inner world of the psychopathologies which inhabit us all?
Out now on Blu-ray from Yume Pictures
VAMPYR
The first foray into sound filmmaking by one of cinema’s pivotal artists, Vampyr remains a cornerstone work of the horror genre. The dreamlike tale of an occult-obsessed student’s visit to a small French village, as he is drawn into the unsettling mystery around a stricken family’s struggle with malevolent forces, remains an unparalleled evocation of the uncanny.
Adapting the haunted stories of Sheridan Le Fanu, Carl Th. Dreyer‘s ceaseless innovation delivers a tour-de-force of supernatural phantasmagoria and creeping unease, via audacious camerawork and sound design.
Presented from a 2K restoration by the Danish Film Institute, supported by the MEDIA program Creative Europe, and taking more than a decade to complete – materials from several European archives (including the BFI, CNC and DFI) have been meticulously scanned and assessed to create the highest quality and most faithful version of Vampyr possible. Unveiled for the film’s 90th anniversary, one of the most visually and aurally distinctive horror films ever made comes to Blu-ray in a Standard Edition, in a definitive incarnation that achieves the full experience Dreyer intended audiences to have.
Out now on Standard Edition Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment
YELLOWJACKETS – Season 1
A thriving high school girls soccer squad is left stranded in the northern wilderness after a plane crash and descend into savage clans, where survival becomes even more important than the team. Starring Melanie Lynskey (Castle Rock), Tawny Cypress (Unforgettable), with Emmy nominee Christina Ricci (Z: The Beginning of Everything) and Oscar®* and Emmy ® nominee Juliette Lewis (Camping). Watch every intense episode of the psychological thriller in this 4-disc set, including never-before-seen special features.
Out now on DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment
TWO WITCHES
With its super-saturated colour palette, tenebrous art design and electrifying soundtrack, Two Witches presents two truly terrifying conjoined tales of witchery, paranoia and terror that hark back to the gory thrills of classic Euro horrors such as Suspiria, Shock and The Beyond. Expectant young mother Sarah is convinced she has been given the evil eye from a mysterious blank-eyed old hag while she is dining with her bullish and insensitive partner Simon. When the couple go to visit his new-agey friends Dustin and Melissa, dark forces are unleashed after an ill-advised attempt at consulting a Ouija board to allay her fears. Meanwhile, tensions grow between grad school student Rachel and her new roommate Masha after a violent incident involving a man that the strange and impulsive young woman has brought home. First-time feature director Pierre Tsigaridis, who also shot, edited and contributed to the film’s soundtrack, singles himself out as one to watch in a deft and unnerving depiction of unspeakable evil that truly delivers.
Out now on Blu-ray from Arrow Video
A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL
In a Psycho (1960) inspired thriller from Spanish director Eugenio Martino (Horror Express), Laura Barkley (Judy Geeson) is dragged into a mystery when she arrives at a remote hotel to find her sister missing. Pretty soon more guests, who fall foul of the hoteliers and their draconian religious judgements, find themselves on the missing persons list and the plot moves quickly into a horror of murderous design.
A Candle for the Devil AKA It Happened at Nightmare Inn, is a gruesomely satisfying early 70s piece of exploitation cinema, bristling with dark tension and Giallo-style overtones.
Out now on Blu-ray from 88 Films
A BOY AND HIS DOG
A dark and often wickedly funny trip through a post-apocalyptic world, where the friendship between a boy and his dog is the only currency that matters.
World War IV lasted five days. The earth ravaged, survivors struggle to find food, shelter, and companionship in the post-atomic wasteland. This celebrated sci-fi tale follows a young man, Vic (Don Johnson), and his sardonic and telepathic dog, Blood, as they wander in search of food and women. They find the suspiciously eager Quilla June (Susanne Benton), who lures Vic into a surreal city deep beneath the earth’s surface. What’s waiting for him there is certainly not what he wanted.
Out now on Blu-ray from 101 Films
MANIACAL MAYHEM (Three films starring Boris Karloff)
Three more tales of terror from the vaults of Universal Pictures, all starring the iconic Boris Karloff.
Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi both star in The Invisible Ray (dir. Lambert Hillyer, 1936), which sees Dr Janos Rukh (Karloff) exposed to a mysterious element that turns him into a deadly luminescent maniac who devises a plot to bump off his personal and professional rivals.
Then, in Black Friday (dir. Arthur Lubin, 1940), Karloff is the amoral brain surgeon, Dr Sovac, who transplants part of a gangster’s brain into the body of his dying friend, creating a terrifying Jekyll-and-Hyde figure who starts murdering his former criminal associates (including, again, the wonderful Béla Lugosi).
Finally, the incomparable Charles Laughton plays the sadistic Sire Alain de Maletroit in The Strange Door (dir. Joseph Pevney, 1951). Maletroit has kept his own brother locked in a dungeon for twenty years, and now wants to ruin the life of his niece by forcing her to marry a violent rogue. His plan is upset when the “rogue” is unexpectedly noble-hearted and attempts to rescue the girl, aided by an abused servant (Karloff).
Out now on Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment
DEATHSPORT
In the year 3000 there’ll be no more Olympic Games, World Series, or Superbowl, there’ll be only DEATHSPORT!
One thousand years in the future, following the Great Neutron Wars, the world is divided into desert wastelands and isolated city states. Lord Zirpola captures the notorious “death ranger” Kaz (David Carradine) to fight to the death in his game, Deathsport. Now Kaz must face his past, fight for his future, and save the city from the war that Lord Zirpola is getting ready to wage.
Out now on Blu-ray from 101 Films
THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
Perhaps the grandest of Universal’s silent films―and featuring arguably its first iconic movie monster―The Hunchback of Notre Dame stars Lon Chaney in the role which transformed him from a respected character actor to a global superstar.
Chaney stars as Quasimodo, the mocked and vilified bell-ringer of Notre Dame who selflessly protects the star-crossed street performer Esmerelda (Patsy Ruth Miller), who is in an ill-fated love affair with the dashing Captain Phoebus (Norman Kerry).
A “Super Jewel” adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel, Universal spared no expense on this lavish production, and were rewarded with the most financially successful silent film they had released up to that point. Lon Chaney’s performance and make-up work are already legendary, but the rest of the film is as deserving of praise – a beautiful nightmare now fully restored in 4K and making its UK debut on Blu-ray as part of the Masters of Cinema series.
Out now on Special Edition Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment
THE ONE
Imagine that there are parallel universes. Imagine that someone has escaped one and is roaming the streets of your city. Imagine that he has come to eliminate you. Imagine that he looks exactly like you.
From the director of Final Destination comes a wild, action packed trip to the future starring international superstar Jet Li (Romeo Must Die, Lethal Weapon 4) in an incredible dual role as a police officer in a fight for his life and a universe-hopping assassin obsessed with terminating it. Also starring Carla Gugino (Spy Kids), Jason Statham (Snatch) and Delroy Lindo (Gone in 60 Seconds) and loaded with explosive action and jaw-dropping effects beyond your wildest imagination!
Out now on Standard Edition Blu-ray from 88 Films
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