Another week is upon us my friends. Another batch of cinema enters the video store with classics, best sellers, and some new stuff. Let’s take a look shall we…
This documentary explores the hidden history of the exploitation film in America. Herschell Gordon Lewis, Joe Dante, Larry Cohen, John Landis, Fred Williamson. Elijah Drenner
15 hours of Bruce. Nuff Said.
In this unrelenting action masterpiece from director John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape from New York), a police station under siege from a vicious street gang becomes a cataclysmic battleground where only the strongest survive! This explosive gem from one of cinema’s great frightmasters is inspired by Howard Hawks’ immortal western, Rio Bravo and Night of the Living Dead. Made in 1976.
Back In Stock! A single mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son’s fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.
The series dramatizes the history of “Easy” Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division. It begins during Easy Company’s paratrooper training and follows its participation in the Western Front of World War II.
Back In Stock.
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).
Five strangers – newlywed serial killers, a suicidal cop, and a runaway brother and sister – become suspect and victim when a masked murderer makes its presence known in an isolated mountain town.
Frank (Hume Cronyn) and Faye Riley (Jessica Tandy) are an elderly New York City couple living in a depressed part of town. There, they run a diner as well as an apartment building, which is home to a poor but friendly group of people. One day, Frank and Faye learn that a property developer wants them to sell the apartment. When they refuse, their diner is vandalized. However, Frank, Faye and their tenants are aided by mysterious flying saucers, which help them repair the diner and fight back.
Kim Sun-woo is sent by his crime boss employer to shadow his young mistress, Heesoo, to find out whether she is seeing another man. His instructions are to kill them both if it is true.
Back In Stock. Bob Clark’s cult Canadian slasher classic about series of Christmas-time murders in a sorority house. Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder, Andrea Martin.
New York City policemen Nick (Michael Douglas) and Charlie (Andy Garcia) witness a murder in a bar and quickly apprehend the assailant. The killer, named Sato (Yusaku Matsuda), is a member of Japan’s infamous Yakuza mob, and Nick and Charlie must transport the gangster back to Osaka for his murder trial. There, Sato’s fellow gangsters free him from police custody, forcing Nick and Charlie to scour Japan’s dangerous underworld of organized crime in search of their fugitive.
A SWAT captain is permanently injured during a failed assignment and must retire. Although depressed, his daughter gives him hope, and he slowly begins to adjust to his new life. When she is kidnapped by human traffickers, he must track her down using every remaining sense and save her in this blind battle of life and death.
Remake of the 1958 sci-fi horror classic about a deadly blob from another planet which consumes everything in its path. Teenagers attempt without success to warn the townspeople, who refuse to take them seriously. Chuck Russell (1988)
Pvt. Max Eriksson (Michael J. Fox) is stationed in Vietnam under Sgt. Tony Meserve (Sean Penn). Though Meserve saves Eriksson’s life during battle, the two men clash when the callous senior officer orders the abduction of Than Thi Oanh (Thuy Thu Le), a young Vietnamese woman, to be used as a sex slave. When Eriksson refuses to take part in the abuse of Oanh, tensions between him, Meserve and the rest of the unit heat up and finally explode during a firefight with Viet Cong troops.
On the night of an astronomical anomaly, eight friends at a dinner party experience a troubling chain of reality bending events. Part cerebral sci-fi and part relationship drama, COHERENCE is a tightly focused, intimately shot film that quickly ratchets up with tension and mystery.
Import Blu Ray edition of the classic 1997 flick. Region Free.
Back In Stock. A party of eight Norwegian medical students travel to a remote Arctic mountain for an Easter weekend filled with skiing and relaxation. After one of their group disappears while on a solo cross-country hike, a mysterious local resident (Bjørn Sundquist) tells the remaining visitors that, in the waning days of World War II, a battalion of Nazi soldiers disappeared into the nearby woods after the residents turned on them, and that their zombified corpses remain on the prowl in the area.
The lone survivor of Dead Snow’s Zombie attack wakes in the hospital with his severed arm replaced with the arm of his Nazi nemesis, sparking a rampage of revenge by raising an undead army of his own.
Back In Stock. When tyrannical dictator Joseph Stalin dies in 1953, his parasitic cronies square off in a frantic power struggle to become the next Soviet leader. Among the contenders are the dweebish Georgy Malenkov, the wily Nikita Khrushchev and Lavrenti Beria — the sadistic secret police chief. As they bumble, brawl and back-stab their way to the top, the question remains — just who is running the government?
Back In Stock. Four city-dwelling friends (Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox) decide to get away from their jobs, wives and kids for a week of canoeing in rural Georgia. When the men arrive, they are not welcomed by the backwoods locals, who stalk the vacationers and savagely attack them in the woods. Reeling from the ambush, the friends attempt to return home but are surrounded by dangerous rapids and pursued by a madman. Soon, their canoe trip turns into a fight for survival.
In 1942, young Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) lands her dream job — secretary to Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz) at the peak of his power. Three years later, Hitler’s empire is now his underground bunker. The real-life Traudl narrates Hitler’s final days as he rages against imagined betrayers and barks orders to phantom armies, while his mistress, Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler), clucks over his emotional distance, and other infamous Nazis prepare for the end.
A struggling prog-rock musician finds himself in a living nightmare when he accidentally kills the neighbour from hell. Jonah Ray, Kiran Deol, Randee Heller, Josh Forbes, 2024.
Back In Stock. A Video Store Favourite!
Stylish Hong Kong slasher film about a woman pushed to kill by family, work, her love life and finally by not getting her dream apartment. Pang Ho-cheung. 2010.
Tony (Ike Eisenmann) and Tia Malone (Kim Richards) are two orphaned siblings with extraordinary psychic powers. When their abilities attract the attention of a cruel millionaire, Aristotle Bolt (Ray Milland), he kidnaps them with plans to exploit their powers for financial gain. Tony and Tia escape, and with the help of Jason O’Day (Eddie Albert), a bitter widower camping in a nearby Winnebago, they attempt to elude Bolt and begin to discover their otherworldly origins.
Cronenberg’s obtuse and low-key spoof of the addictive nature of immersive computer games. Willem Dafoe, Jude Law, Ian Holm. 1999.
Chen Zhen leaves his homeland of China and relocates to stay with family in Thailand. Chen, who swore to his mother that he would avoid violence in his new life and even wears a necklace to remind himself of this oath, is tested when he confronts trouble at his job. When he finds out the factory he works at is a cover for a drug ring, and his family members are murdered by members of the gang, he can avoid fighting no more and decides to confront his corrupt boss.
Back In Stock. A Northern California fishing community, built over an old leper colony, is the target of revenge by a killer fog containing zombies rising from the sea to take revenge for their deaths. Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh, John Carpenter.
A small town is shaken by a series of ominous killings in the days leading up to a heated mayoral election. Erik Bloomquist, 2023.
New York Detective “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner (Roy Scheider) chase a French heroin smuggler.
Based very loosely on a story by H. P. Lovecraft, a group of scientists create a resonator to stimulate the pineal gland, and open up a door to a parallel (and hostile) universe. Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Stuart Gordon, 1986.
Godzilla and the almighty Kong face a colossal threat hidden deep within the planet, challenging their very existence and the survival of the human race.
Back In Stock. Video Store Favourite! In 1930s’ Manchuria, an encounter on a train triggers an epic crusade for a treasure map, prompting a marathon chase in hot pursuit of the loot. Do-won, `the good’, is a bounty hunter, out to track down Chang-yee, `the bad’, a charismatic hitman attempting to pinch the map from a military official. However, the ruthless Tae-goo puts a hitch in both their plans when he snaffles the map for himself.
On a black and unholy Halloween night years ago, little Michael Myers brutally slaughtered his sister in cold blood. For the last fifteen years, the people of Haddonfield have rested easily, knowing that Michael was safely locked away in a mental hospital … until tonight. Michael has escaped and he will soon return to the same quiet neighborhood to relive his grisly murder again. For this is a night of evil. Tonight is Halloween.
A cop who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In order to get closer to the leaders of the ring he joins forces with an undercover cop who’s working as a gangster hitman. They use all means of excessive force to find them.
A deeply religious Midwestern businessman whose daughter, while on a church-sponsored outing, runs away from home. He poses a porn producer in order to find his daughter. George C. Scott, Peter Boyle, Paul Schrader, 1979.
In the 1990s, Something Weird Video gifted humankind with HEY FOLKS! IT’S INTERMISSION TIME—a series of six magical VHS compilations that preserved vintage movie and drive-in ads. HEY FOLKS! IT’S THE INTERMISSION TIME VIDEO PARTY is a loving tribute to those cathode-tube-fueled days. Featuring HEY FOLKS! IT’S THE INTERMISSION TIME MIXTAPE! (an exclusive feature-length mixtape from the AGFA team) as well as all six volumes of the original, uncut Something Weird VHS releases from the 1990s, this 2-disc collection serves as a mind-altering time machine to a beloved era in home video history.Disc 1 • Transferred from the original Something Weird S-VHS masters • HEY FOLKS! IT’S THE INTERMISSION TIME MIXTAPE!: A 70-minute mixtape from the AGFA team • Commentary with AGFA’s Bret Berg & Joseph A. Ziemba • HEY FOLKS! IT’S INTERMISSION TIME Volumes 1-2: The original, uncut Something Weird VHS compilations from the 1990s • Insert with writing by Something Weird’s Lisa Petrucci Disc 2 • Transferred from the original Something Weird S-VHS masters • HEY FOLKS! IT’S INTERMISSION TIME Volumes 3-6: The original, uncut Something Weird VHS compilations from the 1990s
An American nun embarks on a new journey when she joins a remote convent in the Italian countryside. However, her warm welcome quickly turns into a living nightmare when she discovers her new home harbours a sinister secret and unspeakable horrors.
Based on the best-selling manga series, the six intensely kinetic Lone Wolf and Cub films elevated chambara to bloody, new heights. Tomisaburo Wakayama.
Back In Stock. Elaine (Samantha Robinson), a beautiful young witch, is determined to find a man to love her. In her gothic Victorian apartment she makes spells and potions, then picks up men and seduces them. However, her spells work too well, and she ends up with a string of hapless victims. When she at last meets the man of her dreams, her desperation to be loved drives her to the brink of insanity and murder.
Back In Stock.
Frank Zito is a deeply disturbed man, haunted by the traumas of unspeakable childhood abuse. And when these horrific memories begin to scream inside his mind, Frank prowls the seedy streets of New York City to stalk and slaughter innocent young women. Now Frank has begun a relationship with a beautiful photographer, yet his vile compulsions remain. This is the story of a MANIAC.
Three young women encounter car trouble during a rainstorm on the way to a concert from their favorite band, Dragonsclaw. When they venture into the woods to find help, they stumble upon the lair of a flesh-masked maniac whose killing instrument of choice is a meathook. No one will survive and nothing will be left of them!
Video Store Recommended!
Director Anthony Waller (The Piper, An American Werewolf in Paris) combines cat-and-mouse suspense with classic intrigue in Mute Witness, an updated take on the Hitchcockian thriller in which the only witness to a brutal crime can neither speak nor cry out in terror.
An unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” Nosferatu is the quintessential silent vampire film, crafted by legendary German director F. W. Murnau (Sunrise, Faust, The Last Laugh). Rather than depicting Dracula as a shape-shifting monster or debonair gentleman, Murnau’s Graf Orlok (as portrayed by Max Schreck) is a nightmarish, spidery creature of bulbous head and taloned claws—perhaps the most genuinely disturbing incarnation of vampirism yet envisioned. Nosferatu was an atypical expressionist film in that much of it was shot on location. While directors such as Lang and Lubitsch built vast forests and entire towns within the studio, Nosferatu’s landscapes, villages and castle were actual locations in the Carpathian Mountains. Murnau was thus able to infuse the story with the subtle tones of nature: both pure and fresh as well as twisted and sinister. Remastered in high definition for the first time and making its Blu-ray debut exclusively from Kino Classics.
A marvelously inventive Japanese horror-comedy that’s equally a well executed zombie film, a satire of low-budget genre filmmaking and weirdly a charming family comedy. Shinichiro Ueda, 2018.
One man becomes a deadly strike force in this crackling action-thriller starring martial arts sensation Jeff Speakman (The Expert). Speakman plays a drifter and Kenpo karate expert who returns home to discover his mentor has been murdered by a ruthless drug lord. Determined to avenge the killing, he must contend with the cop assigned to the case—his long-estranged brother (John Dye, Best of the Best). Caught between the arm of the law and his own code of honor, Jeff heads toward a final showdown with a sadistic assassin (Professor Toru Tanaka, Revenge of the Ninja). Directed by Mark DiSalle (Kickboxer) and supervised by Kenpo karate Grand Master Ed Parker, The Perfect Weapon features black belt Speakman in the most dazzling karate sequences ever captured on film. Anytime…Anywhere…Anyplace…Jeff Speakman is The Perfect Weapon. Featuring Mariska Hargitay (TV’s Law & Order: SVU) and Dante Basco (Hook) with screen legends Mako (An Eye for an Eye), James Hong (Missing in Action) and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Mortal Kombat).
An ex-missionary decides to get revenge when he returns home to find his porn star sister dead & his orphaned 5 year old niece sexually abused in this ultra Violent & sexually explicit animated Dutch film. Anders Morgenthaler, 2006.
Back In Stock. Outstanding Japanese horror where a group of young friends tangle with strange phenomenon related to a creepy website. As their city grows emptier by the day, they must solve the mystery before all is lost. Kiyoshi Kurosawa (2001)
The One Two Kick and Punch Returns to the shop.
Akira Kurosawa’s brilliantly conceived retelling of Shakespeare’s KING LEAR magically mixes Japanese history, Shakespeare’s plot and Kurosawa’s own feelings about loyalty in the epic masterpiece, RAN. Set in 16th century Japan, RAN relates the tale of how an ageing ruler, Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), announces his intention to divide his land equally among his three sons. Hidetora’s decision to step down unleashes a power struggle among the three heirs when he falls prey to the false flattery bestowed upon him by the two older sons and banishes the youngest for speaking the truth. That ruthless betrayal ultimately drives Hidetora insane, destroying his entire family and kingdom. Deep human emotion and outstanding acting combine to create one of the most acclaimed foreign films of all time.
The Ninja are back! Brandishing swords and fists, leaping and kicking, wielding blow darts and explosives, they know a thousand ways to kill. Martial arts legend Shô Kosugi (Pray for Death, Rage of Honor) delivers a heart-pounding display of strength, speed and lethal Ninja know-how in this action-packed thriller that takes us back to the good old days of the kung fu extravaganza. When a band of Ninja assassins slaughters the family of Cho Osaki (Kosugi), he flees to America in the hope of building a new life. A former Ninja himself, Osaki tries to escape his deadly past but soon discovers he has become the pawn of a ruthless drug trafficker—an American Ninja intent on killing anyone who crosses his path…including Osaki! Directed by action maestro Sam Firstenberg (Avenging Force) and produced by Cannon legends Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, Revenge of the Ninja is terrific entertainment with slam-bang action scenes, mind-blowing stunts and legendary villains like Professor Toru Tanaka (The Perfect Weapon)!
When uptight British writer Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) has difficulty with her new detective novel, her publisher, John Bosload (Charles Dance), sends her to his French country home to unwind. Once Sarah warms up to her new surroundings, her peace and quiet is interrupted by the arrival of Bosload’s daughter, Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), a beautiful, uninhibited young woman. Though the two clash, they eventually form an unlikely bond — one that is strained when things take a dramatic turn.
Back In Stock.
A dark fairy tale about a gang of five children trying to survive the horrific violence of the cartels and the ghosts created every day by the drug war. Issa López, 2017.
back In Stock.
Low budget horror very loosely based on the now in public domain characters of Winnie the Pooh & Piglet who have turned feral and plan to get revenge on Christopher Robin. 2023.
Best friends Harry and Moe are go-getters inside a Newark mob outfit. They go get the bosss drycleaning. They go get his car. Now they have a new task: go get each other. The boss has secretly hired each pal to whack the other. Brian De Palma, whose Scarface and Carlitos Way are mobster-movie classics, finds the genres funny bone in a comedy filled with ideas and gags and great characters. It never runs dry (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times). Dan Hedaya and Harvey Keitel are among the ensembles portrayers of kingpins and palookas. And Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo play the pals whose friendship might survive the mob – if they dont kill each other first.
And there we go guys. A Little bit of this and that hitting the shop later in the week. Cheers!
