Another week of goodness is hitting the video store and while we never get King Conan with Arnie we can always look back to the classic 1982 film along with it’s sequel and relive those 80s vibes as Arrow Video is giving us a gorgeous deluxe edition of both films. Now let’s see what else we have coming your way…
Starring, Nicolas Cage, Joaquin Phoenix, James Gandolfini, a private investigator is hired to discover if a “snuff film” is authentic or not. Joel Schumacher (1999)
To the Los Angeles elite, Ford Fairlane (Andrew “Dice” Clay) is known as “Mr. Rock ‘n’ Roll Detective.” This loudmouthed ladies’ man serves an exclusive rock star clientele, who depend on his keen eye and smug discretion. So when a heavy-metal musician dies mid-concert, Fairlane is on the case before the lights come up. But things turn shocking when radio personality Johnny Crunch (Gilbert Gottfried) hires Fairlane to find a missing groupie mere hours before he is electrocuted live on air.
Stanley Kubrick bent the conventions of the historical drama to his own will in this dazzling vision of brutal aristocracy, adapted from a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. In picaresque detail, Barry Lyndon chronicles the adventures of an incorrigible trickster (Ryan O’Neal) whose opportunism takes him from an Irish farm to the battlefields of the Seven Years’ War and the parlors of high society. For the most sumptuously crafted film of his career, Kubrick recreated the decadent surfaces and intricate social codes of the period, evoking the light and texture of eighteenth-century painting with the help of pioneering cinematographic techniques and lavish costume and production design, all of which earned Academy Awards. The result is a masterpiece-a sardonic, devastating portrait of a vanishing world whose opulence conceals the moral vacancy at its heart.
A serially unfaithful businessman rents a spare room from two siblings to use for his sexual conquests, unaware that they’re serial killers who murder every woman he brings there. Stephen Knight, Cassandra Gava, Elly Kenner, Norman Thaddeus Vane, 1982.
This trilogy of horror comes from the gleefully demented minds of horror masters John Carpenter (Halloween) and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). Three tales are told, each one increasingly terrifying. The first tells the story of a woman being stalked by an axe-weilding maniac. The second is the story of a man who pays the ultimate price for a beautiful head of hair. The final tale shows what it is like to see life through the eyes of a killer.
After losing an acting role and his girlfriend, Jake Scully (Craig Wasson) finally catches a break: he gets offered a gig house-sitting in the Hollywood Hills. While peering through the beautiful home’s telescope one night, he spies a gorgeous blonde (Deborah Shelton) dancing in her window. But when he witnesses the girl’s murder, it leads Scully through the netherworld of the adult entertainment industry on a search for answers — with porn actress Holly Body (Melanie Griffith) as his guide.
The scariest airplane movie ever! A performance documentary derived entirely from the “Black Box” transcripts of six major real-life airline emergencies. Robert Berger, Patrick Daniels, Karlyn Michelson, 2013.
Fascinating and imaginative, this riveting thriller from director Neil Jordan (Interview With The Vampire) brings the timeless tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” and werewolf fables together in a haunting, compelling and eerie way.
A wise grandmother (Angela Lansbury) tells her granddaughter Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) a disturbing tale of innocent maidens falling in love with handsome strangers … and of their sudden mysterious disappearances when the moon is full and accompanied by the strange sound of a beast in the woods. Nominated for four BAFTA awards including Best Costume Design, Best Make Up Artist, Best Production Design/Art Direction and Best Special Visual Effects, The Company Of Wolves is a tale that will chill you like no other …
A young woman (Meiko Kaji), trained from childhood as an assassin and hell-bent on revenge for her father’s murder and her mother’s rape, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, Toshiya Fujita’s pair of influential cult classics Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, set in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan, respectively, are bloody, beautiful extravaganzas composed of one elegant widescreen composition after another. The first Lady Snowblood was a major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga, and both of Fujita’s films remain cornerstones of Asian action cinema.
Ripped from the pages of Robert E. Howard’s beloved pulp stories, 1982’s Conan the Barbarian and its sequel, 1984’s Conan the Destroyer, not only popularized a new subgenre – the sword-and-sorcery film – but also made a cinematic icon of the star playing the titular hero, former bodybuilding sensation Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The terrifying and tiny menaces are out in full force with this four-film collection packed with enough Special Features to make any fan’s mouth water!
Cursed Films is a five-part documentary series which explores the myths and legends behind some of Hollywood’s notoriously “cursed” horror film productions. From plane accidents and bombings during the making of The Omen, to the rumored use of real human skeletons on the set of Poltergeist, these stories are legendary amongst film fans and filmmakers alike. Were these films really cursed, as many believe, or just the victims of bad luck and bizarre circumstances?
Weekend party plans are derailed when an ancient Toltec curse unleashes an army of zombies upon a houseful of college coeds! Lash La Rue, Anna Lane Tatum, 1985.
Deadly Harvest – Digitally Remastered A future where hunger and desperation become a deadly harvest. Catastrophic climate change has thrown the world into chaos; crops are failing and famine is widespread. Clint Walker (The Dirty Dozen, Pancho Villa) plays Grant Franklin, a desperate farmer struggling to provide food for his family. When a group of violent men from the city invade his farm and attempt to steal his supplies, the normally timid Grant is forced to stand his ground and defend his friends and family. Kim Catrall (Sex and the City) also stars in the post-apocalyptic thriller as Grants daughter.
One of Canada’s most beloved and unusual family films! A group of 10 war-obsessed kids have a wave of inspiration: What if they spend the next two weeks engaged in a simulated war, armed only with shields, wooden swords, snowballs? 1984
In this horror-comedy homage to giallos, a film editor gets embroiled in a string of murders. Paz de la Huerta, Laurence R. Harvey, Udo Kier, Adam Brooks, 2014.
One of the most profitable horror movies ever made, this tale of an exorcism is based loosely on actual events. When young Regan (Linda Blair) starts acting odd — levitating, speaking in tongues — her worried mother (Ellen Burstyn) seeks medical help, only to hit a dead end. A local priest (Jason Miller), however, thinks the girl may be seized by the devil. The priest makes a request to perform an exorcism, and the church sends in an expert (Max von Sydow) to help with the difficult job.
A mad javelin thrower kills promising teenaged athletes and naked young women in a high school in this brutal 80s slasher. Sally Kirkland, Michael Elliot, 1984.
In one of the best performances of his legendary career, Robert Mitchum (The Night of the Hunter) plays small-time gunrunner Eddie “Fingers” Coyle in an adaptation by Peter Yates (Breaking Away) of George V. Higgins’s acclaimed novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle. World-weary and living hand to mouth, Coyle works on the sidelines of the seedy Boston underworld just to make ends meet. But when he finds himself facing a second stretch of hard time, he’s forced to weigh loyalty to his criminal colleagues against snitching to stay free. Directed with a sharp eye for its gritty locales and an open heart for its less-than-heroic characters, this is one of the true treasures of 1970s Hollywood filmmaking-a suspenseful crime drama in stark, unforgiving daylight.
Restored and remastered Blu-ray of Akira Kurosawa’s 1962 domestic drama about an industrialist whose family is targeted by a ruthless kidnapper. Toshiro Mifune, Japan.
When the mystical Russell Nash (Christopher Lambert) kills a man in a sword fight in a New York City parking lot, he leaves a sliver of an ancient weapon lodged in a car in the process. After brilliant forensics specialist Brenda Wyatt (Roxanne Hart) recovers evidence of the mysterious weapon, she and her partner, Lt. Frank Moran (Alan North), embark on an investigation Of Nash that will land them in the middle of a dangerous, centuries-old feud between powerful immortals.
A beautiful model is taken prisoner and held in a bizarre private prison where “immoral women” are subjected to brutality and degradation. Penny Irving, Pete Walker. 1974.
Featuring Christopher Lee, an anthology of four horror stories revolving around a mysterious rental house in the UK. Peter Duffell (1971)
Film noir classic, starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, where a potentially violent screenwriter is a murder suspect until his lovely neighbour clears him. But she begins to have doubts…Nicholas Ray (1950)
The world as we know it has fallen into decay in the wake of a mysterious deluge. Amidst the chaos, a rugged survivor named Bannon is trapped in the middle of an isolated city covered by a black and rainy sky. As explosions flash in the distance, he seeks to leave the condemned area…but the dilemma is: where could he possibly go? Proceeding through abandoned buildings in search of food and water, he finds only piercing screams and the threat of the demonic figures that came from the sky, heralding the devastation to come. Bannon must confront seemingly insurmountable obstacles from without and within his very soul to survive…or perish in the Abyss.
Chilling ’70s adaptation of Jack Finney’s classic novel. Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Philip Kaufman, 1978.
Donnie Yen is Epic in This 4 Movie Series…nuff said.
Horrific fates await two hit-and-run drivers (Shigeru Amachi, Yôichi Numata) who kill a yakuza.
Two-bit crook Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) stumbles into an audition for a mystery film while on the run from the cops. Winning the part, he lands in Hollywood, where he’s flung into a tangled, murderous conspiracy with his childhood sweetheart, Harmony Lane (Michelle Monaghan), and hard-boiled private eye Perry van Shrike (Val Kilmer). This deadpan, affectionate parody of film noir tropes is named for film critic Pauline Kael’s influential 1968 collection of film reviews and essays.
Action movie maestro Fernando Di Leo (Caliber 9) directs another wildly entertaining crime film with Loaded Guns (Colpo in canna), starring the incomparable Ursula Andress (Dr. No, Casino Royale). Andress plays Nora, a stewardess who finds herself in the center of a gang war in Naples. If anyone can undermine an ancient mob blood feud and come out on top, it’s the effortlessly clever, sexy and downright devious Nora, played with verve by the stunning Andress. More of an action-comedy than the gritty cop films Di Leo was known for, Loaded Guns shows that Di Leo was more than a one-trick pony.
Based on the best-selling manga series, the six intensely kinetic Lone Wolf and Cub films elevated chanbara to bloody, new heights. The shogun’s executioner, Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama), takes to wandering the countryside as an assassin-along with his infant son Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa) and an infinitely weaponized perambulator-helping those he encounters while seeking vengeance for his murdered wife. Delivering stylish thrills and a body count that defies belief, Lone Wolf and Cub is beloved for its brilliantly choreographed and unbelievably violent action sequences as well as for its tender depiction of the bonds between parent and child.
The activities of rampaging, indiscriminate serial killer Ben (Benoît Poelvoorde) are recorded by a willingly complicit documentary team, who eventually become his accomplices and active participants. Ben provides casual commentary on the nature of his work and arbitrary musings on topics of interest to him, such as music or the conditions of low-income housing, and even goes so far as to introduce the documentary crew to his family. But their reckless indulgences soon get the better of them.
Tripper (Bill Murray) is the head counselor at a budget summer camp called Camp Northstar. In truth, he’s young at heart and only marginally more mature than the campers themselves. Tripper befriends Rudy (Chris Makepeace), a loner camper who has trouble fitting in. As Tripper inspires his young charges to defeat rival Camp Mohawk in the annual Olympiad competition, Rudy plays matchmaker between Tripper and Roxanne (Kate Lynch), a female counselor at Northstar.
9 Mexican directors come together to narrate more traditions and brutal, ruthless and bizarre legends of their country.
Athlete Allan (Jason Beghe) becomes quadriplegic after a horrific traffic accident. His friend Geoffrey (John Pankow), who is conducting experiments with monkeys, offers Allan a well-trained monkey named Ella to keep him company and raise his spirits. But the initially healthy bond, which even enables Allan to form a romantic relationship with Melanie (Kate McNeil), gradually disintegrates once Ella begins to channel Allan’s underlying rage and takes it out on his loved ones.
Director Oldřich Lipský’s wonderfully bonkers delight! A unique and almost indescribable mix of Gothic fiction, steampunk gadgetry (designed by Czech animation wizard Jan Švankmajer), slapstick comedy and romantic opera. Oldrich Lipský, 1981.
Originally shot in 1984 and not finished until 2021, a sound technician for a news station becomes a vigilante ninja in New York City after his pregnant wife is murdered. Don Wilson, Michael Berryman, Linnea Quigley, 2021.
Hell bent on avenging the death of his father, Johnny Black vows to gun down Brett Clayton and becomes a wanted man in the process while posing as a preacher in a small mining town that’s been taken over by a notorious Land Baron.
Starring Jennifer Connelly and Donald Pleasence, A young girl who can communicate with insects is transferred to an exclusive Swiss boarding school, where her unusual capability might help solve a string of murders. Dario Argento (1985)
A suburban housewife’s world falls apart when she finds that her pornographer husband is serially unfaithful to her, her daughter is pregnant, and her son is suspected of being the foot-fetishist who’s been breaking local women’s feet. John Waters (1981)
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman. Adèle Haenel, Noémie Merlant, Céline Sciamma, 2019
When those around her start dying in strange circumstances, a young woman is forced to reconcile with her family’s dark past. Brandon Christensen, 2023.
After Steven Spielberg’s classic Raiders of the Lost Ark was released 35 years ago, three 11-year-old boys from Mississippi set out on what would become a 7-year-long labor of love and tribute to their favorite film: a faithful, shot-for-shot adaptation of the action adventure film. They finished every scene…except one; the film’s explosive airplane set piece.
Campers and soldiers get caught up with a pack of rednecks who use radioactive waste to make some special zombifying moonshine. Splatter ensues. Lisa M. DeHaven, Pericles Lewnes, 1989.
Alex Cox’s singular sci-fi comedy stars the always captivating Harry Dean Stanton as a weathered repo man in desolate downtown Los Angeles, and Emilio Estevez as the nihilistic middle-class punk he takes under his wing.
Jaded homicide detective, John Prudhomme, has been put on the case of a ruthless killer who is hunting the city of Chicago, leaving a trail of horribly mutilated and dismembered corpses, all of which are missing at least one body part, along with perversely ironic biblical quotes. After the unexpected arrival of a neurotic FBI agent named Hollinsworth, who believes he might know the identity of the assailant, the two men join forces to catch a cunning psychopath who all too conveniently seems to be a step ahead…
When two bumbling employees at a medical supply warehouse accidentally release a deadly gas into the air, the vapours cause the dead to rise again as zombies. Clu Gulager, James Karen, Don Calfa, Dan O’Bannon, 1985.
Julianne Moore gives a breakthrough performance as Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s who comes down with a debilitating illness. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. A profoundly unsettling work from the great American director Todd Haynes, Safe functions on multiple levels: as a prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what you cannot see. This revelatory drama was named the best film of the 1990s in a Village Voice poll of more than fifty critics.
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notorious final film, Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . It’s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker’s transposition of the Marquis de Sade’s eighteenth-century opus of torture and degradation to Fascist Italy in 1944 remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
Jess Franco’s wall-to-wall sexploitation classic about a young woman who travels to the big city only to get involved with homosexuality, drugs, pornography and swingers’ parties. Howard Vernon, 1973.
Skateboard was the first feature film to depict the height of the 70s skateboard craze. Many refer to it as the Bad News Bears of the sport. A Hollywood agent finds himself in debt to a powerful bookie. To make a fast buck, he creates a team of exceptionally talented skateboarders and enters them in a downhill race. If they win, they will get $20,000. It’s star studded cast includes Alan Garfield, 70s teen idol Leif Garrett, skateboarding legend Tony Alva, and iconic female freestyler and member of the Skateboarding Hall of Fame Ellen O’Neal.
Computer hacker Martin (Robert Redford) heads a group of specialists who test the security of various San Francisco companies. Martin is approached by two National Security Agency officers who ask him to steal a newly invented decoder. Martin and his team discover that the black box can crack any encryption code, posing a huge threat if it lands in the wrong hands. When Martin realizes the NSA men who approached him are rogue agents, they frame him for the murder of the device’s inventor.
In this German film, a 15 year old Hitler Youth fanatic discovers that he is Jewish and what follows is the disillusioned youngster’s descent into a vortex of self-hatred. Michael Kann, 1987.
30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION! Featuring a brand new 4K restoration from original camera negative. This 2 disc release uses classic artwork (Note: artwork subject to change) and includes more extras than you can shake a Goomba at! Only from Umbrella Entertainment!Loved by young fans of the Super Mario Bros video game, made with a huge budget and stellar cast, this sci-fi action thriller from 1993 has attained cult status for it’s audacious script and special effects. Blast off for nonstop excitement with the first ever live-action adaptation of a popular video game!Buckle up and hang on tight – the discovery of a parallel universe launches you into the adventure of a lifetime! Mario and Luigi, two wacky plumbers, undertake a daring quest to save a princess in “Dinohattan” – a hidden world where the inhabitants evolved from dinosaurs! Mario (Bob Hoskins – WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT) and Luigi (John Leguizamo, MOULIN ROUGE!) face deadly challenges from a diabolical lizard king (Dennis Hopper – APOCALYPSE NOW) and must battle giant reptilian goombas, outwit misfit thugs, and undermine a sinister scheme to take over the world!Extras:DISC 1 Blu-rayNEW! Feature film from brand new 4K masterNEW! Audio Commentary with Parker Bennett (screenwriter)NEW! Audio Commentary with Fred Caruso (co-producer) and David L. Snyder (production designer)NEW! Audio Commentary with Jeff Goodwin (key makeup artist), Mark McCoy (special effects crew) and Craig Edwards (production assistant)NEW! Audio Commentary with Steven Applebaum & Ryan Hoss (Super Mario Bros. The Movie archivists)NEW! Newly restored deleted scenesNEW! Newly restored Ain’t No Game trailerNEW! Newly restored I’ve Got The Power trailerDISC 2 Blu-rayNEW! Newly restored workprint in HDNEW! Storyboard to Screen animaticsNEW! Academic FeaturettesKatabasis of the Lost GirlAnarcho-Dino-Sado Chic: The Fashion of DinohattanThe Hero Moment: Super Mario, Superhero(D)evolution, Dystopia, and Trusting the FungusNEW! Spike & Iggy Revolutionary Rap music video restored with new music composed by Richard EdsonNEW! Anti-Koopa protest music videoNEW! Collection of archival Japanese trailersNEW! Collection of archival commercialsThis Ain’t No Video Game Featurette (55mins)’Making Of’ Featurette (25mins)Original electronic press kit with cast interviews and behind-the-scenes footageGalleries: Stills, storyboards and concepts
The New York underground performance art scene in the late 80’s was teeming with unique talents. Enter Robert Prichard and Jennifer Babtist (both of Class of Nuke ‘Em High), who decided that the madness happening nightly needed to be preserved on videotape, under the moniker of Surf Reality. At the same time, genre favorite Matt Mitler (The Mutilator, Deadtime Stories) was challenged to improvise a feature film in a single day. Prichard and Mitler, who were friends since high school, joined forces to shoot a series of one-day features on video, and so the Movie of the Month Club was born!
This definitive collection features all of the tantalizing and gonzo Movie of the Month Club videos: Kid Scarface, Manic A Go Go, Dick and Jane Drop Acid and Die, I Was a Teenage Bride of Christ, Thrill Kill Video Club, Alien Sex Phone Psycho, Les Enfants Miserables, as well as the previously unfinished Turf of Savage Homicides, and the home video version of Matt Mitler’s popular play, Macbeth, King of Scoutland, which wittily (and often irreverently) transplants Shakespeare’s tragedy from Scotland to a scout camp.
From the legendary Bruce Campbell (star of The Evil Dead and Bubba Ho-Tep) and horror maven Sean S. Cunningham (director of Friday the 13th and DeepStar Six) comes an unrelenting assault of extraterrestrial terror: Terminal Invasion. Inside an isolated airport, seven anxious passengers learn that their charter flight has been grounded by a blizzard. The unhappy passengers are soon stunned into silence by the arrival of Jack Edwards (Campbell), a convicted murderer escorted by two guards. But these soon prove to be the least of the passengers’ problems, as they realize that some members of the group are not who, or what, they seem. Fasten your seatbelts for a pulse-pounding sci-fi thrill ride, co-starring Chase Masterson (TV’s Star Trek: Deep Space Nine).
Hoping to cure his violent seizures, a man agrees to a series of experimental microcomputers inserted into his brain but inadvertently discovers that violence now triggers a pleasurable response to his brain. George Segal, Mike Hodges, 1974.
Scientist H. George Wells (Rod Taylor) builds a time machine, and despite the warning from his friend David (Alan Young) against “tempting the laws of providence,” decides to visit the future. Jumping ahead 14 years, he observes changes in women’s fashion. Jumping ahead 40, he meets David’s son (also Young) amid a terrible war. Finally, he travels thousands of years ahead to discover a post-apocalyptic world inhabited by humanoid Eloi and the monstrous Morlocks that feed on them.
A jolt of adrenaline shot straight to the heart of 1990s British cinema, this darkly funny adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel was a major breakthrough for director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, and screenwriter John Hodge. With live-wire energy and stylistic verve, Trainspotting bounces across the life and times of Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor), a Scottish heroin addict who, along with his misfit mates, gets high, gets in trouble, gets clean, and gets high again, all in a bid to outrun the banality of modern existence. Kinetically cut to an iconic soundtrack of techno, rock, and Britpop, this indie phenomenon chooses life in all its ugly, beautiful, terrifying exhilaration.
An unorthodox love story and a truly unsettling thriller, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer’s The Vanishing unfolds with meticulous intensity, leading to an unforgettable finale that has unnerved audiences around the world. Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, 1988.
As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn (James Woods) is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon “Videodrome,” a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend (Deborah Harry) auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.
When Dr. Walter Hall creates a drug that turns men into unstoppable beasts the government will stop at nothing to get it. Forced by the pressure of authority, Dr. Hall injects Jon, an unsuspecting bum, and unleashes a terror on the community. Five days in one man’s life gives him an eternity in hell when he reopened an old experiment, when he reopens… Vile 21! Made in the mid-90s by special effects veteran Mike Strain Jr., Vile 21 is an SFX tour de force of creatures, gore, stop motion, and rubber masks. VHSHITFEST is beyond excited to bring this regional obscurity to disc for the first time with a new edit transferred from the original master! Brand new special edition cut transferred from the original master, original VHS cut, audio commentary by Mike Strain Jr., audio commentary by Ronnie Sorter, “The Genetic Monster: The Making of Vile 21”, behind the scenes, Bonus film: “Hotel of Terror”, deleted scenes, and much more.
Typically insane Jess Franco erotic “thriller” where a woman who arrives in Haiti finds herself lost in endless deviant sex. Vicky Adams, Ada Tauler, Karine Gambier, Jesús Franco, 1977.
And There we go guys…hoping the new stuff arrives on Thursday. Cheers!
