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Carnivals and amusement parks are a prime setting for horror stories. We’ve had a handful of prominent, frightening tales take advantage of the unique aesthetic and eerie unreality an amusement park can offer over the years.

What makes a carnival such a fertile place to set your horror tale in? Maybe it’s the thin veneer of joy and cheer that raises our hackles. The bright, multicolored lights, the dizzying swirl of calliope music and cacophonous rattling of the rides, the stench of popcorn, funnel cakes, and oiled machinery all merging and wafting through the air…it’s all artifice. As fun as it may be to take the family or a date out for a fun night at the carnival, you always get the sense it’s not necessarily a wholesome place. The games are rigged and the rides are huge, clanking things of oil and metal. When...

As the golden age of high-def horror continues, we aren’t just getting bells-and-whistles Blu-rays of films we never expected to receive such treatment—titles like The Mutilator and Squirm—but also of films some of us barely new existed. American Horror Project Vol. 1, the new Blu-ray box set from Arrow Video, collects three such films: low-budget independent horror movies from the 1970s that have either been forgotten or are in danger of being lost forever.

In attempting to find obscure titles that are still in good enough condition to be restored in high-def, the curators of American Horror Project Vol. 1 (among them Stephen Thrower, author of Nightmare USA, as well as books on both Lucio Fulci and Jess Franco) could easily have found esoteric films that fit the criteria but were, for lack of a more diplomatic way of saying it, better off staying lost. But that couldn’t be further from the case.

In a commendable effort to save forgotten genre items either cloaked in obscurity or in danger of disappearing completely due to degrading source materials, distributor Arrow Video releases its first volume of a new series called American Horror Project. Fans of vintage indie horror from a game changing golden era should be enthused for this trio of inventive efforts even if not all live up to the excitement promised by the vibrant packaging. Lurid, carnivalesque, and even tawdry, it’s a new formidable platform for films unfairly dismissed upon release and deserving of another opportunity to provoke.

The earliest film here is the ungainly titled Malatesta’s Bucket of Blood, the 1973 debut and solo feature of Christopher Speeth. The plot synopsis promises palpable weirdness, concerning a middle aged couple, Mr. and Mrs. Norris (Paul Hostetler, Betsy Henn) who show up seeking employment at a seedy, run down carnival. Their zeal is a ruse,...

Ken Burns and Co. made a big splash with this historical docu miniseries that in 1990 gripped the imagination of the whole country. Eleven hours of history are a breeze when presented in what was then a new form: authentic photos and paintings accompanied by actorly recitals of letters and documents from the era. It all comes to life. The people enduring the War Between the States seem just like us, as if it all happened yesterday. The Civil War DVD PBS Video 1990 / Color + B&W / 1:33 flat / 11 hours, 20 min. / 25th Anniversary Edition / Street Date October 13, 2015 / 99.99 Starring Shelby Foote, Ed Bearss, Barbara Fields, James Symington, Stephen B. Oates, William Safire, Daisy Turner and the voices of Sam Waterston, Julie Harris, Jason Robards, Morgan Freeman, Paul Roebling, Garrison Keillor, David McCullough (narrator), Arthur Miller, Charles McDowell, Horton Foote, George Plimpton, Philip Bosco, Jody Powell, Studs Terkel, Jeremy Irons, Derek Jacobi, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.,...