News

Hello, everyone! We’re back with a brand new batch of home media releases, and this week’s assortment is an eclectic group. Code Red is showing some love to The Dead Pit and Arrow Video is keeping busy with their latest Giallo Essentials set and the 2-disc limited edition release of Mill of the Stone Women. Other titles headed home on December 14th include Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Amityville Vampire, Alone in the Woods, The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre, and Chicken’s Blood.

The Dead Pit

Dr. Ramzi (Danny Gochnauer), a deviant who enjoys torturing his patients, is killed by a fellow doctor and buried in the basement of a mental health facility. Twenty years later, the hospital is up and running again and a “Jane Doe” (Cheryl Lawson) arrives at the institute with amnesia. Upon her arrival, a major earthquake rocks the building and unearths the now undead Dr.

Arrow Video’s August films include a brilliantly original American indie comedy, a pair of out-there arthouse masterworks, a rediscovered 70s horror creepfest, a terrifying Korean ghost story, and definitive, collectable editions of an awe-inspiring science fiction blockbuster.

The releases will come in limited edition packaging, with beautiful new artwork, pristine restorations giving the films a new lease of life, brand new expert commentaries and feature-length documentaries,reversible sleeves, as well as goodies including fold-out posters, art cards, books and illustrated booklets.

First in August, Arrow Video presents the mind-blowing ‘acid-western’ El Topo, which shocked and bedazzled audiences upon its controversial original release, single-handedly inventing the American midnight movie phenomenon. A countercultural masterpiece which ingeniously combines iconic Americana symbolism with director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s own idiosyncratic surrealist aesthetic, El Topo is an incredible journey through nightmarish violence, mind-bending mysticism and awe-inspiring imagery. This era-defining film is now presented in a...

August 14th looks to be a killer day for genre fans looking to add to their home media collections, as there are a bunch of great releases coming our way this week. Scream Factory is putting in some serious overtime this Tuesday, as they have a trio of gorgeous Steelbooks—Army of Darkness, Lifeforce and The Howling—on tap, as well as the Collector’s Edition of Return of the Living Dead Part II and a standard Blu-ray of The Unborn to boot.

Arrow Video has also put together a Special Edition collection for What Have They Done to Your Daughters?, and they are re-releasing both The Gore Gore Girls and The Cat O’ Nine Tails as well. And, as if all that wasn’t enough, Full Moon has put together a nifty Blu set for Laserblast that fans are going to want to pick up.

Other notable titles coming...

Tuesday, July 17th looks to be another busy day for home media releases, as we have a rather interesting blend of titles, both new and old. As far as recent flicks go, Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare, The Housemaid, Rampage, and You Were Never Really Here are the big highlights of this week’s Blu-ray and DVD debuts. And for those of you who are looking to expand your cult cinema collections, Arrow Video is keeping busy with new HD releases of The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail and Doom Asylum.

Other notable releases for July 17th include the new EndoArm edition of Terminator 2 in 4K, the Church of the Damned/Bad Magic double feature Blu-ray, Amityville Prison, and The Antithesis.

Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare

Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars) and Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf) lead the cast of Blumhouse's Truth or Dare, a supernatural thriller from Blumhouse Productions.

Happy October, gang! With the Halloween season now officially underway, we have an incredible day of horror and sci-fi home entertainment releases to enjoy. Arrow Video has put together three stunning special edition sets for Children of the Corn, Don’t Torture A Duckling, and The Suspicious Death of A Minor, but we also have several other modern cult titles debuting as well, including Popcorn, 976-evil, and The Hidden.

For all you Charles Lee Ray enthusiasts out there, Cult of Chucky and the Chucky: Complete 7-Movie Collection both come home on Tuesday, and Scream Factory is also releasing the recent indie horror thriller Jackals on Blu-ray.

Other notable home entertainment titles bowing on October 3rd include American Horror Story: Roanoke, A Ghost Story, Haunters: The Art of the Scare, Little Shop of Horrors: The Director’s Cut, iZombie: The Complete Third Season, and Vampyr: Special Edition.

Review by Roger Carpenter

Sergio Martino was a journeyman Italian director who averaged around three films a year into the early nineties and who worked in many different genres including documentaries (Naked and Violent), spaghetti westerns (A Man Called Blade), poliziotteschi (The Violent Professionals), sex comedies (Sex with a Smile), and action films (The Great Alligator; Slave of the Cannibal God; 2019: After the Fall of New York). But this blue-collar filmmaker is arguably most famous for his early seventies gialli such as The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, All the Colors of the Dark, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, and Torso. Each of these gialli films are–rightly so–considered genuine classics of the genre and fans of these films each have their favorite Sergio Martino giallo. However, his final giallo of this period (he...

Sergio Martino’s The Suspicious Death Of A Minor (1975) will be available on Blu-ray September 26th from Arrow Video

In the wake of the success of Dario Argento’s ground-breaking giallo The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, numerous other directors stepped forward to try their hand at these lurid murder-mysteries. At the forefront was Sergio Martino (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Torso), whose sensual 70s thrillers starring Edwige Fenech and George Hilton are widely celebrated as some of the best the genre has to offer. The final of Martino’s six gialli, The Suspicious Death of a Minor combines conventional giallo trappings with elements of the then flourishing ‘poliziotteschi’ crime thrillers. Claudio Cassinelli (What Have They Done to Your Daughters?) stars as undercover cop Paolo Germi, on the trail of a Milanese criminal outfit following the brutal murder of an underage prostitute. But a killer-for-hire is also on the prowl,...