This week’s horror 4K, Blu-ray and DVD releases!
The Amazing Mr. X (1948) (The Film Detective Special Edition) Available October 26
From out of the surf it came…a familiar voice…a voice that belonged to the afterlife! An atmospheric masterpiece, The Amazing Mr. X stars Turhan Bey as Alexis, a mystery man who claims to communicate with spirits. Appearing on the beach one night, Alexis easily charms a depressed widow and her sister (Lynn Bari and Cathy O’Donnell). The sly Alexis makes a living by separating gullible people from their money, but before this tale is over he will learn that the living are far more dangerous than the dead. Thanks to exceptional cinematography by John Alton, director Bernard Vorhaus delivers a film that oozes weird passion and sinister suspense. This is a movie that breathes right on your neck!
STARRING: Turhan Bey
ORDER NOW!
An Angel For Satan (1966) Available October 26
In the final film of her Italian Gothic period, the legendary Barbara Steele (Black Sunday) stars in one of the most startling erotic shockers of her entire career: When a cursed statue is recovered from a villa’s lake, a young heiress (Steele) will inflict a torrent of depraved seduction and homicidal madness on the local village. Anthony Steffen (The Night Evelyn Came Out Of The Grave), Claudio Gora (Danger: Diabolik) and Marina Berti (Night Train Murders) co-star in a EuroHorror classic featuring Steele in all her mid-’60s glory (DVD Drive-In), co-written and directed by Camillo Mastrocinque (Crypt Of The Vampire) and scanned in 2K from the original negative – with both the Italian and thought-lost English tracks – recently discovered in a Rome vault.
STARRING: Barbara Steele, Anthony Steffen, Claudio Gora
ORDER NOW!
Beyond Darkness (1990) Available October 26
Shortly after completing Troll 2, writer/director Claudio Fragasso and co-writer Rossella Drudi (Shocking Dark) returned to America to combine elements of The Exorcist, Poltergeist, The Beyond and their own insane aesthetic for what critics – and Fragasso/Drudi themselves – consider to be their horror masterpiece: When a Satanic child killer is executed, she transforms the new home of a young reverend and his family into a portal to Hell. Gene LeBrock (Metamorphosis), David Brandon (Caligula 2) and Michael Paul Stephenson (child star of Troll 2 and director of Best Worst Movie) star in this batsh*t crazy good time (EuroCult AV) shot by Joe D’Amato with costumes by Laura Gemser, an epic score by Carlo Maria Cordio (Night Killer) and released in Italy as Evil Dead 5, now featuring new interviews produced exclusively for this edition.
STARRING: Gene LeBrock, David Brandon, Barbara Bingham
ORDER NOW!
Boardinghouse (1982) Available October 26
Nothing can prepare you for Boardinghouse. Jim (director John Wintergate), a psychic-gigolo who wears a leopard-print thong, rents a haunted house to “beautiful women with no ties.” From there, this unworldly slasher transforms into a sleazy, hallucinogenic maelstrom of gore, sex, chainsaws, pie fights, killer refrigerators, jacuzzis, beds that eat people, a new wave band called 33 and 1/3, and a leading lady known only as Kalassu. Boardinghouse is the first shot-on-video horror film to be blown up to 35mm and released theatrically. AGFA + Bleeding Skull! are thrilled to bring the 35mm theatrical cut to home video for the first time in this 2-disc set, which also includes Psycho Killer (a previously unreleased alternate home video cut) and SALLY & JESS (the previously unreleased “family film” from the makers of Boardinghouse).
STARRING: John Wintergate, K. Alassu, Lindsay Freeman
ORDER NOW!
Deep Red (1975) (2-Disc Limited Edition) Available October 26
From Dario Argento, maestro of the macabre and the man behind some of the greatest excursions in Italian horror (Suspiria, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), comes Deep Red – the ultimate giallo movie.
One night, musician Marcus Daly (David Hemmings, Blow Up), looking up from the street below, witnesses the brutal axe murder of a woman in her apartment. Racing to the scene, Marcus just manages to miss the perpetrator… or does he? As he takes on the role of amateur sleuth, Marcus finds himself ensnared in a bizarre web of murder and mystery where nothing is what it seems…
Aided by a throbbing score from regular Argento collaborators Goblin, Deep Red (aka Profondo Rosso and The Hatchet Murders) is a hallucinatory fever dream of a giallo punctuated by some of the most astonishing set-pieces the sub-genre has to offer.
STARRING: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi
ORDER NOW!
Don’t Breathe 2 (2021) Available October 26
In the thrilling sequel to the break-out hit, Don’t Breathe 2 reprises Norman Nordstrom (Stephen Lang), who has been hiding out for several years in an isolated cabin. He lives with a young girl and has recreated the family stolen from him by a drunk driver. Their quiet life together is shattered when a group of unseemly criminals kidnaps her. Norman is forced to tap into even darker and more creative instincts in an effort to save her.
STARRING: Stephen Lang, Brendan Sexton III, Madelyn Grace, Bobby Schofield, Adam Young
ORDER NOW!
Duck! The Carbine High Massacre (1999) Available October 26
Before Elephant and We Need to Talk About Kevin… there was Duck! The Carbine High Massacre. The first feature of its kind to satirically chronicle the torment and isolation of two despondent teenagers and the events that led them to open fire on their fellow students and teachers. Trench coat sporting misfits Derick and Derwin spend their days surfing the internet, stockpiling an arsenal of weapons, and raising the ire of the vapid jocks, rich kids, and Bible-study girls at their high school; not to mention their self-absorbed and abusive parents. The boys are pushed over the edge after Derwin is savagely beaten and degraded by his imperious classmates. After briefly contemplating suicide, they instead return to school fully armed to enact a bloody and barbaric revenge on their victimizers as well as anyone else who has the misfortune of inadvertently crossing their paths.
Written, directed, and starring New Jersey based filmmakers William Hellfire (Upsidedown Cross) and Joey Smack, Duck! The Carbine High Massacre would quickly become one of the most controversial films of the 1990s, leading to a nationwide mainstream media frenzy and the eventual arrest and incarceration of its creators. Featuring Misty Mundae (SpiderBabe), Lilly Tiger (Infamous Bondage Murders), Pamela Sutch (Psycho Sisters), and a live performance by Nashville noise-rock legends Today Is The Day, Duck! transcended its regional SOV roots, emerging as the precursory feature to examine the hot button phenomenon of school shootings; a subject that is still as topical today as it was upon the film’s release over 20 years ago.
STARRING: William Hellfire, Joey Smack, Erin Brown
ORDER NOW!
Eye of the Devil (1966) Available October 26
Workers employed at a French vineyard quietly follow old pagan rituals that call for the life of the marquis owner to save his crops during dry seasons.
STARRING: Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Donald Pleasence, Edward Mulhare, Flora Robson
ORDER NOW!
Franco Noir Available October 26
Following his international breakthrough with the awful dr. Orloff, director Jess Franco next delivered a startling pair of crime-thrillers that pistol-whipped European notions of film noir while lighting the fuse on Uncle Jess’ own insane aesthetic. Set in New Orleans and based on a novel by the authors of Vertigo, Death Whistles The Blues is a hard-boiled tale of betrayal, violence and revenge featuring smoky jazz compositions by Franco himself. Jean Servais of RIFIFI fame stars in Rififi In The City, a nihilistic trip through a pulp underworld of thugs, snitches, nightclub dames and black-gloved giallo-style murders. Both films – which led an impressed Orson Welles to hire Franco as his assistant on Chimes At Midnight – now feature HD scans from the original negatives for the first time ever. Bonus features include: Franco Noir ― Interview With Stephen Thrower, Author Of “Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema Of Jesús Franco”
STARRING: Various
ORDER NOW!
Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) Available October 26
”Look at her! She lives!”
So says Dr. Oliver Frank at the sight of his new creation, a hulking beast with the transplanted brain of a beautiful young woman. He has finally carried on the legacy of his late grandfather, the notorious Dr. Frankenstein!
The twist in Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958) is that it takes place in ”modern” Los Angeles, where teenagers are forever in swim gear. Even as news reports warn them about a female monster menacing the neighborhood, nothing stops these kids from partying by the poolside.
Fans of low-budget horror will see some familiar faces in the cast, including John Ashley, Harold Lloyd, Jr., and former Playboy Playmate of the Month, Sally Todd (just a year after her appearance in The Unearthly). For Director Richard E. Cunha, Frankenstein’s Daughter was part of a productive year where he turned out three other cult favorites: She Demons; Giant from the Unknown; and Missile to the Moon. And though Donald Murphy lacked the schlock pedigree of his director and co-stars, his thousand-watt stare makes him a perfectly evil Dr. Frank.
STARRING: John Ashley, Harold Lloyd Jr., Sally Todd
ORDER NOW!
Killer Party (1986) Available October 26
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO A PARTY TO DIE FOR!
It’s April Fool’s Day and the sisters of Sigma Alpha Pi believe they’ve found the perfect place to throw a party: the abandoned fraternity house where a guillotined pledge once lost his head in a hazing gone awry. But shortly after their revelry begins, the student body count starts to rise as the vengeful pledge returns from the grave and makes it a party to die for. Featuring appearances by Paul Bartel (Death Race 2000, Chopping Mall) and Martin Hewitt (Endless Love, Alien Predators) and the debut of Joanna Johnson (who would graduate a year later to her longtime best-known role on The Bold And The Beautiful), Killer Party was written by Barney Cohen (Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter) and directed by William Fruet (The House By The Lake, Spasms, Funeral Home).
STARRING: Martin Hewitt, Ralph Seymour, Elaine Wilkes
ORDER NOW!
Old Habits Die Hard (2009) Available October 26
The Hollis Family live and run a funeral home. Allison, the Hollis Sister, goes out on dates with men and brings them home so that her brothers can kill them and have them for supper.
STARRING: Kane Hodder, Stacey Dixon, Tricia Cast, Jim O’Rear, Roger Hewlett
ORDER NOW!
A Reflection of Fear (1972) (10/29) (Import) Available October 26
A disturbed young girl starts believing that there is something very sinister at work after her estranged father visits her at her mother and grandmother’s house with the woman he plans to marry.
STARRING: Robert Shaw, Sally Kellerman, Mary Ure, Sondra Locke, Mitch Ryan
ORDER NOW!
Retribution (1987) Available October 26
It’s time for fear. It’s time for terror. It’s time for retribution. The time is now!
THE EXTENDED UNCUT VERSION ON DVD FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER For his 1987 feature film debut, co-writer/director Guy Magar delivered what Bleeding Skull hails as “relentless, squishy joy that makes us angry we’ve lived this long without having seen it”: On the seedy side of Hollywood, an emotionally fragile painter miraculously survives a horrific suicide attempt. But when a series of grisly murders rocks the city, he discovers he may be possessed by the vengeful spirit of a murdered local hoodlum. Dennis Lipscomb (Eyes Of Fire), Leslie Wing (The Frighteners), Suzanne Snyder (Weird Science) and Hoyt Axton (Gremlins) star in this “great lost gem with jaw-droppingly inventive splatter” (Blood Capsules) featuring a terrific score by Alan Howarth (They Live, Prince Of Darkness), now scanned in 2K from recently discovered pre-print elements.
STARRING: Dennis Lipscomb, Leslie Wing, Suzanne Snyder
ORDER NOW!
Skull: The Mask (2020) Available October 26
A mask possesses and forces those who wear it to carry out visceral sacrifices in this splatter-filled supernatural slasher.
STARRING: Tristan Aronovich, Natallia Rodrigues, David Wendefilm
ORDER NOW!
Underworld Collection Available October 26
Experience all five films in the iconic Underworld series on Blu-Ray in the ultimate Underworld collection!
STARRING: Kate Beckinsale
ORDER NOW!
WNUF Halloween Special (2013) Available October 26
For decades, obscure film collectors and lovers of esoteric cinema have sought it and now the search is over. Originally broadcast live on October 31, 1987, the “WNUF Halloween Special” is a stunning exposé of terrifying supernatural activity that unfolded at the infamous Webber House, the site of ghastly murders. Local television personality Frank Stewart leads a group of paranormal investigators including a Catholic exorcist, Father Joseph Matheson, and the prolific husband-and-wife team Louis and Claire Berger. Together, the experts explore the darkest corners of the supposedly haunted Webber House, trying to prove the existence of the demonic entities within. Did they find the horrific truth or simply put superstitious rumors to rest? Compiled from the highest-quality source material available, this blu-ray features the full program, including the original commercials that ran during the notorious broadcast.
STARRING: Paul Fahrenkopf, Aaron Henkin, Nicolette le Faye, Leanna Chamish