Just in time for Halloween- a great batch of horror and suspense-filled Blu-rays are getting released on an unsuspecting public.
Trilogy Of Terror (Kino Lorber) A great 1975 TV movie by Dan Curtis based on several short stories by Richard Matheson, and all starring Karen Black. The favorite from the anthology is about a woman who buys a Zuni fetish doll for her boyfriend only to have it come alive and chase her around the apartment trying to kill her. The sight of this knife-wielding doll racing under furniture and stabbing through doors is one of television’s great moments- right up there with Little Ricky’s birth on I Love Lucy.
The Spiral Staircase (Kino Lorber) Dorothy McGuire sensitively plays a mute servant girl in a spooky old mansion, caring for an invalid (Ethel Barrymore). Meanwhile, a killer is strangling women with physical infirmities. Stylishly directed by Robert Siodmak, this 1946 film is wonderfully atmospheric and incredibly suspenseful.
The Swarm (Warner Archive) Irwin Allen (producer of The Towering Inferno) directed this hilarious disaster movie about an invasion by killer African bees, heading towards Houston. Another all-star cast- Richard Widmark, Olivia de Havilland, Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda, Richard Chamberlain, and Patty Duke. There’s lots of overacting and many celebs die by lethal sting. Michael Caine plays a noted entomologist who states: “I never dreamed that it would turn out to be the bees…they’ve always been our friend.”
Slave Of the Cannibal God (Code Red) The statuesque beauty Ursula Andress plays a woman who entices a doctor (Stacy Keach) to accompany her (and her sleazy brother) into the wilds of New Guinea, searching for her missing anthropologist husband. Unfortunately, they get ambushed by a tribe of ferocious, flesh-eating natives, in this Italian cannibal classic by Sergio Martino. Code Red has done an amazing job of restoring the (uncut) shocker, with entertaining new interviews with Stacy Keach and some vintage interviews with director Sergio Martino (Torso).
Absurd (Severin) Joe D’Amato’s 1981 (sort-of sequel) to Anthropophagous, with George Eastman returning as the unstoppable, cannibalistic killer, who escapes from a hospital and is stalked by a strange priest (Edmund Purdom). Gory and just outrageous, this Blu-ray is from the camera negative and looks amazing.
Scream For Help (Scream Factory). Entertaining 1984 thriller starring Rachael Kelly as a teenage girl who is convinced her new step-father (David Allen Brooks) is out to kill her mother (Marie Masters -always wonderful) but no one believes her. The movie keeps surprising, and is just so much fun to watch. There’s a great extra with actor David Allen Brooks discussing his career and how he decided how to play the villain in this enjoyable film.
The Night Stalker (Kino Lorber) This was the 1972 TV pilot about reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin), investigating a series in murders in Las Vegas that might be committed by a vampire. McGavin is great, and acts like a 40’s film noir PI as he tries vainly to get others to realize that there is a supernatural element going on. This, and The Night Strangler, led to a terrific series (from 1974-1975) that predated The X-Files. It looks great on Blu-ray.
The Night Strangler (Kino Lorber) The second TV movie about Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin), a wise-cracking reporter working a story in Seattle about a mysterious killer who reappears every 21 years to strangle women to prolong his life. Directed by Dan Curtis with another witty script by Richard Matheson and great cameos by Wally Cox, Margaret Hamilton, and Simon Oakland as Kolchak’s gruff boss. A lot is centered around Seattle’s cobwebbed underground city.
Sisters (Criterion) Brian De Palma’s excellent 1972 chiller about a reporter (Jennifer Salt), witness to a murder in an adjoining apartment building, who finds the killer may be connected to a famous pair of Siamese twins (Margot Kidder). Filled with what became De Palma’s trademark- riffs of Alfred Hitchcock, split screens, dark-humored twists, and sensational suspense.
Trick ‘r Treat (Scream Factory) Director Michael Dougherty’s fiendishly fun fright film takes place in an Ohio town on Halloween night, and alternates between four stories weaving in and out while kids are trick or treating, while ghoulies and ghosts roam the night. The genius of the film is the wonderful way these macabre tales slide back and forth, and all the while a creepy little figure with a burlap sack mask wanders by, dragging a dripping bag.
Torso (Arrow) In this Collector’s Edition of the 1973 Sergio Martino thriller, Suzy Kendall plays Jane, a student in Perugia, Italy- where co-eds are getting strangled by a masked madman who also takes a hacksaw to the bodies. Jane and her girlfriends go away for the weekend at a villa in the country, and unfortunately the killer follows them. There is one long suspense sequence that is just incredible. I also adore the original title: The Bodies Presented Traces Of Carnal Violence.
The Wasp Woman (Shout Factory) A fantastic 1959 Roger Corman film starring Susan Cabot as the executive of a cosmetics film who finds new youth through injections distilled from the royal jelly of the queen wasp only to later transform into a monster. This has always looked crummy in an unending series of “public domain” VHS and DVDs- so this Blu-ray is a revelation.
Brewster McCloud (Warner Archive) A 1970 Robert Altman (Nashville) film starring Bud Cort as a weirdo hiding out in the Houston Astrodome trying to create a home-made flying contraption. Filled with Altman’s wonderful repertoire like Shelley Duvall, Sally Kellerman, Michael Murphy, John Schuck, and Bert Remsen. A wonderful example of early Altman’s wildly creative, stoner sensibility.
Bad Ronald (Warner Archive) A memorably perverse 1974 TV movie starring Scott Jacoby as a Ronald, a troubled boy who accidentally kills a neighbor girl and is hidden in the walls of his house by his mother to avoid the law. When the mother dies and the house is sold, Ronald spies on the new tenants and fixates on one of them (Cindy Fisher).
The Killing Kind (Vinegar Syndrome) Rarely seen, disturbingly offbeat 1973 film by Curtis Harrington (Night Tide) starring a young John Savage as a twisted murderer, with a hatred for women, who lives with his smothering mother (a fabulous Ann Sothern). With Luana Anders as a suspicious neighbor and an early performance by Cindy Williams.