Wednesday, April 25, 2018

MONSTER SHARK aka DEVILFISH 1984 On Blu


    On July 3 Code red via Kino will release director Lamberto Bava's wonderfully cheesy and entertaining monster from the deep opus on blu-ray. One of the more ludicrous Italian Jaws knock-offs this feature a weirdly fascinating octopus/monster shark hybrid, copious amounts of beer swilling and floppy rubber tentacles.
    Featuring a new color corrected scan, reversible cover-art and commentary by star Michael Sopkiw (2019:AFTER THE FALL OF NEW YORK) this will be one of my more anticipated releases of the year. Plus you have Dagmar Lassander in the cast!!



Monday, April 23, 2018

S.F. Brownrigg Dbl. Feature on BLU


   VCI has announced a Blu/DVD double feature for two of S.F. Brownrigg's low budget Texas horror oddities for release in HD on Aug. 14. Working in Texas during the 70's (he'd cut his teeth working for bottom-of-the-barrel auteur Larry Buchanan) Brownrigg made a fascinating series of horror thrillers that played under various titles on triple and double features that snaked through the drive-in circuit.
    Usually featuring claustrophobic settings, dysfunctional families and close-ups of sweaty faces they've been fixtures and low budget labels and those multi-pack horror DVD ("50 Chillers for $9.95") and have been long over due for upgrade. DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT (1973) has been the subject of a couple of blu-ray releases in the past couple of years and VCI's previous double feature DVD of that and DON'T OPEN THE DOOR (1975) were the best looking these vfilms have ever looked, so it'll be interesting to see what VCI's blu turns out to be. Here's hoping!