News

1968’s The Blood of Fu Manchu and 1969’s The Castle of Fu Manchu will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on July 29 from Blue Underground.

They’re the final two films in which horror legend Christopher Lee plays the titular Chinese supervillain, preceded by 1965’s The Face of Fu Manchu, 1966’s The Brides of Fu Manchu, and 1967’s The Vengeance of Fu Manchu.

Both movies are directed by Jess Franco (Vampyros Lesbos) and written and produced by Harry Alan Towers (The Mangler).

They’ve each been newly restored in 4K from the uncut original camera negatives with Dolby Vision Hdr and DTS-hd Master Audio.

Also known as Kiss and Kill and Against All Odds, The Blood of Fu Manchu co-stars Tsai Chin, Maria Perschy, Howard Marion-Crawford, and Richard Greene.

Special Features:

Audio Commentary with Film Historians Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson (new) The Rise of Fu Manchu – Interviews with Director Jess Franco,...

Synonymous with biting of the chest, neck, and thigh, total consumption, and supernatural allure, vampires have long been tangled up in themes of eroticism and desire. From J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s bewitching description of his titular Carmilla to Buffy the Vampire Slayer’sAngel and Spike, artists depict vampires as creatures of temptation. No one loves sexy vampires and their strange seductions as much as the king of weird himself, director Jesús Franco. Finished in 1973 and released in 1975, Franco’s film Female Vampire, also known as The Bare-Breasted Countess, or Erotikill, has as many cuts as it does names. Whether watching the pure horror version or the borderline pornographic one, Female Vampire is openly interested in the convergence between vampires and sexuality. An amalgamation of everything that made Franco famous, Female Vampire has the flashy visuals, edgy plot, and accusations of sexploitation.

Upon release, one of the major conversations surrounding Robert Eggers’ 2024 Nosferatuwas Count Orlok’s mustache. Bill Skarsgård plays the mysterious Count Orlok, a demonic nobleman living in Transylvania. When Nicholas Hoult as Thomas Hutter arrives at Orlok’s castle to assist him with paperwork that will enable his move to Germany, the audience gets their first good look at Orlok. Despite being dressed in lush furs, a towering hat, and expensive jewelry, with his famous talon-like nails, the flashiest thing about Skarsgård’s Orlok was the massive mustache. Everyone had an opinion on this mustache. Some viewers found it absurd, while others found it alluring. The comic discourse around Orlok’s mustache might have some thinking this was the first time a vampire rocked bushy facial hair, but they’d be wrong. King of kooky, off-color vampire movies, Jesús Franco, did it back when he affixed Christopher Leewith a dramatic handlebar mustache in Count Dracula.

Bram Stokerstruck gold when he penned his iconic novel, Dracula. More than 100 years later, over 200 films are considered adaptations of this horror staple. Movies like Nosferatumuddy the waters of what can be classified as “pure” adaptations. One of the fastest ways to identify a faithful Draculafilm is by checking for the brides of Dracula. The brides have a complex history, with different directors having wildly varied visions for how the women should look and behave. Audiences can usually count on one consistency: the brides being three, beautiful vampire ladies! Jesús Franco is, unsurprisingly, the director who best understood that the wives of Dracula needed to be spooky, yet sexy. In his adaptation of Count Dracula, Franco’s depiction of the wives is unnerving and enchanting, while not outright scary to watch.

Vampires have long straddled the line between horror and erotica. Originally depicted in myth as biting the breast, it was only a matter of time before vampires found themselves depicted in a sensual light. From Carmilla to Lestat to Edward, vampires are horror creatures that audiences love to love, and lust after! Robert Eggers’ 2024 Nosferatuinvokes this rich history, by having Count Orlok represent both desire and shame. While very much a figure to be feared, there was an inherently salacious slant to Orlok’s depiction. Eggers achieved an impeccable balance between the horrific and the suggestive, and many fans are now on the hunt for another director with a similar vision. For these fans, look no further than the late, great Jesús Franco, also known as Jess Franco,and his nearly 200 films.

Horror streaming platform Nyx TV UK has unveiled a packed February 2025 lineup, promising a thrilling blend of psychological thrillers, cult classics, and supernatural chills. Leading the charge is the Channel premiere of Big Bad Wolves, the provocative Israeli psychological thriller from directors Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado. Praised for its blend of dark comedy and harrowing drama, the film will stream on Friday, February 21, at 9pm.

Often hailed as one of the most thought-provoking psychological horror films of the past decade, Big Bad Wolves has earned critical acclaim worldwide. Its intense exploration of morality and revenge is sure to captivate audiences as the headline feature for this month’s offerings.

Nyx TV UK’s February slate also includes ten additional Channel premieres, covering a range of genres and eras to satisfy horror fans of all kinds. Among the highlights is a tribute to the “Godfather of Gore,” Herschell Gordon Lewis,...

The Criterion Collection has announced their April slate of discs, with one soon-to-be Oscar nominee, Anora, among the titles. Unveiled as spine #1259, Anora could see a little push from voters, especially as voting has been pushed back to January 17th due to the ongoing fires in Los Angeles. While Anora won’t actually see the streets until April 29th, the announcement alone could give it even more prestige for voters.

Anora wouldn’t be the first time that Criterion announced titles that neatly coincided with the Academy Awards. Two of the biggest stand-outs of recent years were The Grand Budapest Hotel and Parasite, with Wes Anderson’s film being revealed in January when Academy Award nominations are traditionally announced and Bong Joon-ho’s picture being promoted just a few days before final voting closed.

Of course, there’s no real scientific proof that Criterion is trying to give Anora a...

Colombian sensual drama series Fake Profile returns with a second season, titled “Killer Match”. This time, just like season one, the focus is on romance and deceit, but to add a little more spice to the mix, we also have a serial killer on the loose! Someone seems to have a vendetta against the residents of Riviera Esmeralda, as one after the other, dead bodies are discovered. But who is the killer and what is their motive? Detective Indira Martinez was assigned to untangle the murder mystery. Given the complicated lives of the homeowners in Riviera Esmeralda, the detective had a tough time figuring out the truth. After everything she had been through, Camila Roman seemed to have finally found love in David, but she secretly continued to fantasize about Miguel. Whom did she choose in the end? Let’s find out.

Spoiler Alert

How did the police conclude that Angela was the serial killer?...

La marca del hombre lobo.Jacinto Molina grew up in Francoist Spain, the son of an extremely successful furrier. As a young boy, he was surrounded by death in the aftermath of the civil war, losing friends and family members, and passing corpses in the streets and fields around Madrid. Two of Molina’s uncles, both collectors who ran in artistic circles, introduced him to a bohemian lifestyle and range of interests. He met famous painters (Jose Gutierréz Solana), writers (Camilo José Cela), and matadors (Manolete); he was entranced by comic books, the movies, and the occult. When, at his elite boarding school, he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he knew to respond with the respectable aspiration of “architect.” Instead, he would become Paul Naschy.Naschy is now synonymous with a mid-century surge in Gothic Eurohorror that replicated in continental Europe the success of Hammer Films in the UK.

Severin Films kicks off the new year with three North American premieres that bring “one of the best labels in physical media” (Polygon) into 2024 replete with classic monsters, barbed-wire garrotes, ‘80s Italo-Sleaze in Uhd and arguably the most depraved bedtime accessory ever created.

For January, Severin presents the ultimate version of Jess Franco’s 1972 mash-up Dracula, Prisoner Of Frankenstein; the rarely-seen Ozploitation slasher Bloodmoon, complete with infamous ‘Fright Break Challenge’; and Andrea Bianchi’s off-the-rails zombie carnage classic Burial Ground, now in eye-popping, flesh-ripping 4K.

To further celebrate everyone’s favorite shambling Etruscans, an all-new Burial Ground t-shirt and Michael Pillowcase will be available in two of this month’s bundles.

January also brings much-requested wide-release versions of previously limited-edition titles — Frank Henenlotter’s black comedy shocker Bad Biology, controversial ‘80s sleaze classic Nightmare and Lucio Fulci’s giallo masterpiece The Psychic — all fully restored in 4K Uhd.

Dracula, Prisoner...

In 1970, Christopher Lee had a busy year. The icon who rose to prominence 12 years earlier thanks to Hammer Films' first Dracula entry re-donned the fangs and cape three times across 365 days. Two instances were for the Hammer series. The third, Count Dracula, a modestly budgeted European effort by prolific director Jesús Franco, defies expectations as Lee's only non-Hammer turn in the role. It similarly defies expectations as one of the few works inspired by Bram Stoker's 1897 novel to actually, well, follow the plot. When it comes to the question of which Dracula adaptation is the most faithful to the book, the majority fall short. Herein lies the binary between a classic tale that's conveniently in the public domain, and conveying a novelist's work accurately. Some, like director F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, nail the ominous Gothic atmosphere. Others offer memorable performances and strong production value but stray from the...

Every year, horror fans attempt the daunting task of watching a horror movie for each day in the month of October. Aptly named 31 Days of Horror, the challenge usually consists of having viewers watch a mixture of their favorite classic horror films, as well as popular genre staples and recent releases that may be new to them. In celebration of the spooky season, we at MovieWeb have assembled our own suggestions for the month, providing a plethora of favorites from our contributing editors and writers. Today, we kick off Day 19 with the 1982 remake of Cat People.

Horror and sexuality have almost always gone hand in hand as taboo topics in older times, with the former frequently being used to allegorically explore the latter. The vampire myth is the prime example of this, along with the gothic works of the Brontë sisters, the 'final girl' trope and male gaze in slasher cinema,...

Readers in the UK will want to take a gander at what Nyx UK has in store for them next month. With spooky season in full swing you will not want to miss contemporary classics like The Evil Dead, Halloween, What Have You Done To Solange? and Bad Taste. Hammer Sundays next month will have Countess Dracula, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, The Revenge of Frankenstein and The Abominable Snowman. Friday nights get naughty with Jesús Franco’s Vampyro Lesbos and Jean Rollin's The Shiver of the Vampires and The Night of the Hunted. All the spooky season programming for next month on Nyx UK follows. The UK’s hottest Fast TV channel for horror fans unveils a ‘Helloween’ month of movies for October ...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Josephine Chaplin, actor and daughter of Charlie Chaplin, has died. She was 74.

Chaplin died on July 13 in Paris, according to an announcement from her family.

During her career, she starred in a number of foreign films. In 1972 she was featured in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s award-winning film “The Canterbury Tales” and Richard Balducci’s “L’odeur des fauves.” The same year, she also starred alongside Laurence Harvey in Menahem Golan’s 1972 drama “Escape to the Sun” about a group of people attempting to flee the Soviet Union.

In 1974, Chaplin starred as Martine Leduc in Georges Franju’s European crime-thriller “Shadowman” alongside Gayle Hunnicutt and Jacques Champreux. The film follows the Man Without a Face, a criminal attempting to find the elusive treasures of the Knights Templar. Chaplin then reprised her role as Martine in the subsequent French mini-series “The Man Without a Face,” an extended eight-episode version of Franju’s film.

Vampires have always been sexy. Since it came into public and literary consciousness in the 19th century, vampirism has had sexual connotations, and Sheridan le Fanu’s novel Carmilla more or less invented the idea of a sexy lesbian vampire. By the 1960s, lesbian vampires had become a central fixture of horror and exploitation movies, from the Hammer horror movies to the works of Jesus Franco, but The Hunger does something different: portray the lesbian vampire with style, substance, and true eroticism.

What makes Franco-era Spanish horror so horrible? The unnecessary cruelty and emphatic nastiness, a combination that’s led to more than a few essays about political repression. Narciso Ibáñez Serrador’s shocker puts psycho headmistress Lilli Palmer in charge of a twisted girl’s boarding school. Get ready for ice-cold Women-In-Prison intrigues, with macabre carnage for a chaser. Arrow Video’s pristine new encoding is already being applauded — it far surpasses edited, color-challenged older releases, revealing a beautifully-produced thriller with fine lighting cinematography.

The House That Screamed

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

1969 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 105 + 94 min. / La Residencia, The Finishing School / Street Date March 7, 2023 / Available from / 39.95

Starring: Lilli Palmer, Cristina Galbó, John Moulder-Brown, Maribel Martín, Mary Maude, Pauline Challoner, Tomás Blanco, Víctor Israel, Teresa Hurtado.

Cinematography: Manuel Berenguer

Production Designer and Art Director: Ramiro Gómez

Costume Design Victor Marí Cortezo

Film Editors: Mercedes Alonso, Reginald Mills

Original Music: Waldo de los Ríos...

Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin, from here on simply Orchestrator of Storms, is a long overdue examination of the works of French filmmaker Jean Rollin, a man who has been labelled everything from an auteur to a pornographer and a hack.

Writer/directors Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger have worked together on several previous documentary shorts about genre films and filmmakers such as The Tale of Mr. Corman and Mr. Poe and The Magnificent Obsession of Michael Reeves as well as on individual projects. However, coming in at an hour and fifty-two minutes Orchestrator of Storms is anything but short.

Orchestrator of Storms picks up almost from the moment of Rollin’s birth to a father who worked in the theatre and a mother who had been an artist’s model. It was his mother who raised him after his father left. The film explores how...

January comes to a close with one more hidden gem, Young Min Kim‘s dramatic horror Dawning, which is now streaming on Screambox alongside several other high-profile horror films.

Yes, the Korean chiller is yet another horror film about trauma, but it’s incredibly compelling with some truly effective scares.

In Dawning…

“Haejin Park, a trauma therapist, is forced to face her family’s darkest past when she returns to her childhood countryside farm to console her heartbroken younger sister.”

Dawning stars Kim Ellis, Una Kim, and Veronica Kim, and played at Panic Fest, Asian American International Film Festival, Caamfest, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, and the Heartland International Film Festival.

This month’s Screambox Exclusive titles also include Signal 100, In Dreams, and Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow as well as a collection of Severin Films cult classics from the likes of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Jess Franco!

Fans of Battle Royale are going to lose their heads over Signal 100, the latest splatterfest from Japan that’s now spilling blood all over Screambox!

Directed by Lisa Takeba (The Pinkie), we also are excited to share the trailer for Signal 100, which harkens back to the days of horror boundary-pushing features like Battle Royale and Black Rat.

In the Screambox Exclusive…

“A group of high school students are forced into an assignment where they are hypnotized and will commit suicide on an unknown command in Signal 100.

The film, which is based on the manga series of the same name, features a stellar young cast including Shôdai Fukuyama (Scams), Yûta Koseki (Familiar Wife) and the award-winning actress Kanna Hashimoto.

This month’s Screambox Exclusive titles also include Dawning, In Dreams, and Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow as well as a collection of Severin Films cult classics from the likes of Dario Argento,...

The action-packed cabin-set psychological thriller In Dreams, which stars Jean-Claude Van Damme’s daughter, Bianca Van Damme, is now streaming on Screambox!

Directed by Matías Moltrasio, In Dreams follows a woman reeling from the news of her grandfather’s death.

“Alma and her husband decide to go away to her childhood cabin but, as the days go by, her life spirals into a surreal confusion in which her dreams turn real.”

The Screambox Exclusive stars a talented array of actors including Bianca Brigitte Van Damme, Chris Veres and Vannessa Vasquez.

The film is written by Moltrasio and Gary Lee Michaels and produced by Eric Brenner & Jeff Goldberg.

This month’s Screambox Exclusive titles also include Dawning, Signal 100, and Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow as well as a collection of Severin Films cult classics from the likes of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Jess Franco! Get all the deets here.

Screambox is excited to share the trailer for the action-packed psychological thriller In Dreams, which sends Jean-Claude Van Damme’s daughter, Bianca Van Damme, to a cabin in the woods next Tuesday, January 17th!

Directed by Matías Moltrasio, In Dreams follows a woman reeling from the news of her grandfather’s death.

“Alma and her husband decide to go away to her childhood cabin but, as the days go by, her life spirals into a surreal confusion in which her dreams turn real.”

The Screambox Exclusive stars a talented array of actors including Bianca Brigitte Van Damme, Chris Veres and Vannessa Vasquez.

The film is written by Moltrasio and Gary Lee Michaels and produced by Eric Brenner & Jeff Goldberg.

This month’s Screambox Exclusive titles also include Dawning, Signal 100, and Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow as well as a collection of Severin Films cult classics from the likes of Dario Argento,...

Before booting up M3GAN for producers James Wan and Jason Blum, Gerard Johnstone made his feature directorial debut on Housebound, an awesome horror comedy that’s brimming with bloody fun.

In the film, a young woman is forced to return to her childhood home after being placed under house arrest, where she suspects that something evil may be lurking.

If you’ve never seen this horror classic, it’s now streaming on the Bloody Disgusting-powered Screambox!

Megan previously wrote about Housebound a few years ago. Here’s her breakdown:

“Written and directed by Gerard Johnstone, Housebound is a brilliant feature debut that makes you wonder when his sophomore feature might be on its way. A horror-comedy can be a tricky enough thing to pull off- rarely are the scales of humor and horror in balance- but Johnstone infuses dark comedy with genuine suspense. There’s even some touching family drama to ground it all.

We are insanely excited to reveal all of the fresh horrors coming to Screambox this month, including exclusive titles In Dreams, Dawning, Signal 100, and Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow as well as a collection of Severin Films cult classics from the likes of Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, and Jess Franco!

Here’s everything coming to the Bd-powered Screambox in January 2023…

Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow becomes a Screambox Exclusive on January 13. The feature-length documentary offers a retrospective look at George A. Romero and Stephen King’s “Creepshow” through interviews with Romero, Tom Savini, Adrienne Barbeau, Ed Harris, Tom Atkins, Bernie Wrightson, and more!

January 13 also sees the arrival of 24 cult classics restored by Severin Films, including Jess Franco’s Count Dracula starring Christopher Lee, Wax Mask produced by Dario Argento, horror anthology The Uncanny starring Peter Cushing and Donald Pleasence, Lucio Fulci’s Zombie 3, Australian hidden gem Next of Kin,...

French documentarian and co-founder of the Cinematheque Francais Georges Franju’s second fiction feature remains one of the most influential horror films of its decade, a nightmarishly poetic dreamscape that elevates a Monogram Pictures-level conceit to the realm of expressive exotica. Surgeon Pierre Brasseur’s Lugosi-like commitment to restoring his disfigured daughter’s face provides some of the more disconcerting images in the genre. Jess Franco, John Woo and Pedro Almodovar are just a few of the filmmakers whose work has reflected elements of Franju’s bizarre achievement. This is the textless French trailer.

The post Eyes Without A Face appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Center Stage (Stanley Kwan)

Following her breakout with Jackie Chan in Police Story and before her iconic roles in the films of Wong Kar-wai and Olivier Assayas, Maggie Cheung delivered one of the best performances of her career in Stanley Kwan’s lush, definitive, and boldly conceived biopic Center Stage, also known as Actress. Now gorgeously restored in 4K from the original negative, and approved by Kwan himself, the film follows Cheung as iconic silent film star Ruan Lingyu, who committed suicide at the age of 24 in 1935 after a tumultuous private life that was frequent fodder for the vicious Shanghai tabloids—and began to mirror the melodramas that brought her fame. With Cheung receiving the Best Actress award at Berlinale, the film...

Click here to read the full article.

The 2022 Emmy nominees for main title design are Hulu’s Candy and Only Murders in the Building; Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop; and Apple TV+’s Foundation, Lisey’s Story, Pachinko and Severance.

Here’s how the main titles design category has looked between 2002 and 2021:

Winners by Genre

TV Academy voters strongly favor drama series, which earned the vast majority of nominations and wins in the past two decades

Victory, Multiplied Game of Thrones opening titles

The category’s rules stipulate that titles for a program not in its first season must be substantially changed (at least 75 percent different) to be eligible. HBO’s Game of Thrones is the only series to win twice for main title design, for its first season in 2011 and its final season in 2019.

Emmys’ Top Designers

These creatives boast multiple Emmys to their name for their dramatic title sequences.

Hello, everyone! We’re back with the final round of horror and sci-fi home media releases for the month of August, and we’ve got quite a few killer titles headed home today. Scream Factory is giving Paul Schrader’s Cat People remake a 4K overhaul in a brand-new Collector’s Edition release, and Severin Films is keeping busy with several titles today as well, including All About Evil and Fearless, and if you haven’t had a chance to check it out for yourself yet, Jane Schoenbrun’s extremely unsettling We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is headed to Blu-ray this week as well.

Other titles being released on August 30th include Arrow Video’s Giallo Essentials: 3-Disc Limited Edition Collection, Lux Aeterna, Satan’s Children, Jack Be Nimble featuring Alexis Arquette, The Oregonian, Raw Nerve, and Shriek of the Mutilated.

All About Evil: 2-Disc Special Edition

It's...

Mondo Macabro and Cav present The Other Side of the Mirror – The first US release of this gripping, dream-like thriller from horror maestro Jess Franco. The Other Side of the Mirror 1 Blu-ray disc Label: Mondo Macabro Preorder: 9/16/22 Release: 10/11/22 Msrp: 29.95 Upc: 843276025298 Catalogue #: MDO252 Genre: Horror Color 100 minutes in French, …

The post Mondo Macabro and Cav present The Other Side of the Mirror appeared first on Horror News | Hnn.

Orchestrator of Storms: The Fantastique World of Jean Rollin, from here on simply Orchestrator of Storms, is a long overdue examination of the works of French filmmaker Jean Rollin, a man who has been labelled everything from an auteur to a pornographer and a hack.

Writer/directors Dima Ballin and Kat Ellinger have worked together on several previous documentary shorts about genre films and filmmakers such as The Tale of Mr. Corman and Mr. Poe and The Magnificent Obsession of Michael Reeves as well as on individual projects. However, coming in at an hour and fifty-two minutes Orchestrator of Storms is anything but short.

Orchestrator of Storms picks up almost from the moment of Rollin’s birth to a father who worked in the theatre and a mother who had been an artist’s model. It was his mother who raised him after his father left. The film explores how...

TetroVideo have announced the release of giallo horror Nightmare Symphony, the psychological horror The Bad Man and the shocking experimental dramatic art film Debris Documentar. Nightmare Symphony is coming to Blu-ray while The Bad Man and Debris Documentar are coming in a limited Digipack edition including a DVD and a Collector’s card: only 150 copies for The Bad Man and 300 copies for Marian Dora’s film are planned.

All three titles will be available for pre-order on June 1st.

Nightmare Symphony (Italy – 2020)

Nightmare Symphony is a giallo horror film co-directed by Domiziano Cristopharo and Daniele Trani (Dop in “Across the River”). Produced by Ulkurzu and Hh Kosova and written by the well-known italian screenwriter Antonio Tentori, Nightmare Symphony is a tribute to Lucio Fulci’s Nightmare Concert/A Cat in the Brain, in which Fulci himself played a tortured horror filmmaker haunted by his own bloody horror film visions.

In Nightmare Symphony,...

The Fu Manchu Cycle—1965-1969

Blu ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1965 – 1969 / 96, 93, 91, 94, 92 min. / 2:33:1, 1:85, 1:66

Starring Christoper Lee, Tsai Chin

Cinematography by Ernest Steward, John Von Kotze, Manuel Merino

Directed by Don Sharp, Jeremy Summers, Jesús Franco

Arthur Henry Ward was born in Birmingham in 1883—at the age of 20 he adopted the pen name of Sax Rohmer, specializing in standard issue crime fiction and otherworldly tales of terror. In 1912 he folded both genres into one sinister figure from the East, a so-called “devil doctor” named Fu Manchu. The book covers alone were xenophobic horror shows and if there was any doubt the stories themselves were wildly racist, the author confirmed it in the description of his star villain: “the Yellow Peril incarnate in one man.”

An authority on philosophy, medicine, and idiosyncratic torture devices, Manchu made his debut in The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu which was quickly followed by The Return of Dr.

It’s Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing together in a horror picture, a formula no shock feature fan can resist. Most of us remember staring at the beautiful full-color photo of Chris Lee in monster makeup in Denis Gifford’s picture book about horror movies. Yet this has remained one of the pair’s most obscure items, at least as a quality presentation. Powerhouse Indicator’s expert added value items put all the rumors to rest, including the question that’s been repeated through the years — where’s the legendary 3-D version? Or perhaps more to the point, was there really a 3-D version? And then there’s the other question — is the movie any good?

I, Monster

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1971 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 75, 81 min. / Street Date September 28, 2020 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £15.99

Starring: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Mike Raven, Richard Hurndall, George Merritt, Kenneth J. Warren.

Cinematography:...

“Cockeyed philosophies of life, ugly sex situations, cheap jokes, and dirty dialogue are not wanted. Decent people don’t like this sort of stuff, and it is our job to see to it that they get none of it.” The words of American film censor Joseph Breen reverberated through Hollywood, changing the cinematic landscape for decades. Established in 1934, the Motion Picture Production Code (or Hays Code) enforced by Breen was given the power to approve films prior to release. They created strict guidelines as to what they considered moral and immoral behavior. Chief among the code’s list of “Don’ts” and “Be Carefuls,” and henceforth banned in films, was “any inference of sex perversion.” In Horror Film: An Introduction, author Rick Worland remarks that “Hollywood has a long history of equating homosexuality with criminality, perversion, and morose self-destruction.” However, Hollywood’s new standards did not achieve what they set out to do.

Learn and be entertained at the same time with new spring courses offered by the fine folks at the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies. Continue reading for more details. Also in today's Horror Highlights: Crimes in History: H.H. Holmes Murder Castle board game Kickstarter details, The Wave Blu-ray and DVD, No Hope in the Woods' Indiegogo details, and Haunted in the Heartland's premiere on Travel Channel.

Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies Spring Semester Announced: "The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies celebrates its 10th anniversary of offering classes in horror history, theory, and production this spring, with an electrifying slate of illustrated lectures by some of the genre’s most renowned scholars, filmmakers, and luminaries. We are proud to announce the Spring 2020 lineup for our New York branch.

First up on February 13 is scholar Kate Robertson with Man-eater: Cannibal Women In Film, which explores how these films capture ever-present...

Engaged to direct by a reputable producer, Jesús Franco takes yet another stab at conventional B&W horror. The pulp thrills get a boost through the contributions of talented collaborators: excellent camerawork flatters the idiosyncratic obsessions of a writer-director in search of his own dream-world sensibility. Although it’s not saying much, this might be the best of Franco’s earlier B&W horror output.

The Diabolical Dr. Z

Blu-ray

Redemption / Kino Lorber

1966 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 87 min. / Miss Muerte; Dans les griffes du maniaque / Street Date February 6, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Estella Blain, Mabel Karr, Howard Vernon, Fernando Montes, Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui, Guy Mairesse, Antonio Jiménez Escribano, Lucía Prado, Daniel White, Jesús Franco.

Cinematography: Alejandro Ulloa

Film Editor: Marie-Louise Barberot, Jean Feyte

Original Music: Daniel White

Written by David Kuhne (Jesús Franco), Jean-Claude Carrière

Produced by Serge Silberman, Michel Safra

Directed by Jesús Franco

Am I correct when I remember...

With Christmas just around the corner it is time to get into a festive mood and there is nothing better to start the season than a Christmas Slasher. Craig Anderson has got into the spirit of Christmas past with a colourful homage to the classic 80’s slasher in his latest release Red Christmas. I got a chance to ask him a few questions about why he chose to write and direct a Christmas Horror, dealing with the taboo subject of abortion and working with Dee Wallace. And if you haven’t read it yet, check out my Red Christmas review

What can we expect from your new film Red Christmas?

The incredible actor Dee Wallace – Et (1982), Cujo (1983), The Howling (1981); stars as a mother who brings her grown up family home for Christmas. It’s a normal Christmas day with plenty of family stress, but then a really weird dude rocks up the door.

NBC is headed to school. Today, the network announced their new TV show AP Bio will debut in February.The comedy stars Glenn Howerton as Jack Griffin, a disgraced philosophy scholar who is forced to return to Ohio and teach high school biology. The cast also includes Patton Oswalt, Mary Sohn, Lyric Lewis, Jean Villepique, Jacob McCarthy, and Tom Bennett.Read More…...

After a little over a year of doing this column, I think you and I have a pretty good thing going. If you’ve come this far and are still willing to follow my incessant ramblings, I think our relationship can survive a wee confession: hard as I try, I just cannot get into the Universal Monsters movies. Don’t get me wrong, I value them for laying the foundations of the horror genre, but when it comes to actually watching them, I just don’t find them as engaging as more modern films.

Take, for example, James Whale’s iconic Frankenstein. This is a movie that defined gothic horror and created the look for Frankenstein’s monster that would be ingrained in our collective consciousness for generations. I’m a huge fan of the film’s visual aesthetic and the notion of a sympathetic villain is one that always resonates with me.

Think, “I Was a Teenage Empress.” A trio of movies tell an optimized version of the life of a 19th century Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. It’s fuzzy history designed to prop up German morale, but the film is graced with the incredible presence of a teenaged Romy Schneider, whose beauty and personality became a sensation in the European film world.

The Sissi Collection:

Sissi

Sissi The Young Empress

Sissi The Fateful Years of an Empress

The Story of Vickie

Blu-ray

Film Movement

1955, 1956, 1957 / Color / 1:78 widescreen & 1:33 flat full frame / 102, 107, 109 min. / Street Date November 14, 2017 / 74.95

Starring: Romy Schneider, Karlheinz Böhm, Magda Schneider, Uta Franz, Vilma Degischer, Josef Meinrad, Gustav Knuth.

Cinematography: Bruno Mondi

Film Editor: Alfred Srp

Original Music: Anton Profes

Produced by Karl Erlich, Ernst Marischka

Written and Directed by Ernst Marischka

I’m fascinated by National Epics, movies that individual countries might take as a film...

With Halloween only two weeks away now, that means we have another killer batch of home entertainment releases arriving this Tuesday, primed to get everyone in the mood for the macabre. Cult film lovers should get those wallets ready, as Kino Lorber is keeping busy with The Terror Within II, Revenge of the Dead, and a 4K special edition of RawHead Rex, too.

For those who still venture out into the real world to make their media purchases, Target has the exclusive on season one of Stranger Things that comes in nifty retro packaging, and Criterion has put together a stellar Blu for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.

Other notable releases for October 17th include American Gods: Season One, Wes Craven’s Summer of Fear, Red Christmas, Spider-Man: Homecoming, The Honor Farm, and Alfred Hitchcock: The Ultimate Collection.

American Gods: Season One (Lionsgate, Blu-ray & DVD)

When...

With the Halloween season finally upon us, that we’ve got a ton of horror and sci-fi titles headed our way via VOD and various digital platforms throughout the month of October. Things kick off with the 1992 horror comedy Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which hits Digital HD for the first time ever on October 2nd. The very next day, Cult of Chucky, Super Dark Times, The Forlorned, and Realive all make their respective debuts, and just a few days later the holiday horror flick Better Watch Out arrives on October 6th.

October 10th is another busy day, with the digital releases of Wish Upon, Dementia 13, The 13th Friday, War for the Planet of the Apes, and Wes Craven’s cult classic Summer of Fear, and for those looking to spend their Friday the 13th at home, you’ve got M.F.A., Brawl in Cell Block 99, and the Psycho-themed documentary 78/52 to look forward to.

He’s fast on his feet, quick with a gun, and faster with the to-die-for beauties that only existed in the swinging ’60s. The superspy exploits of Oss 117 were too big for just one actor, so meet all three iterations of the man they called Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath . . . seriously.

Oss 117 Five Film Collection

Blu-ray

Oss 117 Is Unleashed; Oss 117: Panic in Bangkok; Oss 117: Mission For a Killer; Oss 117: Mission to Tokyo; Oss 117: Double Agent

Kl Studio Classics

1963-1968 / B&W and Color / 1:85 widescreen + 2:35 widescreen / 528 min. / Street Date September 26, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 59.95

Starring: Kerwin Matthews, Nadia Sanders, Irina Demick, Daniel Emilfork; Kerwin Matthews, Pier Angeli, Robert Hossein; Frederick Stafford, Mylène Demongeot, Perrette Pradier, Dominique Wilms, Raymond Pellegrin, Annie Anderson; Frederick Stafford, Marina Vlad, Jitsuko Yoshimura; John Gavin, Margaret Lee, Curd Jurgens, Luciana Paluzzi, Rosalba Neri, Robert Hossein, George Eastman.

Cinematography: Raymond Pierre Lemoigne...

Horror film writer and filmmaker Chris Alexander returns behind the camera with the third film in his vampire Irina saga, Blood Dynasty, and you can now watch the hypnotically haunting trailer for the new movie ahead of its release this Halloween from Castle Films.

"Blood Dynasty was written and directed by Chris Alexander (Queen of Blood, Blood For Irina) and features a cast of upcoming talented actors including Shauna Henry, Cheryl Singleton, Holly Riot and Andre Becker.

Castle Films will be releasing Blood Dynasty on VOD and Digital HD on October 31, 2017.

Synopsis: Blood Dynasty is the third in Alexander’s “Irina” vampire film cycle, that began with 2012’s award winning Blood for Irina and continued in 2014’s Queen of Blood. The character of Irina – inspired in part by Lina Romay’s character in Spanish filmmaker Jess Franco’s Female Vampire – is once more reborn, rising from the sea to bring...

Ben Rivers' The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers (2015) is showing on Mubi from September 6 - October 6 and Oliver Laxe's Mimosas (2016) from September 7 - October 7, 2017 in the United Kingdom as part of the series Close-Up on Oliver Laxe.MimosasBoth Mimosas and The Sky Trembles and the Earth Is Afraid and the Two Eyes Are Not Brothers mirror each other in many different ways: they both take place in the same geographical space, the south of Morocco, they were filmed at the same time, have some of the same people in them, and are filmed in 16mm. But these are only apparent similarities that veil deeper discussions between both films. Director Oliver Laxe stands behind the camera in Mimosas, he is observed from the distance in the first part of The Sky Trembles, and finally ends up crossing the invisible wall...

Rare Franco film Two Female Spies With Flowered Panties out now on Blu-ray from Severin Films

The post Win a Pair of Jess Franco’s Panties from Severin Films appeared first on ComingSoon.net.

Every thrift store I’ve ever been in has one.

You can see the cover of Whipped Cream and Other Delights‘ bright green background even deep in a stack. The real attraction, to a teenaged crate diver, is Dolores Erickson, covered in “whipped cream” (actually shaving cream), staring alluringly into the camera.

Herb Alpert‘s music, in the wild, is similarly inescapable: I have no statistics to back this up, but I would wager that roughly 99 percent of the world’s population has, at some point, heard “Spanish Flea,” if not directly, than through some kind of cultural osmosis. But...

Review by Roger Carpenter

I have to admit I didn’t have many positive expectations for this later-in-life Jess Franco flick. I’m a Franco fan, but not a Franco apologist. I really enjoy a good number of his films but recognize he’s churned out some real clunkers, especially the period immediately after 1987’s Faceless. The reputation of Killer Barbys was less than stellar with even hard-core Franco fans generally dismissing the film. So it was that I received a screener from Kino Lorber and popped the Blu-ray in. I figured I’d watch it once then toss it in the corner and allow it to gather dust. At least I’d have one more Franco film for my collection even if I never opened the case again. However, I was more than pleasantly surprised. I was entertained throughout most of the film. This may say more about my...

Back in April, Kino Lorber announced that they would be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Rawhead Rex with a 4K restoration of the Clive Barker-penned film (based on his short story of the same name), and they've now revealed the Blu-ray / DVD cover art, full list of special features, and an October release date for the restoration:

Rawhead Rex will be released on Blu-ray and DVD by Kino Lorber on October 17th. Kino Lorber had previously announced a theatrical release of the 4K restoration, and while we don't have a complete list of screenings, the restored film will be shown at The Hexploitation Film Festival in Hamilton, Ontario on Friday, August 25th.

Below, we have the complete list of special features and a look at the cover art for the new Blu-ray / DVD release of Rawhead Rex:

From Kino Lorber: "Coming October 17th on DVD and Blu-ray!

Jess Franco was a filmmaker that always liked being on the fringe of mainstream cinema. His films tackled controversial subjects without abandon. He was a director that loved to push the limits of what could be shown on screen, and fans have been loving his work for decades. Now, Severin Films is ready to release one of Franco’s more rare titles on Blu-ray, and it looks like it’s going to be a must-own for anyone who loves Franco’s work.

Continue reading Rare Jess Franco Film ‘Two Female Spies With Flowered Panties’ Coming To Blu-Ray at The Playlist.

As part of my post duty orders here at We Are Movie Geeks I am tasked with reviewing movies on DVD and Blu ray that may not have found an audience. Movies with little or no theatrical release, did not play very long, escaped attention, what have you.

I am proud to direct your attention to a little known film from 2011 called The Moth Diaries. First I have to say that I, like many millions of movie goers, reveled in the new screen incarnation of Wonder Woman, not only starring Gal Gadot as the original female super hero and masterfully directed by a woman, Patty Jenkins, and also starring Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen and a whole crew of the most righteous Amazons ever seen on a movie screen, wonderful!

I have a confession to make, at the age of 10 I was obsessed with the legend of the Amazon Empire. Fully...