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New to Blu – Week of 11/8/2016
Each week here at Bloody Disgusting we like to highlight some of the new Blu-ray releases hitting shelves across the world. Please note that this isn’t every release for the week, just a few of the ones that jumped out at us.
Second week of November is another fairly light but very solid week of releases. Some really good stuff hitting shelves this week. Stateside the wonderfully underrated Bubba Ho-Tep receives a stunning Blu-ray release courtesy of Scream Factory while the entire Lone Wolf and Cub series gets the Criterion treatment. Across the pond in the UK 88 Films headlines this week’s releases with Mad Dog Killer and Prozzie. A good week of releases indeed.
US Releases
Bubba Ho-Tep (Scream Factory, Region A)
Synopsis:
Elvis Presley is still alive, now in his late sixties, but confined to a rest home in Texas. Here, he recounts how he escaped fame with the help of an impersonator–now left to wonder what could have been, all while trying to battle the “soul-sucking” mummy, Bubba Ho-tep, who enters the rest home at night and consumes souls.
Lone Wolf Cub (Criterion, Region A)
Synopsis:
Entire Lone Wolf and Cub series.
Daredevil: The Complete First Season (Disney, Region Free)
Synopsis:
A blind lawyer with his other senses superhumanly enhanced fights crime as a costumed superhero.
The Initiation (Arrow, Region A)
Synopsis:
Kelly Fairchild has become a college student and a member of the Delta Ro Kai sorority. During all her life, she has suffered from a nightmare where a man is burning. She meets an assistant professor who can help interpret the dream. The sorority’s initiation ritual is a nighttime breaking-and-entering into her father’s department store.
Taxi Driver: 40th Anniversary Edition (Sony, Region A)
Synopsis:
Paul Schrader’s gritty screenplay depicts the ever-deepening alienation of Vietnam Veteran Travis Bickle, a psychotic cab driver who obsessively cruises the mean streets of Manhattan.
Kickboxer: Vengeance (Image Entertainment, Region A)
Synopsis:
Eric and Kurt Sloane are the descendants of a well-known Venice, California-based family of martial artists. Against Kurt’s concerns, Eric accepts a paid offer and travels to Thailand to challenge the Muay Thai champion Tong Po and fails with dire consequences. Training with his brother’s mentor, Master Durand, Kurt sets out for revenge.
Night Has a Thousand Desires (Mondo Macabro, Region A)
Synopsis:
A telepathic nightclub act becomes the backdrop for murder.
I, The Jury (Kino Lorber, Region A)
Synopsis:
After Hammer finds his best friend murdered, he vows an oath of revenge. During the course of his search for the killer, he encounters a suspicious female doctor who runs a New York sex clinic. Based on the 1947 novel by Mickey Spillane.
Private Vices, Public Virtues (Mondo Macabro, Region A)
Synopsis:
The setting is a Central European kingdom, near the turn of the century. Bored by his very proper wife, the youthful heir to the throne spends his time in amorous dalliance at a country estate…
UK Releases
The Initiation (Arrow, Region B)
Synopsis:
Kelly Fairchild has become a college student and a member of the Delta Ro Kai sorority. During all her life, she has suffered from a nightmare where a man is burning. She meets an assistant professor who can help interpret the dream. The sorority’s initiation ritual is a nighttime breaking-and-entering into her father’s department store.
Taxi Driver: 40th Anniversary Edition (Sony, Region B)
Synopsis:
Paul Schrader’s gritty screenplay depicts the ever-deepening alienation of Vietnam Veteran Travis Bickle, a psychotic cab driver who obsessively cruises the mean streets of Manhattan.
Mad Dog Killer (88 Films, Region B)
Synopsis:
Deranged murderer Nanni Vitali (a completely unhinged performance by Helmut Berger of The Damned) and three violent thugs escape from prison and begin a psychotic spree of robbery, rape and revenge. But when Vitali brutalizes a beautiful young woman (the luscious Marisa Mell of Danger: Diabolik and Perversion Story), he lights the fuse on a deadly trap set by an obsessed cop (Richard Harrison). In this bloody urban jungle, life is cheap, vengeance is law and the ultimate maniac is a Beast with a Gun.
Jamaica Inn (Arrow, Region B)
Synopsis:
Set in Cornwall where a young orphan, Mary, is sent to live with Aunt Patience and Uncle Joss who are the landlords of the Jamaica Inn. Mary soon realizes that her uncle’s inn is the base of a gang of ship wreckers who lure ships to their doom on the rocky coast. The girl starts fearing for her life.
Prozzie (88 Films, Region B)
Synopsis:
An engineer from the US in London helping to dismantle the London Bridge to be transported to Arizona, strikes up an acquaintanceship with a young British woman. Several years later he happens to be at the bridge’s new location and sees the woman again–but this time she’s a real estate agent there, doesn’t have a British accent and doesn’t recognize him.
Scream Factory brought Frank LaLoggia’s 1988 Halloween movie Lady in White to Blu-ray several years back, and now Vinegar Syndrome gives the film a 4K Ultra HD upgrade.
Vinegar Syndrome’s Lady in White 4K release is available now and shipping now!
Watch the trailer below and grab your copy from Vinegar Syndrome today.
This limited edition 4-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray x 3 set comes with a spot gloss hard slipcase + slipcover combo (designed by Dylan Haley), includes a 40-page perfect bound book and is limited to 8,000 units. It is only available on their website and at select indie retailers.
The full Special Features package includes…
- 4-disc Set: 1x 4K Ultra HD (High Bitrate BD100) / 3x Region A Blu-ray
- 4K UHD presented in Dolby Vision High-Dynamic-Range
- Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative
- Presented in three versions: 126-min Pre-Release Director’s Cut (UHD+BD), the 118-min Extended Home Video Cut (BD), and the 113-min Theatrical Cut (BD)
- New group commentary track with writer/director Frank LaLoggia, alongside actors Lukas Haas, Joelle Jacobi, and Len Cariou for the Pre-Release Director’s Cut
- New commentary track with Frank LaLoggia, moderated by Scott Neumyer for the Extended Home Video Cut
- New commentary track with authors Emma Westwood and Stephen A. Russell for the Extended Home Video Cut
- Archival commentary track with Frank LaLoggia for the Extended Home Video Cut
- “Learning How to Fly” (10 min) – an interview with actress Karen Powell
- “A Snapshot in Time” (9 min) – an interview with actress Lisa Taylor
- “Human Touches” (6 min) – an interview with actress Lucy Lee Flippin
- “Still Relevant” (16 min) – an interview with actress Rose Weaver
- “75% Listening, 25% Editing” (9 min) – an interview with editor Steve Mann
- “Welcome to Willowpoint Falls” (6 min) – a location featurette hosted by Benjamin Scrivens, founder of Fright-Rags
- “Dream Talking: Looking Back” – a visual group commentary for the Pre-Release Director’s Cut with Frank LaLoggia, and actors Lukas Haas, Joelle Jacobi, and Len Cariou (103 min)
- Deleted Scenes with introduction and optional commentary by writer/director Frank LaLoggia (36 min)
- Behind-the-scenes footage with introduction and optional commentary by writer/director Frank LaLoggia (16 min)
- Extended behind-the-scenes footage (73 min)
- Introduction from the 20th anniversary dvd release
- Promotional ‘industry sales’ trailer (7 min)
- 40-page perfect bound book with essays by film historians Molly Henery, Mark H. Harris, and Heidi Honeycutt (limited edition only)
- Multiple radio spots
- Theatrical trailer
- Multiple TV spots
- Workprint trailers (7 min)
- Still gallery
- Reversible sleeve artwork
- English SDH subtitles
1962. Nine-year-old Frankie Scarlatti enjoys a homespun childhood in a rustic Western New York town. The entire community gets into the spirit of Halloween, but then two bullies prank Frankie by locking him in his school cloakroom, leaving him trapped for the night. Alone and afraid, his slumber is interrupted when the ghost of a little girl appears, and Frankie witnesses the specter of her murder by an unseen assailant. Later, while recovering at home, the girl’s ghost appears to him again. With help from his older brother, Frankie begins investigating the circumstances of her death. He soon discovers that her murder was one of several unsolved crimes connected to a local child-killer. As the town’s bucolic veneer fades and long-buried secrets and tensions bubble to the surface, all of the clues to the mystery seem to point towards a huge mansion inhabited by a reclusive woman known as “The Lady in White.”
A nostalgia-driven ghost story wrapped within an intricate murder mystery and coming-of-age drama, writer-director-composer Frank LaLoggia’s passion project Lady in White remains one of the most beautiful and original American horror films of the 1980s. Featuring acclaimed actors Alex Rocco (The Godfather), Len Cariou (Executive Decision), and Sydney Lassick (Carrie, The Unseen), it boasts the first starring role by Lukas Haas (Mars Attacks, Inception) as well as breathtaking photography by Academy Award® winner Russell Carpenter (True Lies, The Lawnmower Man). Vinegar Syndrome is honored to bring this genre masterpiece to 4K UHD, newly restored from its original 35mm camera negative and presented in three versions: its pre-release director’s cut, its extended home-video version, and its original theatrical version, along with an abundance of both new and archival extras.
Paul Lê wrote here on Bloody Disgusting back in 2023, “Over the years, fans have described this film as gateway horror, but they liken it more to The Watcher in the Woods than, say, Hocus Pocus or Casper. There are chilling moments that warrant its PG-13 rating.”
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