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New to Blu – Week of 3/27/2017
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.
We have arrived to the final week of March releases and it’s a good one. We got new stuff from Arrow Video, Kino Lorber, Vinegar Syndrome and Scream Factory. The big releases for me this week are Witchtrap from Vinegar Syndrome and the two Death movies from Arrow. I’m also a sucker for Nic Cage so Arsenal, despite not being horror, is high on my list of must-have titles this week. Get to collecting!
US Releases
Blow-Up (Criterion, Region A)
Synopsis:
A mod London photographer seems to find something very suspicious in the shots he has taken of a mysterious beauty in a desolate park.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Warner, Region A)
Synopsis:
The adventures of writer Newt Scamander in New York’s secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school.
A Monster Calls (Universal, Region A)
Synopsis:
A boy seeks the help of a tree monster to cope with his single mom’s terminal illness.
Death Walks on High Heels (Arrow, Region A)
Synopsis:
Parisian nightclub singer Nicole Rochard is stalked by a demented masked man who may be the killer of her diamond thief father. With the help of a friend, Dr. Robert Matthews, she hopes to elude her pursuer by traveling to the English countryside. But Nicole’s merciless pursuer does not give up so easily, and soon more murders occur.
Death Walks at Midnight (Arrow, Region A)
Synopsis:
Valentina, a hot-tempered fashion model, duped into trying an experimental psychedelic by a fast-talking tabloid journalist during a photo shoot, inadvertently witnesses a gory murder by a man with a spiked glove in the empty, next-door building. It won’t be the last!
The Creeping Garden (Arrow, Region A)
Synopsis:
A real life science fiction movie exploring a world creeping right beneath our feet, where time and space are magnified and intelligence redefined. The Creeping Garden is an award winning documentary exploring the work of fringe scientists, mycologists and artists, and their relationship with the extraordinary plasmodial slime mould. With an original soundtrack composed by celebrated musician and producer Jim O’Rourke (Sonic Youth, Werner Herzog’s ‘Grizzly Man’) this is a unique exploration into a hitherto untapped subject matter, observing and immersing the audience into the worlds of the observers and the observed.
Arsenal (Lionsgate, Region A)
Synopsis:
A powerful action thriller, ARSENAL tells the intertwining stories of the Lindel brothers, Mikey and JP, who had only each other to rely on growing up. As adults, JP found success as the owner of a construction company, while Mikey became a small-time mobster, mired in a life of petty crime. When Mikey is kidnapped and held for a ransom by ruthless crime boss Eddie King, JP turns to the brothers’ old pal Sal, a plain clothes detective for help. In order to rescue his brother, JP must risk everything and unleash his vengeance against King’s relentless army of gangsters.
The Handmaiden (Sony, Region A)
Synopsis:
A woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, but secretly she is involved in a plot to defraud her.
The Wanderers (Kino Lorber, Region A)
Synopsis:
Set in the Bronx in 1963, the film concerns the titular gang of Italian-American teens and their ongoing power struggle with the rival “Fordham Baldies.”
Witchtrap (Vinegar Syndrome, Region A & B)
Synopsis:
Parapsychologists try to make an inn haunted by an evil witch’s ghost safe for guests.
World Without End (Warner Archive, Region A)
Synopsis:
Four astronauts returning from mankind’s first mission to Mars enter a time warp and crash on a 26th Century Earth devastated by atomic war. Our heroes meet with hideous mutants, giant spiders, love-struck beauties in short dresses, and jealous old geezers in sparkly skullcaps as they struggle to save humanity and build a new world.
Property Is No Longer a Theft (Arrow, Region A)
Synopsis:
Total, a young bank cashier, has been wondering for some time if his life, with its grey, dismal prospect, is worth living. He is aware of the illicit careers and rise to riches of many of his clients. He decide to start a new life : new clothes, new cars, new women. His “new look” begins discreetly, a few small robberies in supermarkets, progressing to more important fraud.
Dakota (Kino Lorber, Region A)
Synopsis:
In 1871 Dakota, two crooked businessmen oppose the local wheat farmers and the railroad development, in order to control the town of Fargo.
Z.P.G. (Kino Lorber, Region A)
Synopsis:
This provocative sci-fi outing is set in an over-populated, horribly polluted 21st century where child-bearing has become illegal. To help ease the tension and stress caused by not procreating, married couples use robot dolls to substitute for children. One couple decides to break the law and have a real baby in secret. Unfortunately, their neighbors find out and demand that the couple share the baby with them. The other couple does so, but finds that the neighbors get too attached to the infant. They stop sharing their child, and the neighbors becomes so angry that they report them to authorities. The couple and their baby are arrested and sentenced to death. Fortunately, the clever husband anticipated this and made a few plans in advance.
September Storm (Kino Lorber, Region A)
Synopsis:
A young, handsome man works on the yacht of a Parisian tycoon who happens to be away at the moment. Two nautical layabouts convince the man to take them out looking for the sunken treasure.
What’s the Matter with Helen? (Scream Factory, Region A)
Synopsis:
The Midwestern mothers of two Leopold and Loeb–like murderers move to Hollywood, California in the 1930s and open a dancing school for would-be Shirley Temples seeking to break into the movies. Adelle falls in love with a Texas millionaire, but Helen turns to an evangelist and gradually goes off the deep end. Soon corpses of all kinds start piling up…
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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