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.

Lots of great releases this week, but really you just need to focus on Manos: The Hands of Fate. Yes, Manos: The Hands of Fate is now out on Blu-ray. Go get it.

Only US releases this week. Next week we’ll be back to including releases from all over the world.

US Releases

The Brood (Criterion)

Synopsis:
A man’s wife is under the care of an eccentric and unconventional psychologist who uses innovative and theatrical techniques to breach the psychological blocks in his patients. When their daughter comes back from a visit with her mother and is covered with bruises and welts, the father attempts to bar his wife from seeing the daughter but faces resistance from the secretive psychologist. Meanwhile, the wife’s mother and father are attacked by strangely deformed children, and the man begins to suspect a connection with the psychologist’s methods….

Vampires (Twilight Time)

Synopsis:
Prolific director John Carpenter takes on the vampire genre in his action-horror film VAMPIRES. Bitter, tough-as-nails vampire hunter Jack Crow (James Woods) leads a specialized team, funded by no less than the Vatican, that is dedicated to destroying the race of vampires that inhabit the earth. The team is successful, and becomes lazy in its success, eventually falling victim to an elaborate ambush set up by a powerful master vampire. Crow and two others of his team are the only survivors, and are determined to get revenge for the massacre. Carpenter takes the genre to new heights with powerful action scenes, nifty vampire-killing weapons and great special effects. James Woods is wonderfully over the top as the head vampire hunter who has no love for the Vatican and a mysterious past that is never far behind him. VAMPIRES is based on the book by John Steakley, adapted for the screen by Don Jakoby. The score is creepy and powerful, a typical characteristic for a Carpenter film.

Manos: The Hands of Fate (Synapse)

Synopsis:
An innocent family becomes lost and find themselves at a remote farmhouse. The only apparent resident of the property is a strangely deformed man named Torgo, who insists he is watching the place for “The Master”. What our travelers don’t know is “The Master” and his demon-worshipping wives have awakened from their slumber to prey upon them for their sacrifices.

The Phantom of the Opera (Kino Lorber)

Synopsis:
At the Opera of Paris, a mysterious phantom threatens a famous lyric singer, Carlotta and thus forces her to give up her role (Marguerite in Faust) for unknown Christine Daae. Christine meets this phantom (a masked man) in the catacombs, where he lives. What’s his goal? What’s his secret?

Mosquito (Synapse)

Synopsis:
An alien starship dumps a space-trash in a swamp in a U.S. National Park. Some mosquitoes begin to feed from the alien’s corpses, causing them to grow to the size of a vulture. These mutant insects became very aggressive, killing every human being they find. Will the few survivors fight successfully against this nightmare…?

Strange Invaders (Twilight Time)

Synopsis:
Charlie’s ex-wife disappears, and he travels to where she grew up–a rural town in the Midwest–to look for her. But, surprisingly, nobody knows about her or any of her many relatives, the Newmans. He meets aliens; but when he contacts the FBI, they don’t believe him. He tells his story to a tabloid; and suddenly, he is chased by the aliens.

Count Yorga, Vampire (Twilight Time)

Synopsis:
Sixties couples Michael and Donna and Paul and Erica become involved with the intense Count Yorga at a Los Angeles séance, the Count having latterly been involved with Erica’s just-dead mother. After taking the Count home, Paul and Erica are waylayed, and next day a listless Erica is diagnosed by their doctor as having lost a lot of blood. When she is later found feasting on the family cat the doctor becomes convinced vampirism is at work, and that its focus is Count Yorga and his large isolated house…

Bates Motel: Season Three (Universal)

Synopsis:
A teenage Norman Bates and his mother Norma move to an old house overlooking the adjoining motel which they are renovating. The house and motel both come with secrets of their own as does the new town which the Bates family now calls home. A modern re-imagining and prequel to the movie Psycho (1960).

Scream and Scream Again (Twilight Time)

Synopsis:
The Police follow a serial killer, who drains his victims for blood is on the loose in London, to a house owned by an eccentric scientist (Vincent Price), who’s creating a race of zombies…

The Return of Count Yorga (Scream Factory)

Synopsis:
As the title suggests, the deadly Count Yorga stages a dramatic comeback for this movie, with Robert Quarry again playing the dentally challenged fiend. Moving in next to a school doesn’t improve the Count’s education, but it does provide him with plenty of prey in the form of students and teachers, whom he can’t wait to, uh, suck up to…

Shattered (Kino Lorber)

Synopsis:
After a car accident that leaves him with amnesia, architect Dan Merrick finds himself married to Judith, who is trying to help him restart his life. He keeps getting flashes of previous events that he can’t remember. He discovers that he hired a private detective, Gus Klein, shortly before the accident. Now Klein will help Dan find out what really happened.

The Gallows (Warner Bros)

Synopsis:
Twenty years after an accident during a small town high school play results in death, students at the school resurrect the failed stage production in a misguided attempt to honor the anniversary of the tragedy – but ultimately find out that some things are better left alone.

Malone (Kino Lorber)

Synopsis:
Ex-CIA hitman running from his past (Malone) finds just how difficult it is to retire when he runs accross a small town controlled by mercenaries and a family that’s resisting their control.

Scissors (Kino Lorber)

Synopsis:
After a young woman is attacked in the elevator she meets her neighbours (two brothers) for the first time. One of the brothers has a secret, the other has a crush on her. Her analyst tries to help her over the attack, but when she is invited to a mysterious apartment things get worse and worse.