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ONE VOICE
(not Ellsworth Monkton Toohey):
Jacques Tourneur's
Night of the Demon get
top spot this week - an easy choice actually with
Indicator's complete Blu-ray
package gaining immediate induction into our
Top 100 discs page.
A brilliant British horror set in the dank, foggy
countryside looking as unchanged for the past 1000 years.
Another
Desert Island
selection is Howard Hawks'
The Thing From Another World
on
Warner Archive Blu-ray.
Scientists and American Air Force officials fend off a
murderous alien organism while at a remote arctic outpost. I
loved Kino's
The Outer Limits - Season Two
on Blu-ray starring keen
episodes with William Shatner, Adam West, Leonard Nimoy,
Robert Duvall, Robert Culp and many other favorites (NOTE:
the tiny audio glitch in one of the episodes mentioned in
the review.) Kino also brings us Robert Aldrich's
The Killing of Sister George
to Blu-ray.
Unconventional cinema with magnificent performances - a
gritty, clever drama.
The Mamie Van Doren Film Noir Collection Blu-ray
offers the cheesecake on the sleazier side of the 'dark
cinema'. Very cool! One of the campiest titles, the rarely
seen, Mario Bava's
Hercules vs. the Vampires
comes to 2K-restored Blu-ray
in a 3-disc package from Koch out of Germany. The last
Hammer Studios' with the pairing of Christopher Lee and
Peter Cushing in their respective - vampire vs. Van Helsing
roles -
The Satanic Rite of Dracula
is on bare-bones Blu-ray
from
Warner Archive -
much of the studio's charms remain to delight fans. I'll
admit to enjoying the 'poor cousin' Epic wannabe feel of the
Italian / German production of
Revolt of the Slaves
with Rhonda Fleming - now available on Blu-ray.
Clouzot: Early Works
includes interesting short and feature work from
Henri-Georges Clouzot in a new double Blu-ray
release.
Space Patrol has an
asteroid collision course, robot rebellion, lost scientists
on Jupiter, a shrinking disease, controlled weather,
invisibility, a race of giants and they're puppets too! on Blu-ray
from Network.
"Animals are
ever so psychic. There are some people who just can't come
in here...The cats particularly, they seem to know. You can
fool everybody, but laudy dearie me, you can't fool a cat.
They seem to know who's not right, if you know what I mean." -
Pet Shop Owner in Jacques Tourneur's
Cat People
Buy a friend a
coffee this month. Make DVDBeaver the friend, and do it
monthly. Please?
HERE
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Night of the Demon
BD - Tourneur had used M R
James's short story Casting the Runes as the basis for a
marvelous cinematic dialogue between belief and skepticism,
fantasy and reality. Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon
is considered to be one of the seminal horror films of
Twentieth-Century cinema. Blu-ray
Release Date: October 22nd, 2018
The Mamie Van Doren Film Noir Collection
BD - This collection
includes three film noir classics starring the voluptuous screen
goddess Mamie Van Doren. The Girl in Black Stockings – A
party girl is murdered, and everyone in a Utah motel is a
suspect. Directed by Howard W. Koch and co-starring Anne
Bancroft; Guns, Girls and Gangsters – In Las Vegas, a
group of criminals plan to rob an armored truck hauling casino
loot to the bank. Vice Raid – A prostitution syndicate
sends one of their callgirls (Van Doren) to New York City to
frame a police officer. Blu-ray
Release Date: November 20th, 2018
The Satanic Rite of Dracula
BD - A dying man’s report of
a ritual black mass stirs Britain’s security chief into action,
and a mansion filled with young vampire girls is soon
discovered. And this is but the first twist in a labyrinth of
horror. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee pair up for the final
Hammer Dracula in this follow-up to
Dracula A.D. 1972. In
this go-round, the Count (Christopher Lee, naturally) follows a
more pulpish, super-villainous playbook, posing as a millionaire
industrialist alive and well and living in London while secretly
brewing up a batch of super-plague in a quest to destroy the
world. Mixing Satanists, spies and sci-fi, the film makes
viewers glad that Peter Cushing is on hand to solidly anchor the
more outré elements as the effortlessly expositioning Dr. Van
Helsing. Blu-ray Release Date:
November 13th, 2018
Revolt of the Slaves
BD - THE REVELS... THE
RAVAGES... THE REVOLT OF THE AGES! In this biblical
action-adventure, set during the waning years of the Roman
Empire, Fabiola (Rhonda Fleming), the beautiful daughter of a
wealthy patrician, falls in love with a Christian slave, Vibio
(Lang Jeffries). Veteran writer/director Nunzio Malasomma
directed this epic international hit featuring early
performances by Fernando Rey and Serge Gainsbourg.
Blu-ray Release Date: December 4th,
2018
The Thing From Another World
BD - The scene is a distant
Arctic research station, where a UFO has crashed. The
investigating scientists discover that the circular craft has
melted its way into the ice, which has frozen up again. While
attempting to recover the ship, Captain Patrick Hendry (Kenneth
Tobey) accidentally explodes the vessel, but the pilot -- at
least, what seems to be the pilot -- remains frozen in a block
of ice. A superior blend of science fiction, horror,
naturalistic dialogue, and flesh-and-blood characterizations,
The Thing From Another World is a model of its kind.
Blu-ray Release Date: November,
2018
The Outer Limits - Season Two
BD - There Is Nothing
Wrong With Your Television Set... Do Not Attempt To Adjust The
Picture... We Are Controlling Transmission... The entire
second season 17 Episodes and 2 Alternates Episodes! You hold in
your hands an artifact from a time now vanished forever; a
compendium of portals into worlds unknown. A four-disc set that
controls over 15 hours of transmission from the 1964-1965
series, this vessel has sought you out for one specific purpose:
to expand your mind to The Outer Limits!
Blu-ray Release Date: March 27th,
2018
The Killing of Sister George
BD - Legendary director
Robert Aldrich turns up the heat in this steamy, provocative and
expertly executed movie starring Beryl Reid and Susannah York.
Sexy, sensitive and darkly humorous, The Killing of Sister
George is a racy romp that's entertaining, explicit and
sensational. June (Reid) is the star of a TV soap opera... and
she has the ego to prove it. But when she begins to suspect that
the network is planning to kill off her character預nd that her
boss is out to seduce her beautiful young lover (York) June
spirals out of control. Blu-ray
Release Date: November 27th, 2018
Hercules vs. the Vampires
BD - Upon his return from
battle in the previous film, the great warrior Hercules learns
that his lover, Daianara, has lost her senses. According to the
oracle Medea, Dianara's only hope is the Stone of Forgetfulness
which lies deep in the realm of Hades. Hercules, with two
companions, Theseus and Telemachus, embarks on a dangerous quest
for the stone, while he is unaware that Dianara's guardian, King
Lico, is the one responsible for her condition and plots to have
the girl for himself as his bride upon her revival.
Blu-ray Release Date: November 8th,
2018
Clouzot: Early Works
BD - Before directing his
first feature, Henri-Georges Clouzot (The
Wages of Fear,
Diabolique) spent ten
years learning the ropes. During this prolific period as a
screenwriter he learned cinematic grammar and began to forge his
style. To better know and understand Henri-Georges Clouzot, you
have to discover these rare films, of which he was one of the
principal architects. Kino Classics is proud to present
CLOUZOT: THE EARLY WORKS, which collects six varied features
he worked on from 1931-1933: frothy comedies, boxing dramas,
musicals and melodramas. The set includes his directorial debut
– the short film The Terror of Batignolles (1931), which
anticipates his canonical thrillers to come.
Blu-ray Release Date: November
20th, 2018
Space Patrol
BD - Remember the 1960s?
Programs like Supercar and Fireball XL-5 created a
huge market for children's SF, and even Gerry Anderson couldn't
fill it. One of the programs that tried to bridge the gap was
Space Patrol, a puppet show made by Frank Goulding, Roberta
Leigh, and other defectors from the Anderson empire. Filmed on a
shoestring in black and white, it had some interesting ideas
that could have usefully been transferred to later series;
spaceships used antigravity, not rockets, and took weeks to
reach the outer planets, aliens weren't always humanoid and had
their own languages and customs (and it took several days to
program the translating computers), and gadgets took time to
develop and tended to be reused once they'd appeared.
Blu-ray Release Date: October 8th,
2018
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