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DVD Releases: 03/14/2006
By John Marrone
Mar 14, 2006, 16:43

Marebito (2004)
- trailer -
92 minutes

Rated R for strong bloody violence and some nudity
Starring Shinya Tsukamoto, Tomomi Miyashita, Kazuhiro Nakahara
Directed by Takashi Shimizu

New York Times - "Marebito," by the Japanese horror auteur Takashi Shimizu ("Ju-on: The Grudge"), is in some ways a modest film, with a tiny cast, a 92-minute running time, minimal effects and a grainy, homemade look. At the same time, though, it encompasses a dizzying range of conceits and half-formed ideas. Fans of the J-horror genre will find familiar motifs, none of them explored with much novelty or depth. The uncanny power of the video image is explored (the protagonist is a cameraman), as is the ability of sound effects to create moods of dread and apprehension. There are pale, ghostly women, enough blood to transfuse a small city and an atmosphere of urban loneliness and sullen psychosexual pathology. None of which is quite as much fun — or quite as disturbing — as it should be.

DVD Special Features include:  English and Spanish subtitles, Japanese audio tracks (Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1), interview with director Takashi Shimizu, interview with actor Shinya Tsukamoto, interview with producer Hiroshi Takahashi, and the original theatrical trailer

Official Site

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

The Boston Strangler (2006)
- trailer (quicktime) -
87 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Mauro Lannini
Directed by Keith Walley

Yahoo Movies Plot Description:  Keith Walley's chilling thriller, based on the real-life 1962 murders that many consider to be the dawn of the modern serial killer, tells the story of Albert DeSalvo (Mauro Lannini), the main suspect behind the brutal deaths of 13 women that paralyzed an entire city and transfixed the nation.

DVD Special Features include:  widescreen format (1.85), English audio tracks (Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround), audio commentary, behind the scenes featurette, and a theatrical trailer

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Machine Head (2000)
- trailer (quicktime) -
79 mins

Not Rated
Directed by Mike Murphy

Official Synopsis - "Machine Head' is a dark and disturbingly humorous tale that mixes equal parts horror and science fiction to relate the misadventures of Max Kelp, a reviled high?school nerd who, in the agonizing pursuit to prove his sanity, travels a long, dark road of inner torment and revenge. Wanting desperately to justify his misunderstood obsession with the relationship between internal combustion power and the modern day personal computer, Max stumbles upon a theory involving a lawnmower engine and a corpse that creates the most disastrous of science projects! His unrequited love for his fellow student Sally, and the constant harassment from some football jocks lead to tragic consequences when Max turns to his creation far help with his problems. His own brilliance deceptively leads him to the utter depths of depravity and dementia when the creature is unleashed upon the unsuspecting public during the school science fair. Machine Head sparks a fury of carnage and murderous mayhem that culminates in a fiery finale where police and an angry mob force Max and his creation to come face to face with the ultimate irony of human life: to live is to die ? ? to die is to live!

Official Site

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Ghostbusters (1984) - "widescreen edition"
- trailer (windows media) -
105 minutes

Rated PG
Starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver
Directed by Ivan Reitman 

Amazon.com Plot Description:  Three odd-ball scientists get kicked out of their cushy positions at a university in New York City where they studied the occult. They decide to set up shop in an old firehouse and become Ghostbusters, trapping pesky ghosts, spirits, haunts, and poltergeists for money. They wise-crack their way through the city, and stumble upon a gateway to another dimension, one which will release untold evil upon the city. The Ghostbusters are called on to save the Big Apple.

DVD Special Features include:  widescreen format, English audio tracks (close captioning, 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound), deleted scenes, featurettes including 1999 Star, SFX Team Documentary, SFX Before & After (multi-angle), storyboards - split-screen Compare, Subtitled Production Notes, World Premiere 'Live' Video Commentary by Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis, scene selections, still gallery, production photos, conceptual drawings, and a DVD-ROM web link

Official Site

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Ghostbusters 2 (1989) - "widescreen edition"
- trailer (windows media) -
108 minutes

Rated PG
Starring Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Sigourney Weaver
Directed by Ivan Reitman

Amazon.com Description:  Five years after the events of the first film, the Ghostbusters have been plagued by lawsuits and court orders, and their once-lucrative business is bankrupt. However, when Dana begins to have ghost problems again, the boys come out of retirement only to be promptly arrested. The Ghostbusters discover that New York is once again headed for supernatural doom, with a river of ectoplasmic slime bubbling beneath the city and an ancient sorcerer attempting to possess Dana's baby and be born anew. Can the Ghostbusters quell the negative emotions feeding the otherworldly threat and stop the world from being slimed?

Couldn't locate special features details - but here's a couple of interesting Ghostbusters links...

Ghostbusters homepage
The Ectoplasmic Archive

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

American Psycho (2000) - for the PSP
- trailer (windows media) -
102 minutes

Rated R for strong violence, sexuality, drug use and language
Starring Christian Bale, Justin Theroux, Reese Witherspoon
Directed by Mary Harron

Yahoo Movies Plot Description: Based on Bret Easton Ellis' controversial 1991 novel, comes this dark story of a young Harvard graduate, Patrick Bateman, who has all the accoutrements of a young "master of the universe" -- from designer wardrobe to a killer apartment -- just like everyone else in his crowd. He desperately wants to fit in, yet, the terrible irony is the more he tries to be like every other money-drenched man on Wall Street, the more faceless he becomes -- and the less control he has over the urges that, ironically, make him feel like an individual. Bateman is a paragon of conformity in an amoral society where to conform is to be amoral.

Official Site

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Jungle Horrors Triple Feature (2006)
267 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Robert Kerman, Michael Sopkiw, others
Directed by Umberto Lenzi, others

Eaten Alive "Mangiati vivi" (1980)
- trailer (real player) -  They didn't have a chance!  A young woman teams up with an adventurer to find her missing sister in the jungles of New Guinea and they stumble upon a religious cult led by a deranged preacher whom has located his commune in an area inhabited by cannibals.

Massacre in Dinosaur Valley "Nudo e selvaggio" (1985)
A journey into the cannibal inferno...   A plane crashes in the Amazon jungle, and its passengers must battle their way through cannibals, slave traders, wild animals and murderous piranha fish to safety.

Jungle Holocaust "Ultimo mondo cannibale" (1977)
Can this modern man survive in this Stone Age world?  A plane crashes in the jungle. One of the survivors gets lost and while trying to find a way out of the jungle he gets captured by cannibals. He is humiliated, stripped naked, and thrown in a hole with a bird for a while. Eventually, he escapes with the help of a cannibal girl and tries to find his plane so he can go home.

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

An Ordinary Killer (2004)
- trailer (quicktime) -
113 minutes

Not Rated
Starring DJ Perry,Terence Knox, Dan Haggerty
Directed by Anthony Hornus, Jeff Kennedy

IMDB Plot Description:  28 years later EVIL has a face!  The tragic real life story of a serial killer who stalked his victims in the early 1970's in small town America. A weaving trail of twists and turns that left people unsettled for two generations until investigative persistence aided by modern technology brings justice for a young mother and her family some 28 years later.

Official Site

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Evil as Hell (2006)
360 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Matthew Mariconte, Greg Bowman-Miles, others
Directed by Neil Johnson, others

Demons in My Head (1998): After losing his stereo, his job and the woman of his dreams, Travis discovers a meteorite has crashed in his back yard. Things take a very strange twist as he cracks open the meteorite and fins a mysterious headset that transports objects and beings across dimensions. This Dimensional Accelerator brings sick and violent demons into our world through the gate of Travis' mind. Finding himself at the center of the violence, Travis is forced to search for a solution to kill off the demons.

Goth (2003): Goth blurs the boundaries between reality-driven horror and the hallucinatory style of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM in this raw and blood-soaked ride through the dark underbelly of the Gothic subculture. Chrissy and her boyfriend Boone are two gothic teenagers living in L.A who have seem and done it all. As the sun goes down, they get ready for a hard core concert at a local club. The night takes a gruesome turn when they run into a savage, darkly beautiful woman with a taste for pain and sexual deviance. Promising new thrills and experiences, she takes Chrissy and Boone on a wild, terrifying ride that progresses from the drug-fueled orgies to random acts of violence, leaving a trail of mutilated victims in their wake.

Death Factory (2002): This dark and decrepit factory was once used to make deadly experimental chemicals. One of the workers contracted a grim virus and the company denied any responsibility. The ill worker quit her job once she started to physically mutate. As time went by, she returned to the factory a half-human creature driven mad and craving human blood to survive. In an orgy of bloodshed, she maliciously slaughtered all of her co-workers. The vile creature disappeared and the factory was shut down. Since then, there have been several disappearances around the area but no proof anything happened. Until now!

To Become One (2002): Melinda is living a nightmare. Her mother was brutally murdered a year ago by a masked assailant and the remainder of her family and friends are being stalked by the same man. "Who is this masked killer?" Everyone is a suspect until they die. Melinda is baffled until a dark family secret is revealed: She is one of a pair of siamese twins. Melinda's insane brother is back and his ultimate revenge is to be rejoined with Melinda forever.

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Neighbor No. 13 "Rinjin 13-gô"  (2005)
112 minutes

Rated R for for violence, language, some sexual content and nudity
Starring Shido Nakamura, Shun Oguri, Hirofumi Arai
Directed by Yasuo Inoue

Yahoo Movies Plot Description:  Taunted relentlessly by his peers, schoolboy Juzo falls victim to the evil Akai. Years later, in a twist of fate, Juzo finds himself face to face with Akai once again when they are both working at the same company and living in the same apartment building. As a child, Juzo grew accustomed to Akai's torture, but he will not stand for the same thing as a grownup. Allowing a fearless alter ego to surface and do his dirty work, Juzo slowly morphs into a force much more deadly than Akai could ever have imagined.

DVD Special Features include:  English subtitles, Japanese audio tracks (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), English audio tracks (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), still gallery, TV spot , and the theatrical trailer
 
Official Site (Japanese)

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Horror Classics 4 Pack, Vol. 1 (2006)
290 minutes

Not Rated
Starring James Best, Jason Evers, others
Directed by various

The Killer Shrews (1959)
A scientist on an island is working on a project, to help with the world population problem, accidentally creates giant shrews that escape his lab and devour every animal on the island. With nothing else to eat, the giant shrews set their eyes on the compound of scientists and their guests. Led by Captain Throne Sherman (James Best), the group must make a break for his ship to escape from the ravenous shrews.  B&W

The Brain that Wouldn't Die (1962)
A surgeon is working on experimental transplant procedures. While out driving with his fiancee, the doctor crashes his car and is horrified to discover his bride-to-be is decapitated. Rushing his fiancee head to his lab, he is able to revive her as a bodiless entity kept alive by tubes and an experimental serum. Hoping to restore his fiancee, the surgeon begins looking for a candidate to transplant his fiancees head onto another body.  B&W

King of the Zombies (1941)
An American special agent, accompanied by his valet and an aviator, sets off in search of a missing US Admiral whose plane has crashed on a Caribbean island during World War II. As luck would have it, our heroes' plane also crashes and they are helped by a solicitous German physician whose wife is more than a little strange.  B&W

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1920)
Dr. Henry Jekyll (John Barrymore) is an innovative researcher who conducts scientific experiments to plumb the depths of his psyche and expose the hidden contents of the sub-conscious mind. Unfortunately for him, and an unsuspecting population, a dark alter ego is released assuming the identity of the murderous Mr. Hyde.  B&W

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Woods of Evil (2005)
85 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Christopher Farmer, Conrad Glover, Jaime Velez
Directed by Conrad Glover

IMDB Plot Description:  Three thugs decide to kidnap two rich girls to get rich. After kidnapping the girls, they flee to the woods to avoid detection and until the ransom is paid. The girls try to warn the men that there is something in the woods, but they don't listen. The force in the woods comes alive and one by one, they each fight for their lives.

DVD Special Features include:  English audio tracks (Dolby 5.1 Surround), interactive menus, scene selections, and trailers

Click here to get it from Amazon.com

Death Becomes Them  - The Musical (2006)
71 minutes

Not Rated
Direced by Dan Lund

Its horror-documentary-musical.  ???  Death Becomes Them paints a musical portrait of JD and Cathee, the married owners of the Museum of Death.  Not your typical documentary...

DVD Special Features include:  English audio tracks (Dolby Digital)
- very hard to find information on this release...

Click here to get it from Amazon.com