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DVD Releases: 05/16/2006
By John Marrone
May 15, 2006, 23:22

The three of them gathered around the same table they had the night before.  That was Monday night - midnight - when Tommy, Carl, and Jon all made the blood pact.  All their sadistic and twisted, murderous fantasies had culminated in an agreement to return to the table 24 hours later, each with the pinky finger of their first victim.  After a lot of tough talk, and a lot of beers, it was Tuesday night - time to come clean and put the cards on the table.  Tommy was first.  His friends stared back at him with squinty, macho stares - snagging cigarette butts from their tight lips in a nervous ritual.  They watched Tommy reach into his denim-jacket pocket... and pull out a box.  Carl and Jon held their breath as he lifted off the top.  Inside, upon the bloody piece of cotton, where a piece of jewelry might have been place, was a roughly severed finger.  It was small, shredded at the base, tipped with a pink, lady-like nail.  Jon and Carl dropped their jaws and gasped.  One of them finally muttered, "...you really freakin did it dude?"  The room grew dead silent.  Jon, who also had nothing to show, backed his partner.  "Yeah man - you weren't supposed to really do that shit!"  Tommy put the top back on the little bloddy box and placed in back in his jacket pocket.  That same hand then slid to the side of his jeans, where his hunting knife was sheathed, unlatching it, slowly weilding it...  "You mean..."  Tommy's grip tightened,  "You guys didn't?"

When A Stranger Calls (2006)
- trailer (windows media) -
87 minutes

Rated PG-13 for intense terror, violence and some language
Starring Camilla Belle, Tommy Flanagan, Katie Cassidy
Directed by Simon West  

Amazon.com Plot Description:  A young high school student babysits for a very rich family.  She begins to receive strange phone calls threatening the children.  When she finally realizes that it's not a joke, she calls the police, only to find that the call is coming from inside the house...
 
DVD Special Features include:  Available Subtitles: English, French
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1), French (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Director and Cast Commentary
Writer's Commentary
"The Making Of When A Stranger Calls"
Deleted Scenes

Official Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com
or in the PSP/UMD version HERE 

Benny's Video (1992)
105 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Arno Frisch, Angela Winkler, Ingrid Stassner
Directed by Michael Haneke

Video Universe Plot Description:  One of the most inscrutable, alarming, frustrating, and fascinating contemporary film directors, Michael Haneke (The Piano Teacher, Cache) has created a name for himself by examining disturbing issues (sadism, violence, suicide, racism, voyeurism, alienation, nihilism, and misguided faith) with a cold cerebral eye. Benny's Video opens with disturbing images of a pig being slaughtered; it is one of the many images obsessively viewed and reviewed by Benny, the 14-year old son of a wealthy Viennese family. Detached and ignored, Benny seems able to experience life only through his video camera. When he kills a young girl and records it on tape, his parents go about covering up the murder, and Haneke draws everyone--Benny, his parents, and the viewers themselves--into a web of complicity and postmodern dysfunction. Though his films are difficult to watch and invariably leave the viewer with more questions than answers, Haneke's unswerving films are some of the most compelling examples of the new European cinema.
 
DVD Special Features include:  Available Subtitles: English
Available Audio Tracks: German (Unknown Format)
New video interview with director Michael Haneke

IMDB Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com 

Clawed - The Legend of Sasquatch (2005)
- trailer (quicktime) -
85 minutes

Rated R for creature violence
Starring Dylan Purcell, Brandon Henschel, Miles O'Keeffe
Directed by Karl Kozak 

Video Universe Plot Description:  Fear grips a bunch of people in a small, sleepy mountainside town in this tightly wound drama. When the group encounters the slain corpses of fellow villagers, they soon realize that a terrifying presence is lurking nearby, leading to a frenetic race to escape with their lives intact.
 
DVD Special Features include:  Available Subtitles: Spanish
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0)
Previews

Official Site
IMDB Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com 

Dead Girl Walking (2005)
- trailer (windows media) -
45 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Ayaka Maeda, Katsumi Nagashio, Moe Karasawa
Directed by Koji Shiraishi  

DiabolikDVD Plot Description:  The unimaginable happens. Sayuri is pronounced "dead" by her doctor, but her body continues to function. Her wounds begin to fester and her body begins to rot. Her once loving mother, father and sister are repulsed as their home starts reeking of decomposing flesh. Unable to bear it any longer, they corner Sayuri holding a can of gasoline...She flees for her life, but is snatched away by a strange man who runs a freak show, where Sayuri is forced to exhibit her putrified body and dance before an audience of men dressed in black. Isolated in the desolate hills, Sayuri thinks she has escaped them, but she's wrong...
 
DVD Special Features include:  Import DVD
NTSC All Region
Japanese DTS and DD 5.1 Audio
English Subtitles
Special Features : -
Director and Stars interview
Make Up Scenes
Behind the scenes
Commentary
Press conference scenes

Official Page (Japanese)
DiabolikDVD Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com 

Frightmare (1975)
- trailer (quicktime) -
83 minutes

Rated R
Starring Rupert Davies, Sheila Keith, Deborah Fairfax
Directed by Pete Walker  

All Movie Guide Plot Description:  This ghoulishly fun Grand Guignol horror piece from director Pete Walker features a tour-de-force performance by Sheila Keith as Dorothy Yates, who was committed to a mental hospital in 1957 for a series of cannibal-killings along with her devoted husband Edmund (Rupert Davies). They are judged sane and released 18 years later, whereupon they take up residence at an old farm. Edmund's daughter Jackie lives in the city, where she tries to take care of her wild sister Debbie (Kim Butcher), visiting only occasionally and not suspecting a thing. It isn't until Jackie's new psychiatrist boyfriend Graham (Paul Greenwood) starts poking around that she learns the truth. The truth is that Dorothy, far from cured, is drawing people to her home -- through classified ads promising Tarot readings -- and murdering them with metal pokers, electric drills and pitchforks. Not only that, but young Debbie turns out to be a chip off the old butcher-block herself, leading to a gory and harrowing finale. Sheila Keith is outstanding as the crazed Dorothy, and Davies is similarly terrific in a low-key turn as her doting husband, turning a blind eye to his beloved's homicidal lunacy until it is far too late to stop it. A creepy, entertaining bloodbath, Frightmare is highly recommended for horror fans.
 
DVD Special Features include:  Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 1.0), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Commentary by director Pete Walker and biographer Steven Chinball
Still gallery
Trailer 

IMDB Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com

Funny Games (1998)
- trailer (real/windows media) -
104 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Susanne Lothar, Arno Frisch, Frank Giering
Directed by Michael Haneke   

Video Universe Plot Description:  A powerfully graphic film (even though no violence is ever shown on the screen itself) about an Austrian family who goes on a country vacation and become the victims of two cold-blooded psychopaths who are out to torture them with their "funny games." Haneke's point, that fictional violence is as real as the real world's, is presented chillingly in this extremely well-acted, yet potentially offensive effort. Weak of stomach, beware.
 
DVD Special Features include:  Available Subtitles: English
Available Audio Tracks: German (Unknown Format)
New video interview with director Michael Haneke
Trailer 

IMDB Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com 

Love Ghost (2000)
- trailer (quicktime) -
95 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Risa Gotô, Ryûhei Matsuda, Kumiko Akiyoshi
Directed by Kazuyuki Shibuya   

Amazon.com Plot Description:  Midori has just transferred high schools and returned to the town she lived in as a young girl. When Midori arrives at school she notices that a childhood friend, Ryusuke Shibayama, is also in her class. Meanwhile, a rumor about the beautiful boy fortuneteller at the Shrine comes up among the students right about the same time. They say the mysterious young boy who wraps himself in black clothing is so beautiful that he makes girls’ hearts stop as they fall under his spell.
 
DVD Special Features include:  Region 1
Keep Case
Audio:
(unspecified) - Japanese
Subtitles - English

JMDB Page (Japanese)

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com 

Night Scream (1997)
88 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Candace Cameron Bure, Casper Van Dien, Denis Arndt
Directed by Noel Nosseck   

Video Universe Plot Description:  When a beautiful young woman named Drew (Candace Cameron of television's FULL HOUSE) moves to a peaceful waterfront town, the townsfolk suspect that there is more to her than meets the eye. They soon find out that she has long been haunted by dreams of a murdered resident, to whom she happens to bear a striking resemblance. Visions of the murder and its details keep coming to Drew, and when the two killers find this out, it becomes likely that she will be the next victim.
 
DVD Special Features include:  Keep Case
Full Frame -
1.33
Audio:
(unspecified) - English
Interactive Features:
Chapter Selection
Interactive Menus 

IMDB Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com 

One Missed Call 2 (2005)
106 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Peter Ho, Mimura, Asaka Seto
Directed by Renpei Tsukamoto   

Video Universe Plot Description:  In this bloody sequel, more young people are terrorized by a voicemail message with the power to kill. The follow-up to Takashi Miike's 2004 feature One Missed Call, One Missed Call 2 includes a mostly fresh cast and direction by television's Renpei Tsukamoto. When young teacher Kyoko's evening with friends is interrupted by the cursed cell-phone call, not even she can predict the horrid events that will follow.

It sounds like something Troy McClure would have covered on The Simpsons...  If you hate Japanese horror, this one will make you hate it more...  If you like it, this one will make you wonder why...
 
DVD Special Features include:  Region 1
Keep Case
Audio:
(unspecified) - Japanese, English
Subtitles - English - Optional 

Official Site (Japanese)
IMDB Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com 

Slaughterhouse Phi: Death Sisters (2006)
85 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Randall Malone, Kelly Musson, Cassie Daniel,
Directed by Noel Nosseck   

Video Universe Plot Description:  Randall Malone (The Witch's Sabbath and MTV's Singled Out) stars as the relentless - though clueless - sheriff trying to solve a year old missing person report in a local sorority. Unfortunately for the girls of the Phi Phi Phi sorority he's not the only one! Kayla disappeared during the "Tri-Phi's" annual initiation and mean girl sorority head Brit is trying to put all that behind her. It's her senior year and she has a legacy to worry about and with rush season rapidly approaching she is learning that some lies can't be told forever and sometimes the past refuses to stay buried. Has Kayla truly returned from beyond the grave to exact her vengeance? Who will win in the ultimate battle of mean vs. evil?
 
DVD Special Features include:  n/a 

Official Page
IMDB Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com  

Fear of the Dark/The Tenement (2006)
- trailers (flash):  Fear of the Dark/The Tenement -
180 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Joe Lauria, Michael Gingold, Rosemary Gore
Directed by Glen Baisley

Glen Baisley's Plot Descriptions:
 
Fear of the Dark:  In 1981, 7 year old Alice Walker barely managed to escape the clutches of the Black Rose Killer during a blackout. Now twenty years later, Alice fears that the killer is coming back for her. She sees him in her dreams and even when she is awake. Alice believes that she is the only one who can stop him and discover the truth behind the nightmare before it is too late.

The Tenement:  There is something evil about The Tenement. It does something strange to the people who live there. Ethan Fernier is obsessed with the horror movies of B-movie director, Winston Korman. His destiny lies in the shadows of a black rose - the symbol of decayed innocence. Sarah, a simple mute, lives her life listening to the radio but obsessed neighbor, Henry Wallace has other plans for her. Jimmy Wayne Garrick is bitten by a wild animal and becomes obsessed with the idea that he is becoming a werewolf. The Taxi Driver is a serial killer who picks up innocent women. One of his victims gives him more than he bargained for.
 
DVD Special Features include:  n/a

Official Sites:  Fear of the Dark/The Tenement

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com 

Off the Beaten Path (2004)
- trailer (quicktime) -
64 minutes

Not Rated
Starring Todd Hanson, Carrie Sizemore, Jessie Welsch
Directed by Jason Stephenson   

Official Plot Description:  A trio of thrillseekers led by Chuck Stevens, his girlfriend Dina Duncan and a videographer friend named Randy Bodine set out for a small Minnesota town called Gateway. Their intentions are to make a short film for the internet about an abandoned backwoods property with an unsettling past that a local woman from Gateway, named Brenda Jacobs has invited them to explore. Not heeding Brenda's warnings to head back after finding ritualistic items, the four of them manage to provoke a transcendental presence that should have been left forgotten. Before the night is through, who will live to tell this story...
 
DVD Special Features include:  n/a 

Official Site
IMDB Page

CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com

ALSO RELEASED THIS WEEK:

Cannibal Holocaust-Limited Edition (2006)
Could not find detailed information as to the contents of this "Limited Edition"
...no clue
CLICK HERE to get it from Amazon.com