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The Wild, Wild Podcast, a show about Italian cult cinema, is the latest addition to the Film Stories Podcast Network. Links and details here:

A new year, the first of many new exciting podcasts to grace the Film Stories Podcast Network, or rather in this case join it as we welcome aboard the Wild, Wild Podcast.

In this entertaining and informative podcast, co-hosts Rod Barnett (of The Bloody Pit and NachsyCast) and Dr. Adrian Smith (historian and writer) explore Italian cult cinema with themed seasons, and have so far covered science fiction, police thrillers, erotic comedies, comic adaptations and more. Favourite directors of the podcast include Antonio Margheriti, Mario Bava, Ruggero Deodato, Sergio Martino and Luigi Cozzi, the latter having featured in a mini-season of his own which culminated in an interview with the maestro live from his Dario Argento museum in Rome (even the podcast theme is based on...

With the third installment of their Danza Macabra series, the fine, twisted folks at Severin Films shift focus from the boot of Italy to the Iberian peninsula. This collection spotlights four fascinating Spanish examples of the sort of moody gothic filmmaking that Italian directors like Mario Bava and Antonio Margheriti, not to mention Hammer Films in Britain, helped to popularize for international markets.

Rife with reptilian monsters, vampires, zombified Knights Templar, and even a cameo from Frankenstein and his misbegotten creation, these films vary considerably in tone and approach, ranging from rambling shaggy-dog tales to almost esoteric fables. They also differ in how far they’re willing to go with their respective lashings of sex and violence, growing bolder as the restrictions of the Franco regime lifted after the dictator’s passing in 1975.

Writer-director Miguel Madrid’s schizoid Necrophagous, from 1971, divides its time between two principal storylines that barely cohere in the end.

The Bloody Disgusting-powered Screambox is home to a variety of unique horror content, from originals and exclusives to cult classics and documentaries. With such a rapidly-growing library, there are many hidden gems waiting to be discovered.

Here are five recommendations you can stream on Screambox right now.

Norway

At the Abigail premiere, Dan Stevens listed Norway among his four favorite vampire movies. “I just saw a great movie recently that I’d never heard of,” he told Letterboxd. “A Greek film called Norway, about a vampire who basically exists in the underground disco scene in ’80s Athens, and he can’t stop dancing ’cause he’s worried his heart will stop. And it’s lovely. It’s great.”

You won’t find a better endorsement than that, but allow me to elaborate. Imagine Only Lovers Left Alive meets What We Do in the Shadows by way of Yorgos Lanthimos. The...

Filmmaker Antonio Margheriti and screenwriter, Giovanni Addessi perfect the Spaghetti Western in their 1970s Gothic revenge tale, And God Said to Cain. The slow-burn, methodical, plodding story and excellent direction make this film a cut above the rest of your run-of-the-mill Westerns. Margheriti and Addessi take time to firmly establish protagonist Gary Hamilton (Klaus Kinski) and antagonist Acombar (Peter Carsten), fully developing the character's motivations and backstories, creating perfect enemies from this dynamic pairing of actors. Setting the conflict during a tornado adds ontological tension that surrounds the audience and draws them into the story world. What follows is a tense game of cat and mouse that threatens to overwhelm the viewer. What is most interesting is that Kinski and Carsten only appear together on-screen in the film's final moments during a shoot-out in a hall of mirrors inside a burning mansion.

Severin follows up their 2023 collection of Italian gothic titles with an essential second volume that brings together three films and a miniseries. Each work takes a very different approach to the gothic as both a visual aesthetic and a set of thematic preoccupations. The results range from virtually archetypal to resolutely revisionist. For this well-appointed set, Severin provides a veritable bounty of bonus materials: new restorations, alternate cuts, commentary tracks, cast and crew interviews, visual essays, even a soundtrack CD.

Antonio Margheriti’s Danza Macabra, from 1964, is one of the very best Italian gothic films. It simply oozes with atmosphere courtesy of Riccardo Pallottini’s moody monochrome cinematography, and, while the violence remains relatively restrained, Margheriti brazenly pushes the envelope when it comes to nudity and some suggestive sexual content. Likely as a bid to cash in on Roger Corman’s Poe Cycle, Danza Macabra not only claims to be...

Ask most cinephiles about the spaghetti western and Sergio Leone’s name will most likely be invoked. As for those who’ve delved a little deeper into the genre, chances are that they’ll name-drop one or both of the other Sergios: Sergio Corbucci (Django) and Sergio Sollima (The Big Gundown).

Back in 2021, Arrow Video’s Vengeance Trails box set aimed to broaden viewers’ horizons of the spaghetti western by spotlighting works by directors like Lucio Fulci, Massimo Dallamano, and Antonio Margheriti, whose names are more often associated with other genres. Now along comes Blood Money, which unveils several lesser-known yet excellent examples of the genre. The thematic through line this time out concerns the value placed on human life. As the grizzled protagonist of Find a Place to Die puts it: “Madness and greed were in men’s hearts a long time before you came along.”

Romolo Guerrieri’s...

Our friends over at Terror Vision are celebrating Halloween in a Massive way this year with #13WeeksOfHalloween, which will run from August 1 straight through October 31.

Starting August 1st and running through October 31st, Terror Vision will be dropping titles every single Tuesday (#TerrorVisionTuesday) with exciting new releases ranging from the early 1900s to brand new 2023 titles. Most of the releases will be horror or horror adjacent and many of them new to disc. Here’s everything you need to know, from the press release…

Terror Vision will be releasing a definitive triple LP edition of the score to The Monster Squad, the score to Rumplestiltskin on cassette and LP, and, following their Blu-ray release of Copperhead earlier this year, will be releasing the film on VHS… along with the its recently-announced LP!

In addition, Linnea Quigley’S Horror Workout (1990) will finally be available on VHS and Blu-ray, with its outrageous...

Terror Vision has quickly become one of my go-to labels for obscure horror titles, and they're getting a jump-start on the Halloween season with #13WeeksOfHalloween, offering an eclectic mix of new, rare, and cult releases on VHS, Blu-ray, 4K Uhd, LP, and cassette:

"Halloween is Terror Vision's favorite time of the year but it's always a bummer when it's over. Much like many of you, the beloved genre distributor begins celebrating the spooky season in September... but this year, that's not good enough - and that's why they've created #13WeeksOfHalloween.

Starting August 1st and running through October 31st, Terror Vision will be dropping titles every single Tuesday (#TerrorVisionTuesday) with exciting new releases ranging from the early 1900s to brand new 2023 titles. Most of the releases will be horror or horror adjacent and many of them new to disc, so if you're ready for a mountain of Halloween treats, read on!

On April 25th, Severin Films delivers Worldwide Blu-ray premieres of two of the most infamous titles in ‘80s EuroCult Sci-Fi, Bloody Disgusting has exclusively learned today.

The titles? Alien From The Abyss, directed by Antonio Margheriti, and the Restored Director’s Cut of Extra Terrestrial Visitors from writer/director Juan Piquer Simón!

Both 4K restorations also include the U.S. debuts of long-form documentaries on their respective filmmakers. Here’s everything you need to know about both of these releases…

Alien From The Abyss

For one of the final films of his legendary career, director Antonio Margheriti headed to the Philippines to deliver “the perfect ‘80s Italian popcorn flick” (Mondo Digital): When environmental activists attempt to expose an evil corporation (led by Charles Napier of Supervixens and Rambo: First Blood Part II fame) dumping nuclear waste into the local volcano, they’ll instead discover graphic gore, exploding miniatures and...

Italian screenwriter and director Ruggero Deodato, whose lengthy career was most noted for the controversial horror film “Cannibal Holocaust,” died Thursday at age 83, according to multiple reports.

The 1980 film, a “found footage” pseudo-documentary pioneer, depicts an anthropologist from New York University played by Robert Kerman leading a team into the Amazon rainforest to find crew of documentary filmmakers that went missing. They discover their bodies, but are able to recover the crew’s film reels, which a US television station then wants to air, despite gory footage of real violence against animals, sexual assault and exploitation of the native Amazonian populations.

The graphic violence in the film raised objections, including an arrest of Deodato on a series of charges including murder after rumors said some of the deaths depicted in the film were real. Deodato later brought the actors to court to prove they were alive, and the charges were dropped.

Antonio Margheriti made several space epics about ‘errant planets’ posing dangers to Earth; this one gets all the attention via star casting. Claude Rains’ bombastic but brilliant scientist advises space command to blow up the planetoid, and then chooses attack day to go see its interior for himself. Toy rockets, overripe dialogue and thunderous acting from Rains ensue, leading to a finale in an ‘alien brain cave’ made of colored plastic tubes. This critical ‘triumph of the imagination’ indeed makes something entertaining out of very, very little. The presentation includes a half-hour docu hosted by Tim Lucas, a graduate class listed as ‘Italo Space Intro 101.’

Battle of the Worlds

Blu-ray

The Film Detective

1962 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 84 min. / Street Date August 9, 2022 / Il pianeta degli uomini spenti / Available from The Film Detective

Starring: Claude Rains, Bill Carter, Umberto Orsini, Maya Brent, Jacqueline Derval, Renzo Palmer, Carlo d’Angelo, Carol Danell, Jim Dolen, Joe Pollini,...

Filmmakers are often called auteurs, the sole author responsible for the overall look and feel of a movie. From the gritty realism of early Scorsese films to the vivid landscapes painted by Tim Burton, these become a filmmaker's "calling card." Sometimes directors take it a step further with Easter eggs in their films that contain a hidden meanings or references.

For example, Robert Zemeckis connects "Back to the Future" and "Death Becomes Her" with the date October 26, 1985. Quentin Tarantino references Antonio Margheriti as a film director in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and an Italian alias in "Inglourious Basterds."

But...

The post How A Throwaway Stanley Kubrick Line Became John Landis' Calling Card appeared first on /Film.

Hey everyone! Before we bid adieu to the year 2021, we have one last batch of home media releases on the horizon this week, including two great Sundance films—Mayday and Knocking—and one of my favorite movie discoveries of the last few years, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eyes, which is getting a Blu-ray from Twilight Time. Other Blu-ray and DVD releases for December 28th include Venom (1971) aka The Legend of the Spider Forest, The Cropsey Incident, Bigfoot Creek, and Red Snow.

Bigfoot Creek

The world has moved on, but he's still out there. Since the 1970s he has roamed the countryside, watching...and waiting. He has been sighted several times over the last few decades and this all-new docudrama chronicles these true events that occurred throughout the Midwest. Featuring interviews and locations from the real encounters.

The Cropsey Incident

The Urban Legend Is Real!! A group of online social...

Barbara Steele has one of her better performance showcases in Camillo Mastrocinque’s classy ghost story with a somewhat dispiriting twist. Steele’s fan-collectors won’t need extra encouragement, as she’s in most every scene and gets to play a variety of moods from delicate to seductive to outright poisonous. Quality performances flatter a flawed screenplay, and the fine direction and attentive cinematography clearly inspired Steele to give it everything she had. Severin’s quality HD transfer is everything we’d want, with dual language tracks and good extras including a Kat Ellinger commentary and a second track featuring stellar input from Ms. Steele herself.

An Angel for Satan

Blu-ray

Severin Films

1966 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date October 26, 2021 / 34.95

Starring: Barbara Steele, Anthony Steffen, Claudio Gora, Mario Brega, Marina Berti, Ursula Davis, Vassili Karis, Aldo Berti, Betty Delon, Antonio Corevi, Antonio Acqua, Livia Rossetti, Halina Zalewska, Giovanna Lenzi.

The writer/director returns to talk about his favorite Blaxploitation movies with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Man Bites Dog (1992)

Trick Baby (1972)

The Exorcist (1973) – Oren Pelli’s trailer commentary

The Untouchables (1987)

Predator (1987)

Purple Rain (1984) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary

The Loved One (1965) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Live And Let Die (1973)

Enter The Dragon (1973) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary, Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

The Green Hornet (1974)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) – Darren Bousman’s trailer commentary

The Last Dragon (1985) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Dead Presidents (1995)

Hell Up In Harlem (1973) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Black Caesar (1973) – Larry Cohen’s trailer commentary

Shaft (1971) – Bill Duke’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971)

Coffy (1973) – Jack Hill’s trailer commentary

Midnight Cowboy (1969) – Glenn Erickson’s Criterion Blu-ray review

Taxi Driver (1976) – Rod Lurie’s trailer commentary

Boxcar Bertha (1972) – Julie Corman...

With so many folks out there looking for ways to keep themselves entertained at home right now, perhaps this new batch of home media releases might have something to offer you this week. If you missed it in theaters last year, the controversial Black Christmas remake hits both Blu-ray and DVD this Tuesday, and Scream Factory has put together a fourth volume in their Universal Horror Collection series, which looks like a must-own for all classic genre fans out there.

Also headed to Blu this week is The Nines, which is one of my favorite underseen films from Ryan Reynolds, as well as Cannibal Apocalypse, featuring John Saxon. We also have Glenn Danzig’s Verotika coming out on Tuesday and if you need something to keep the kiddos busy, Jumanji: The Next Level should do the trick.

Other releases for March 17th include Uncaged, By Day’s End, Witch Hunters,...

By Todd Garbarini

The Annihilators is a Spring 1985-lensed action film with lots of action and zero excitement. Coming on the heels of Ted Kotcheff’s masterful 1982 Vietnam-themed film version of David Morrell’s 1972 novel, First Blood, which itself spawned several lifeless sequels including the latest and critically reviled Rambo: Last Blood a mere 37 years after the superior original.. The admittedly low-budget and bargain-basement Annihilators uses a familiar theme to string together several long-winded and ultimately soporific action set pieces that consist primarily of master shots with very little intercutting and close-ups, but not before we get a credit sequence which sets the appearance of onscreen names to the sound of machine gun fire. Clever! The 1980s were a time of teen sex comedies, Freddy Krueger nightmares, and action films. The superior examples of the latter, Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior (1981), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and Escape From New York...

[Editor’s note: The following post contains spoilers for Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”]

Quentin Tarantino doesn’t hide the fact his movies exist in the same cinematic universe. The connections that run through the writer-director’s filmography can be big (John Travolta’s “Pulp Fiction” character is the brother of Michael Madsen’s “Reservoir Dogs” character) or subtle (the “Pulp Fiction” Big Kahuna fast food chain first popped up in “Dogs”), but they remain consistent. All of this is to say that there is a devoted fanbase of Tarantino’s that is on the hunt for easter eggs when a new film is released, and such will be the case with “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” this summer.

One of the best Tarantino Easter eggs in “Hollywood” references the director’s 2009 WWII movie “Inglourious Basterds,” which is fitting since these two films are the Tarantino efforts that star Brad Pitt in leading roles.

Sometimes it is right there in the title with genre fare, and sometimes it isn’t; Humanoids from the Deep (1980) is pretty straightforward and delivers on its promise; one could assume Killer Fish (1979) would be about nothing more than piranha gobbling up unsuspecting swimmers. One would be wrong though, because as the old saying goes, “there aren’t nearly enough jewel heists in aquatic monster movies”. Who said that? I did, just now, because I didn’t know this particular brand of cross-pollination existed before, but I’m sure glad it does (even if it’s a lonely field).

Released by Associated Film Distribution in the States, and co-produced by star Lee Majors and his wife Farrah Fawcett-Majors’ production company at the time, Fawcett-Majors Productions (with an assist from behemoth Itc), Killer Fish was unleashed in December Stateside before spawning to the rest of the world throughout 1980. Reviews were tepid...

It’s Tab Hunter as you’ve never seen him before! Antonio Margheriti’s limp but colorful Arabian Nights adventure romance is a real head-scratcher — it’s an entirely generic kiddie show, filmed on nice locations, and devoid of style or flash. Some of the sub-Bava effects are clever, but the only ‘magic’ element is the decision to re-voice Tab with an off-the-shelf dubbing artist… it’s as if Hunter has been sucked into a ‘scimitar & sandal’ episode of The Twilight Zone.

The Golden Arrow

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date May 28, 2019 / L’arciere delle mille e una notte / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Tab Hunter, Rossana Podestà, Umberto Melnati, Mario Feliciani, Dominique Boschero, Renato Baldini, Giustino Durano, Franco Scandurra, Gloria Milland.

Cinematography: G´bor Pogány

Film Editor: Mario Serandrei

Art Direction: Flavio Mogherini

Original Music: Mario Nascimbene

Written by Giorgio Arlorio, Augusto Frassinetti, Giorgio Prosperi,...

Stars: Al Cliver, Antônio do Cabo, Antonio Mayans, Bertrand Altmann, Gisela Hahn, Ursula Buchfellner, Werner Pochath | Written by Jess Franco, Julian Esteban | Directed by Jess Franco

Its hard to believe, but growing up I thought Jess Franco was a horror-filmmaking god; even though I’d never seen a single one of his genre films. Why? Well because I was an avid subscriber of Dark Side Magazine and the way they wrote about Franco and his films with such reverence (and some irony it would seem looking back at it now), you would have thought he was up there with the horror greats. Yet while, now, I know differently – Franco was very much a journeyman filmmaker, cranking out films at a pace unheard of today – he still has a huge fanbase out there. You only have to look at just how many of his film are available on DVD and Blu-ray,...

For this final week of home media releases in January, I hope everyone has prepared their wallets, because we have a lot to get excited about, especially if you’re a cult film fan.

Vinegar Syndrome is doing the dark lord’s work this Tuesday, as they are putting out four different titles, including Cutting Class, Splatter University, There’s Nothing Out There, and Uninvited. Severin is celebrating giallo filmmaking with their releases of All the Colors of Giallo and All the Colors of the Dark, Scream Factory is showing some love to Screamers, and if you missed it in theaters, you can also finally catch up with Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria on Blu-ray this week as well.

Other notable releases for January 29th include a new edition of Willow, Save Yourself, and Dead Silence (1989).

All the Colors of Giallo

'Giallo' is Italian for 'yellow', the color of the lurid...

All (post-Romero) zombies are cannibals, but not all cannibals are zombies. This is an important distinction to note for your trading card set, as well for discerning Italian horror cinema. As a youth, I thought it was only the undead with a taste for flesh; that is, until I saw Cannibal Holocaust (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (‘81), two sweet and unassuming films where the living sate their hunger by eating douchey interlopers in various jungle settings. The first especially stands out due to a layer of social commentary splashed about, fighting to be seen in between the real animal slayings and crafted carnage. But it’s there and it’s potent; as it is with Cannibal Apocalypse (’80), an allegorical tale of the inner destruction that the Vietnam War wrought on those who survived. That, and a whole lot of flesh ripping.

Released in Italy in August with a stateside premiere September of...

Guest reviewer Lee Broughton returns to shine a critical light on a double bill Spaghetti Western disc, two features starring the world’s favorite acting fiend, Klaus Kinski. The prolific German actor racked up credits in more than twenty Euro-Westerns, some of which amounted to brief-if-worthy guest spots. These two Italian productions feature the German actor up front in starring position, and both are pretty good genre entries to boot.

And God Said to Cain & Twice a Judas

Double Bill DVD

Spaghetti Western Collection Volume 45

Wild East

1970 & 1968 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / Street Date August 26, 2013 / 19.95

Starring: Klaus Kinski, Antonio Sabato.

Directed by Anthony Dawson (Antonio Margheriti), Nando Cicero

CineSavant DVD Guest Review by Lee Broughton

Anthony Dawson’s And God Said to Cain (1970) is a decidedly gothic affair distinguished by the fact that Kinski is cast against type as a sympathetic vengeance seeker who holds the film’s moral high ground.

The...

Review by Roger Carpenter

After the runaway international success of director Dario Argento’s freshman effort, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, he quickly followed that animal-themed film with The Cat O’ Nine Tails. The film is essentially a whodunit featuring a blind man with extra-sensitive hearing due to his blindness who uses his only family, a little girl, as his eyes. They overhear a mysterious snippet of conversation on the street and later meet a hard-bitten detective at the scene of a murder. Connecting the conversation with the murder, the trio become embroiled in a series of killings. But the closer they get to the killer’s identity the more danger they are in as the killer soon begins to target them as well.

Argento’s sophomore effort was also a success and, together with his third film, 4 Flies on Grey Velvet, are credited with not only creating the giallo film,...

Gavin Jasper Joseph Baxter Nov 17, 2018

Mst3K Season 12 on Netflix is a go! Expect more Mystery Science Theater 3000 on your screens just in time for Turkey Day.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 Season 12 will head back to Netflix for more mirthful movie-riffing, just in time for a proper Thanksgiving Turkey Day marathon. Indeed, Jonah Ray, Felicia Day, Patton Oswalt will be back in their respective MST3K roles, joined, of course, by Crow T. Robot, Tom Servo and Gypsy.

Last year’s inaugural revival season was officially titled Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return. This time, however, the sophomore round will bear the formal title, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet. This is because the series is upping the cheesy movie stakes higher than ever with a cinematic sextet ominously referred to as “The Gauntlet.”

MST3K Season 12 Trailer Video of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Gauntlet | Official Trailer [HD] | Netflix

The long wait is finally about conclude,...

Review by Roger Carpenter

During the first half of the 60’s Mario Bava created several genuine horror classics that remain high-water marks in the genre over a half century later. Films such as Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), The Whip and the Body (1963), and Blood and Black Lace (1964) either pushed the boundaries of horror or helped to establish cinematic tropes still used in modern horror. Always saddled with shoestring budgets and bad deals, Bava nevertheless remained optimistic in the face of his cinematic struggles. A case in point is the troubled production of Kill, Baby…Kill! which ran out of money midway through the shoot. The cast and crew were so loyal to Bava they worked for free to finish the film—a film, by the way, which only had a 30-page script with no dialogue when filming commenced. Bava had the actors make up their own lines, preferring to resolve...

Look out! Gamma Gamma Hey! It’s the attack of screaming, arm-waving green goober monsters from a rogue planetoid, here to bring joy to the hearts of bad-movie fans everywhere. Just make sure your partner is agreeably inclined before you make it a date movie — this show has ended many a good relationship, even before the immortal words, “We’ll never make it chief, it’s coming too fast!”

The Green Slime

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1969 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 90 min. / Gamma sango uchu daisakusen / Street Date October 3, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Robert Horton, Luciana Paluzzi, Richard Jaeckel, Bud Widom, Robert Dunham.

Cinematography: Yoshikazu Yamasawa

Film Editor: Osamu Tanaka

Original Music: Charles Fox, Toshiaki Tsushima

Written by Bill Finger, Ivan Reiner, Tom Rowe, Charles Sinclair

Produced by Walter Manley, Ivan Reiner

Directed by Kinji Fukasaku

It’s a summer evening in 1969. Unable to get into a showing of Butch Cassidy...

During the early 60’s to the mid 80’s Italian horror was in its heyday – directors such as Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Antonio Margheriti, Umberto Lenzi, Joe D’Amato, and Enzo. G. Castellari directed some of the most outrageous terror films ever. Films that, at the time, pushed boundaries, depicting some of the most stylish and horrific on screen images. But at the same time these films included some of the most elegant and beautiful scores, scores which gained a cult following then and to this day – and they remain as popular now as they’ve ever been.

In comes Vault of Horror – The Italian Connection from Demon Records…

Featuring twenty of the most amazing film Italian genre themes ever, it is a heady mix of funk, disco, electronic and prog rock; featuring composers such as Stelvio Cipriani, Franco Micalizzi, Roberto Donati, Carlo Rustichelli, Nico Fidenco, Ennio Morricone, Fabio Frizzi,...

Brooklyn's own Nitehawk Cinema has announced their programming guide for October and it includes Mario Bava's Kill Baby, Kill, Black Sabbath, and so much more. Also: check out a clip from Red Christmas before its home media release on October 17th, and we also have details on the Blu-ray release of Web of the Spider.

Nitehawk Cinema's October Programming Revealed: To learn about the October programming at Brooklyn's Nitehawk Cinema, read the details below or visit them online.

“New Horror

We are in the midst of a horror film resurgence. A significant group of contemporary horror films made in the past couple of years is reminiscent of the socio-political classics of the 1960s and 1970s in that they are boldly confronting the terrifying undercurrent of life today. Like their predecessors, these films tackle class, gender identity, and race in a way that shows us both where we are and how far we,...

Did Republic’s serial-makers lose their marbles? This is an endurance test of a thriller, with 12 chapters that refuse to advance a story beyond the same repetitive ambushes and fistfights. It’s got monsters in the form of giant crawfish bred to… well, bred for almost no reason at all. With Phyllis Coates and Myron Healey. I tell you, watching this feels like watching an endless loop. But hey, it’s quite handsomely filmed!

Panther Girl of the Kongo

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1955 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame (originally widescreen) / 168 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.95

Starring: Phyllis Coates, Myron Healey, Arthur Space, John Day, Mike Ragan, Morris Buchanan, Roy Glenn, Archie Savage, Ramsay Hill, Naaman Brown, Dan Ferniel, James Logan, Steve Calvert.

Cinematography: Bud Thackery

Film Editor: Cliff Bell

Original Music: R. Dale Butts

Written by Ronald Davidson

Produced and Directed by Franklin Adreon

Ah yes.

Gian Maria Volonté has a big part in this prime quality Italo crime thriller blessed with a great score by Ennio Morricone. But the movie belongs to Robert Hoffman as the real-life public enemy who earned the alias 'The Machine Gun Soloist.' Director Carlo Lizzani's realistic treatment glamorizes nothing and implicates the police in shady policies as well. Award-winning co-star Lisa Gastoni is the woman who loves Hoffman, and is tempted to betray him. Wake Up and Kill Blu-ray + DVD Arrow Video (UK) 1966 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 124 98 min / Svegliati e uccidi; Lutring; Wake Up and Die / Street Date November 24, 2015 / 29.95 Starring Robert Hoffmann, Lisa Gastoni, Gian Maria Volonté, Claudio Camaso, Renato Niccolai, Ottavio Fanfani, Pupo De Luca, Corrado Olmi. Cinematography Armando Nannuzzi Film Editing Franco Fraticelli Original Music Ennio Morricone Written by Ugo Pirro, Carlo Lizzani Produced by Jacques Bar, Joseph Fryd, Carlo Lizzani Directed by Carlo Lizzani  

Reviewed by...

Dean Jones: Actor in Disney movies. Dean Jones dead at 84: Actor in Disney movies 'The Love Bug,' 'That Darn Cat!' Dean Jones, best known for playing befuddled heroes in 1960s Walt Disney movies such as That Darn Cat! and The Love Bug, died of complications from Parkinson's disease on Tue., Sept. 1, '15, in Los Angeles. Jones (born on Jan. 25, 1931, in Decatur, Alabama) was 84. Dean Jones movies Dean Jones began his Hollywood career in the mid-'50s, when he was featured in bit parts – at times uncredited – in a handful of films at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer In 2009 interview for Christianity Today, Jones recalled playing his first scene (in These Wilder Years) with veteran James Cagney, who told him “Walk to your mark and remember your lines” – supposedly a lesson he would take to heart. At MGM, bit player Jones would also be featured in Robert Wise's...

'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl': Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' review: Mostly an enjoyable romp (Oscar Movie Series) Pirate movies were a Hollywood staple for about three decades, from the mid-'20s (The Sea Hawk, The Black Pirate) to the mid-to-late '50s (Moonfleet, The Buccaneer), when the genre, by then mostly relegated to B films, began to die down. Sporadic resurrections in the '80s and '90s turned out to be critical and commercial bombs (Pirates, Cutthroat Island), something that didn't bode well for the Walt Disney Company's $140 million-budgeted film "adaptation" of one of their theme-park rides. But Neptune's mood has apparently improved with the arrival of the new century. He smiled – grinned would be a more appropriate word – on the Gore Verbinski-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,...

★★☆☆☆If man is five and the devil six, then Fincher’s Se7en (1995). Scott Derrickson's religious-themed supernatural drama, Deliver Us fom Evil (2014), takes place in a city of endless rain and tenebrous shadows occasionally disturbed by the diamond-dazzle of car headlights, or torches penetrating the dank spaces of tenement buildings and subterranean holes in a bid to illuminate the festering evil within. A debt to the visual palette and artfully grizzled sheen of the aforementioned and much-imitated 1990s serial-killer classic is very apparent indeed. Derrickson's effort isn't a world away from Antonio Margheriti's cult classic Cannibal Apocalypse (1980), either (cannibalism out; demonic possession in).

Taboo Tuesday is an exploration of some of the most outré sides of horror cinema.

Thoughtful, discriminating horror fans face a dilemma: We abhor the hypocrisy of a mainstream society that takes offense at fictionalized violence in a world full of the real thing while relishing the outsider freak cool that comes with being a horrorphile. In other words, we think the world would be a better place if everyone were more like us but, then again, much of the thrill would undoubtedly be lost if watching anything harder than The Walking Dead were to become a family affair.

News that “gorno” director Eli Roth was revisiting the cannibal film with The Green Inferno suggested this most disreputable subgenre was inching into the mainstream. Unthinkable. Subsequent headlines revealed that Inferno’s distributors had shelved it indefinitely. It seemed safe to assume this was due to last-minute timidity over graphic content...

For the final week of September, we’ll be seeing a handful of indie genre titles coming our way to DVD and Blu-ray, as well as several cult classics, including the original Leprechaun films, finally making their high-def debut on Tuesday.

In terms of new indie movies to keep an eye out for, Grow-up Tony Phillips, the latest from up-and-coming Austin filmmaker Emily Hagins (My Sucky Teen Romance), is being released as well as American Muscle, The Paranormal Diaries, Grave Halloween and the pregnancy-themed horror flick Delivery: The Beast Within. For those of you horror fans looking for something a bit more ‘seasoned’, both Krull and Killer Fish are getting their Blu-ray treatment this week and should make for excellent additions to your home entertainment collection.

Spotlight Titles:

Grow-up Tony Phillips (Anderson Digital, DVD)

Who doesn’t love Halloween? All of Tony Phillips’ high school friends do, apparently. It’s...

Today on Trailers from Hell, John Landis talks the 1961 horror film "Curse of the Werewolf." Oliver Reed scores in one of his early lead roles as the tormented hero of Hammer Films' only foray into lycanthropy, set in 18th century Spain and shot on sets built for an Inquisition project that the censor forbid Hammer to make. Anthony Dawson is great as the depraved, syphilitic Marques Siniestro who sets the plot in motion.

Prepare to be corrupted and depraved once more as Nucleus Films releases the sequel to the definitive guide to the Video Nasties phenomenon – the most extraordinary and scandalous era in the history of British film. Video Nasties: The Definitive Guide Part 2, a three-disc collector’s edition box set, is being released on DVD on July 14th 2014, to tie in with the 30th Anniversary of the Video Recordings Act 1984.

For the first time ever on DVD, all 82 films that fell foul of the Director of Public Prosecutions “Section 3” list are trailer-featured with specially filmed intros for each title, alongside a brand new documentary – Video Nasties: Draconian Days (review), directed by Jake West.

And to celebrate the release, Film4 FrightFest is hosting a special event – the world exclusive London Premiere of the finalised unseen extended 97 minute cut of Video Nasties: Draconian Days at The Prince Charles Cinema on Thurs 3 July, 8.30pm. The...

Rossana Podestà dead at 79: ‘Helen of Troy’ actress later featured in sword-and-sandal spectacles, risqué sex comedies (photo: Jacques Sernas and Rossana Podestà in ‘Helen of Troy’) Rossana Podestà, the sensual star of the 1955 epic Helen of Troy and other sword-and-sandal European productions of the ’50s and ’60s — in addition to a handful of risqué sex comedies of the ’70s — died earlier today, December 10, 2013, in Rome according to several Italian news outlets. Podestà was 79. She was born Carla Dora Podestà on August 20, 1934, in, depending on the source, either Zlitan or Tripoli, in Libya, at the time an Italian colony. According to the IMDb, the renamed Rossana Podestà began her film career in 1950, when she was featured in a small role in Dezsö Ákos Hamza’s Strano appuntamento ("Strange Appointment"). However, according to online reports, she was actually discovered by director Léonide Moguy, who cast her in a small role in...

Hardly anything in the world gives me as much pleasure as Italian horror movies. They just make me really happy. Even the really crappy ones like Manhattan Baby (directed by Lucio Fulci) or – heaven forbid – anything directed by Bruno Mattei. Yes, I will sit down to that man’s films. I love cannibals, I love zombies, i positively adore all sorts of Italian horror based mayhem. I am also a huge fan of Giallo movies, and as some of you may have read, I wrote an article rating the best Giallo movies a while back.

The line dividing Giallo and straight out horror often becomes blurred in Italian cinema. Take a film like Torso (The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence). On one level it is a typical Giallo concerning a murder-mystery – a who dunnit with a masked killer running around – one of the most obvious motifs in the Giallo genre.

Born in 1945 in Greenville, South Carolina, Patty Moran Shepard died of a heart attack at her home on January 3 in Madrid, Spain, the same country that welcomed her in 1963, when she moved with her father, an Air Force officer.

After a successful career as a TV commercial model she debuted in the big screen in 1966, appearing in the years ahead in gialli (Mio Caro Assassino a.k.a. My Dear Killer 1972); spaghetti westerns, such as in Antonio Margheriti’s The Stranger And The Gunfighter (alongside two late, great action heroes, Lee Van Cleef and Lo Lieh), and in many horror movies shown in drive-ins through all the States in the late 70’s.

Her presence and talent will be eternally felt in our hearts, especially in those cold, full moon nights, when we can spot a graceful woman dressed in black walking softly between moldering tombs and hundred-year old crypts.

Muchas gracias for your work,...

Born in 1945 in Greenville, South Carolina, Patty Moran Shepard died of a heart attack at her home on January 3 in Madrid, Spain, the same country that welcomed her in 1963, when she moved with her father, an Air Force officer.

After a successful career as a TV commercial model she debuted in the big screen in 1966, appearing in the years ahead in gialli (Mio Caro Assassino a.k.a. My Dear Killer 1972); spaghetti westerns, such as in Antonio Margheriti’s The Stranger And The Gunfighter (alongside two late, great action heroes, Lee Van Cleef and Lo Lieh), and in many horror movies shown in drive-ins through all the States in the late 70’s.

Her presence and talent will be eternally felt in our hearts, especially in those cold, full moon nights, when we can spot a graceful woman dressed in black walking softly between moldering tombs and hundred-year old crypts.

Muchas gracias for your work,...

Born in 1945 in Greenville, South Carolina, Patty Moran Shepard died of a heart attack at her home on January 3 in Madrid, Spain, the same country that welcomed her in 1963, when she moved with her father, an Air Force officer.

After a successful career as a TV commercial model she debuted in the big screen in 1966, appearing in the years ahead in gialli (Mio Caro Assassino a.k.a. My Dear Killer 1972); spaghetti westerns, such as in Antonio Margheriti’s The Stranger And The Gunfighter (alongside two late, great action heroes, Lee Van Cleef and Lo Lieh), and in many horror movies shown in drive-ins through all the States in the late 70’s.

Her presence and talent will be eternally felt in our hearts, especially in those cold, full moon nights, when we can spot a graceful woman dressed in black walking softly between moldering tombs and hundred-year old crypts.

Muchas gracias for your work,...

With other companies making waves releasing cult horror films on Blu-ray, it's no surprise Code Red DVD is getting in on the trend by bringing Nail Gun Massacre, Just Before Dawn, and The Electric Chair to hi-def.

Code Red announced on its blog that the company's first foray into Blu-ray will be the 1974 obscurity The Electric Chair. I’m not even familiar with this one. Are you? If so, you might be excited to hear a 97-minute cut of the film will be coming to a loaded Blu-ray to be hosted by former WWE diva Maria Kanellis and TV’s “Monster Man” Cleve Hall.

Following that will be the notorious 1985 splatterfest Nail Gun Massacre, about members of a construction crew that gang-rape a young woman and then begin getting brutally killed off by a mysterious maniac wielding a nail gun. Code Red promises another loaded disc boasting both a brand...

Released on Blu-ray this week, Arrow Video’s long-awaited release of The Wild Geese and Who Dares Wins see the format debut of two very “British” war movies staring some very familiar faces, including Roger Moore, Richard Burton, Lewis Collins and Richard Widmark; and thanks to Arrow Video we have three Blu-rays of each to giveaway!

Who Dares Wins

A fanatical group of anti-nuclear radicals, calling themselves ‘The People’s Lobby’, is plotting a bloody outrage on British soil and, having already fatally lost their undercover operative at a violent protest, the secret services call on the aid of the Sas.

Captain Peter Skellen (Collins) is apparently thrown out of the service for gross misconduct and is soon recruited by The People’s Lobby. But Skellen’s dismissal is a front to enable him to infiltrate the terrorist group. He seduces Frankie Leith (Judy Davis) and she quickly admits him to the inner circle.

If we look at Italian genre film-making as a blurry palette rather than a paintbox of discreet hues, we can perceive areas where one kind of film-making shades into another. The gothic fantasy may have preceded the giallo, but the two co-existed for some years, and most of the filmmakers who were important to one genre were also valuable in the other, as exemplified by Mario Bava, who more or less inaugurated both fields, first with Black Sunday and then with Blood and Black Lace (to pick, more or less randomly, two well-known English titles for two oft-retitled films).

Antonio Margheriti was another genre workhorse, shooting some of the more elegant bits of Paul Morrissey's Blood for Dracula and Flesh for Frankenstein, but also dabbling in sci-fi, the spaghetti western, Vietnam war flicks, often under the pseudonym of Anthony Dawson.

One thing Margheriti didn't make a lot of was gialli,...

Your blood will be our life! The first film Id like to look at is 1964s Danse Macabre aka Castle of Blood, starring Barbara Steele. A striking Italian-French film directed by Antonio Margheriti. The film opens in a downstairs pub in London with Edgar Allen Poe and his friend Sir Thomas Blackwood meeting another writer named Alan Foster. Sir Blackwood wagers that Foster wont be able to survive the November 1st Samhain night at his Castle…...

by Nick Schager

[This week's pick is inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe-themed horror-mystery The Raven.]

Not to be nitpicky, but it would have benefited Web of the Spider if it had something—anything—to do with a spider. Or, for that matter, a spider's web. It's likely that director Antonio Margheriti intended his title to refer to the sinister trap set in his story by a castle proprietor for an American journalist, but that's hardly a reasonable reason for bestowing this 1971 film with its chosen moniker, especially given that it's a remake of Margheriti's own aptly-dubbed (and superior) 1964 Castle of Blood. Nonetheless, this Italian horror throwaway's problems aren't relegated to name alone, as the saga of a haunted abode and its spooky inhabitants is defined by lame-brained incompetence, a fate made all the more frustrating by the fact that it has the inspired idea to cast the incomparable Klaus Kinski as Edgar Allan Poe. Kinski opens the film flailing about a tomb with a torch in hand,...

Matt Farnsworth honored with the Antonio Margheriti award at the Tohorror film festival in Italy. The award symbolizes the birth of a new master creator in the genre and his monster. Exclusive pics from the bloody Italian affair. Photos by Alessandro Besso.

Matt Farnsworth holds out his meat cleaver as the festival director announces the award to the crowd. “Good luck getting through airport security with that in your hand and Tok a few steps behind you.”

Farnsworth says “Europe was a wonderful lesson in how cultures have common understandings about true murder. Though we did not… More...