News

A new cult film convention is set to make its debut in the West Midlands this June as ‘Weird Worcester’ launches its first edition at the Worcester Arena. Organised by boutique home video label Treasured Films, the two-day event will run from 14 to 15 June, promising an ambitious celebration of Italian genre cinema and international cult classics.

Positioned on the banks of the River Severn, the convention will welcome an eclectic group of guests, many of whom are icons of European horror and exploitation cinema. The event’s centrepiece is a rare UK appearance from Fred Williamson, the American actor and former football player whose prolific film career spans From Dusk Till Dawn, Vigilante, Hell Up in Harlem, and the original Inglorious Bastards.

Italian cinema is the event’s central theme for its inaugural year, and the guest list reflects a deep engagement with the genre’s roots and legacy. Among those attending is Sergio Martino,...

Italian exploitation films Last Cannibal World and Slave of the Cannibal God will be released on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on June 24 via Severin Films.

1977’s Last Cannibal World is directed by Ruggero Deodato (Cannibal Holocaust).

It has been newly restored in 4K from the uncut original camera negative with HDR10 and English and Italian mono audio options.

Special Features:

Audio Commentary With Director Ruggero Deodato, Moderated By Freak-o-Rama’s Federico Caddeo Jungle Fever – Interview With Assistant Director Lamberto Bava The Queen Of The Cannibals – Interview With Actress Me Me Lai Man Eat Man – Interview With Actor Massimo Foschi Interview With Actor Ivan Rassimov Trailer TV Spot Booklet By Claire Donner Of The Miskatonic Institute Of Horror Studies

In the rainforests of the Philippines, an oil prospector escapes the clutches of a violent cannibal tribe with a female hostage, then searches for his missing companion and their plane.

Massimo Foschi,...

Lucio Fulci’s Don’t Torture a Duckling is a haunting depiction of a series of child murders. It’s also something of a rare bird within the giallo genre, as it doesn’t take place in an urban setting (think the second half of Sergio Martino’s Torso), and the shocking subject matter could be considered fairly radical for early-’70s Italy, given the repressive climate of the era fostered by religious institutions and political regimes. It also displays a thematically resonant twist when it finally reveals the identity of the murderer.

The main characters in Don’t Torture a Duckling are all outsiders in one way or another. The requisite amateur detective is Andrea Martelli (Tomas Milian), a bit-city reporter who swoops down on rural Accendura looking for his next big break, sort of like Kirk Douglas in Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole. Nudist and resident temptress Patrizia...

Positive or not, all critical appraisals of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s films inevitably land on the same talking point: their inordinate cinephilia. Rightly so: the Belgian duo’s filmography––an oeuvre now spanning four features and a handful of shorts––teems with nods to a seemingly endless cascade of Italian giallos from the likes of Mario Bava, Sergio Martino, and Dario Argento. You can call that an act of “cinematic rehabilitation,” as Justin Chang once wrote in his review of Let the Corpses Tan––though perhaps that’s only apt to ring true if you think that particular blend of hyper-stylized pulp needs rehabilitating in the first place. Hence the rather simplistic argument: fans of the classics Cattet and Forzani invoke will undoubtedly relish their works while everyone else likely writes them off as hollow tributes––or, to borrow from Stephen Holden’s far less generous take on their 2009 Amer,...

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...

What do you get when you cross a glossy all-star business drama with a kinky Italian horror flick, a German crime procedural, and “Fiddler on the Roof?” That insane mix may sound too good to be true, but it’s not — it’s a movie that actually exists. It’s called “Bloodline,” it was released by Paramount in 1979, and after years of intermittent accessibility on home video, it’s now available in a beautiful Blu-ray edition from the boutique label Vinegar Syndrome.

At the time of its release, “Bloodline” wasn’t a success by any criteria, but it was a major release thanks to an international cast consisting of Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, James Mason, Romy Schneider, Omar Sharif, Beatrice Straight (just a few years after her Oscar-winning turn in “Network”), Irene Papas and others. The fact that it was based on a novel by bestselling author Sidney Sheldon — who...

The erotic thriller was a prominent staple of early '90s cinema. Capitalizing on the success of Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct, many films utilized stylish design and scenes of heightened sexuality that accompanied complex murder mysteries. These were certainly nothing new, as many of them had been prominent in several Italian Giallo films from years prior. Named for the yellow (giallo in Italian) pulp novels heavily influenced by the likes of Agatha Christie, these films were crafted by the likes of Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, and even Lucio Fulci.

The brief run of American erotic thrillers that were prominent in the 1990s attracted multiple A-list directors and actors, hoping to capture the same lightning in a bottle that Verohoven had. Unfortunately, many of these attempts were met with critical disappointment. Jade, directed by William Friedkin, is now more associated with the short-lived film career of David Caruso.

Alberto De Martino’s The Antichrist is easy to dismiss as a shameless rip-off of The Exorcist. But that would be to diminish the stylistic verve that De Martino brings to the project. In fact, aside from the more overt story elements relating to the occult, De Martino’s direction owes more to other Euro contemporaries like Walerian Borowczyk and Sergio Martino than to William Friedkin.

Densely plotted, if overlong, The Antichrist proves more enamored with matters of sexual repression than demonic possession. As the film opens, Ippolita (Carla Gravina) attends a madhouse religious ceremony—featuring snakes, writhing bodies, and a possessed man (Ernesto Colli) who hurls himself from a cliff to his death—alongside her aristocratic father (Mel Ferrer), in an effort to try and walk again. She’s been paralyzed since she was 12, the result of a car accident that also killed her mother. Needless to say, her...

Sergio Martino’s Torso may not achieve the sustained delirium of Mario Bava and Dario Argento’s best work, but it’s still a top-shelf giallo. Martino directs with panache, deploying lots of slow zooms, putting the camera in odd positions, and cheekily toying with Pov shots. What’s more, Torso foregrounds a motif that recurs throughout the giallo: the interpenetration of sex, violence, and art.

In the opening scene, a professor lectures his distracted students on Pietro Perugino’s portrait of an arrow-pierced Saint Sebastian. While the professor drones on, the camera slinks around the ornate auditorium, catching the students’ exchanged glances and longing looks, hinting at the erotic appeal that can be unleashed by visual depictions of violence. Later, the evidence from a murder scene will be projected before the students in the same manner as the Perugino: art as murder, murder as art. As it turns out,...

Summer is coming to a close and life returns to normal after months of vacations, excursions and more than enough livations. Our collective attention now turns towards spooky season, some of us starting a two month celebration, starting on September 1st. From the first weekend in September let Arrow help you get in the mood with Selects from Adam Green and Ovidio G. Assonitis, a 4K restoration of Sergio Martino’s 1973 classic Torso, along with quartets of vampire and monster movies. Everything you need to know about next month's programming on the Arrow Player is listed below. Arrow Player Announces September 2024 Lineup Streamer Highlights Sun and Screams, Resurrected Masterpieces, Monsters Everywhere, Selections from Adam Green & More September 2024 Seasons: Adam...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

September marks Marcello Mastroianni’s centennial, and the Criterion Channel pays respect with a retrospective that puts the expected alongside some lesser-knowns: Monicelli’s The Organizer, Jacques Demy’s A Slightly Pregnant Man, and two by Ettore Scola. There’s also the welcome return of “Adventures In Moviegoing” with Rachel Kushner’s formidable selections, among them Fassbinder’s Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, Pialat’s L’enfance nue, and Jean Eustache’s Le cochon. In the lead-up to His Three Daughters, a four-film Azazel Jacobs program arrives.

Theme-wise, a set of courtroom dramas runs from 12 Angry Men and Anatomy of a Murder to My Cousin Vinny and Philadelphia; a look at ’30s female screenwriters includes Fritz Lang’s You and Me, McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow, and Cukor’s What Price Hollywood? There’s also a giallo series if you want to watch an Argento movie and ask yourself,...

Severin Films is taking over Brain Dead Studios in Los Angeles for its annual Super-Shock Pop-Up Film Festival Triple Feature on Saturday, August 24.

Viewers will be treated to a one-night-only screening of three mystery titles that will be released by Severin on 4K Uhd/Blu-ray in the coming year, along with trailer reveals, free swag, and a wide selection of Severin merch.

“Super-Shock is part fan appreciation event, part future-titles reveal, and 100% Severin Films gala celebration,” says Severin president David Gregory. “This year promises to our biggest and best yet.”

Founded in 2006, Severin Films is dedicated to the world’s most provocative cinema for physical media, theatrical, streaming, and beyond. Their catalog includes films from Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Dennis Hopper, Joko Anwar, Alex de la Iglesia, Sergio Martino, Umberto Lenzi, Paul Morrissey, Jess Franco, and many more.

Brain Dead Studios is located at 611 N Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles,...

A classic slasher film from the 1970s is making a major comeback more than 50 years later. Arrow Studios is officially releasing a 4K version of Torso, the 1973 slasher horror starring Suzy Kendall, Luc Merenda, and Tina Aumont. The film comes from legendary director Sergio Martino, who directed and also wrote the screenplay along with Ernesto Gastaldi. Torso takes place at the University of Perugia as a mysterious and terrifying serial killer strangles college girls to death with a black and red scarf. The film has a 56% score from critics (albeit with only nine reviews) and a 55% rating from general audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.

Nyx UK presents eight chilling channel premieres in July, headed up on Tuesday July 16 at 9pm, with Uwe Boll’s controversial retro-slasher Seed (2007), a divisive portrait of a serial killer which delves into the macabre and grotesque, offering a grim exploration of vengeance and the human capacity for cruelty.

At first you’ll be afraid, you’ll be petrified! On Friday July 5, 9pm, Nyx UK also premieres Renaud Gauthier’s ‘goriously’ humorous Discopath (2013), in which a seemingly ordinary man turns his local Seventh Heaven nightclub into a splatter Disco Inferno.

Other primetime channel premieres include the captivating 1972 Italian giallo Amuck, Reeker 2, Dave Payne’s 2008 prequel to Reeker, Sonja O’Hara’s 2022 horror thriller Mid-century, Black Circle (2018), a stunning Mexican-Swedish horror thriller directed by Adrián García Bogliano. and the Venezuelan supernatural thriller, The House At The End Of Time (2013), directed by Alejandro Hidalgo, broadcast on Fri July 26, 9pm.

The channel also...

Director Sergio Martino (All the Colors of the Dark) combines a monster reptile with an all-star EuroCult cast for The Great Alligator, one of the most outrageously entertaining Italian Jungle Carnage movies of them all, now in Uhd for the first time ever. At the opening of a tropical resort, a photographer (Claudio Cassinelli of Slave of the Cannibal God), an anthropologist (Barbara Bach of The Spy Who Loved Me) and an arrogant hotelier (Mel Ferrer of Eaten Alive!) are besieged by hostile natives, obnoxious tourists and a gargantuan river beast that intends to devour them all. Romano Puppo (Robowar), Richard Johnson (Zombie), and Silvia Collatina (The House by the Cemetary) co-star in this “top ten killer alligator/crocodile movie” (JoBlo), co-written by George Eastman (Anthropophagous), Cesare Frugoni (Spider Labyrinth), and Ernesto Gastaldi (Almost Human), newly scanned in 4K from the original negative.

The Great Alligator is available on 4K...

‘A deeply twisted shocker… You will never, ever, ever find a psychotic she-monster more blood-chilling than Susan Tyrrell’

Coming Soon

‘An excellent shocker… queasy and wildly ahead of its time… Susan Tyrrell delivers a character unlike any other in horror history’

Mondo Digital

‘Tyrrell steals the show… the sight of her… clutching a machete and chasing a poor unfortunate through a stormy night is once seen, never forgotten!… I heartedly recommend you seek out’

Hysteria Lives

One of the notorious 1980s video nasties Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker has been lauded as ‘Brilliantly insane’ (Cool Ass Cinema) and a ‘horror gem, well-crafted, ripe for analysis… should not go overlooked (Bloody Disgusting) and now, thanks to Severin Films, you can witness the film like never before. The company announces a brand-new Special Edition Dual 4K Uhd and Blu-ray is set for its UK release on 13th May 2024.

In a surprising change of direction,...

‘An underrated northern artist whose impact could have been greater given the right breaks. Cliff Twemlow’s story should provide encouragement to the current crop of British indie filmmakers. An essential watch’

*****

Starburst

‘Hugely entertaining documentary about a truly unique character… Jake West paints an affectionate portrait of a genuine one-off, whose work you’ll want to dive into once credits roll’

Dexerto

‘A fascinating man… Cliff absolutely deserves a place in the pantheon of low-budget, guerrilla-style filmmakers and hopefully this documentary will introduce him to an entirely new audience’

*****

Set the Tape

Following its successful festival run and ahead of its digital release in June 2024, Severin Films announces a UK theatrical tour of the acclaimed film Mancunian Man the Legendary Life of Cliff Twemlow.

Tour dates:

3 March – Nottingham Broadway + Q&a with Jake West & David Gregory

13 March – Birmingham – Mockingbird Cinema + Q&a with Jake West

23 March – Exeter – Exeter Phoenix...

Allow us to jog your memory as to how much of a scary good time these killer alligator/crocodile flicks can be. From the hilariously campy to the horrifyingly credible, here are our Top 10 Favorite Killer Alligator/Crocodile Movies!

#10. Crocodile (2000) – Just a few weeks back we boldly stood up for what Tobe Hooper’s unabashedly trashy direct-to-video Crocodile – a movie that, while among the lower rungs of his illustrious filmography, is actually much more gory, violent and overall fun than people give it credit for. While cheaply made and poorly acted, the great thing about this flick is the sheer amount of killer-croc-action and exorbitant death toll as the prehistoric beast named Flat Dog chews, chomps, marauds and masticates every damn annoying human in its predatory path. A fall from grace in the eyes of many, Crocodile is minor-key Hooper having a damn good time! Get Here

#9. Alligator (1979) – Also known as The Big Alligator River,...

Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, or even Sergio Martino may pop into cinephile’s heads when thinking of Giallo’s greatest directors. But only one name is truly synonymous with the Italian sub-genre, and that’s Dario Argento. Don’t believe us? Maybe “Dario Argento Panico,” a new doc about the director that premieres on Shudder next month, will convince the uninitiated.

Read More: The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2024

Simone Scafidi‘s doc takes a retrospective look at Argento’s life and career, from his early days making classic Giallos like “The Girl Who Knew Too Much” to his aesthetically daring apex of “Suspiria,” “Inferno,” and “Tenebrae.” “Dario Argento Panico” features interview with Argento, his daughter Asia Argento, as well as filmmakers like Guillermo Del Toro, Gaspar Noé, and Nicolas Winding Refn, and screenwriter Franco Ferrini.

Continue reading ‘Dario Argento Panico’ Trailer: Doc About The Giallo Master Premieres On Shudder On February 2 at The Playlist.

Gimme dat baby.

After wrapping up November with a look at cryptids in The Mothman Prophecies (listen), we kicked off December with a journey back into the land of giallo in Sergio Martino’s Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (listen). Now we’re heading to France to discuss everyone’s favorite pregnancy-related splatterfest in Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo‘s Inside (2007).

Inside sees newly widowed (and very pregnant) Sarah (Alysson Paradis) spending Christmas Eve alone as she waits to be induced the next morning. Unfortunately for her, a mysterious, scissors-wielding woman known only as La Femme (Béatrice Dalle) has designs on her unborn child, and will stop at nothing until she gets it.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts,...

Black Cats and Incest.

Last week we used our discussion of Mark Pellington’s The Mothman Prophecies to recover from our month-long theme on toxic masculinity, which included episodes on Funny Games, Deadgirl, Murder by Numbers and Hard Candy.

This week we’re diving back into the world of Giallo with prolific Italian director Sergio Martino‘s Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key (1972), which is truly the best title ever.

In the film, Irina (Anita Strindberg) is in an abusive marriage with Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli), her drunk womanizing writer husband. When his niece Floriana (Edwige Fenech) comes to visit, a plan is hatched to wreak revenge against the destitute author. As the film progresses, however, it’s no longer clear who is playing who.

Can Irina and Floriana trust each other? Or will the women turn on each other in madness and despair?

Be...

Mothman’s Got Cakes.

After spending our month-long theme on toxic masculinity with difficult watches like Funny Games (listen), Deadgirl (listen) and Hard Candy (listen), we’re taking a break from the theme and wrapping up November with a look at Mark Pellington‘s 2002 high strangeness chiller The Mothman Prophecies.

The Mothman Prophecies sees journalist John Klein’s (Richard Gere) wife Mary (Debra Messing) experience a strange moth-like vision immediately before she dies from a brain tumor. Two years later, John suddenly finds himself hundreds of miles out of his way in the remote town of Point Pleasant, where there has been a proliferation of “mothman” sightings. While investigating with the local sheriff (Laura Linney), he concludes that the visions are omens of an impending disaster.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio,...

Boris Karlov, Peter Lorre, and Vincent Price in The Raven.Image: Film Publicity Archive (Getty Images)

For almost as long as the medium has existed, filmmakers have been turning to the works of Edgar Allan Poe for inspiration. The earliest adaptations of his stories date back to the silent era.

The well-known theme song for Larry David's HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is, in fact, a piece of music composed for a 1974 Italian movie called "La Bellissima Estate" directed by Sergio Martino. The piece in question was entitled "Frolic," and while it was meant to convey a sense of circus-like whimsy in 1974, when used to punctuate the pathetic life of Larry David, the theme takes on an ironic tone of existential dread. Larry David's suffering is but an absurdist quirk of the universe, a universe geared toward annoyance and pettiness.

The closing of Damien Chazelle's 2022 film "Babylon" might be said to possess a similar musical moment. "Babylon" ends with a brilliant, jazzy montage wherein all cinema, from its earliest days through "Avatar," are encapsulated in a head-spinning, jazzy montage of evolving entertainment. It shows highlights from notable cinematic technical achievements, eventually revealing that film is little mire than swirls of emulsion on celluloid.

Italian director Ruggero Deodato has died at 83 years old, according to industry figures.

The horror film director and screenwriter was nicknamed “Monsieur Cannibal” after his 1980 found-footage film Cannibal Holocaust gained notoriety.

Deodato’s reported death has been mourned by his contemporary Sergio Martino, director of films such as All the Colors of the Dark (1972) and Torso (1973).

In Italian, Martino wrote on Facebook: “I just found out that Ruggero Deodato passed away. With him, I shared a wonderful season of cinema.

“We basically started together on a parallel path that in these years of reevaluation of our cinema has ‘goliardically’ taken us around the world together. Goodbye Ruggero!”

Similarly, director and writer Lorenzo Lombardi paid tribute to Deodato.

The In the Market (2009) director wrote on Facebook: “Today is a sad day. A great master of cinema leaves us. A friend who gave me advice and anecdotes. Thank you for everything.

The December 3rd Wordle is ready to ruin some long-standing win-streaks with its familiar, but uncommonly used word. Today's answer does have a few tricks up its sleeve but most players should come out of it with a win.

For those who need a little extra help, we've provided a few hints to help out. If even they aren't enough to figure out the word, simply continue down to the fully spoiled word of the day.

Related: Wordle 4 Times At Once With Quordle Is An Even Harder Challenge

Today's Wordle Puzzle Hints (December 3rd #532) Hint 1: There is a single repeated letter in today's Wordle word. Hint 2: This particular word is used to describe the 'trunk' of a human body. Hint 3: This 1973 Giallo-horror movie directed by Sergio Martino, follows a serial killer as he hunts his victims. Today's Wordle Answer (December 3rd #532)

Click Read More to reveal today's Wordle answer.

Joan and Jane are two women trapped in their lives. Joan is trapped in a cold, dead marriage, and Jane is trapped by the trauma of losing a child. Both traverse their own journeys to self-actualization and liberation through the exploration of the occult. Season of the Witch and All the Colors of the Dark, released within one year of each other, take the audience into the underbelly of the weird and the witchy, probing into the pressures set upon women by their lovers and society, as a whole. Each film is equally profound, yet their epic conclusions lie on opposite extremes.

In George A. Romero’s 1973 psycho-drama Season of the Witch, Joan (Jan White) has grown listless and miserable with her perfect suburban life. Her husband Jack (Bill Thunhurst) no longer satisfies her, neither does the housework. She’s merely going through the motions when we meet her. And...

With Martin McDonagh's fourth film, The Banshees Of Inisherin, releasing on October 28th, audiences will finally get to see another collaboration between McDonagh and Colin Farrell. Reuniting Farrell with In Bruges co-star, Brendan Gleeson, the movie follows two friends who find themselves at an impasse when one of them suddenly decides to end the friendship. This decision, while seemingly minor, ends up having dangerous consequences for them both.

With a stellar supporting cast, including Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon, The Banshees Of Inisherin is set to be a fantastic movie, but which Colin Farrell movies should fans watch in preparation?

Horrible Bosses (2011)

Boasting a cast of big-name talent, Horrible Bosses is a raunchy comedy. As the title suggests, the movie follows a series of "horrible" bosses and their scorned employees, who decide to do the only thing they see fit: murder them.

Related: 10 Best Ongoing Dark Comedy Shows According...

Sometimes it can be a little sad to watch a director blatantly make a bid for mainstream American acceptance (or rather future Marvel gig), and in the case of Mondocane (Italian for Dogworld) this couldn’t be more apparent. What seemed an exciting prospect, a potential throwback to trashy Italian post-apocalyptic films (or just a bleak arthouse sci-fi), Alessandro Celli’s feature debut rather feels like minor adjustments to an ’80s Amblin fantasy film above all––a few more blatant references to child molestation notwithstanding. Though perhaps having children as the protagonists should’ve been the tip-off to what flavor of sci-fi adventure we’d be getting, one still replete with sleek nighttime motorcycle chases and gunfire to feel just “modern” or “adult” enough.

A brief title crawl informs us the Italian town of Taranto is now a wasteland devastated by climate change, a power plant blotting the skyline and barbed wire guarding the borders.

Hello, everyone! We’re back with a brand new batch of home media releases, and this week’s assortment is an eclectic group. Code Red is showing some love to The Dead Pit and Arrow Video is keeping busy with their latest Giallo Essentials set and the 2-disc limited edition release of Mill of the Stone Women. Other titles headed home on December 14th include Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Amityville Vampire, Alone in the Woods, The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre, and Chicken’s Blood.

The Dead Pit

Dr. Ramzi (Danny Gochnauer), a deviant who enjoys torturing his patients, is killed by a fellow doctor and buried in the basement of a mental health facility. Twenty years later, the hospital is up and running again and a “Jane Doe” (Cheryl Lawson) arrives at the institute with amnesia. Upon her arrival, a major earthquake rocks the building and unearths the now undead Dr.

When the sun is blazing and waves are crashing, your first thought probably isn't, "I want to be terrified." Many of us though can't hit the beach without thinking of Jaws, and thus spending vacation in the summer months does stir up the urge to watch scary flicks.

It's incredible how just one timeless blockbuster film can make an unlikely season feel ripe for horror. A testament to fantastic filmmaking. Beyond Jaws, however, there are many more great underwater horrors that serve scares and still capture that seaside, summer feel.

Deep sea sci-fi, lake creature-feature fare, and survival thrillers in rushing rapids; there is fantastic cinematic terror to be found by the water. Fortunately, there exists a near countless amount of flicks that capture the horrifying mysteries of lakes, rivers, and seas; many of which are long forgotten or simply not mainstream.

Let's have a look at 10 films that vary greatly in their fanbase size.

Another year, another paycheck whisked away by Arrow Video's prodigious lineup. This August the cult home video juggernaut takes no pity on collector's with a robust slate that includes David Lynch's Dune (UK/US/Can) in 4K Uhd, Adam Rehmeier's Dinner in America (UK only), Masamura's Blind Beast (UK/US/Can), Brotherhood of Satan (UK/US/Can), Kim Jee-woon's classic horror film, A Tale of Two Sisters (UK Only), a box set of previously released Sergio Martino classics, and a la carte reissues of Alejandro Jodorowsky's classic midnight mindfucks, El Topo and The Holy Mountain (both UK only) and standard 4K Uhd & Blu-ray releases of Sergio Corbucci's Django (UK/US/Can). Dune is the obvious leader in this pack, and as such, Arrow is presenting it not only in a limited edition slips cover special...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Happy Monday, dear readers! We have a brand new slate of home media releases to look forward to as we head into a new month, and there are some great films coming out on Tuesday that genre fans will definitely want to pick up. Rlje Films is finally releasing Horror Noire on both Blu-ray and DVD this week, and they’re also bringing home arguably the most talked-about horror film of 2020 as well: Rob Savage’s Host. Kino Lorber is showing some love to Dark Intruder with their new 2K Blu, and Code Red is giving us more reasons to fear the water with their Blu-ray for The Great Alligator.

Other releases for February 2nd include Satan’s Blood, Sky Sharks, Deadcon, and Hellkat.

Dark Intruder

Brand New 2K Master! Dark Intruder stars Leslie Nielsen (Forbidden Planet) as Brett Kingsford, an Occult expert who is brought in by police to help...

Halloween may be over, but there's a ton of horror content to look forward to from Shudder this December, including Creepshow and Joe Bob holiday specials:

New Shudder Specials

Joe Bob Saves Christmas — December 11 at 9pm Et

The Christmas spirit takes over The Last Drive-In as Joe Bob and Darcy close out the year with a double feature of holiday horrors. Premieres live on the ShudderTV feed Friday, December 11, and will be made available on demand on Sunday, December 13. (Also available on Shudder Canada)

A Creepshow Holiday Special — December 18

In the holiday themed, hour-long episode, “Shapeshifters Anonymous,” fearing he is a murderer, an anxious man searches for answers for his "unique condition" from an unusual support group. Starring Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect) and Adam Pally (The Mindy Project), the special is written and directed by Creepshow showrunner Greg Nicotero, based on a short story by J.A. Konrath (Last Call...

Shudder is closing out a record-breaking year with holiday specials from two of their most popular series, exclusive new supernatural chillers, massive new collections focused on holiday horrors and giallo, and so much more. Take a look below for all of the classics, new movies, and series coming to the horror streaming service this December.

Joe Bob Saves Christmas - December 11 at 9pm Et

The Christmas spirit takes over The Last Drive-In as Joe Bob and Darcy close out the year with a double feature of holiday horrors. Premieres live on the ShudderTV feed Friday, December 11, and will be made available on demand on Sunday, December 13. (Also available on Shudder Canada).

A Creepshow Holiday Special - December 18

In the holiday themed, hour-long episode, "Shapeshifters Anonymous," fearing he is a murderer, an anxious man searches for answers for his "unique condition" from an unusual support group. Starring Anna Camp (Pitch Perfect...

[This October is "Gialloween" on Daily Dead, as we celebrate the Halloween season by diving into the macabre mysteries, creepy kills, and eccentric characters found in some of our favorite giallo films! Keep checking back on Daily Dead this month for more retrospectives on classic, cult, and altogether unforgettable gialli, and visit our online hub to catch up on all of our Gialloween special features!]

Happy Gialloween! The timing on this year’s theme is actually pretty perfect, because I have slowly begun dipping my toes into the giallo waters over the past few months. Once upon a time, giallo and Italian horror in general was a big “no” for me. It all seemed too weird and too unfocused. I just didn’t connect with Italian storytelling and would always wind up frustrated and bored.

But over time, I have come to warm to more loose, more abstract styles of storytelling, and decided to give it another go. And I really have been enjoying what I have been seeing. Sometimes age, life experience, or just changing tastes merit another chance on some of the art that you initially pushed away.

Over the past few months, I have watched (and enjoyed) films like Tenebrae, Don’t Torture a Duckling, Deep Red, and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.

[This October is "Gialloween" on Daily Dead, as we celebrate the Halloween season by diving into the macabre mysteries, creepy kills, and eccentric characters found in some of our favorite giallo films! Keep checking back on Daily Dead this month for more retrospectives on classic, cult, and altogether unforgettable gialli, and visit our online hub to catch up on all of our Gialloween special features!]

From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, the giallo film was a defining genre for Italian cinema. The giallo, for those unfamiliar, was born from literature; crime novellas published in Italy, and known for their yellow book covers, would focus on pulp fiction detective tales and crime stories. When the giallo style found its way into cinematic form, the genre would be most influenced by the exercise of sensationalized sex and violence rather than the crime procedural or mystery solving.

The giallo, in some forms of film during this Italian wave of horror, finds significantly more depth and complication than otherwise perceived. And there is no better example of the sensationalized and nuanced approach to this style of film than Sergio Martino’s 1973 film Torso. Alternatively known as Carnal Violence, or sometimes The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence, this film functions as both giallo and a slasher film,...

Slave of the Cannibal God

Blu ray

Code Red

1978/ 99 min.

Starring Ursula Andress, Stacy Keach

Cinematography by Giancarlo Ferrando

Directed by Sergio Martino

At the same moment the Korean War was ending and Eisenhower entered the White House, illustrator Samson Pollen found his niche; illuminating the fever dreams of suburban dads for action magazines from Man’s World to Stag. He enjoyed a long career and in 1978 he was handed an assignment right up his alley, a garish montage of anacondas, he-men and nearly-naked women. But his art for Slave of the Cannibal God turned out to be far from his best work. Blandly composed and indifferently executed, Pollen’s movie poster works best as a critique of the film itself.

Directed by Sergio Martino, this travelogue-cum-horror movie stars Ursula Andress, a paragon of beauty who built her brand on a supernatural physique and a come-hither gaze that might have inspired...

This past weekend, the world got a little less entertaining with the passing of veteran actor John Saxon, whose career spanned over an impressive seven decades. A truly singular onscreen presence, Saxon was teen idol turned character actor with a penchant for playing authority figures throughout his diverse career.

If you look at Saxon’s Hollywood résumé, John’s contributions to both the cinema and small screen entertainment are endless, with roles in timeless classics like The Plunderers, Posse from Hell, Summer Love, The Appaloosa, Death of a Gunfighter, Gunsmoke, Fantasy Island, The Big Score, Fast Company (which was directed by an up-and-coming David Cronenberg), Falcon Crest, Running Scared (1980), Beverly Hills Cop III, Dynasty, Melrose Place (playing Daphne Zuniga’s lawyer for multiple episodes), and of course, Enter the Dragon, opposite Bruce Lee.

In terms of his genre output, the variety of films that Saxon was a part of is equally impressive,...

When it comes to releasing unique and collectible Blu-ray box sets (such as their Al Adamson: The Masterpiece Collection), Severin Films has done an amazing job preserving horror history, and this summer they'll continue to do so with The Complete Lenzi Baker Giallo Collection, featuring Umberto Lenzi's collaborations with Carroll Baker:

"On June 30th, Severin Films is bringing together the complete collaborative works of two cult film legends with The Complete Lenzi Baker Giallo Collection, which includes superlative editions of Orgasmo, So Sweet… So Perverse, A Quiet Place To Kill, and Knife Of Ice.

Italian writer/director Umberto Lenzi helmed popular peplums, created extreme poliziotteschi, and invented the Italian cannibal phenomenon. Hollywood actress Carroll Baker was the Golden Globe® winning/Academy Award® nominated star of Baby Doll, Giant and The Carpetbaggers. Together in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, they made four landmark films that changed the erotic thriller and giallo genres forever.

Severin Films and Cav presents The Strange Vice Of Mrs. Wardh Sergio Martino’s Giallo Masterpiece – now uncut on Blu-ray/DVD. The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh 1 Blu-ray disc + 1 CD disc Label: Severin Films Preorder: 4/28/20 Street: 5/26/20 Msrp: $34.98 Upc: 663390003213 Catalog #: SEV93213 Genre: Horror Color, 100 minutes in English and …

The post The Strange Vice Of Mrs. Wardh – Now uncut on Blu-Ray/DVD | Severin Films and Cav appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

Well, we’ve officially made it to April, which means we’ve got more home media releases to look forward to as well. In terms of new horror headed to Blu-ray and DVD on Tuesday, Joe Begos’ badass siege flick Vfw arrives on both formats, and Jennifer Reeder’s Knives and Skin is coming home via a Blu/DVD combo release as well. If you’re in the mood for a mind-blowing Exorcist ripoff, be sure to pick up Arrow Video’s 2-Disc Special Edition release of Beyond the Door, and Terror Train is being shown some love this Tuesday with a brand new Blu-ray, too.

Other releases for April 7th include Supernatural (1933), Dead by Dawn, Reflections on the Living Dead, The Devil’s Fairground, Impact Event, and The Wind Walker.

Beyond the Door: 2-Disc Special Edition

Legendary filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis, whose Tentacles and Piranha II sought to...

If you've read Scott Drebit's Blu-ray reviews for Wax Mask, Paganini Horror, and The Peanut Butter Solution, just to name a few, then you know that here at Daily Dead, we're big fans of the eclectic physical home media releases from the talented team at Severin Films. The company is looking to continue their tradition of obscure and intriguing releases this spring, as they've announced three new Blu-rays for May that should please fans of multifaceted international horror.

Announced on their Facebook page, Severin Films' May Blu-ray releases include Satan's Slave (1980) aka Pengabdi Setan, a limited edition of The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971), and Horrors of Spider Island (1960). All three Blu-rays are scheduled to come out on May 26th.

You can check out the full release details, trailers, and cover art for the Blu-rays below, and be sure to visit Severin Films' website for more information, including details...

Severin Films have announced their May release lineup and they’re bringing genre fans a trio of goodies. The headliner is Sergio Martino‘s stunning classic, The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh starring the giallo queen and frequent Martino collaborator, Edwige Fenech. Fenech plays the wife of an ambassador that discovers one of the men in her life is a killer in […]...

” Come on, you filthy pig-lick the vile whore’s vomit! “

Legendary filmmaker Ovidio G. Assonitis, whose Tentacles and Piranha II sought to cash in on the killer fish craze spawned by Jaws, first hit pay dirt in 1974 with Beyond the Door – a gloriously bonkers riff on The Exorcist featuring Emmy Award-winning actress Juliet Mills and distinguished British actor Richard Johnson.

Set against the backdrop of San Francisco, Beyond the Door stars Mills as Jessica Barrett, a young mother who starts to develop strange behaviors whilst pregnant with her third child. Before you can say split pea soup , Jessica is displaying signs of full-blown demonic possession – complete with projectile vomiting and fully-rotating head! Could it be that she s carrying the child of the Antichrist himself?

Described as disgusting , scary trash and maddeningly inappropriate by film critic Robert Ebert and subject to a lawsuit by Warner Bros. (who claimed copyright infringement...

Arrow Video isn't joking around when it comes to their April Blu-ray releases, with an eclectic physical home media lineup that includes the beloved, the obscure, and one of the more buzzed-about indie films from last year's festival circuit.

In April, Arrow Video will release Beyond the Door, Why Don't You Just Die!, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, and The Wind on Blu-ray via Mvd Entertainment Group.

You can read the full release details below (including the new announcement of an illustrated collector’s booklet for Elvira: Mistress of the Dark), and to learn more, visit the links for the following Blu-rays:

Beyond the Door Why Don't You Just Die! Elvira: Mistress of the Dark The Wind

"Spring into April with Five Exciting New Releases from Arrow!

While the world faces difficult, uncertain times the small comforts like movies can mean so much more. Arrow knows this and has you...

Mark Harrison Dec 3, 2019

Blade Runner, Akira, and The Running Man are all set in 2019 – now that it’s December, we reflect upon movie futures-now-past…

This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

The future isn’t what it used to be. More than most decades, the 2010s have proven to be quite unlike the films that posited what they would be like. 2010 was supposed to be The Year We Make Contact. 2012 didn’t pan out like a Roland Emmerich movie after all. And as for 2015, countless words have already been written comparing reality to the vision of Back to the Future Part II. They had flying cars; we had that dress that was either white and gold or black and blue.

We’re over all that now, but as we approach the 2020s, how does 2019 measure up? For one reason or another, a lot of major genre movies of the...

Genre festival to open with Bong Joon-ho’s ‘Parasite’.

Genre festival Night Visions has revealed the line-up for this year’s event, which will run from November 20-24 in Helsinki, Finland.

The opening film is Bong Joon-ho’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner Parasite while other highlights include Rian Johnson’s whodunnit Knives Out and Vaclav Marhoul’s World War II drama The Painted Bird, starring Udo Kier, Harvey Keitel and Stellan Skarsgard.

The festival will celebrate the work of Us director Jack Sholder by screening three of his 1980s horror films: The Hidden, Alone in the Dark and A...

Above: Chinese poster for Spirited Away; artist: Zao Dao.The most popular poster to date on my Movie Poster of the Day Instagram, by a dragon’s length, with more than double the amount of likes of its closest contender, was this gorgeous Chinese poster (and its color variant which you can see here) for Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001), which apparently just got a Chinese theatrical release eighteen years after it was made. The posters were painted by the young Chinese comic book artist Zao Dao who you can, and should, read more about here.I was happy to see Renato Casaro’s prop poster for Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood’s film-within-the-film Kill Me Now Ringo, Said the Gringo—which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago—make such an impression, as well as another of my favorite Casaros painted forty years earlier, for Screamers, a.k.

Yann Gonzalez’s Knife+Heart arrives at a time when contemporary genre cinema is reckoning with itself. In the last ten years, a number of filmmakers, particularly in Francophone Europe, has produced and directed relatively high-profile films occupying a genre that has come to be known as neo-giallo. A definition for neo-giallo borders on impossible, save perhaps a film that retroactively occupies the European thriller genre of giallo, which peaked in popularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and in doing so becomes a film made self-consciously, with an awareness of the genre’s conventions and thus a postmodern relationship to the material. At first glance, Gonzalez’s film certainly qualifies as such, extrapolating certain elements of giallo to an extent where it almost becomes necessary to understand the pedigree that haunts the genre as a whole. The film is not by necessity a deconstruction, but rather an earnest...