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Hey, Ib Melchoir’s Opus Mars-us is back, in a not-bad new scan and color-grading job. If the nostalgia bug has bitten you deep enough to appreciate a fairly maladroit but frequently arresting space exploration melodrama, this may be the disc for you. Let’s be honest: Nobody can resist the allure of the fabulous Bat-Rat-Spider-Crab, and in glorious Cinemagic, no less.

The Angry Red Planet

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1960 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 83 min. / Street Date June 27, 2017 / 17.28

Starring: Gerald Mohr, Nora Hayden, Les Tremayne, Jack Kruschen.

Cinematography: Stanley Cortez

Film Editor: Ivan J. Hoffman

Original Music: Paul Dunlap

Written by Ib Melchior from a story by Sid Pink

Produced by Norman Maurer & Sid Pink

Directed by Ib Melchior

Unjust though it may be, not all Savant reviews make the national news feed, but my old 2001 coverage of the pretty miserable MGM DVD of The Angry Red Planet got quoted all over the place,...

Nick Aldwinckle Sep 2, 2016

Our latest The Bottom Shelf DVD and Blu-ray round-up features Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D, Jaws: The Revenge and Chuck Norris...

With Shark Week arguably America’s most beloved religious festival and the unprecedented worldwide cultural impact of Anthony C. Ferrante’s acclaimed Sharknado trilogy showing no sign of letting up, who could deny the necessity of the Jaws sequels finally getting a Blu-ray release?

The immediate answer is obvious (well, anyone), though this belated look at Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D, Jaws: The Revenge and Jaws 5: The Sharkening was, for this writer at least, a nostalgic journey through a world where morbidly obese fish bear grudges, Michael Caine fights a script far deadlier than any marine predator and where lines such as “Weld that sonuvabitch” are somehow deemed passable.

Generally considered the best of the sequels, perhaps Jaws 2 holds a special place in the heart of the reader who,...

Nick Aldwinckle Aug 10, 2016

Blood Bath, The Beast With 1,000,000 Eyes and Return Of The Killer Tomatoes: it's our latest DVD and Blu-ray round-up...

Britain is in a state of turmoil, with Brexit, political leadership spinning out of control and social media civil war already underway. As such, it has perhaps never been a more appropriate time for a release of John De Bello and Stephen Peace’s 1988 meditation on the path towards peace and racial tolerance, Return Of The Killer Tomatoes, out on Arrow Bluray.

Set ten years after the events of the Great Tomato War, as depicted in uncompromising detail in De Bello and Peace’s earlier epic, Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, tomatoes – following the mutant, sentient, strain responsible for the deaths of many citizens – are now outlawed in the Us. As with all the best banned items, killer tomatoes have now gone underground, with a thriving black market...

What horrors will we find on the planet Yoo-rah-nuss? A cyclopean dinosaur? Nasty spider monsters? A megalomaniac cerebellum that can turn our X-rated sex fantasies into flesh and blood people? Let's go! Sid Pink's flashy and slightly idiotic adventure stars space cadet John Agar as an average guy willing to have sex with a phantom from his own imagination. Say, doesn't Woody Allen make dirty jokes about that? Journey to the Seventh Planet Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1962 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 77 min. / Street Date April 5, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring John Agar, Carl Ottosen, Ann Smyrner, Greta Thyssen, Peter Monch, Ove Sprogoe, Louis Miehe-Renard, Ulla Moritz, Mimi Heinrich, Annie Birgit Garde. Cinematography Aage Wiltrup Visual Effects Krogh, Wah Chang, Jim Danforth, Ronny Scheemmel. Art Director Otto Lund Editor Tove Palsbo Original Music Jerry Capeheart, Ib Glindemann, Mitchell Tableporte Written by Ib Melchior & Sid Pink Produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff & Sid Pink...

Mind games are played in deep space in Journey to the Seventh Planet. The 1962 film will be released on Blu-ray and DVD from Kino Lorber on April 5th, and we have a look at the cover art and release details.

From Amazon: “Newly Re-mastered in HD! You Are in Space… Beyond Space! In futuristic 2001, the United Nations has sent a special team of scientists to explore Uranus. And what this interstellar crew discovers is a planet not unlike Earth-complete with a small Danish village filled with voluptuous women! But underneath the utopian veneer is a so powerful and so heinous that it’s using the crew’s memories against them so it can take their spaceship back to Earth-and conquer it! Wonderfully directed by cult producer, writer and director, Sidney W. Pink (Reptilicus, The Angry Red Planet) and featuring campy performances by John Agar (Invisible Invaders, Miracle Mile) and Greta Thyssen...

This is definitely the time of year when film critic types (I’m sure you know who I mean) spend an inordinate amount of time leading up to awards season—and it all leads up to awards season, don’t it?—compiling lists and trying to convince anyone who will listen that it was a shitty year at the movies for anyone who liked something other than what they saw and liked. And ‘tis the season, or at least ‘thas (?) been in the recent past, for that most beloved of academic parlor games, bemoaning the death of cinema, which, if the sackcloth-and-ashes-clad among us are to be believed, is an increasingly detached and irrelevant art form in the process of being smothered under the wet, steaming blanket of American blockbuster-it is. And it’s going all malnourished from the siphoning off of all the talent back to TV, which, as everyone knows,...

Monster movies — especially giant monster movies — are not created equal. There are some great ones, which are rightfully considered to be classics. Everything else tends to fall into different categories of bad, from the schlocky but entertaining to the truly cheap and dismal. Two giant monster movies that land closer to the latter end of the spectrum have been packaged together on a new Blu-ray from Scream Factory that seems specially designed for lovers of Z-grade horror.

First up is the 1977 film Tentacles, a cross between a blatant Jaws rip-off and a standard ’70s disaster movie. It tells the story (if you can call it that) of Ocean Beach, a resort town experiencing a series of attacks by a giant octopus. It seems a construction company headed by Henry Fonda (slumming) is building an underwater tunnel and using radio frequencies that are making the octopus unusually aggressive. The only residents...

This week, we’ve got another fantastic bounty of genre films hitting DVD and Blu-ray on June 16th, including a ton of cult classics like The Land that Time Forgot, Night of the Strangler and the Tentacles/Reptilicus double feature from Scream Factory.

Fans of Neill Blomkamp also have a lot to get excited about this Tuesday, as there’s a Limited Edition collector’s set featuring all three of his sci-fi actioners, with Chappie finally making his way home this week as well. Echo Bridge has put together two different DVD movie packs featuring a bunch of old-school horror movies, and the recent Blumhouse production, The Lazarus Effect, is arriving on Blu-ray and DVD, too.

Blomkamp3 Limited Edition Collection: Chappie/District 9/Elysium (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Blu-ray)

The world of Neill Blomkamp is unlike any other. Distinct of story and vision, and for the first...

"It slept... until man disturbed it. Then it woke with a fury no man could control." On June 16th, creatures will attack in Scream Factory's double feature of Tentacles and Reptilicus, and we've been provided with three Blu-ray copies to give away.

"Tentacles

It's angry. It's hungry. It's extremely well-armed and it's descending on a small seaside town to sample the local cuisine! John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins and Henry Fonda do all they can to keep a giant marine menace from turning their sleepy village into a one-stop snack-shop in this fast-paced thriller! Directed by cult director/producer Ovidio G. Assonitis (Beyond the Door, The Visitor, The Curse), Tentacles is a menacing jolt-a-thon that'll grip you with relentless terror and never let go!

Reptilicus

Discover the true meaning of survival of the fittest, as a terrifying creature from the past brings the future to its knees! Packed with thrills,...

"It slept... until man disturbed it. Then it woke with a fury no man could control." On June 16th, creatures will attack in Scream Factory's double feature Blu-ray of Tentacles and Reptilicus, and we have clips and trailers teasing the upcoming release.

"Tentacles

It's angry. It's hungry. It's extremely well-armed and it's descending on a small seaside town to sample the local cuisine! John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins and Henry Fonda do all they can to keep a giant marine menace from turning their sleepy village into a one-stop snack-shop in this fast-paced thriller! Directed by cult director/producer Ovidio G. Assonitis (Beyond the Door, The Visitor, The Curse), Tentacles is a menacing jolt-a-thon that'll grip you with relentless terror and never let go!

Reptilicus

Discover the true meaning of survival of the fittest, as a terrifying creature from the past brings the future to its knees! Packed with thrills,...

"It slept... until man disturbed it. Then it woke with a fury no man could control." Creatures will rise from the deep to take a bite out of summer vacations (and those taking them) in Scream Factory's double feature Blu-ray of Tentacles and Reptilicus, hitting shelves on June 16th.

Press Release -- "Invincible…Indestructible! Two underwater creature shockers on Blu-ray for the first time! Scream Factory proudly presents the monstrous arrival of Tentacles and Reptilicus in a double feature Blu-ray release on June 16, 2015.

Tentacles

It's angry. It's hungry. It's extremely well-armed and it's descending on a small seaside town to sample the local cuisine! John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins and Henry Fonda do all they can to keep a giant marine menace from turning their sleepy village into a one-stop snack-shop in this fast-paced thriller! Directed by cult director/producer Ovidio G. Assonitis (Beyond the Door, The Visitor, The Curse...

A sci-fi space adventure about a rocket crew journeying to the seventh planet, where they confront a mind-reading alien that forces them to contend with their innermost nightmares; this lounge lizard love song is certainly not the sort of theme song you would expect to kick off such a flick.

Sid Pink’s 1962 Danish-American science fiction extravaganza Journey to the Seventh Planet starred the late, great John Agar as the captain of a five-man international rocket crew exploring the solar system, as the United Nations space program was known for in 2001, the year in which the film takes place. Uranus is the last vestige in our galaxy in need of exploring so off they go on a journey to the seventh planet. What they find is a being that preys on them by getting inside their minds and manifesting their desires and fears, whether it be beautiful women or mutant rat and centipede monsters.

Today’s B-Sides is a true rarity. I’m going to assume most of you monster movie fans out there are familiar with the 1961 giant serpent attacks Denmark movie Reptilicus. Were you aware the original Danish version of the film included a children’s musical number? If you weren’t, you’re about to get educated.

When American International Pictures released Sid Pink’s 1961 Eurokaiju flick Reptilicus in the Us, they chose to edit out a few scenes they didn’t think would go over well with American audiences for some strange reason.

The first was a musical number about a half-hour in when the bumbling janitor that witnesses the rebirth of Reptilicus gathers a group of schoolchildren to regale them with the legend of this giant serpent; a scene that very quickly transforms into a song & prance number with the kids acting as the chorus singing about “chilicus” as...