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Long out-of-print cult classic Freaked will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on November 5 via Australia’s Umbella Entertainment in collaboration with Drafthouse Films.

The 1993 black comedy has been newly restored in 4K with Dolby Vision and 5.1 surround sound and 2.0 stereo audio options.

In addition to the theatrical cut, the three-disc set includes a previously unreleased workprint along with a rehearsal version of the film.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure star Alex Winter co-directs with Tom Stern (The Idiot Box) from a script they wrote with Tim Burns (An American Werewolf in Paris).

Special features:

2004 Audio Commentary with Writers/Directors Tom Stern & Alex Winter (new) Workprint Alternate Cut (new) The Rehearsal Version Alternate Cut The Night’s Special Guest – Co-Director/Writer & Actor Alex Winter on Freaked (new) Very Special People – Co-Director/Writer Tom Stern and Writer Tim Burns on Freaked (new) The Glass Cyclops – Cinematographer Jamie Thompson and Camera...

Long out-of-print cult classic Freaked is receiving a 4K restoration with Dolby Vision from Drafthouse Films and Umbrella Entertainment.

Collider reveals that the 1993 black comedy will be available on digital platforms as well as special edition 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray this fall.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure star Alex Winter co-directs with Tom Stern from a script they wrote with Tim Burns (An American Werewolf in Paris).

New special features will include never-before-seen behind-the-scenes footage, restored deleted scenes, and interviews with Winter, Stern, Burns, The Butthole Surfers guitarist Paul Leary, production designer Catherine Hardwicke, cinematographer Jamie Thompson, special effects artist Bill Corso, and more.

“We are thrilled to see Freaked roaring back to life with Drafthouse Films and Umbrella, in a glorious, full restoration,” said Winter. “It’s been a long time coming and well worth the wait!”

“Freaked holds a special place in the hearts of the film nerds at Drafthouse Films,...

Just four years after he and Keanu Reevesbecame '80s icons with Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Alex Winterteamed up with frequent collaborator Tom Stern to write and direct a '90s cult classic — Freaked. Winter worked both in front of and behind the camera as co-director for the project, creating a darkly-comedic creature feature packed with gnarly and imaginative practical effects, gross-out humor aplenty, and a colorful aesthetic that stands out from its contemporaries. The bizarre B-movie mash-up evoking everything from Pee-wee's Playhouse to H.P. Lovecraft landed with a critical thud in 1993, but time has earned it new life with cinephiles, as evident by its 66% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. Now, Collider is excited to share that the film is finally getting the 4K restoration it needed courtesy of Drafthouse Films.

Freaked is coming home this fall with a release on digital platforms as well as a special edition...

Alex Winter's and Tom Stern's bizonkers comedy film "Freaked" opened to almost no fanfare in October of 1993. Made for a budget of $12 million, it earned a paltry $29,000 at the box office before slipping into the deepest crevices of obscurity, seemingly forever. Luckily, the film was eventually rediscovered by enterprising weirdoes on VHS, and its cult began to grow. By the late 2000s, "Freaked" had been salvaged, making regular appearances on the midnight movie circuit. These days, it is deeply beloved by about as wide an audience as it will ever attract. It was never going to be mainstream; it's too wild and weird for that. And, frankly, thank the Lord. 

"Freaked" is about a former child star named Ricky Coogan (Winter) who takes a lucrative financial deal to promote an environmentally dangerous fertilizer in the Central American nation of Santa Flan. While there, he, his friend Ernie (Michael Stoyanov...

The Mad Max franchise nearly had a brilliant villain twist 44 years ago, and its next movie needs to finally do it properly. The next Mad Max movie, Mad Max: The Wasteland, had a very bumpy development. Tom Hardy, who played Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road, has given both discouraging and hopeful quotes about the film at different times, despite the fact that Hardy may be recast for The Wasteland. The franchise has also had some trouble due to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga's low box office earnings, so it's not clear if the series will continue at all.

If The Wasteland ever does get off the ground, though, it already has a perfect plot twist that's been waiting for over four decades to be used. There have been plenty of great villains in Mad Max over the years, and it's almost hard to imagine them getting any better.

Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) put Johnny the Boy (Tim Burns) in a very tough situation at the end of Mad Max, but the film didn't actually show him dying, so it's not entirely clear if he survived. The main Mad Max villains aren't the only antagonists in the Wasteland. Each of them also had minions and followers who were just as vile as their leaders, and Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) had Johnny the Boy. Most of Max's enemies don't live long, but there's a chance that Johnny the Boy may be one of the few to do it, thanks to his ambiguous ending in Mad Max.

At the end of Mad Max, after he's killed Toecutter, Max finds Johnny the Boy looting the corpse of a man he presumably ran off the road. Max then handcuffed his leg to the undercarriage of the upturned car and rigged a makeshift bomb out of the leaking gasoline.

‘Love Lies Bleeding’ es la segunda película más nominada. © Elástica Films | Filmin | DeAPlaneta

Ya se conocen los nominados a los Premios BIFA (British Independent Film Awards). Estos premios son unos galardones cinematográficos que se otorgan en el Reino Unido para destacar y honrar las películas independientes británicas. Los ganadores de los premios BIFA 2024 se darán a conocer el 8 de diciembre. Aquí os dejamos con la lista de los nominados de esta edición:

Mejor PELÍCULA Independiente BRITÁNICA

Kneecap

Love Lies Bleeding

On Becoming Guinea Fowl

The Outrun

Santosh

Mejor PELÍCULA Independiente Internacional

All We Imagine as Light

Anora

La Chimera

No Other Land

The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Mejor DIRECCIÓN

Andrea Arnold, Bird

Nora Fingscheidt, The Outrun

Rose Glass, Love Lies Bleeding

Rungano Nyoni, On Becoming A Guinea Fowl

Rich Peppiatt, Kneecap

Mejor Guion

Nora Fingscheidt & Amy Liptrot, The Outrun

Rose Glass & Weronika Tofilska, Love Lies Bleeding

Rungano Nyoni, On Becoming A Guinea Fowl...

Former Hells Angel Pat Matter criticizes Mad Max for its unrealistic portrayal of biker gangs, giving the scene a 2/10 for realism. The film's setting in a dystopian future justifies the gang's behavior, unique to other media reviewed by Matter. Mad Max's exaggerated depiction fits its post-apocalyptic world, and is still highly acclaimed by critics and audiences.

The original Mad Max movie provides a poor depiction of biker gangs and violence, according to a former Hells Angel. Released in 1979, the first film in George Miller's Mad Max franchise introduced Mel Gibson as the titular Mad Max Rockatansky, a police officer turned vigilante who sets out to stop a violent motorcycle gang. Other than Gibson in the lead role, the cast also includes Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne (who later played Immortan Joe in Fury Road), Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, and Roger Ward.

In a video from Insider, a former Hells Angels chapter president,...

Max Rockatansky rarely speaks throughout the Mad Max franchise, and he's gotten quieter in recent years. Director George Miller believes minimal dialogue helps audiences focus on action, and Max's quiet nature helps with that. Max has never had more than 90 lines of dialogue in any of the five Mad Max films.

Though he appeared in five separate Mad Max movies, Max Rockatansky didn't actually have many lines of dialogue. Over the franchise's 45-year history, several different actors have played Max Rockatansky. Each of them, from the main stars to stunt doubles and voice actors, have added something unique to the character, but they all share something in common. Even Mel Gibson and Tom Hardy have been very quiet during their time as Max, mainly because Max has so few lines of dialogue over the course of five films.

George Miller, the director of all five movies in the Mad Max franchise,...

This article contains spoilers for "Furiosa."

Even though there are currently only five films within the "Mad Max" saga, the movies span an impressive number of decades, from the late 1970s to 2024. Naturally, there has been quite an evolution within cinema during that time, both for the medium itself as well as for the saga's director, George Miller. At age 79, Miller shows no interest in settling into any rigid stylistic groove.

As times have changed, so has the look and feel of the "Mad Max" films, and one could make the case that each successive installment of the series has expanded in ambition and scope concurrent with most long-running film franchises. With the second film, "Mad Max 2," and the fourth, "Fury Road," being (as of now) the most popular and influential installments of the saga, there's never been any real call to do what so many less successful franchises tend to do,...

1979’s Mad Max features a real gang of outlaw bikers, one that struck just as terrifying an image in real life as they did in the film. Mad Max was the micro-budgeted directorial debut of George Miller, an Australian doctor who wanted to try his hand at filmmaking. Set in Australia in the midst of societal collapse from oil shortages, the movie follows a highway cop who embarks on a revenge mission after a biker gang attacks his family. Mad Max, which was filmed in Victoria, Australia, was partly inspired by the ongoing oil crisis. The apocalyptic release also drew from Miller’s own emergency room experiences with motorcycle injuries.

Miller and his team made numerous risky choices in order to get the low-budget Mad Max made. Many of these bold decisions enhance the gritty immediacy of the apocalyptic film. One such choice involved the hiring of real motorcycle gangs to work on the movie.

The Mad Max movie franchise, first created by George Miller and Byron Kennedy in 1979 with the initial movie of the same name, became a media sensation. The film series is set in post-apocalyptic Australia and follows the titular character Max Rockatansky (portrayed by Mel Gibson in 3 films) into action-packed adventures.

Later on, Tom Hardy took over as Max for 2015’s fourth installment – “Mad Max: Fury Road.”

The series chronicles the thrilling escapades of Rockatansky, a police officer in a dystopian Australia facing social disintegration due to war and depleting resources. Grief-stricken and enraged by the biker gang’s murder of his wife and child, Max embarks on a quest for vengeance.

As Australia rapidly plunges into barbarity with each passing day, he finds himself assisting small pockets of civilization – initially driven by self-interest but eventually out of compassion. Alone in the Wasteland, Max is determined to make that responsible pay for their heinous deed.

We’re wrapping this week up with a new episode of the Wtf Happened to This Horror Movie? video series, and with this one we’re looking back at one of the most maligned sequels ever made: the 1997 release An American Werewolf in Paris (watch it Here). How did this follow-up to An American Werewolf in London go so wrong? Watch the video embedded above to find out!

Directed by Mute Witness‘s Anthony Waller, who also wrote the screenplay with Tim Burns and Tom Stern, An American Werewolf in Paris has the following synopsis: A group of carousing American tourists is taking in the cultural landmarks of Paris when a chance encounter results in sightseer Andy McDermott saving the life of Parisian Serafine Pigot. While on a date at a nightclub with Serafine, Andy is suddenly attacked and bitten by a werewolf. The next day he discovers that Serafine is also a lycanthrope,...

The true breakdown of society appears to have begun in Australia around 1979, when George Miller made this berserk extrapolation of every toxic futurist prediction on the books. Out on the open road the only thing saving society from horrifying motorized gang violence is a corps of equally crazed patrolmen in their interceptor vehicles. With this picture Mel Gibson went from zero to ninety on the star-meters, even though U.S. distribution fell to the failing American International Pictures. Kino gathers up the best existing extras, and includes audio mixes in two separate languages — incomprehensible Australian and marginally understandable Australian. With the non-stop action on screen, who cares?

Mad Max

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1979 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date November 24, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, Roger Ward, Lisa Aldenhoven, David Bracks, Bertrand Cadart.

Cinematography: David Eggby

Film Editor: Cliff Hayes,...

Set in the near future, Mad Max portrays a dystopia on the brink of total collapse. Biker gangs do as they please and the "Halls of Justice" are quite literally crumbling. Yet, small pockets of a peaceful society still exist. People still go to restaurants and nightclubs and an attempt at order, of a sort, is maintained by the Main Force Patrol (Mfp), though the line between good and bad is slowly beginning to blur. Working with a tiny budget, director and co-writer George Miller uses the open road as his visual effect, bringing the action as close to the asphalt as we can get. Tires screech and eyes bug out of their head as a story of a society on the verge of being overrun by savages evolves into a story of revenge as the film's title character slowly earns his nickname. With a mixture of chaos, soon-to-be memorable moments of iconography and comedy,...

“The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It’d take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you’re lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go!”

So jazzed about Mad Max Fury Road you’re having trouble sleeping? Can’t wait until the 15th? Would a midnight screen of the original Mad Max from 1979 hold you over? Unless you got a pass to this week’s screening of Mmfr, it’s gonna have to! Mad Max will be playing midnights this Friday and Saturday night (may 8th and 9th) at The Tivoli as part of their ‘Reel Late at The Tivoli’ midnight series and I will be there handing out some Mad Max Fury Road schwag (I’m not sure what it is exactly yet but I think it will be T-Shirts and hats)

Director George Miller’s Mad Max, with...

Originally announced by Scream Factory at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con, the Mad Max Collector’s Edition Blu-ray will give viewers an upgraded look at George Miller’s classic first installment of the influential post apocalyptic franchise. Though the special features have yet to be revealed, the release’s cover art and official street date have now been unveiled, with this one fittingly slated to hit shelves ten days before Mad Max: Fury Road roars into theaters.

From Scream Factory: “We’re really excited about our upcoming blu-ray release of the original Mad Max film and now can finally give you some details on it ever since we announced the title way back in July. We appreciate your patience and hope the wait will have been worth it!

– The incredible newly-commissioned artwork you see here (from artist Paul Shipper) is final and approved. (Purists take note: The original theatrical...

Mad Max, the sci-fi franchise that introduced Mel Gibson to the world, will come together for the first time as a Blu-ray collection when Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (Wbhe) debuts The Mad Max Trilogy on June 4th.

The three films - Mad Max (1979), Mad Max Road Warrior (1982) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) - are all set in the near-future in Australia. From the very first film, Oscar winner George Miller (Happy Feet, 2006) proved a master at creating the gritty, bleak dystopian world and staging the incredible car stunts and crashes in the era when stuntmen, not computers, achieved the effects. All three movies starred Mel Gibson, virtually unknown until after the second film, as Max Rockatansky, a highway cop traveling through the Outback in a society descending into chaos. The films started Gibson on his road to international superstardom, led to his signature Lethal Weapon series, and later two Academy...

Writer / director George Miller (Happy Feet 2) claims that he'll be starting production on the long awaited the Mad Max sequels this January. He's planning to shoot not one, but two back-to-back movies which have been titled, Mad Max: Fury Road and Mad Max: Furiosa. Today, Australia's Daily Telegraph got an update from Miller himself.

"We've built the vehicles. We've designed the movie. The principal cast is locked in. The film is funded. It has been for 18 months now. It's all ready to go. We just wait."

The delay in production is due to the unpredictable rain has temporarily ruined the desert environment of the Australian outback.

"The week we were to start, it rained the heaviest it had in 10 years. I'll never forget the first day -- we were holed up in a big sort of shed watching the rain. We couldn't shoot. If you want the rain to come,...

Just as talking about the second most important thing to ever happen in Pearl Harbor seems kind of irrelevant, watching the original Mad Max after you’ve seen The Road Warrior can’t help but seem a little underwhelming. It’s not that the film is bad, or even not enjoyable, but it’s hard to come up with an aspect of story, character, or just plain cinematic gusto that Max accomplishes in a way that in any way compares to Warrior. Watching it, however, does enrich the experience of Warrior, serving as an effective (and more human) prologue that allows you to better know (as well as feel) just why Max is so Mad in the first place.

The Australia of the future is a right-wing dystopian nightmare: motorcycle gangs ran rampant across the countryside, terrorizing innocent people, and law enforcement is more or less powerless to stop them,...

Mad Max will make its high-definition debut on the Blu-ray format on October 5 and you just know we have to celebrate this apocalyptic classic's release. We have a brand new contest lined up and we're giving away copies of this brand new Bd disc to our readers. These discs will surely go fast, so be sure and enter this contest today.

Winners Receive:

Mad Max Blu-ray

Here's How To Win!

Just "Like" (fan) the MovieWeb Facebook page (below) and then leave a comment below telling us why these prizes must be yours!

If you already "Like" MovieWeb, just leave a comment below telling us why these prizes must be yours!

In the ravaged near future, a savage motorcycle gang rules the road. Terrorizing innocent civilians while tearing up the streets, the ruthless gang laughs in the face of a police force hell-bent on stopping them. But they underestimate one officer:...

George Miller's classic film Mad Max will finally be released in the Blu-ray format on October 5. This new high-def disc will be priced at $24.99 Srp and will come with both a Bd disc and standard DVD disc as well. You can take a look at the cover art and special features below. The film stars Mel Gibson in his star-making role as Max Rockatansky, along with Hugh Keays-Byrne, Joanne Samuel and Steve Bisley.

In the ravaged near future, a savage motorcycle gang rules the road. Terrorizing innocent civilians while tearing up the streets, the ruthless gang laughs in the face of a police force hell-bent on stopping them. But they underestimate one officer: Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). And when the bikers brutalize Max's best friend and family, they send him into a mad frenzy that leaves him seeking revenge, which is the only thing left in the world for Max to live for.