News

Scream Factory‘s October home video line-up includes 4K editions of End of Days, Black Sunday, and Nosferatu the Vampyre.

End of Days will be released on 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray on October 7.

The 1999 action-horror film is directed by Peter Hyams (Timecop) and written by Andrew W. Marlowe (Hollow Man).

Disc 1 – 4K Uhd:

4K Scan From The Original Camera Negative Approved By Director/Cinematographer Peter Hyams (new) Presented In Dolby Vision Audio: DTS-hd Master Audio 5.1 Surround, DTS-hd Master Audio 2.0 Stereo Audio Commentary With Director/Cinematographer Peter Hyams

Disc 2 – Blu-ray:

4K Scan From The Original Camera Negative Approved By Director/Cinematographer Peter Hyams (new) Audio: DTS-hd Master Audio 5.1 Surround, DTS-hd Master Audio 2.0 Stereo Audio Commentary With Director/Cinematographer Peter Hyams “One Hell Of A Time: Peter Hyams At Universal” – Interview With Director/Cinematographer Peter Hyams (new) “You Will Bear Witness: Writing End Of Days” – Interview With Screenwriter Andrew W. Marlowe (new...

Giuliano Montaldo, the admired Italian filmmaker who wrote and directed Sacco & Vanzetti, the John Cassavetes-starring Machine Gun McCain and every episode of the big-budget 1982 miniseries Marco Polo, has died. He was 93.

Montaldo died Wednesday at his home in Rome, his family announced.

His big-screen résumé also included The Reckless (1965), starring Renato Salvatori; Grand Slam (1967), starring Janet Leigh; Giordano Bruno (1973), starring Gian Maria Volonté and Charlotte Rampling; And Agnes Chose to Die (1976), starring Ingrid Thulin; and The Gold Rimmed Glasses (1987), starring Philippe Noiret, Rupert Everett, Stefania Sandrelli and Valeria Golino.

Of the 20 films Montaldo helmed, 16 were set to music by Ennio Morricone; no other director collaborated with the famed composer more.

Montaldo also served as president of Italy’s Rai Cinema from 1999-2004.

Montaldo’s gangster tale Machine Gun McCain (1969), which also starred Britt Ekland, Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk, and Sacco & Vanzetti (1971), about the Massachusetts trial and 1927 execution of...

Fritz Lang’s final feature brings his career full circle to the core thriller concepts he pioneered back in 1922: superstitious human nature and sinister technological advances combine to make the 20th century an Age of Terror. Lang reboots his highly cinematic Weimar-era narrative tricks for a film that heralds the beginning of a brave new world where total surveillance and mind control are at the service of paranoid conspiracies. I could talk for hours about the directing/editing in this show — it’s so sophisticated, and yet so simple.

The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

Region B Blu-ray

Eureka Entertainment/Masters of Cinema

1960 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 103 min. / Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse / Street Date May 11, 2020 / £ 15.99

Starring: Dawn Addams, Peter van Eyck, Gert Fröbe, Wolfgang Preiss, Lupo Prezzo, Werner Peters, Andrea Checchi, Marielouise Nagel, Reinhard Kolldehoff, Howard Vernon, Nico Pepe, Jean-Jacques Delbo, Christiane Maybach.

Cinematography: Karl Löb

Film Editors: Walter Wischniewsky,...

Fritz Lang’s final feature is a mind-blowing culmination of the core thriller concepts he pioneered back in 1922: superstitious human nature and sinister technological advances combine to make the 20th century an Age of Terror. Lang reboots his highly cinematic Weimar-era narrative tricks for a film that heralds the beginning of a brave new world where total surveillance and mind control are at the service of paranoid conspiracies. I could talk for hours about the directing/editing in this show — it’s so sophisticated, and yet so simple.

The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse

Region B Blu-ray

Eureka Entertainment/Masters of Cinema

1960 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 103 min. / Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse / Street Date May 11, 2020 / £ 15.99

Starring: Dawn Addams, Peter van Eyck, Gert Fröbe, Wolfgang Preiss, Lupo Prezzo, Werner Peters, Andrea Checchi, Marielouise Nagel, Reinhard Kolldehoff, Howard Vernon, Nico Pepe, Jean-Jacques Delbo, Christiane Maybach.

Cinematography: Karl Löb

Film Editors: Walter Wischniewsky,...

“And On The Eighth Day Bava Created Color.” That’s my sentiment with every new quality restoration of a Mario Bava picture. This amazing new disc of Il Maestro’s teeth-clenched Viking epic delivers stunning action scenes and eye-bending widescreen fantasy visuals. Arrow’s Blu-ray is spiked with a new Tim Lucas commentary.

Erik the Conqueror

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1961 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (Dyaliscope) / 90 min. / Street Date August 29, 2017 / Available from Arrow Video / 39.95

Starring: Cameron Mitchell, Alice & Ellen Kessler, George Ardisson, Andrea Checchi, Françoise Christophe, Raf Baldassarre, Joe Robinson, Folco Lulli.

Cinematography: Mario Bava, Ubaldo Terzano

Film Editor: Mario Serandrei

Original Music: Roberto Nicolosi

Written by Oreste Biancoli, Mario Bava

Produced by Ferruccio De Martino

Directed by Mario Bava

Far too good to be slammed as a mere imitation of Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings, Mario Bava’s exciting Erik the Conqueror is one of the best of the Italian-made...

Writer-director Elio Petri scores big in his first feature, the story of a heel suspected of murder. Is he a killer, or just an average guy trying to get ahead, who uses women to his advantage? Marcello Mastroianni impresses as well in a serious role, with Salvo Randone shining as the police inspector trying to pry a confession from him. Beautifully restored in HD; the show is from a time when Italian film was at its zenith.

The Assassin

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1961 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / L’Assassino / Available from Arrow Video

Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Micheline Presle, Cristina Gaioni, Salvo Randone, Andrea Checchi, Francesco Grandjacquet, Marco Mariani, Franco Ressel.

Cinematography: Carlo Di Palma

Film Editor: Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music: Piero Piccione

Written by Tonino (Antonio) Guerra, Elio Petri, Pasquale Fest Campanile, Massimo Franciosa

Produced by Franco Cristaldi

Directed by Elio Petri

Fans of Elio Petri...

Top 100 horror movies of all time: Chicago Film Critics' choices (photo: Sigourney Weaver and Alien creature show us that life is less horrific if you don't hold grudges) See previous post: A look at the Chicago Film Critics Association's Scariest Movies Ever Made. Below is the list of the Chicago Film Critics's Top 100 Horror Movies of All Time, including their directors and key cast members. Note: this list was first published in October 2006. (See also: Fay Wray, Lee Patrick, and Mary Philbin among the "Top Ten Scream Queens.") 1. Psycho (1960) Alfred Hitchcock; with Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, Martin Balsam. 2. The Exorcist (1973) William Friedkin; with Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydow (and the voice of Mercedes McCambridge). 3. Halloween (1978) John Carpenter; with Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Tony Moran. 4. Alien (1979) Ridley Scott; with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt. 5. Night of the Living Dead (1968) George A. Romero; with Marilyn Eastman,...

Stars: Marcello Mastroianni, Michelle Presle, Salvo Randone, Cristina Gaioni, Andrea Checchi, Francesco Grandjacquet, Marco Mariani, Franco Ressel | Written by Elio Petri, Tonino Guerra | Directed by Elio Petri

When I think of the Italian film industry I often think of horror and the so-called Spaghetti Westerns but in fact the industry is bigger and far more impressive than that. In the sixties there was a golden era of film making, true to form Arrow Films under its Arrow Academy banner have released one of the most noteworthy movies of that time withL’Assassino.

L’Assassino is the tale of Alfredo Martelli (Mastroianni) a playboy antiques dealer arrested under suspicion of murder of his older lover Adalgisa (Presle). Protesting his innocence to the police his please fall on deaf ears as they increase the pressure on him to confess, convinced without a shadow of a doubt that he is the killer.

Even...

Black Sunday

Stars: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Andrea Checchi, Ivo Garrani, Arturo Dominici, Enrico Olivieri | Written by Ennio De Concini, Mario Serandrei | Directed by Mario Bava

There is something about classic horror, especially those films that were said to have inspired other directors. There are some films though that almost have a legendary role in the genre and although you’ve not seen them you know them by the name. For many people this is the case with Mario Bava’s Black Sunday. Originally released in the sixties and banned in the United Kingdom it is arguably one of the most important films in horror history and is said to be the inspiration to gothically inclined directors such as Tim Burton. Now that Arrow Video have given it a deluxe release in its uncut form we can see what level of genius the film truly is.

Starting with a warning...

The Italian master's challenging and difficult L'Avventura was booed at its premiere in Cannes. But nowadays the director gets something far more hurtful: indifference

This is the centenary year of Michelangelo Antonioni. He was born on 29 September 1912 and died in 2007 at the age of 94, having worked until almost the very end. As well as everything else, he gave us one of the founding myths of postwar cinema: The Booing of L'Avventura. For film historians, it's as pretty much important as the audience riots at the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

At the Cannes film festival on 15 May 1960, Antonioni presented his L'Avventura, a challenging and difficult film and a decisive break from his earlier work, replete with languorous spaces and silences. This was movie-modernism's difficult birth. The film was jeered so ferociously, so deafeningly, that poor Antonioni and his beautiful star Monica Vitti burst into tears where they sat. There...

Le Signora Senza Camelie (aka The Lady Without Camelias) is about Clara Manni (Lucia Bose), a young woman form Milan who has come to Rome to become a movie star. Already appearing in a smaller film, film patrons have already been impressed with her good looks and elegant style but when it comes to the film industry itself, they don’t think she has the chops to truly be one of the greats. Ercole (Gino Cervi), a director, has hired Clara for his newest film, one that has many lovemaking scenes and she is to be in the middle of them. Enter the producer, Gianni Franchi (Andrea Checchi), who isn’t too happy with that because he has planned to marry her and doesn’t want her on the big screen bedding men left and right.

The filming ultimately stops because Clara moves in with Gianni and doesn’t want...

A pair of recent releases from the always dependable Eureka imprint Masters of Cinema (re)introduce us to the 50s work of Michelangelo Antonioni, a filmmaker usually most closely associated with the 60s. The first is La Signora Senza Camelie, the behind the scenes tale of the rise and fall of an Italian actress, and the second is Le Amiche, an ensemble drama centred on a group of female friends in Turin.

La Signora Senza Camelie opens at night in Rome and Clara, played by the intoxicating Lucia Bose, is walking away, framed as a distant figure moving through the streets. She pauses before slowly entering a cinema which is playing host to the première of a musical melodrama of which she is the star. The screen is filled with Clara’s face, the close up on screen directly contrasting the lone figure we have just seen wandering towards the première.

Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1953 film, La Signora Senza Camelie (The Woman Without Camelias), tells the tale of a young actress who struggles against the overbearing men in her life and the confusion that arises from the direction her career takes.

Clara Manni (Lucia Bosè) is a young Milanese shop worker plucked from obscurity to work in pictures by an impulsive producer who also asks her to marry him when she’s at her most vulnerable. Gianni Franchi (Andrea Checchi), her svengali-husband, suddenly turns into a control freak and only wants his wife to make classy movies. At the Venice Film Festival, where her latest film is screened, she meets a diplomat (Ivan Desny) and embarks on an affair believing she has sacrificed everything for “true love”.

Along with Antonioni’s 1955 Le Amiche (read the review here) La Signora Senza Camilie gets a digital polish and transfer on Blu-ray and DVD (both...