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Italian Grindhouse fans rejoice! Blu-ray.com has reported that the Bruno Mattei creature feature Rats: Night of Terror is getting a brand new 4K Blu-ray release. The 1984 horror film stars Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, Geretta Geretta, Massimo Vanni, Gianni Franco, and Fausto Lombardi. The Blu-ray and 4K physical releases come from Severin and are scheduled to hit retailers on May 27.

The official synopsis reads,

“Having depicted the zombie apocalypse in Hell Of The Living Dead, director Bruno Mattei and screenwriters Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi took on a new kind of cataclysm to create “a grotesque, funny and thrilling magnum opus” (Daily Dead) that still must be seen to be believed, now in Uhd: In the year 225 A.B. (After The Bomb), a gang of scavengers discovers a seemingly abandoned city – including sets originally built for Once Upon A Time In America – only to become prey for millions of flesh-hungry rats. Ottaviano Dell...

Severin Films, who have released a long lineup of her films, brings us the sad news this week that prolific Italian genre screenwriter Rossella Drudi has passed away at the age of 61.

Horror fans may best know Rossella Drudi as the co-writer of Troll 2, which was one of Drudi’s many collaborations with her husband, Claudio Fragasso. Both Drudi and Fragasso were heavily featured in the documentary Best Worst Movie, which dove deep into the making of Troll 2 as well as explored the film’s legacy as one of the, well, best worst movies ever made.

But Rossella Drudi worked on countless other Italian genre movies throughout her decades-spanning career, writing and co-writing horror films including Hell of the Living Dead, Women’s Prison Massacre, Rats: Night of Terror, Monster Dog, Zombi 3, Robowar, After Death, Beyond Darkness, and The Crawlers, and that list quite frankly goes on and on.

Hello, dear readers! To paraphrase a popular movie, “We’re in the Endgame now,” as Halloween is now merely only a few days away. If you’re looking for some last-minute viewing ideas to get you to the spooky season finish line, we definitely have a great array of choices heading home on Tuesday. The biggest recommendation that I can personally make in regard to perfect Halloween movie experiences is the Wnuf Halloween Special, which is getting a killer Blu-ray release tomorrow. Arrow Films is giving Dario Argento’s Deep Red a 4K upgrade this week, too, and Severin Films is showing love to both An Angel for Satan and Beyond Darkness.

Other releases for October 26th include Don’t Breathe 2, The Amazing Mr. X, Boardinghouse, Eye of the Devil, Skull: The Mask, Frankenstein’s Daughter, and Underworld: Limited Edition 5-Movie Collection.

The Amazing Mr. X: Special Edition

An atmospheric masterpiece,...

Man, Bruno Mattei sure loved making movies. It’s there in every frame he ever shot; his passion for film is responsible for countless classics like…okay classics is such a loaded and pliable word depending on one’s outlook. But he sure made enthusiastic films, eager to please; and most importantly he made movies that he thought audiences would want to see based on what they already loved. Case in point: Robowar (1988), a Predator “homage” mixed with a dash or two of Robocop that ends up being uniquely Italian. And if you think anyone other than Severin Films would gift you a Bruno Blu you need a timeout in the boiling jungles of the Philippines.

Where does one even start? Mattei and his frequent cohort Claudio Fragasso headed to the Philippines to make two films, both from Drudi’s scripts: this one, and After Death (aka Zombie 4) which Fragasso helmed.

A year before their jaw-dropper Shocking Dark, director Bruno Mattei (Violence in a Women's Prison) and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi (Zombie 4) first collaborated on the brain-melting mash-up of Predator, Robocop and a Philippines war movie that is... Robowar!

When a team of badass commandos is hired for a jungle rescue mission, they'll instead find themselves hunted by a kill-crazed creature that is part man, part machine and all glorious '80s ItaloSleaze.

Reb Brown (Uncommon Valor), Catherine Hickland (One Life To Live), Massimo Vanni (Rats:...

If you have even a passing acquaintance with Italian horror, the odds are pretty good that you’ve come across the work of Claudio Fragasso. Like many Italian auteurs, he’s gone by many names; perhaps you know him as Clyde Anderson, director of the Alice Cooper werewolf tale Monster Dog (1984), or Drake Floyd, helmer of the legendary Troll 2 (1990). There’s also his work as a writer on fellow Italian Bruno Mattei’s The Other Hell (’81) and Rats: Night of Terror (’84). But if you’ve been following Severin Films as of late (and for shame if you haven’t), Fragasso has his hands all over their latest trio of Blu-ray releases: Shocking Dark (’89), Zombi 3 (’88), and the one where he slips into the director’s chair again, Zombie 4: After Death (’89), a film light on imagination yet heavy on high octane zombie mowdowns.

Which isn’t to say that After...

I’ve been in love with the work of Italian horror legend Lucio Fulci since the age of ten, when I saw his undead classic Zombie (1979); from the smiling undead VHS box art to the creeping, gory grey dread contained within, I was hooked. That was the movie easy to find at the boom of the video era, as it was a big hit and everyone stocked it; but further success eluded his work on North American shores, and the horror buff had to scrounge and scour to find his releases. (Except for The Gates of Hell; that one did make it over.) Nearly ten years after his biggest hit, he was set to make a triumphant return to gut munching glory. The result? Zombi 3 (1988), a wonderfully batshit half a Fulci lovingly restored by the demented folks at Severin Films, who continue to drag the underseen into the light for seasoned collectors and neophytes alike.

Severin Films do a great service for those of us who aren’t as familiar with the “second tier” Italian horror filmmakers like Bruno Mattei. I just haven’t seen much of his work, but of what I have, The Other Hell (1981) is my favorite. I should say it’s my favorite film of his that borrows from Carrie and The Exorcist; apparently I need to start a new list of faves that are influenced by Aliens and The Terminator, starting with Shocking Dark (1989), a jaw-dropping mush of both that manages to entertain almost as much as either.

Aka Terminator II in certain markets, the term “rip-off” was pretty much perfected by Shocking Dark; but this was neither Mattei or co-screenwriters Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi (Troll 2) fault, but rather producers eager to jump on Cameron’s bandwagon and hijack it before it reached the next station. The writers...

On May 29th, leave your sanity at the door and face the blood-spattered netherworlds of inscrutability that only Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei, and Claudio Fragasso can inflict. Shocking Dark (a.k.a. Terminator 2), Zombie 3 and Zombie 4 are coming to home video from Severin Films with brand new 2k scans that will make your eyeballs explode!

Shocking Dark: For director Bruno Mattei (Violence In A Women’S Prison) and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi (Troll 2), their final – and most notorious – collaboration went beyond brazen plagiarism to become a fearless act of deranged genius: In this bravura rip-off of both Aliens and Terminator, a team of badass marines, a tough female civilian and an orphaned girl battle monster...

More uncut Italian horror is headed to Blu-ray, thanks to Severin Films. Available on May 29th and now available for pre-order, we have release details for Shocking Dark, Zombie 3, and Zombie 4:

Official Press Release: On May 29th, leave your sanity at the door and face the blood-spattered netherworlds of inscrutability that only Lucio Fulci, Bruno Mattei, and Claudio Fragasso can inflict. Shocking Dark (a.k.a. Terminator 2), Zombie 3 and Zombie 4 are coming to home video with brand new 2k scans that will make your eyeballs explode! Shocking Dark: For director Bruno Mattei (Violence In A Women’S Prison) and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi (Troll 2), their final – and most notorious – collaboration went beyond brazen plagiarism to become a fearless act of deranged genius: In this bravura rip-off of both Aliens and Terminator, a team of badass marines, a tough female civilian and an orphaned girl battle monsters...

On Monday, we presented you with the 9 Most Devastatingly Sad Documentaries of All Time, a list that was topped by Dear Zachary. It seems like, whenever we mention Dear Zachary and how devastatingly sad it is, a few people see it as a challenge. They think, "Nooooo. How sad can it really be?"

It's not a challenge you will win, folks. Dear Zachary will pummel you every single time. But, if you're recently watched it, or for another reason feel as though the world has stacked its deck against you, we've got you covered. Choose one or more among these 9 documentaries, and the air that life knocked out of you will re-enter and flow through your lungs again. Or at least, put a smile on your face and a lump in your throat.

9. Paper Heart: Finally the hipsters have gone full circle and consumed themselves like an ouroborus recycled from an old Pac-Man t-shirt.

It was a year where documentary blurred the line and smashed the U.S. government's policies on everything like a terrible toddler tempestuously trouncing a trainset. Most of these films are actually acts of fiction, and a few are Warholian examples of installation art. There were plenty of genuine marvels that didn't even make the list: Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, which actually pulled off what Sofia Coppola thought she was doing in Somewhere; the madcapped mashup of Intervention and "So You Think You Can Dance" and Jerry Springer that was The Wild Wonderful Whites of West Virginia; the delighfully delusional serious mockumentary stylings of Blood Into Wine about Tool/Puscifer/A Perfect Circle frontman Maynard James Keenan's quest to bottle fine wines. Not to mention smaller and important efforts like Barbershop Punk, which takes on net neutrality, or the fantastic Lemmy, which will get a release in this coming year.

Troll 2 Directed by: Claudio Fragasso Written by: Rossella Drudi and Claudio Fragasso Starring: George Hardy, Michael Paul Stephenson, Robert Ormsby, Margo Prey, Connie Young I took my first trip to Nilbog just a few years ago, when my friends Katie, Nuno and Erin hosted a Halloween party that included Troll 2 as the main event. At the time, I thought they might be somewhat unique in their undying love for this movie, and I wasn't completely aware of its reputation or rabid fanbase. I knew only that it was a strange, mostly forgotten b-movie that fell under the category of "so bad it's good". Needless to say, after one watch it became very clear why people are so obsessed with this film, and now, thanks to actor Michael Paul Stephenson's wonderful documentary Best Worst Movie, Troll 2 and the story behind its production have since become the stuff of legend.

We bitch about them all the time, but there’s really something kind of special about a bad movie — unlike books, and to a far greater extent than most pieces of music, a bad movie requires the involvement of a great number of people, most of them passionate believers in the doomed project at hand. A movie that’s only crappy will just bore you, but a really bad one can take you outside of your skin for 90 minutes and make you re-examine the way you look at the world. How can so many people go so wrong? Is art real? What does “talent” mean?

These are the kinds of questions posed by the very worst movies, and according to a not inconsiderable number of people, the worst of them all is 1990’s Troll 2. It’s difficult to describe the motion picture misery that is Troll 2, but some...

The first Troll film concerned the magical adventures of a teenager named Harry Potter. The second, according to a new documentary, is the Best Worst Movie ever made. And no one seems sure if there even was a third movie. In this special report EW examines the twisted, crazy, and frequently so-bad-it's-hilarious world of... Troll! Next: “I don’t think Troll 2 is the worst movie of all-time. I think Transformers 2 is the worst movie of all time.” On a beautiful Brooklyn evening last July, Michael Paul Stephenson took part in a question-and-answer session following an outdoor screening of the 1990 horror movie Troll 2.

When you try to explain what Best Worst Movie is about to anyone, even a lot of film fans, you're likely to receive a blank stare or a confused line of questioning. So it's a documentary about bad movies? How can it just be about Troll 2? Why would anyone make a documentary about Troll 2, a movie that few have seen except in some late night cable fever dream? My own attempts at explaining it were pretty lame: Well, because it's funny, and because Troll 2 has a cult following thanks to the Internet, the Alamo Drafthouse, and IMDb forums. People really, really love to laugh at this movie. It's just really funny, and the documentary explores the fandom, and the poor people behind Troll 2, and ... never mind.

But you shouldn't say "never mind" about Best Worst Movie. Yes, this is a documentary about Troll 2. You'll learn...

What’s the difference between a typical bad movie and a Best Worst Movie? That’s the question explored by Michael Stephenson’s highly entertaining new documentary, in which he examines the experience of being part of Troll 2—both during its shooting and in the wake of its years-later cult rediscovery. Having just played Montreal’s Fantasia Festival , Best Worst has its New York premiere tonight in Brooklyn courtesy of Rooftop Films.

Directed and written by husband-and-wife Italian filmmakers Claudio Fragasso and Rossella Drudi respectively (both credited on screen as “Drako Floyd”), Troll 2 didn’t make much of a ripple when it first hit U.S. video in 1992, and the few scathing reviews it did receive (including my own for The Motion Picture Guide, later migrated to TVGuide.com; click here if you’d like to check it out) didn’t appreciate its unique, mind-boggling and attention-grabbing weirdness.

Every year in Toronto, the Hot Docs Film Festival [1] manages to assemble an exciting assortment of top-notch documentary films from around the world. This year was certainly no different, and a number of the movies have already picked up distribution deals and are well on their way to gaining mainstream attention. However, there are always plenty of diamonds in the rough as well, amazing films that sadly may never find the audience they deserve. So which upcoming documentaries are hits and which are near-misses? Read on for our full report from the 2009 Hot Docs Festival! Best Worst Movie When he was 11 years old, Michael Paul Stephenson was cast in a low budget horror movie called Troll 2. He, along with many of the other actors, thought that it would be their ticket to big time acting careers, but were shocked to find out afterward that the final product was a complete disaster.