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By Todd Garbarini

Scream Factory continues their winning streak of releasing horror film favorites with their double feature Blu-ray release of 1988’s Bad Dreams and 1982’s Visiting Hours. They originally released these films together on DVD in September 2011.

Bad Dreams opened on Friday, April 8, 1988 and is, in hindsight, eerily prescient of David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidian religious sect who met a horrific end when the FBI closed in on him and his compound ignited into a conflagration on April 19, 1993 in Waco, TX. Jim Jones and the Jonestown deaths in 1978 also come to mind. In this film, the late Richard Lynch plays a cult leader named Harris who convinces a group of people that love and unity are the only ways to live, and he shows that love by dousing them all in gasoline and lighting them on fire. Jennifer Rubin plays Cynthia, a confused and reluctant holdout...

Once again 2012 saw the passing of another cult favorite with the death of one of the exploitation cinema’s greatest villains. On 19 June 2012, the versatile and highly underrated Richard Lynch was found dead at his home in Yucca Valley, California by his good friend, actress Carol Vogel. She had not heard from him for several days and turned up at his home only to find his front door ajar and the actor’s body in the kitchen.

The death of Richard Lynch marked an end to a career that many fans felt should have been a lot better. After a promising start in films following extensive theatre training, Lynch never achieved the major success he deserved. It was a big shame because had real screen presence. He always brought a raw and dangerous edge to his many cinema and TV roles, that was made all the more powerful by his handsome,...

His scarred countenance was the result of setting himself on fire during a late ’60s acid trip, but that disfigured look led to a ton of villain roles in a career that spanned four decades and over 100 films. I first took notice of Richard Lynch in the 1972 film Scarecrow when he played a scary prisoner who rapes Al Pacino. It was his first film and after that he almost always played bad guys in movies such as The Seven-ups, Open Season, God Told Me To, Deathsport, and The Ninth Configuration. He battled Chuck Norris as the head baddie in Invasion USA and attempted his own Freddy Kruger spin-off in 1988 starring in Bad Dreams. His performance as the evil “King Cromwell” in the hit fantasy film The Sword And The Sorceror won Lynch the Saturn Award for Best Actor from the Academy of Science Fiction and Fantasy in 1982. In 2007 he was...

Below you will see a rating for Easy Rider: The Ride Back, a film from Pan America Pictures that I had not heard of, but checked out and based on the official site it's described as a "long awaited" prequel to the Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson classic Easy Rider and apparently "shows through flashbacks how these much loved characters became the classic icons of a generation."

The film is directed by Dustin Rikert and stars a bunch of people I've never heard of such as Chris Engen, Michelle Borth, Thomas Blankenship and Newell Alexander. Oh, and Jeff Fahey (Grindhouse), I've heard of him. You can watch the trailer just to the right if you are so inclined.

Other than that note, here are the new MPAA ratings from Bulletin No: 2135.

Bran Nue Dae Rated PG-13 For sexual content and drug use. Catfish Rated PG-13 For some sexual references.