Spooky Season 2018 has arrived and Arrow Video has a new releases bound to scare up a few screams and serve up a night of frozen treats. Plus you get a chance to see a bonus feature I made in 2001. First up are two ape related movies. Twelve Monkeys was Terry Gilliam’s remake of the classic French time travelling science fiction film Le Jetee. In the new version Bruce Willis has to go back from a destroyed future to change the past that involves Brad Pitt. Schlock was John Landis’ first feature film about a missing link rising from a cave and killing hundreds of people in a small California town. It’s a comedy that lays the groundwork for his style best seen in Animal House and The Blues Brothers. A big thrill is that the bonus feature “Bob Collins Remembers” is directed by me. It took 17 years to get it matched up with a home video release. Please watch.
Giallo and Gelato night is back with Sergio Martino’s Torso. The man behind Your Vice Is A Locked Room and Only I Have the Key has college girls being murdered by a pervert. It’s a three scoops of gelato on the thrill meter kinda flick. Deadbeat at Dawn is a gruesome tales of gang violence and revenge. Distant Voices, Still Lives is an amazing slice of English life from director Terence Davies. This is truly an art house film.
Here’s the press release from Arrow Video:
New from Arrow Video US and Arrow Academy US
TWELVE MONKEYS (10/30) [Blu-ray]
TORSO (10/30) [Blu-ray]
SCHLOCK (10/16) [Blu-ray]
DEADBEAT AT DAWN (10/23) [Blu-ray]
DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES (10/23) [Blu-ray]
via MVD Entertainment Group
This October Arrow is All Treats, No Tricks!
We have officially entered fall which means it’s finally time to get those Halloween decorations up to the scare the neighbors and enjoy pumpkin spice variations of your favorite treats. More importantly, it’s that time of year when you gather ’round the television with your closest friends and watch the spookiest of movies. This Halloween you’re going to want to invite over your good friends Arrow.
For those looking to stay in the horror realm without watching only horror, then perhaps it’s best you start with Schlock from John Landis and hitting Blu-ray on October 16th. This raucous comedy pays loving tribute to monster movies of the past as it follows a prehistoric ape named Shlock on a rampage throughout southern California. This genre mashup launched the career of Landis and makeup effects wizard Rick Baker and now it will finally have a proper home video release. The new Blu-ray comes with a brand-new 4K restoration and monster-sized list of special features that includes an audio commentary with both Landis and Baker.
If you like your horror gory and raw, then Arrow Video has just what you need. Releasing October 23rd is Jim Van Bebber’s blood-soaked cult classic, Deadbeat at Dawn. This is the story of Goose, a gang leader trying to go straight until his girlfriend is brutally murdered by his rivals. Now pulled back into the world he was desperately trying to escape, Goose is hell-bent on getting retribution. This 80’s gem comes with a new 2K restoration and is decked out with plenty of bonus content featuring Van Bebber discussing his outrageous career.
Looking for some Italian horror? Then you’ll want to be at your local video store on October 30th to snag a copy of Sergio Martio’s masterpiece, Torso. This heart pounding giallo about a sex craved maniac prowling the streets of Perugia looking for his latest victim is a personal favorite of Quentin Tarantino’s and with good reason. With copious amounts of violence and a vicious game of cat and mouse, Torso is sure to meet your Halloween needs. This new Blu-ray features a brand-new 2K restoration of both the 94-minute Italian cut and the 90-minute English cut.
Also hitting shelves on October 30th will be Terry Gilliam’s 90’s sci-fi classic, Twelve Monkeys. Based off a short film by Chris Marker, Twelve Monkeys opens up in 1996 with a group known as the Army of Twelve Monkeys releasing a deadly virus upon the world. Flash forward to year 2035 where Bruce Willis is ordered to travel back in time to find a cure. Nominated for two Oscars, Twelve Monkeys received rave reviews with Roger Ebert calling it a “celebration of madness and doom.” This new Blu-ray features a brand-new 4K restoration approved by Gilliam.
What’s that? You want to mix up your October viewing and have a bit of a reprieve from horror? Well, then you’re going to want to grab Arrow Academy’s Blu-ray release of Distant Voices, Still Lives on October 23rd. This critically-acclaimed debut from Terence Davies allows viewers to peer into the life of a working-class family in 1940’s and 1950’s Liverpool. This brand-new 4K restoration was carried out by the British Film Institute.
Twelve Monkeys
The future is history!
In 1996, a deadly virus is unleashed by a group calling themselves the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, destroying much of the world’s population and forcing survivors underground. In 2035, prisoner James Cole (Bruce Willis, Die Hard) is chosen to go back in time and help scientists in their search for a cure. Featuring an Oscar-nominated turn by Brad Pitt (Fight Club) as mental patient Jeffrey Goines.
Audio commentary by Terry Gilliam and producer Charles Roven
The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys, feature-length making-of documentary by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (Lost in La Mancha)
Extensive image galley
Theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Nathan Rabin and archive materials
DTS 5.1 Master Audio
Brand new restoration from a 4k scan of the original negative by Arrow Films, approved by director Terry Gilliam
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 10/30/18
PreBook Date: 09/11/18
Run Time: 129 mins
Torso
A sex maniac is prowling the streets of Perugia, targeting picturesque university town’s female students. Alarmed at plummeting life expectancy of the student body, Jane (Suzy Kendall, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage) and her three friends elope to a secluded country villa – only to discover that, far from having left the terror behind, they’ve brought it with them!
New audio commentary by Kat Ellinger, author of All the Colours of Sergio Martino
New video interview with co-writer/director Sergio Martino
New video interview with actor Luc Merenda
New video interview with co-writer Ernesto Gastaldi
New video interview with filmmaker Federica Martino, daughter of Sergio Martino
New video interview with Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film
2017 Abertoir International Horror Festival Q&A with Sergio Martino
Italian and English theatrical trailers
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Adam Rabalais
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 10/30/18
Language: Italian
Run Time: 94 mins
Schlock
A love stranger than King Kong!
Carnage! Terror! Banana skins! The mighty prehistoric ape Schlocktropus has emerged from hiding to embark on a full-scale rampage across a quiet Southern Californian suburb. The police are baffled. The army is powerless. The body count is rising. But when Schlocktropus encounters a kindly blind woman who sees beyond his grotesque visage, the simian is presented with a chance at redemption.
Audio commentary by writer/director John Landis and makeup artist Rick Baker
New video interview with author and critic Kim Newman
Birth of a Schlock, a 2017 video interview with John Landis
Archival video interview with cinematographer Bob Collins
1972, 1979 and 1982 US theatrical trailers
US radio spots
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 10/16/18
Run Time: 79 mins
Deadbeat At Dawn
Jim Van Bebber’s notorious, blood-drenched cult classic Deadbeat at Dawn rises again on the advent of its 30th anniversary, newly restored for the first time on Blu-ray. Locked and loaded with a raft of new extras, see Deadbeat as you’ve never seen it before – in all its head-busting, bone-crushing glory!
Brand new free-wheeling audio commentary with Jim VanBebber (’Goose’, The Ravens’ Gang Leader), actor Paul Harper (’Danny Carmodi’, The Spyders’ Gang Leader) and guest Cody Lee Hardin, moderated by filmmaker Victor Bonacore (Diary of a Deadbeat: The Story
Jim VanBebber, Deadbeat Forever! – a brand new retrospective documentary on VanBebber and the Deadbeat legacy by Filmmaker Victor Bonacore, featuring first-time interviews, super-rare footage, VanBebber’s college films and much, much more!
Archival 1986 behind-the-scenes documentary – Nate Pennington’s VHS documentary on a failed Deadbeat shoot
Outtakes, newly transferred in HD
Four newly-restored VanBebber short films – Into the Black (1983, 34 mins), My Sweet Satan (1993, 19 mins), Roadkill: The Last Days of John Martin (1994, 14 mins) and Gator Green (2013, 16 mins)
Jim VanBebber Music Video Collection, featuring never-before-seen Director’s Cuts
Chunkblower – promotional trailer for an unfinished Gary Blair Smith-produced gore-soaked feature film
Extensive Image Gallery – Never-Before-Seen Stills!
Reversible sleeve featuring newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 10/23/18
Run Time: 80 mins
Distant Voices, Still Lives
Loosely based on the director’s own family and upbringing, Distant Voices, Still Lives presents an evocative account of working-class life in Liverpool, England during the 1940s and 50s. Births, marriages and deaths – and an expressive use of music – provide the underpinning for a film that is beautiful, heartbreaking, resonant but never sentimental.
Original mono audio (uncompressed LPCM)
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
Commentary by writer-director Terence Davies
Interview with Davies
Interview with art director Miki van Zwanenberg
Theatrical trailer
More to be announced
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jennifer Dionisio
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Christina Newland plus archive essays
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 10/23/18
Run Time: 85 mins
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