Arrow Video has a slate for March that’s bound to please quite a few genre fans with Blu-rays of movies that cover Kung Fu, Film Noir, British drama, Giallo, Slasher and Horror.
Sister Street Fighter Collection contains Toei’s female version of their successful Street Fighter films. Sonny Chiba even stars in the first entry Sister Street Fighter as he introduces us to the martial arts skills of Etsuko Shihomi. She was one of Chiba’s students so she’s doing more than choreography when she’s kicking goon butts in Japan. She even knows how to fling around quite a few weapons. The boxset contains the original three movies. Plus you get Sister Street Fighter: Fifth Level Fist which was not a real sequel, but starred Shihomi so the producers cashed in on the franchise. This is a serious case of a lady taking care of her own business as she swaps blows as an expert. The bonus features include a recent interview with Sonny Chiba where he talks of how he discovered Shihomi.
Phantom Lady is a classic Film Noir from director Robert Siodmak. A husband goes out and comes home to find his wife is choked to death with one of his neckties. The cops immediately suspect him. His only alibi is a woman he took to a live show which is great except he never got her name. If you’ve been missing TCM’s Noir Alley with Eddie Muller, Phantom Lady will be refreshing. The transfer brings out the blacks and shadows that mark the mystery. One of the bonus features is a TV show from the ’90s about Film Noir that interviews Siodmak among others including Dennis Hopper.
The Prisoner shows younger kids that Alec Guiness was more than a Jedi in Star Wars. He’s facing off against an evil empire again although it’s an Eastern Europe location instead of space. Kolobos gets a bit of love as a ’90s film about a nightmarish version of MTV’s The Real World finally gets a Blu-ray release. Blood Hunger: The Films of Jose Larraz includes the must see Vampyres about two blood sucking ladies looking for unsuspecting guests at their English Manor.
The final entry is Strip Nude For Your Killer that stars the iconic Edwige Fenech and should make an exciting Giallo and Gelato night. The movie is extra creepy and sleazy as a killer is taking revenge on employees at a photography studio after one of their models dies. This is an impressive array of sensuality and repulsion. The film completely lives up to its title. Fenech is one of the few “nice” characters as she tries to discover who is the killer in the motorcycle helmet that’s hacking her co-workers up. This was her last Giallo during the ’70s and she goes all out in many ways.
Here’s the press release from Arrow Video:
New from Arrow Video US and Arrow Academy US
SISTER STREET FIGHTER COLLECTION (3/5)
PHANTOM LADY (3/5)
THE PRISONER (3/12)
KOLOBOS (3/12)
STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER (3/19)
BLOOD HUNGER: THE FILMS OF JOSE LARRAZ [LIMITED EDITION] (3/26)
via MVD Entertainment Group
Take the March with Arrow!
Arrow Films storms into the month of March with six new titles. The March excitement begins on March 5th with a pair of releases. First up is Sister Street Fighter Collection. This 2-disc set includes all three films in the Sister Street Fighter trilogy. In the first film Li (Etsuko Shihomi) travels to Yokohama to investigate the disappearance of her brother. Li returns in Sister Street Fighter: Hanging by a Thread and this time she is in search of a woman that has been kidnapped by a group of diamond smugglers. The series comes to a close with Return of the Sister Street Fighter, with our hero once again hoping to locate a missing person, this time a kingpin’s mistress. These landmark Japanese films are beloved for taking the already over-the-top exploitation genre to new heights.
Also coming March 5th is Robert Siodmak’s 1944 noir, Phantom Lady. Ella Raines stars as a secretary willing to put her life on the life in an effort to prove her boss did not murder his wife. This loaded release includes the archival documentary Dark and Deadly: 50 Years of Film Noir and a rare hour-long radio dramatization.
On March 12th, Arrow releases the late ’90s booby trapped slasher, Kolobos. This semi-meta gem about a group of strangers trapped in a deadly house has virtually slid under the radar in the twenty years since it was released. Thankfully that is set to change with this new 2K restoration that comes fully equipped with an audio commentary, interviews and more.
The second release hitting stands on March 12 is Peter Glenville’s The Prisoner. Nominated for 5 BAFTAs, including best film, this tense drama puts Alec Guinness and Jack Hawkins in a room and has them square off in mental battle that tests the human spirit. This new Blu-ray includes a brand new video appreciation on the Oscar winning Guinness from author and academic Neil Sinyard.
Italian genre fans get a special treat on March 19th with the release of a new 2K restoration of Strip Nude for Your Killer. This highly sexualized giallo sees a series of vicious murders invade a Milanese fashion house, leaving the lovely Edwige Fenech and Nino Castelnuovo to solve the case. This ultra sleazy slice of Italian horror gets the ultimate treatment with a new audio commentary, video essays, interviews and more!
The sixth and final March release comes home on March 26th in the form of Blood Hunger: The Films of Jose Larraz. This packed box set contains three films – Whirlpool, Vampyres and The Coming of Sin. Often overlooked, this collection brings together three films from the early part of director Jose Ramon Larraz’s illustrious career. All films coming newly restored in 2K with an abundance of new bonus features. This set is a must for genre fans everywhere.
Sister Street Fighter Collection
In 1974’s Sister Street Fighter, Etsuko Shihomi is the half-Chinese, half-Japanese Li Koryu, who travels to Yokohama to investigate the disappearance of her brother, an undercover cop. When she discovers a smuggling ring run by a drug lord with his own personal army of deadly fighters, she must penetrate his evil lair and defeat not only his champion (Masashi Ishibashi from the Street Fighter films) but also a group of female Thai kickboxers called The Amazon Seven. Chiba appears in a cameo as a fellow karate master who helps Koryu in her mission. Released only three months later, the sequel Sister Street Fighter: Hanging By a Thread, once again follows Li Koryu as she investigates another smuggling ring, this time involving diamonds implanted into the derrieres of prostitutes! Teaming up with enigmatic fighter Tsubaki (Yasuaki Kurata), she once again calls upon her fighting skills to take down another round of colorful bad guys. The final film of the official trilogy, Return of the Sister Street Fighter, finds her back in Yokohama searching for a woman who has become the mistress of another crime kingpin. Kurata again co-stars but this time as a crazed fighter working for the villains who swears that he’s the man who can kill Li Koryu. Genre entertainment of the highest order, the Sister Street Fighter films are a wild ride through some of the best exploitation cinema Japan produced in the 1970s. Funky and over-the-top, filled with wall-to-wall action, and featuring some of the craziest villains ever depicted onscreen, the series embodies female power in a male-dominated genre and is a magnificent showcase for the physical presence and martial arts skills of its lead star.
BLU-RAY
SRP: 49.95
Street Date: 03/05/19
Genre: Action/Adventure
Language: Japanese
Run Time: 333 mins
Phantom Lady
From one of the masters of the film noir, Robert Siodmak (The Killers, The Dark Mirror), comes the consummate crime classic, Phantom Lady. After a fight with his wife, Scott Henderson (Alan Curtis, High Sierra) heads to a bar to drown his sorrows. There he strikes up a conversation with a mysterious, despondent lady who agrees to accompany him to a show uptown but withholds her name. Arriving home, Scott is met by grimly countenanced cops – his wife has been strangled with one of his neckties and he is the prime suspect. He has a solid alibi but his theater companion is nowhere to be found and no one remembers seeing them together. When Scott is charged with murdering his wife, it falls to his devoted secretary ‘Kansas’ (Ella Raines, Brute Force) to find the phantom lady and save Scott from the electric chair… Adapted from a hit novel by acclaimed crime writer Cornell Woolrich, Phantom Lady boasts stylish cinematography, cruel characters and memorable performances from Ella Raines and Franchot Tone (Mutiny on the Bounty). The film is presented here for the first time in stunning High Definition. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS • High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation transferred from original film elements • Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio soundtrack • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing • Dark and Deadly: 50 Years of Film Noir, an insightful archival documentary featuring contributions from Robert Wise, Edward Dmytryk, Dennis Hopper and more • Rare, hour-long 1944 radio dramatization of Phantom Lady by the Lux Radio Theatre, starring Alan Curtis and Ella Raines • Gallery of original stills and promotional materials • Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by author Alan K. Rode
Bonus Materials
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation transferred from original film elements
Uncompressed Mono 1.0 PCM audio soundtrack
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Dark and Deadly: 50 Years of Film Noir, an insightful archival documentary featuring contributions from Robert Wise, Edward Dmytryk, Dennis Hopper and more
Rare, hour-long 1944 radio dramatization of Phantom Lady by the Lux Radio Theatre, starring Alan Curtis and Ella Raines
Gallery of original stills and promotional materials
Reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options
BLU-RAY
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 03/05/19
Genre: Film Noir
Language: English
Run Time: 87 mins
Kolobos
The Real World meets Saw by way of Suspiria in this super-smart, super-gory – and, sadly, super-overlooked – late ’90s slasher effort from filmmakers Daniel Liatowitsch and David Todd Ocvirk, released in the midst of the post-Scream slice-and-dice revival. A group of youngsters arrive at a snow-covered house under the guise of participating in a “grounding-breaking” new experimental film. With the entire property fitted out with cameras, their every move will be recorded. But when the house locks down, trapping the youngsters within, it soon becomes clear that something sinister is afoot. Scream – you’re on camera… Marketed as little more than a generic horror flick at the time of its release, Kolobos, far from being a run-of-the-mill slasher clone, has much more in common with the booby-trap stylings of Cube (1997) and the reality TV theme of My Little Eye (2002), which it preempted by some three years.
Bonus Materials
Brand new 2K restoration from the original negative
Original Stereo and 5.1 audio options
Audio commentary with co-writers and co-directors Daniel Liatowitsch and David Todd Ocvirk
Real World Massacre: The Making of Kolobos – brand new featurette on the making-of Kolobos including interviews with Daniel Liatowitsch, David Todd Ocvirk and co-writer/producer Nne Ebong
Face to Faceless – a brand new Interview with “Faceless” actor Ilia Volok
Slice & Dice: The Music of Kolobos – a brand new interview with composer William Kidd
Behind-the-Scenes Image Gallery
Super 8 short film by Daniel Liatowitsch with commentary
Original Trailer
BLU-RAY
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 03/12/19
Genre: Cult
Language: English
Run Time: 82 mins
The Prisoner
Banned from the Cannes and Venice Films Festivals for being anti-Communist and excoriated elsewhere as pro-Soviet propaganda, Peter Glenville’s The Prisoner stoked controversy at the time of its original release and remains a complex, challenging and multifaceted exploration of faith and power. In an unnamed Eastern European capital, an iron-willed Cardinal (Academy Award®-winner Alec Guinness, The Ladykillers) is arrested by state police on charges of treason. Tasked with securing a confession from him by any means necessary is a former comrade-in-arms from the anti-Nazi resistance (Jack Hawkins, The Bridge on the River Kwai). Knowing the Cardinal will never fold under physical torture, the Interrogator instead sets out to destroy him mentally, breaking his spirit rather than his body. Adapted by acclaimed playwright Bridget Boland (Gaslight) from her own stage-play and showcasing powerhouse performances by two actors at the height of their game, The Prisoner is a tense, thought-provoking and disturbing drama about the endurance of the human spirit. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS * High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation * Original lossless mono audio * Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing * Interrogating Guinness, a new video appreciation of the film by author and academic Neil Sinyard * Select scene commentary by author and critic Philip Kemp * Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mark Cunliffe
Bonus Materials
High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentation
Original lossless mono audio
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
Interrogating Guinness, a new video appreciation of the film by author and academic Neil Sinyard
Select scene commentary by author and critic Philip Kemp
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Mark Cunliffe
BLU-RAY
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 03/12/19
Genre: Drama
Language: English
Run Time: 94 mins
Strip Nude For Your Killer
As the 1970s wore on and audiences began to tire of the tried and tested giallo formula popularized by the thrillers of Argento, Fulci and their contemporaries, filmmakers sought to reinvigorate the ailing movement by injecting elements from other genres. Some took inspiration from the then-burgeoning crime thriller movement, with tales of organised crime and corrupt police officials… while others decided to sex things up by crossing serial killer thrills with salacious softcore antics. A spate of highly sexualized murders is rocking a prestigious Milanese fashion house. Ambitious photographer Magda (Edwige Fenech, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key) and her on-off boyfriend, love rat Carlo (Nino Castelnuovo, The English Patient), team up to crack the case. But, with the motorcycle helmet-wearing killer clearing bearing a grudge against the agency’s employees, it’s surely only a matter of time before they too end up feeling the force of his wrath… So roll up for a Euro cult experience like no other, with kitschy fashion shoots, back alley abortions, blow-up sex dolls and some very indelicate humor, as one of the most notoriously sleazy gialli ever produced gets the red carpet treatment from Arrow Video!
Bonus Materials
Brand new 2K restoration from the original camera negative
High definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
Original lossless mono Italian and English soundtracks
English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
New audio commentary by HORRORPEDIA.com’s Adrian J. Smith and David Flint
Sex and Death with a Smile, a new video essay by author and critic Kat Ellinger on giallo and sex comedy icon Edwige Fenech
A Good Man for the Murders, a newly edited video interview with actor Nino Castelnuovo
The Blonde Salamander, a new video interview with actress Erna Schurer
The Art of Helping, a new video interview with assistant director Daniele Sangiorgi
Jack of All Trades, a new video interview with actor and production manager Tino Polenghi
Two versions of the opening scene: tinted and untinted viewing options
Original Italian and English theatrical trailers
Image gallery
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Rachael Nisbet
BLU-RAY
SRP: 39.95
Street Date: 03/19/19
Genre: Horror
Language: Italian
Run Time: 98 mins
Blood Hunger: The Films Of Jose Larraz [Limited Edition]
One of the most underrated and oft-neglected genre filmmakers of his generation, Spanish-born director José Ramón Larraz (Symptoms) finally receives his due with this collection of his work, the first of its kind, bringing together a fascinating cross-section of films from the first half of his lengthy cinematic career. In Larraz’s debut feature, the hitherto ultra-rare Whirlpool (1970), Vivian Neves stars as Tulia, a young model invited to a photographer’s secluded country home for what purports to be a quiet weekend retreat – but soon transpires to be anything but. 1974’s Vampyres – perhaps the best known and most widely-released of all José Larraz’s films – sees a duo of blood hungry female vampires prowling the British countryside, from where they lure unsuspecting male motorists back to their imposing, dilapidated mansion for draining… in more ways than one. Meanwhile, in 1978’s The Coming of Sin (La Visita del Vicio, in its native Spanish), a young gypsy girl experiences a violent sexual awakening as her dreams of a naked young man on horseback become reality. By turns terrifying, titillating, artful and scandalous, these three films collected here – all newly restored from original film elements, with Whirlpool and The Coming of Sin making their Blu-ray world premieres – collectively offer film fans a unique perspective on the fascinating, highly-varied career of one of the horror genre’s most overlooked auteurs.
Bonus Materials
Three films from José Ramón Larraz: Whirlpool, Vampyres and The Coming of Sin, all newly-restored in 2K from original film elements
Newly-produced, extensive bonus features and unseen archival content
English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing for all features
80-page perfect bound book featuring new writing by Jo Botting, Tim Greaves and Vanity Celis
WHIRLPOOL
Original US Theatrical Cut
Brand new audio commentary by Tim Lucas
Obsessive Recurrence: The Early Films of José Larraz – author and critic Kim Newman reflects on the recurring themes and underlying obsessions linking together the early productions of José Larraz
A Curious Casting – actor Larry Dann on the strange story behind his casting in Whirlpool
Deviations of Whirlpool – featurette comparing the differences between the US Theatrical Cut and a previously circulated, alternate cut of the film
Extract from an archival interview with José Larraz
Image gallery
Original US Theatrical Trailer
VAMPYRES
Brand new audio commentary by Kat Ellinger
Brand new interviews with producer Brian Smedley-Aston, actors Marianne Morris, Anulka Dziubinska, Brian Deacon, Sally Faulkner, makeup artist Colin Arthur and composer James Kenelm Clarke
Reimagining Vampyres – a brand new interview with Larraz’s friend and collaborator Victor Matellano, director of the 2015 Vampyres remake
Extract from an archival interview with José Larraz
Jose Larraz and Marianne Morris Q&A at 1997 Eurofest
Image gallery
Trailers
THE COMING OF SIN
Spanish and English language versions of the feature
Brand new audio commentary by Kat Ellinger
Variations of Vice: The Alternate Versions of The Coming of Sin – exploitation expert Marc Morris on the strange and scandalous release history of José Larraz’s most censored film
Remembering Larraz – author and filmmaker Simon Birrell shares his fond and extensive memories of his long-time friend and collaborator José Larraz
His Last Request (2005, 27 mins) – short film by Simon Birrell made under the guidance of José Larraz and starring Spanish horror legend Jack Taylor
Extract from an archival interview with José Larraz
Image Gallery
Original Spanish trailer
BLU-RAY
SRP: 99.95 (NEW PRICE)
Street Date: 03/26/19
Genre: Cult
Language: English
Run Time: 87 mins
