dvd

I, like practically everyone on the planet, have my vices. Aside from my deeply unsettling addiction to Italian post-apocalyptic cinema, my biggest vice would have to be the purchasing of DVDs and VHS tapes en mass. "But Brian/' you say, "everybody buys movies!" Silence lemmings! The difference is that I tend to buy movies I haven't seen based on the smallest of positive word-of-mouth. So I have quite a few titles languishing on my shelf that not only have not yet been viewed, but in many cases are still confined to their shrink-wrapped gulags. In an effort to be proactive, and quell my wife's urge to kill me, I will not buy another DVD or VHS until I watch every unviewed film I currently own.

Today's fare: Demon Seed

As an unashamed supporter of indie golden-child Paranormal Activity (review), I snagged a copy of the DVD as soon as I could. Lacking even a basic menu screen (the only options you're given are theatrical or original ending) and devoid of anything resembling a special feature, I turned it off halfway through when the picture, which was being viewed on a massive hi-def TV, was so dark I could barely make heads or tails of what was going on. I have yet to watch it again.

This is okay, however, as those fine folks over at Dread Central have brought to my attention a forthcoming UK DVD and Blu-Ray release of the film featuring all those delightful special features we've been aching to see. Not only do we get an exclusive UK-only audio commentary from director Oren Peli, but we also get an exclusive audio commentary for the alternate ending that appeared on my coaster of a DVD.

Although this commentary is sure to be incredibly eye-opening, the final feature seems to me to be the most interesting. When the film was playing in the UK, Icon Home Entertainment sponsored a "Film Your Own Paranormal Activity" Short Film competition, challenging fans to make their own haunting films using the same techniques Peli did to create his massive hit. Although all of the short films can be found on YouTube, the UK edition of the DVD will feature the ten finalists' videos, as well as a video introduction by Oren Peli explaining why the winning video was chosen.

I don't even own a Blu-Ray player, or even a TV, and I'm excited as all Hell about this. Hey, the movie is great, and I will support it until the sun goes out.

Last week, we brought you the official DVD release date for The Descent Part 2--the highly anticipated follow up to Neil Marshall's classic "women trapped in an underground cave with hideous monsters" flick from a few years back. Lionsgate revealed that the disc would be hitting retailers on April 27th--and bypassing theaters completely.

Today we've got an update (thanks to our friends at Fangoria), which highlights what we can expect in terms of bonus materials to go along with the feature. It's not an Earth-shattering list of supplements, but fans should be pleased.

Here's the list of extras:

• Storyboards

If that doesn't get you excited, maybe news that the film will be presented in 16x9 widescreen and with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound will. I know I'm giddy just thinking about it.

The disc is set to retail for $28.98, but I'm guessing you'll be able to score a copy for way less if you should be so inclined. Expect a full review later this spring.

Joe Zito's The Prowler has long been one of my favorite underappreciated slasher films. It's hardly the best stalk-and-kill flick I've ever seen, but it does feature some really great kill scenes courtesy of Tom Savini--including another shotgun blast to the head gag a la Maniac and a classic knife through the skull sequence that is one of my favorites of all time.

Blue Underground announced (thanks to the mighty Dread Central for posting the news) yesterday that they're bringing The Prowler to DVD. You may be thinking "hey, didn't they do this a few years ago?" They did, indeed, but this new release is an uncut version of Joe Zito's film. According to the guys at Blue Underground, we can expect this new release of the cult classic by Halloween. Blu-ray details haven't been announced yet, plans are in the works for a high def version. Hurray for Savini gore in high definition!

The Prowler is, narratively speaking, quite typical of slasher films from that era. A murder happens in 1945 and the killer is never caught. Now, thirty years later, the murders have started again. It's a film that certainly draws some inspiration from the Italian gialli, but like most of the early American slashers, it tweaks the formula a bit and mutates into something that's uniquely its own. I definitely recommend it to slasher fans and those who love Savini's effects work. Plus, The Prowler helped pave the way for Savini and Zito to team up again a few years later in a little film called Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.

Keep it here at Horror Squad for more details on these discs.

Dang, someone at Lionsgate really delved into the vault for this one. Hell, I even saw this flick during its Philadelphia theatrical run in 1986 ... and then promptly forgot all about it. I vaguely remember there being a slick car. The film at hand is called The Wraith, and it's about an spirit(?) from another dimension who visits a small town to wreak vengeance on some murderous assheads. He does it in an ostensibly futuristic sports car, if memory serves.

Initially rated R but released as PG-13 after some trims, The Wraith does boast a pretty colorful cast: Charlie Sheen, Sherilyn Fenn, Nick Cassavetes, Randy Quaid, and (woo hoo!) Clint Howard are all involved somehow. Written and directed by Mike Marvin (whose filmography includes deliciousness like Hot Dog: The Movie and Hamburger: The Motion Picture, with a Six Pack to wash it down), The Wraith is nobody's idea of a cult classic -- and yet I'm very curious to give this flick a re-visit.

According to DVDActive, Lionsgate will unleash The Wraith on March 2, and the DVD (no blu-ray to speak of) will come with interviews, featurettes, and a Marvin commentary. Oh, and according to Dictionary.com, a wraith is "an apparition of a living person supposed to portend his or her death." I hope that's not a spoiler.

Since it's been delayed for a variety of reasons, we've been waiting to see Joe Johnston's rendition of The Wolfman for quite some time now. I'm always skeptical when someone tries to revisit the classic monsters, but I like Johnston's track record ... at least a lot more than I liked the Van Helsing director's track record. (For those who don't memorize these things, Joe Johnston also directed Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, October Sky, Hidalgo, Jurassic Park 3, and (ok, fine) Jumanji.)

We know that the new-fangled but old-fashioned remake will run 96 minutes and arrive bearing an R rating for "bloody horror violence and gore," but now comes word from BD.com that the "extended cut" (not "director's cut") will run almost twenty minutes longer. Johnston told BD: "I think it's 17 minutes longer – a lot of it's stuff up front, but there's also, throughout the film, we basically let the scenes play a little bit longer. There's a little bit of action stuff, but it's mostly bits of scenes that worked, but we cut them out to shorten the film. You know, to get down to our 96 minutes." (Click here for more.)

So there's just another reason to keep your fingers crossed on The Wolfman. If this new version (which stars Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, and Emily Blunt) is rock-solid, then hooray: We get 17 minutes more of it in a few months.

Great news for fans of cult Asian cinema--Dread Central is reporting that Synapse plans to release Kazuo "Gaira" Komizu's Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay on DVD! If that weren't cool enough news, try this on for size: it streets on February 23rd.

Komizu, best known for making sleazy exploitation movies such as Entrails of a Virgin, Guts of a Beauty, and Female Inquisitor, made Battle Girl back in 1991. It's been a cult oddity ever since.

Synapse breaks the plot down like this:

"A meteor lands in Japan and the fallout creates a "shield" around Tokyo, encasing the city in a foggy darkness. A state of martial law is declared. People are in a panic as violent crime and corruption spreads throughout the region and punk gangs are ruling the streets. As if things weren't bad enough, a chemical reaction from the meteor unleashes a deadly virus and now the dead are coming back to life as flesh-eating zombies!

K-ko (played by Japanese wrestling sensation, Cutie Suzuki) is asked to help find survivors and given a bulletproof leather-and-blade "Battle Suit" to help her on her rescue mission. Punching, blasting and decapitating the zombie hordes with her armor and weapons, she discovers something even more evil... a sadistic military general who wants to use the zombies in his own plan for world domination!"

Technical specs for the disc include a new digital transfer of the film, removable English subtitles, and a brand new 53 minute interview with director Gaira. Sounds like I can finally toss out my grainy old bootleg...

Jump past the break for a clip from the film.

Our pals over at STYD bring news of an old-school slasher re-issue that may pique your interest: Those cool dudes over at Code Red are putting the final touches on a new special edition for the 1982 "camp" slasher known as Madman. Right up there with The Burning and Sleepaway Camp as the guiltiest of 1980s hack 'em up pleasures, Madman has (as smartly noted by Shock) been in semi-heavy rotation over on IFC, and is probably worthy of a look should you dig this sort of thing. And since you're presently reading a site called Horror Squad, so I can only assume you are.

I wish I could say that Madman features early work from Jason Alexander (like The Burning) or Daryl Hannah (like The Final Terror), but nope. Not really. There is one legendary name in the cast: Ms. Gaylen Ross, best known for her fine work in George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. Word is that Code Red will retain some of the extras from the now-out-of-print Anchor Bay Madman disc, and they're also working on some new interviews of their own. At the very least it's another gory old slasher flick to cross off of your "there, now I've seen it" list. I certainly look forward to giving Madman Marz a fresh spin.

Fans of this era might want to check out the rest of Code Red's catalog. I'd start with Beyond the Door and Dead Pit.

After Dark's 4th annual Horrorfest doesn't start until the 29th of January, but that hasn't stopped the company from unveiling their plans to bring this year's line-up to DVD.

If you can't make it out to a theater to see this year's entries, breathe easy. Video ETA is reporting that the films will make their DVD debut as part of a box set on March 23rd. That's a really short turnaround time on the discs, but since the films only play theatrically for a week, I suppose it works out. I suspect knowing that the films will be on DVD so soon after the theatrical dates might convince some folks to just skip the theater entirely--but I wasn't a business or marketing major so what do I know?

The box set will retail for $159.98 and features Dread, Lake Mungo, The Graves, The Final, Zombies of Mass Destruction, The Reeds, Kill Theory, and Hidden. It seems a given that individual disc versions will also be available in that same time frame.

The fourth annual After Dark Horrorfest runs theatrically from January 29th through February 4th. You can learn more by checking out the official website.

For some unfathomable reason, I have a weird fascination with Bigfoot movies. I say weird because I have no clue why or where this came from (although, I do vaguely remember really liking The 6 Million Dollar Man episode where Lee Majors takes on Sasquatch. I was young. Sue me). It's even more puzzling when I realize that I don't care one way or the other about the "real" existence of Bigfoot and when I stop to consider how awful 99% of Sasquatch-ploitation movies truly are.

Like a glutton for punishment, I keep soldiering on--and when Foywonder over at Dread Central shared news that Troma had acquired the DVD distribution rights to Bob Gray's Bigfoot, I actually got a little excited. Gray's film was one of the first entries in the mini-renaissance of Bigfoot films from a few years back. Unfortunately, it got mired in a distribution snafu and spent the past few years languishing in motion picture purgatory. Come March 30th, we'll all be able to finally see whether or not Bigfoot was worth the wait.

Gray's film, which finds the monster transported from his usual northwestern stomping grounds to Ohio, is reportedly re-cut from the version some folks saw a few years back. No word yet on extras, but Dread is speculating that the DVD will come with a commentary track, a making of featurette, and maybe one or two other supplements. Hopefully, we'll learn more between now and March 30th.