The day may come when we forsake ALL our physical media and resign ourselves to watching stuff on streaming, but it is not this day. An hour of DVDs and broken players when the age of physical media comes crashing down! But it is not this day. This day we BUY! I bid you stand, physical media collectors! Okay, I’m done. In all seriousness, streaming is the future of home video releases, whether we like it or not. It’s going to take time, but we’re starting to see some movies not get physical releases. That’s why we’ve got those amazing Blu-Ray boutique shops like Arrow Video, Criterion, Shout! Factory, and Grindhouse Releasing. I don’t think physical media will disappear entirely, but it is going to become very niche in the future. But for now, I’ve got another haul for you folks and this one is another large one. As always, when I pick up 4 or more discs, another episode of Recent Blu-Ray hauls will go up. Like before, I’m going to start with the discs I got from the guys over at Horror Pack. So, let’s dive in to what I brought home.
Horror Pack #4
It Stains The Sands Red
This one was quite the surprise. I had heard about the film, but I dismissed it because it looked like just another zombie movie. It Stains The Sands Red is anything but. The approach to the genre in this film is quite different. Yeah, it takes place during a massive zombie outbreak, but the focus is on two people. One alive and one not. The dynamic between Brittney Allen’s character and Juan Riedinger’s walking corpse is surprisingly compelling. The zombie doesn’t get tired and is constantly chasing Brittney, but over the course of the first hour, you see a connection that Brittney forms between herself and her zombie stalker. Granted, it’s a one-sided connection, but her journey through the Nevada desert forces her to confront her own personal demons. It’s rare to see a character-driven zombie movie these days, and Sands delivers. It’s still got some of that zombie action that a lot of people crave, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s definitely worth checking out, and I think this is one of the best movies that Horror Pack has ever included.
Happy Birthday to Me
I had heard the name of this movie a while back, but I’d never seen anything on it until it showed up in the latest Horror Pack. It’s an early 80s slasher movie that involves a girl about to celebrate her 18th birthday when her friends start dying one by one. Because of a traumatic accident in her past, Ginny begins to suspect that it could be HER that’s killing her friends. If you want a movie that’s all about red herrings, Happy Birthday to Me is loaded with them. It’s a surprisingly clever little slasher. It doesn’t always work, but I ended up being surprised at the end of the film, so I guess it worked. While the kills aren’t as gory as what we see today, they’re still pretty effective. My only issue is that the movie runs about 10 minutes too long. It starts Melissa Sue Anderson of Little House on the Prairie fame as Ginny. Not bad.
Obsidian
THIS is October’s exclusive from Horror Pack. These particular selections are very low-budget indie horror movies. I understand that movies are difficult to make, especially good ones, but Obsidian is not good. It centers around a group of test subjects for a medical drug that’s supposed to help them heal from their past injuries, only for really strange things to start happening. I do have an appreciation for the low-budget indie scene. I really do, but the ones that Horror Pack has included lately haven’t been working for me, with the exception of Woman in the Chair. The concept for Obsidian is interesting, but the character are all incredibly unlikable, so I’m not particularly willing to connect with them. I’m glad I have it, and I want these film-makers to succeed, but what I’ve seen so far has been less than impressive.
Paramount Activity 3
Second month in a row, I get a movie that I already own. Before September, I had never owned any of the Paranormal Activity movies. I felt it was just another found-footage gimmicky movie like The Blair Witch Project. After seeing Blair Witch for the first time a couple of years ago, I finally understood why the found-footage genre became as popular as it did. The Paranormal Activity films started coming out in 2009. The first movie was really good, but the following movies were constantly relying on the same formula that made the original film so good. I don’t hate these movies. In fact, I actually enjoy them quite a bit. It’s just a concept that got stretched to far.
Regular Blu-Ray Haul
Paranormal Activity 6 Movie Collection+Next of Kin
Movies about demonic possession are nothing new. The greatest demonic possession film of all time, The Exorcist has yet to be topped. But nobody had attempted to do one of these movie using the found-footage technique. Even though the film is clearly fiction, it felt real. It’s incredibly creepy. When the first film became a smash hit, it opened the floodgates of the found-footage genre. Everybody was cashing in on this phenomenon. Some of it was great, most of it was crap. The sequels to Paranormal Activity kind of went off the rails after the third movie, but I can understand why people really liked these movies. So, after I got Paranormal Activity 2 in last month’s Horror Pack, I decided to buy the rest of them. So, I got the rest of them, including the straight-to-streaming Next of Kin. I picked up the 6-movie collection, which was the first 6 movies. Next of Kin felt more disconnected with the series and more of its own thing. Still enjoyed it though.
Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Halloween II Theatrical Cuts
I had already owned Rob Zombie’s Halloween on DVD, but it was the unrated cut, which had a version of Myers escaping the mental hospital where two orderlies were sexually assaulting one of the female inmates. It was completely unnecessary and shocking for the sake of being shocking. Aside from that, Rob Zombie’s movie was surprisingly effective. It had a great cast that included Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis(perfect casting in my opinion), Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie Strode, and Tyler Mane as the adult Michael Myers. Tyler Mane was a beast in this movie, and incredibly intimidating. I didn’t like the unrated version of the second film, because it made the character of Laurie Strode incredibly unlikable, and I just wasn’t going for it. I managed to find a collection of these movies that were only the theatrical releases. It’s rare, because the only versions available are the unrated, so I got lucky. I’ve always like Rob Zombie as a director, and I actually enjoy the theatrical versions of his Halloween films better than the unrated versions.
Croc!
While I absolutely love the big budget horror movies, sometimes I just want to watch an Asylum-style movie. What is The Asylum? The Asylum is a production company that makes “mock-busters.” These are basically extremely low-budget versions of mainstream horror and science fiction movies. They’re hilarious. Croc! is very much in the same silly style. The acting is bad, the CGI is awful, and most of the kills are off-screen, but it’s just a goofy fucking movie. I love my creature features, no matter how bad they may be.
Nope
Nope is the third movie by Jordan Peele, following Us and Get out. Both of which I found to be really good. Nope is Peele’s take on the whole alien abduction idea in science fiction, even though the film plays out more like a thriller than a horror film. There are some horrific moments, especially during a rainstorm. The tension is crazy. It’s got some pretty good performances and the social commentary is biting. The big issue is that the movie starts off really slow, and runs almost too long. Still, it’s one that I actually recommend, especially if you’re a fan of Peele’s first two movies.
The Lost Continent
Ah, Hammer Horror. Most of Hammer’s stuff is played pretty seriously, but The Lost Continent is so insane that you can’t really take it seriously. Man-eating sea-weed? Giant squid-like monsters and scorpions? The Spanish Inquisition?! The first hour of the movie is kind of a straight-forward action drama, but when they hit the Sargasso Sea, that’s when the film gloriously goes off the rails, and I love it. Yeah, the acting’s not great, and some of the effects aren’t that good either, but it’s all done practically or with miniatures. They don’t make them like this anymore.
Blade of the 47 Ronin
The story of the Akō Vendetta is one of the most well-known stories to come out of Japan in the last 400 years. It was a story about 47 samurai warrior who set out to avenge their fallen master. The story’s been adapted many times, but the 2013 film with Keanu Reeves may be one of the more infamous ones. The film-makers decided to throw in a bunch of fantastical and supernatural elements into the movie. It didn’t really work. The story didn’t need all that to be compelling and it was more of a distraction. I guess somebody thought it was a good idea to make a sequel and set in modern Budapest. The story is so ridiculous, I’m not even going to try and describe it. The CGI is awful and the acting is…brutal. What this movie has going for it is the action sequences. Those are actually pretty good and seeing Mark Dacascos slice people up with a katana is awesome.
Cyborg
The post-apocalyptic genre was pretty much in vogue during the 80s with movies like The Road Warrior and Escape from New York. Cyborg is not one of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s best movies, but it’s one of my favorites. At 86 minutes, it moves pretty quickly and has an amazing villain with Vincent Klyn’s Fender. The action is pretty decent and Van Damme is at his physical peak here, so he’s pretty good. Ignore the terrible wig that he wears in the movie, though. Some of the stop-motion effects are interesting, if dated. There is a director’s cut out there somewhere, but it hasn’t been made available to the general public, which is a shame, because I would love to see it.
Tales From the Crypt: Demon Knight
Tales From the Crypt. It was one of the most interesting shows to hit the airwave during late 80s and early 90s. It lasted 7 seasons and featured one of horror’s most iconic figures: The Cryptkeeper, who was voiced by John Kassir. It was incredibly over-the-top show. 1995 saw the release of the first movie under the Tales From the Crypt banner: Demon Knight. The horror movies during the 90s were something else. There really wasn’t a whole lot in the way of social commentary, but a lot of them were just ridiculous and gory fun. Demon Knight featured one of the most iconic villains with Billy Zane’s demonic Collector. He was so good in this movie, that it defined his career as an actor. You also had William Sadler, CCH Pounder, Dick Miller, Thomas Haden Church, and an early performance from Jada Pinkett-Smith. It’s just a good time.
Terrifier
I don’t like clowns. It’s not that I find them scary, I don’t. I just hate them. I’ve never found them funny or entertaining. Maybe I’ll do a Best or Worst Clowns list at some point. That said, Pennywise the clown from It is one of the most terrifying clowns in cinema, whether it’s Tim Curry’s version from 1990 or Bill Skarsgard’s character from the 2017-2019 movies. He’s a creepy fucker. Well, Art the Clown gives Pennywise a run for his money in Terrifier. This clown is particularly savage. Terrifier isn’t a particularly smart film, but holy shit this sucker is violent. Now, some people accuse this film of misogyny because the character is targeting female victims, but that’s been happening for decades in horror movies. This is just a modern take on all that. But now, we’ve got a sequel out there that’s make all sorts of noise that I want to see. If you like brutal and gory slashers like I do, Terrifier is right up your alley.
Well, that’s my haul since last month. It’s a bit of a doozy, but hey, as a physical media collector, I have no regrets. None. Whatsoever. PHYSICAL MEDIA FOREVER!!