November 30, 2025
though his career has been highly erratic since then (to put it mildly), this is still one of his best. Long available on Blu-ray in the U.K. and Germany but only given a DVD release in the U.S. at the time from IFC, the film took twelve years for them to finally deliver it in HD stateside with its most extensive special edition to date. The simple premise (developed from a stage play and short film, boosted by the involvement of executive producer Edgar Wright) follows the stunted Tina (Alice Lowe) who's desperate to get out from under the thumb of her resentful mother, and the opportunity presents itself when her boyfriend, Chris (Steve Oram), offers to take her caravaning around England. 
However, Chris has a homicidal streak that comes out against travelers who break society's rules, something that soon rubs off on Tina as they rack up an impressive body count and ignite more than a few relationship complications. Though most easily classified as a dark comedy, this one has been considered a bit slasher-adjacent by some and, though not really explicit with its violence, quite jolting at times with the nasty fates awaiting some of the unlucky supporting cast. Both of the leads are excellent here and quite endearing all things considered, with the payoff at the end being quite satisfying as it hits the right note. The HD source here looks solid and comparable to its European counterparts, with a fine DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio mix, optional English SDH subs, and two commentaries with Wheatley ported over (one with actors Lowe, Oram, and Richard Glover, the next with director of photography Laurie Rose). A new commentary by Kim Newman and Sean Hogan is excellent listening as well as they bring their genre expertise to bear on the film's cultural references, its place in U.K. genre filmmaking in the 21st century, Wheatley's directorial touches, and lots of local touches Yank listeners could easily miss. On the archival video side you get a thorough and often amusing making-of documentary (37m32s), the U.S. and U.K. trailers, a 12m16s reel of outtakes, and a hefty batch of EPK-style interviews with Lowe (9m27s), Oram (10m12s), Glover (5m41s), Wheatley (10m36s), Rose (5m51s), producer Nira Park (1m20s), and producer Claire Jones (5m3s); the package also comes with an insert booklet with an excellent new essay by Heidi Honeycutt tackling the film's genre-straddling relationship farce. Buy here.
feature, Berberian Sound Studio. Playing around with the surging cult following for '70s Italian horror films and the nuts and bolts of movie post-production, the film is a strong showcase for the always excellent Toby Jones as Gilderoy, an English sound engineer brought over to work on an Italian production he's less than thrilled to discover is a Suspiria-esque horror movie called The Equestrian Vortex. Though we never clearly see the film itself, the process of creating the sound effects and ADR work (including using various foodstuffs for gory noises) takes its toll on the sensitive foreigner who's also tormented by being away from his mother. Gradually reality and fantasy merge to the point where the difference becomes meaningless. Though geared to appeal to horror fans, this doesn't really slot into any 
kind of neat genre box as it plays around with psychological thriller, black comedy, and out-there art film, with the latter category winning out for a resolution that doesn't really land in a very satisfying way. Otherwise though this is an auspicious start for Strickland, who delivers the strongest look at foley work this side of Blow Out and outfits it with a great score by the band Broadcast (R.I.P.). Since then Strickland has continued to defy expectations, with his high point still arguably being the one that came next, the gorgeous The Duke of Burgundy. The IFC Blu-ray is a fine way to experience the first either for the first time or a repeat viewing; along with the great new commentary, the film looks and sounds great with that DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix demanding your ears pay close attention for many rewards. Other extras include an archival commentary and 33m48s interview with Strickland (covering the origins as a one-off short and his development process), a 46m48s making-of doc (including Strickland paraphrasing some of the same material, plus numerous other interviews and lots of production footage), a 21m32s batch of deleted scenes with notes on why they were cut, a 20m27s collection of production design drawings with Strickland commentary, a 5m20s Box Hill Strickland doc, and a trailer, plus an insert booklet with an incisive new essay by Willow Catelyn Maclay about the film's unique perspective on the filmmaking process. Buy here. 
horror game in 2000, the spooky three-hander Hardcore Poisoned Eyes was inventive and effective enough to earn a bit of a fan following in a market about to be heavily saturated by DVD. Shot in upstate New York by writer-director Sal Ciavarello, it's essentially a buddy movie gone very wrong as three women head to a cabin for a weekend getaway with some rest and partying. Angelique (Christine Gallo) doesn't believe the story that her grandfather, the cabin's owner, was killed by robbers, and soon she, Sarah (Wendy Allyn), and Ellie (Jessica Hester) are snooping around in the 
late man's Satanism-researching business. One ill-advised clue later, they're fighting for their lives with only the forbidding, snowy woods offering a possible escape. Thanks to better acting and writing than your average SOV offering, this one earned solid word of mouth when it got a self-distributed DVD release and earned more than a few comparisons to the then-recent The Blair Witch Project. Now it's been revived on Blu-ray from Saturn's Core featuring a spiffy new director's cut from the master tapes (87m27s) looking much better than it ever has before, pillarboxed at 1.55:1 which looks fine. Ciavarello and Saturn's Core's Ross Snyder contribute a new audio commentary covering his filmmaking inspirations, his experiments in Super 8, and the entire production of this film. Also included is the original rougher 2000 cut of the film (92m7s) if you feel comparing, featuring the archival commentary with Ciavarello, cinematographer Huy Truong, and producer Anthony Fariello. The extensive new making-of documentary "Rewound: Hardcore Poisoned Eyes" (89m24s) brings together Ciavarello, Truong, Gallo, and Hester for a thorough chronicle of the film's creation with lots of archival material tossed in as well including behind the scenes and audition footage, plus a look at the restoration process including the very divisive use of AI upscaling. Also included are an archival batch of (upscaled) making-of footage and bloopers (6m30s), the DVD's Ciaverello interview with former teacher Roy Frumkes (10m8s), three trailers, and three Ciaverello short films: 1995's Blue Shadows (31m33s), 1993's Lycanthropes (10m5s), and 1987's Attack of the Spider (3m31s). Buy here. 
grudge at being discarded for her age, dispatches them starting with a pair of snooty cheerleaders. Directed by low-budget horror vet Debbie Rochon with the equally busy Tiffany Shepis also starring as Debbie, a neighbor 
turned sleuth who gets further than the police ever could. Rochon seems to be going for a John Waters vibe thanks to part-time cannibal Ginny's fixation with a TV show featuring drag queens, and while the lighting and sound quality here are pretty dire, it's a treat to see Lowry get the spotlight here with a juicy role jabbing at double standards against women in entertainment. The film marks an early salvo in Wild Eye Releasing's entry as a Vinegar Syndrome partner label with a stacked Blu-ray release featuring a faithful presentation of the digital production (with DTS-HD 2.0 English stereo and optional English SDH subs) and horde of extras including an archival 2015 commentary with Rochon, a new commentary with producer-writer James Morgart and Adam Torkel, interviews with the enthusiastic and always insightful Rochon (53m14s), Morgart (17m57s), composer Harry Manfredini (15m53s), Lowry (35m18s) in front of a Cat People poster, Shepis and actor Michael Varrati (10m42s), Babette Bombshell (9m20s), actor Bob Bozek (4m23s) interviewed by Jessica Levesque, actor Brian Fortune (11m51s), actor and set photographer David Marancik (7m24s), production designer Paul McGinnis (10m36s), and actor Aurelio Voltaire (17m21s). Also included are an audio essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (18m5s) about female cannibal films, a "Debbie Rochon: Unfolded" (53m4s) career overview that fans won't want to miss, outtakes (13m16s), a 9m10s production photo gallery, a Michael O'Hear tribute video (6m29s) for the late actor, a Weenie Wonderland short film (2m31s) you shouldn't play during dinner, a "Song for Debbera" music video (4m10s), and a trailer. Buy here. 
a few years ago but now on Blu-ray in time for the holidays, The Advent Calendar is a stylish and gory Belgian-French take on yuletide supernatural horror. Very much a pandemic production with its minimal cast and that off-kilter 
isolated vibe unique to films made circa 2020, the film follows the very unfestive Christmas season experienced by wheelchair-bound Eva (Eugénie Derouand) after she's given an highly unorthodox advent calendar by friend Sophie (Honorine Magnier) with orders not to get rid of it. Opening each day on the calendar reveals a piece of candy that seems to offer a positive turn in Eva's life, from the seeming recovery of her father's memory loss to attracting her secret crush. However, each day takes a darker turn as well with an inevitable body count leading up to Christmas Eve. The wish fulfillment horror scenario has been around for ages, but this one justifies itself with the depth given to the main character (and a strong performance) while also mining the inherent melancholy in the Christmas season that works so well for spooky tales. The Shudder Blu-ray looks great with a lot less compression than you see on the streaming version; as with that option, it annoyingly has burned-in English subtitles for the French (and a bit of German) dialogue, here in a fine DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix. A very lively audio commentary by Mary Beth McAndrews is a solid listen as she makes a case for this film as an underrated holiday horror gem and studies the various narrative tropes at work, and director Patrick Ridremont supplies an 8m50s video intro about the idea behind the calendar and the concept behind what's really inside it. The disc also comes with an insert featuring an essay by Amber T. Buy here. 
indie timed for the season is 2024's Christmas Eve in Miller's Point, which has already built up a bit of a cult following since its limited theatrical and streaming offerings last year. A mixture of the cozy and dark, it paints a small but 
vivid portrait of a Long Island family, the Balsanos, whose four generations converge for the last time in their decades-long family home. Drawing on the low-key and observant style from his previous films (Happer's Comet, Ham on Rye), director and co-writer Tyler Taormina lets the characters breathe here over the course of an evening where stock types (ranging from prim matriarchs to restless teens) turn out to be more layered than appearances might indicate. You also get an amusing side story involving cops Michael Cera and Gregg Turkington for counterpoint, and the entire neighborhood ultimately becomes something of a character in itself as everyone prepares to bid adieu in their own way. The Blu-ray from IFC is a nice bump ahead of the much more compressed online version, and it comes with extras including a random compendium of audition and production footage (23m13s), a 17m7s interview with Taormina about his inspirations, the artistic collective he belongs to, and his music background, and the theatrical trailer. Buy here. 
Blu-ray debut for a film that's been out on streaming for a while, 2024's Marmalade from Brainstorm, a quirky vehicle for Joe Keery (scene stealer Steve from Stranger Things) whose lead roles included the lively serial killer film Spree. 
A nonlinear take on the criminal lovers concept, it starts off with young Baron (Keery) in prison where he gets to know his cellmate, Otis (Aldis Hodge), who might be useful to stage a breakout. In the meantime Baron explains how he ended up in the slammer thanks to a robbery he hatched with his girlfriend, Marmalade (Camilla Morrone), to break out of poverty and cover his dying mom's meds. To say any more would ruin the fun as the film delivers multiple big twists on the way to a surprisingly sweet and effective grace note at the end. Keery is excellent as always here (especially in the second half which requires some big leaps of faith for the audience), with the rest of the cast up to the same level; in fact, the film gets quite a bit of mileage from the chemistry between the three leads alone. First-time director Keir O'Donnell shows fine visual and dramatic chops here, and he provides an audio commentary covering the production and editorial process, his love of lovers on the lam tales, his '80s and '90s cinematic influences, the slippery nature of storytelling, and plenty more. Also included are a production photo gallery, a costume sketch gallery, and the theatrical trailer. Buy here. 
pandemic productions for a moment, you won't find another one even remotely like 2024's Jimmy & Stiggs, the most DayGlo-colored film you'll ever see. That's very much in keeping with the aesthetic of director and star Joe Begos (Bliss, VFW, Christmas Bloody Christmas) who apparently decided to completely decimate his apartment for the sake of art during lockdown. Here he plays flailing filmmaker Jimmy, who wakes up in a drug and booze-induced panic and comes to believe he's being tormented by alien visitors. He decides to reconnect with estranged old buddy Stiggs (Matt Mercer), 
which of course doesn't go smoothly when they meet in person and buckets of liquid start splashing all over the place. With its extremely aggressive visual style and more profanity than every Rob Zombie movie combined, this is obviously not going to be to everyone's taste; however, it's fascinating to see how far Begos can push the 16mm format here before it simply erupts into nothing but splattery colors. That's likely why this was selected as a somewhat surprising UHD choice (with a Blu-ray, of course) from Eli Roth-founded company The Horror Section, and as you'd expect, watching this in 4K is like having someone douse your eyeballs in chili peppers. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 English track is a monster as well with lots of crazy audio manipulation moving all over the place, with optional English subs included. There's also a quasi-grindhouse experience option to watch the film that tacks on fake trailers for The Piano Killer and Don't Go in That House, Bitch!, plus three commentary options (Begos solo, Begos with cinematographer Brian Sowell and makeup effects creators Josh Russell and Sierra Spence, and a free-for-all cast and crew track). If that isn't enough, the mammoth "Working Class Horror: The Crazy Fucking Making of Jimmy & Stiggs" (143m34s-- yes, that is the real running time) chronicles the whole insane four-year process of putting this film together starting in the Spring of 2021 and turning into a wildly ambitious undertaking considering it only really has two significant human characters. In "Splat Chat" (5m6s), Josh Ethier and Matt Mercer briefly chat about their friendship and working relationship, followed by a trailer and a 6m55s "The Gore Tour" with Begos guiding Roth through the set and a "Kodak Motion Picture Film Promo" (5m16s) features Begos explaining why he loves shooting on film. Buy here.
the glorified children's' play Fun in Balloon Land (52m33s) from 
1965 is a colorful, confounding patchwork of fanciful amateur theatrics and footage of a Philly Thanksgiving parade, complete with a journey under the sea with a giant inflatable octopus. This is one for those who think H.G. Lewis' kiddie films are too intellectual. Lots of SWV customers were astonished a few years back with their release of Polly Pockets (25m7s), an unsold, visually vibrant unsold pilot from the mid-'60s for a kids' musical TV show. Probably inspired by a viewing of Mary Poppins by someone with a hundred bucks or so to spare, it charts the low-stakes adventures of the title character (who has a big patchwork shirt with big multicolored pockets) and her energetic travel companion, Sterling Holloway wannabe Dandy Andy. Much of it involves a story about the Castle of Gloom, so be prepared. In 1965's The Princess and the Magic Frog (78m7s), originally filmed as At the End of the Rainbow, you get a very psychedelic tale about young Matthew, who plays hooky to go fishing with his best pal and ends up alone in the woods with a magic frog that accompanies him through encounters with a leprechaun, a knight, a genie, an evil wizard, a gypsy, a puppeteer, and ultimately the meaning of the titular princess. Watch this one late at night and you may never be the same. Last up is the streamlined English dub of the marvelous 1963 Russian fantasy Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (76m27s), about a young girl named Olya who ventures through a mirror into a supernatural alternate universe featuring crazy cats, her own inverted doppelganger, a totalitarian king controlling the populace, and a rescue mission involving the friends she makes along the way. This one was released on DVD in the U.S. way back from Ruscico in its original form, but this U.S. redo is a whole different beast with a boisterous dub job and some obvious tweaking of the original parallels involving the dangers of dishonest propaganda. All of the films are taken from Something Weird's S-VHS masters complete with watermarks, to recreate that full DVD-R experience. You can also watch everything in a full "All Nite Slumber Party Mode" complete with (mostly kid-friendly) drive-in snipes, commercials, and trailers, which can be played separately as well. Buy here.
partnership carrying the torch into the Blu-ray era. Case in point: Scare Film Archives Vol. 2: Danger Stories, a 
soul-bruising three hours and 49 minutes of hard lessons about avoiding strangers, not running in traffic, talking to sentient bicycles, dodging fires, and safely handling gigantic construction equipment. For the record, what you get here are "Live and Learn" (1951), "Why Takes Chances" (1952), "Farm Petroleum Safety" (1954), "The Time of Our Lives" (sometime in the '50s), "The Day the Bicycles Disappeared" (1967), "The Dangerous Stranger" (1971), "The Great Betrayal" (1974), "Safety Harm Hides at Home" (1974), "Have a Good Day, Dear" (1977), "Mr. Flame" (the '70s) with commentary by AGFA's Bret Berg, Tiernan O'Rourke, and Joe Ziemba, "Shake Hands with Danger" (1980) featuring one of the coolest safety songs ever plus a commentary by songwriter Jim Stringer, Skip Elsheimer from A/V Geeks and AGFA's Board, and O'Rourke, "The Attitude Factor" (1981), and "Accident Report" (1982). As usual for these collection it's fascinating and a little strange to watch the narrative approach and aesthetics change over the years as you go from the cheerful black-and-white '50s to the much gritter but colorful '80s, and by the time it's done you'll probably never want to step outside again. All of these have fresh new scans and look excellent, sometimes shockingly so in several cases, and you get lots of useful info about how to keep all your fingers and not end up as roadkill. Also included is "Danger Stories: A Word Salad Symphony," a one-hour compendium of SWV safety film soundbites smashed together into an alarmist but adorably nonsensical patchwork. Buy here. 
films he made just before his commercial breakthrough have been compiled as an absolutely killer Blu-ray release from Kani showing style emerging within very low budget confines. First up in 1982's Top Stripper, which follows the tradition of packing a lot into its spare running time (67 minutes in this case). Young, gawky delivery boy Yoichi (Kensuke Miyawaki) is infatuated with his neighbor, Gloria (Kaori Okamoto), who works at the Urayasu Music 
Theater, a stylish strip club promising an "erotic explosion" from its creative dancers. (And the music there is great!) As a customer he can be one of the guys who rubs shaving cream on her chest, but that's where the social connection ends. Meanwhile the working women grapple with their own day-to-day personal issues, be it pregnancy or money, with everything climaxing when Yoichi finally gets his chance in the spotlight and grows up the hard way. Featuring a familiar pink film cast across the board, it's a fascinating combination of coming-of-age story and working girl chronicle that works like a charm. Then the candy jar-flavored Pink Cut: Love Me Hard, Love Me Deep from 1983 (clocking in just a tad longer at 68 minutes) is a giddy, sex-packed confection featuring the world's greatest hair salon orgy and even ends with the cast doing a musical dance number. Here we spend time at a barber shop run by Mami (Mayumi Terashima) and Yuka (Mai Inoue), who take reservations from a phone outside on the corner from men whose orders like "clean cut" come with increasingly skimpy clothing and eventually massages. About as close to a pink date movie as you can get, this is definitely on the more cheerful side as it ladles out a lot of upbeat sex scenes while shooting everything like a Jacques Demy film. Both films look great with the DTS-HD MA 2.0 Japanese mono audio sounding fine, with optional English subtitles. Extras include interviews with producer Yoshimitsu Morita, who was also married to the director, introducing Top Stripper (3m40s) and Pink Cut (3m55s) by chatting about the personal elements worked into the stories, the quick shooting schedules, the "one more" edict that led to Pink Cut right before their big break movie, and shooting on an bona fide film set for the first time with the barber shop. An insert booklet features an essay by Aaron Gerow and production photos. Buy here.PREVIOUS SICK PICKS:
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