January 18, 2026

For those in the know, one of the most startling home video releases in recent memory has to be The Movie Orgy, AGFA's Blu-ray edition that marks the first commercial availability of the legendary, epic-length work now regarded as the first cinematic mixtape. Compiled by Joe Dante with producer Jon Davison (RoboCop) on 16mm and designed to be viewed with audience members walking in and out, it clocks in at a whopping four hours and 41 minutes of editorial pop culture madness assaulting you with clips, stills, cartoon bubble commentary, and hip music. This 1968 wonder in an indicator of the prowess Dante would bring to his days cutting trailers for Roger Corman and then graduating to directing films, where you can still feel the DNA of this one in his feature films like The Howling, Gremlins, and Matinee (not to mention TV shows like Dream On). Originally assembled at a crazy seven hours(!) sometimes split with what was called Son of the Movie Orgy, the film is impossible to really describe in words as it feels like a rollercoaster through '50s sci-fi, nudists, children's television, adult film disclaimers, Presidential addresses, dance contests, juvenile delinquents, singalongs, toothpaste commercials, theater bumpers, game show clips, and celebrities including Groucho Marx, Brett Halsey, Alfred Hitchcock, Ann-Margret, and more. The Blu-ray is presented from the original 16mm materials and looks great given the patchwork nature of the original project, with some SD footage slugged in where the original was unusable (namely a pretty rough 12-minute patch at the four-hour mark). Also included is a 3m8s intro by Joe Dante laying the groundwork for what you're about to see and explaining how it was designed to be seen with an audience with its editing evolving over time. Buy here.

Speaking of pop culture influence, a really odd one that made an unlikely resurgence on Blu-ray from VHSHitfest after being barely circulated privately on VHS is Twin Cheeks, whose title and content disclaimer warning promise something more straightforward and pornographic than what you actually get. Instead this 50-minute oddity is more of a campy experimental alternate universe response to the legendary David Lynch and Mark Frost TV series Twin Peaks, whose two initial seasons and feature film were already two years past when this camcorder-shot opus from Kelly Hughes (as "Osker Wild") was completed. (Weirdly, a hardcore parody with the exact same title had already been made in 1991 by Henri Pachard.) Shot in the Pacific Northwest like the show itself, this opens up with the murder of a high school homecoming king during a hook-up in the woods. From there you get a lot of random text scrolling across the screen and pontifications from a Log Lady-style character as the vague semblance of a plot involves the dead guy's brother sort of looking into it while bizarre characters including a villain named Mangina bounce around the screen. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Hughes (who also made singular barely-seen films like La cage aux zombies) came from the world of public access TV since that's exactly what this feels like, albeit with a couple of shots you'd never be able to get away with in that arena. The Blu-ray is true to the VHS source and a welcome release given the extreme rarity of this until now, and Hughes also provides an audio commentary identifying as many people and improv groups as possible and pointing out various nods to its obvious inspiration. Hughes also appears for a 42m57s interview about the creation of this film in 1993, the fact that he had only seen Fire Walk with Me by that point (which he calls a rip-off of Angel for some reason!), and the process of casting and wrangling the actors often out in the wild. "Wrapped in DNA" (7m50s) with actors Betty marshal and Ernest Rhodes looks back at the production during a 2015 photo shoot, and then "Bliss Does Hollywood" (29m19s) features drag performer Bliss (the film's homecoming queen) for an often very amusing and endearing interview about his entire career. Also included are some very lo-fi Hughes music videos ("Please Don't Hate Me," "We're Nothing"), three short films ("Baby Baby," "Roxanne," "The Witch Will Kill You for Your Youth and Beauty"), and an entire bonus feature, the 63m41s-minute It’s Not the House, It’s My Mother, a dreamy, droning reverie (shot digitally with a ton of filtering) about a mentally unbalanced woman coming to terms with her jockstrap-wearing husband's peculiarities and some unorthodox psychiatric treatment. Buy here.

Incredibly, that isn't the only Twin Peaks-affiliated shot-on-video obscurity to come out of the woodwork lately. Previously unreleased in any commercial format and now decked out in an insanely overstuffed Blu-ray from Saturn's Core, 2003's Specter's Rock was a question mark for a long time when a promo trailer was included as an Easter egg on the first season DVD set of the legendary TV show thanks to the presence of The Man from Another Place actor Michael J. Anderson. As he explains in his 6m23s video intro, first-time director Josh Eisenstadt was a young, ambitious, and possibly naive college student when he put this epic together after meeting actress Robin Ritter and recruiting some surprising Lynch-linked names for the shoot. Over the course of two hours and 32 minutes, the film's broad canvas involves a woman named Geneva whose boyfriend shows up and tells her he's on to something big -- only to get a phone call the next morning that he had already been murdered. Dreams, conspiracies, mustard stain freak-outs, and a mysterious Sizzler figure in the alien-themed narrative tapestry with lots of oddball comedy along the way. The Blu-ray is taken from the original DigiBeta master tapes which, as the director himself admits, went a bit nuts with the film grain filtering which doesn't exactly make it the prettiest film in the world. It's true to the source though and fun in a retro way if you're familiar with the era. Incredibly, Eisenstadt and actress Jamielyn Lippman also provide an audio commentary for the whole film talking about putting it together, though the volume is really erratic and all but impenetrable at times. You also get 21m9s of deleted scenes with optional director commentary (culled from the hour and a half of discarded footage in total!), a 19m21s electronic press kit promo with a director intro and cast interviews, a 33m18s "Transmissions from the Rock" interview with collaborator and actress Robin Garrels, and behind-the-scenes photos (2m14s). On top of that you even get the full sequel to the film(!), Specter's Rock 2025 (59m38s), about a woman named Clara (who figures in the first film) dealing with an amnesia gap in her life and its ties to more uncanny interference from another realm. Obviously much shorter and more focused (with higher production quality), it's a diverting footnote essentially and worth a look after the main feature. The Lynch ties continue here with Twin Peaks actress Sabrina Sutherland, and there's a director commentary here with producer-actor Jesse Pate. On top of that you get deleted scenes from the sequel as well (2m47s) with optional commentary, two Eisenstadt short films (2005's stylish Inner Balance with Lynch alums Dana Ashbrook and David Schroeder and 2021's Fresh Start which started off as a Thai restaurant ad!) with intros and optional commentary, and a 20m31s batch of trailers for Eisenstadt films including multiple ones for Specter's Rock, Dark Reel, Spreading Darkness, and Specter's Rock 2025. Buy here.

In the onslaught of classic adult product that's been released on DVD, Blu-ray, and even UHD, one format that hasn't fared too well is the loop -- 8mm hardcore films, usually consisting of one or two scenes, which have been compiled on disc numerous times in less than optimal condition. For most of their existence these were shot without sound (Europe jumped on the 8mm sound train a lot earlier), but this often neglected variation gets some much-needed love with the Blu-ray (well, BD-R) release of Wildheart: The Leslie Winston Collection from Ultra Flesh Archives. The star herself participated in this extensive collection, which offers 145 minutes of loops in fresh HD scans looking shockingly good if you're used to them normally being dupey, scratchy, and faded. As usual you get some generic projector noise on the soundtrack as an option, but here Winston herself provides running audio commentary about her exploits over the years including her co-stars, the evolution of the industry, the average working day being an adult performer, and tons more. Titles here include "Dive Right In," "Crazy Ann," "Solo," Leather Babe," "Swing, Baby, Swing!," "Valley Girls," "Milk Clinic," "Curly Top," and a few others that won't be listed here. Also included are a bonus loop ("Two Beauties and a Beast"), a restoration demonstration showing how much work went into polishing these up, a photo gallery, "The Succulent Sounds of Disco Sex" (as funky as you'd imagine), and an extra black-and-white silent nudie short, "Big Night with Knight." The package comes with two Winston trading cards, a sticker, a sealed condom (I mean, you never know...), and a card with transfer notes featuring a strip of 8mm film. Buy here or buy from Diabolik.

Back in the '80s, European softcore films had a very receptive audience in the U.S. through avenues like Cinemax's Friday After Dark and Private Screenings' VHS line. However, a few didn't make it over the pond for some reason but became cult favorites elsewhere -- none more dramatic than the ongoing British fondness for two sexy, fetish-y French items, 1983's Éducation Anglaise and 1985's "spiritual sequel" Dressage. Both of these were popular when they hit VHS in 1995 from Jezebel (albeit a bit watered down for the BBFC), with their focus on corporal punishment and bizarre plotting making them logical choices for the label's Continental naughty aesthetic. Nucleus Films later inherited both of them, issuing uncut DVDs in 2007 and then deluxe Blu-rays in 2024 featuring both the endearing English dubs and the original French-language tracks with optional English or English SDH subtitles. The new 1.78:1 transfers from the original negatives look lovely as well, bringing out every sunlight-dappled derriere in sharp detail, and David Flint provides audio commentaries for both laying out the details of French '80s erotica, the BBFC histories, the Sadean influence, and the finer points of what makes these films so curious. In the first film, we get a plot worthy of a giallo (in fact, Antonio Margheriti fans might feel some deja vu) as a 1930s French boarding school welcomes a strangely butch teacher, Georgina, played by Delicatessen's Jean-Claude Dreyfuss and most certainly not the burly criminal who's just escaped in the nearby area. Also new on the scene is Sylvie (adult film actress Obaya Roberts), who's been orphaned (thanks to a violent murder over infidelity) and dumped in the school by her callous guardian. The regimen for the "English education" at the school means lots of spanking, horse role-play, etc., and since Brigitte Lahaie is on the scene, that should also give you an idea of what to expect. Other hardcore actors like Catherine Leno and Jacques Gatteau are also involved, which shouldn't be a surprise since this was directed by Jean-Claude Roy, a.k.a. prolific porn filmmaker Patrick Aubin (Brigade Call-Girls, Serviced with a Smile). Roy himself also gets covered in an interview featurette, "Jean-Claude Roy: First Steps" (9m24s) about his entry into the film business under Jean Gourguet, the foibles of shooting on location with low budgets, and meeting the demands of Parisian and provincial cinemas.

On a similar note, Dressage was the handiwork of a director better known for his adult work, Pierre B. Reinhard, who also gave you Revenge of the Living Dead Girls. (Roy stayed on here as "artistic director.") Here the action centers around a bordello for the upper crust where, a la Les liaisons dangereuses, the Baron Plessis de Regard and decadent young Nathalie are using carnal temptation to take down all of their rivals including a conservative colonel and Nathalie's father and sister. After some strip shows and champagne baths, things swing into motion with some targets proving more willing than others. As with the previous film, the '30s detail is nicely handled here on limited means with rich costuming and sets giving this a classy veneer that contrasts with some of the kinkier moments. Despite the title, nobody ever pretends to be a horse here-- but you do get a dirty holiday photo shoot with Santa Claus and a nun, so that compensates. An interview with Reinhard, "Life of an Artisan" (18m42s), goes into his first meeting with Roy at an editing bay, the friskiest member of the cast (which isn't much of a surprise), Roy's exact role on the film, and the current malaise in the industry. The English and French trailers are also included along with image galleries for both films. Buy here and buy here or buy from Diabolik.

Far kinkier and way, way less elegant material can be found in Saturn's Core's Your Life Is on the Line: A Joe Christ Anthology Vol. 1, a salute to one of the more obscure figures among the Cinema of Transgression practitioners like Richard Kern, Lydia Lynch, and Nick Zedd. Five short works of varying lengths from the early '90s (all self-distributed at one point on VHS) are collected here, starting with Communion in Room 410 (17m27s) with Christ and two goth women engaging in a lengthy ritual drinking each other's blood to an industrial soundtrack. Speed Freaks with Guns (26m22s) features Christ ranging either very loudly or very rationally in his apartment, by the water, and on the street before dressing up as a woman and descending into a lengthy deconstruction of the most famous murder from Psycho redone in a bathtub. In Crippled (16m30s), Christ tends to his demanding, bed-ridden topless paraplegic after her abusive prior caregiver throws in the towel. Deliberately shrill and repellent, it's truly something to behold. Acid Is Groovy Kill the Pigs (30m18s) is weirdly way more timid than its title would indicate, with a destitute Christ scoring some acid (via off-screen propositioning to his dealer) and, after consuming way too much at once, going on a murder rampage across Las Vegas before taking some weird turns into the occult, bondage, bad wigs, and a scene-stealing canine near the end. The most extreme short in the set by a mile comes next with Sex, Blood & Mutilation (38m22s), a mondo-style look at body modification (after a groovy nudie dancing intro) including Throbbing Gristle's Genesis P-Orridge presenting lingering looks at elaborate genital piercings among other sights that won't be spoiled here. Also, "Scrapple the Wonder Pup" makes an appearance.

All of the shorts are VHS quality, not surprisingly, and look fine here with optional English subtitles included. Christ (who passed away in 2009) provides audio commentaries for the shorts and makes for very wry, sometimes hilarious listening, not taking the shorts too seriously as he chats about getting his first camera, scouting brave talent to perform for him, and working himself up to plunge into some of his roles. "Mondo Christ: Underground Cinema's Punk Rock Ciazarn" (17m27s) by Heather Drain is a primer on Christ's life and artistic pursuits including his early work in bands, his place in underground filmmaking, and the carnival barker attitude he quickly established. Drain also delivers "Lysergic Deathtripping" (9m25s), a specific breakdown and appraisal of Acid and everything she loves about it. Footage is also included from the aborted Sex, Blood & Mutilation 2 (7m2s) shot at a body mod museum, followed by a five-minute reel of Christ trailers and TV spots including the upcoming volume two. Hunt around a little on the main menu screen and you'll get a one-hour extra that will make you never listen to opera the same way again. Buy here.

Legendary for her vigilante turn in Thriller: A Cruel Picture and a small but vivid number of Swedish (and Japanese) sexploitation films, Christina Lindberg is a prime subject for a documentary-- and that's exactly what you get with Christina Lindberg: The Original Eyepatch-Wearing Butt-Kicking Movie Babe. (Presumably that long title is intended to distinguish her from Daryl Hannah's homage to her in Kill Bill.) The 2015 doc gets the special edition treatment on Blu-ray from Klubb Super 8 and provides a thorough, fascinating snapshot of the woman who became Sweden's biggest drive-in movie icon. She provides a lot of narration herself (including the early hat tip to Taratino, of course), before the film goes through her early family life pin-up days, a role opposite a young Stellan Skarsgård in Anita (and yes, he gets interviewed briefly here), the big movie that made her famous, her time away from the limelight, and her more recent comeback and fan adoration. The Blu-ray looks great and finally brings this worthwhile portrait to a wide audience, viewable with English or Swedish subtitles. The packaging advertises this as a director's cut coming in at 72 minutes, but no idea what the difference is. "Christina's World Tour" (19m34s) features a longer look at her global convention appearances and enthusiastic fans. Certainly unexpected is the 1993 educational video "Christina's Mushroom School" (22m7s), in which she presents a handy guide to choosing fungi for your food carefully and not dying in the process. Also included are two galleries (centerfolds and articles, and the proposed comeback film Cry for Revenge), and trailers for Maid in Sweden, Anita, Dog Days, Secrets of Sweet Sixteen, Sex and Fury, Exposed (original and reissue as The Depraved), Thriller – A Cruel Picture, and a snippet from the elusive Yusra. Buy here.

A man who needs to introduction, one of horror's most revered makeup legends also got a 2015 documentary of his own in Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini, now on special edition Blu-ray from Wild Eye Releasing. True to its title, the production balances Savini's groundbreaking work in Dawn of the Dead, Creepshow, Maniac, etc. with a look at what influenced him growing up and how his family life evolved over the years. Extensive interview footage with the man himself is juggled with film and behind-the-scenes clips, plus interviewees like Tony Todd, Howard Berger, Greg Nicotero, Alice Cooper, Danny McBride, and many more including his relatives. The personal material is always interesting (including his legendary time as a war photographer in Vietnam), and among the detours are an extended look at his directing of the now much-loved remake of Night of the Living Dead including storyboards of his intended ending. (Honestly, what we ended up getting was blunter and better.) The HD transfer here looks nice (as you'd expect, the quality varies depending on the numerous sources) and the disc comes with an audio commentary with Savini and director Jason Baker covering the many creative and storytelling choices made throughout. Also included are behind-the-scenes video archives (for Till Death Do We Scare, Creepshow, Creepshow 2, Day of the Dead, Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), a video directing archive for Night, and personal video archives for home movies, his dad, and a wild Pittsburgh stage production of Dracula. Buy here.

We might as well wrap things up with one more monster kid salute courtesy of 2024's Vampire Zombies... from Space!, whose title should give you a clear idea of where it's coming from. Digitally shot in black-and-white, it's a heartfelt ode to '50s horror and sci-fi straight from Canada evolved from a high school production by Jakob Skrzypa, Alex Forman, and director Mike Stasko. Basically the mayhem takes place in a small '50s farming town where Dracula, now consigned to outer space, comes down looking to conquer the world by turning the denizens into his own army of the undead. A liquor-swilling police detective can't find much more to focus on than the town's public masturbator (you won't be shocked at all who plays him), and while he's initially dismissive of the claims of throat-ripping threats roaming the countryside, he soon has to team up with a high school girl and other concerned citizens to save the day. The atmosphere and charming special effects are mostly dead-on here as is the humor, which doesn't tip over into full lampooning. It's sweet, gory, sincere, and never dull. The Blu-ray from Cleopatra Entertainment looks pristine and features effective DTS-HD 5.1 and 2.0 stereo audio options with English or Spanish subtitles, and Stasko, Skrzypa, and Forman appear for a lively audio commentary explaining how they put it all together complete with the stories behind some cameos and influences both obvious and obscure. Also included are a cast and crew interview featurette (16m23s), "Cult Icons" interviews with guest stars Judith O'Dea (4m4s) and Lloyd Kaufman (3m19s), five deleted scenes, highlights from the film's Windsor International Film Festival (1m30s), a slideshow, a trailer, and bonus Cleopatra trailers. Buy here.

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