British distributors Arrow Video have revealed that they are planning to add a number of exciting titles to their Blu-ray catalog between July and September. Amongst them are David Cronenberg's Shivers (1975), Jules Dassin's Brute Force (1947), and Michael Armstrong's Mark of the Devil (1970).
Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins
First they faked his death and gave him a new identity. Now a top secret organisation is training a former New York cop to combat corrupt forces operating outside of the law. His mentor, Chiun, is an ageing Korean master of the martial arts who can run on water and dodge speeding bullets.
Born on the pages of Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir's The Destroyer series of men's adventure novels, Remo Williams was placed in the capable hands of Bond director Guy Hamilton (Goldfinger, The Man with the Golden Gun) for his big-screen outing. Fred Ward (Tremors) plays the trainee assassin, with Academy Award-winner Joel Grey (Cabaret) occupying the role of Chiun.
With its classic set-piece atop the Statue of Liberty, much-loved score by Craig Safan and a healthy sense of its own silliness, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins… offers up a cracking slice of mid-eighties action.
Special Features:
High definition digital transfer
Newly created and exclusive content including interviews with cast and crew
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by The Red Dress
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film and more
More to be revealed closer to the release date
STREET DATE: JULY 7TH.
Bound
Before making their name with worldwide smash hit The Matrix and its two sequels (which they similarly wrote and directed), sibling duo The Wachowskis debuted with this sizzling neo-noir thriller financed by legendary Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis.
Gina Gershon (Showgirls, Face/Off) plays Corky, a young woman recently released from a five-year jail term for, as she puts it, the "redistribution of wealth". After a brief lift encounter with her sexy and sultry neighbour Violet (Jennifer Tilly) the pair strike up a steamy love affair under the nose of Violet's unhinged Mafia boyfriend Caesar (Joe Pantoliano). Soon the two women are hatching a plot to steal $2 million from Caesar and his associates – but if you're going to mess with the mob, you'd better be sure you do it right…
Hugely well received upon its release, reviews for Bound saw some critics comparing the Wachowskis with the Coen Brothers – and Blood Simple in particular – whilst Roger Ebert heaped praise on the film, declaring it to be "one of those movies that works you up, wrings you out and leaves you gasping". By turns shocking and funny (and with plenty of lesbian sex scenes thrown in for good measure) Bound is an astoundingly assured debut which oozes style and sensuality.
Special Features:
High definition digital transfer
Audio Commentary with Writer/Directors the Wachowskis, Stars Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, and Joe Pantoliano, Editor Zach Staenberg, and Consultant Susie Bright
Femme Fatales - Interviews with Stars Gina Gershon & Jennifer Tilly
Hail Caesar! – An Interview with Actor Joe Pantoliano
Here's Johnny! – An Interview with Actor Christopher Meloni
Modern Noir: The Sights & Sounds of Bound – Interviews with Director of Photography Bill Pope, Editor Zach Staenberg, and Composer Don Davis
Vintage EPK Featurettes (US & International Versions)
Theatrical Trailers
TV Spots
Still Gallery Images
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork to be revealed!
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film
STREET DATE: JULY 14TH.
The Assassin
Released within months of Fellini's La Dolce Vita and Antonioni's La Notte, Elio Petri's dazzling first feature L'Assassino also stars Marcello Mastroianni, this time as dandyish thirtysomething antiques dealer Alfredo Martelli, arrested on suspicion of murdering his older, far wealthier lover Adalgisa (Micheline Presle). But as the increasingly Kafkaesque police investigation proceeds, it becomes less and less important whether Martelli actually committed the crime as his entire lifestyle is effectively put on trial.
Best known for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion and The Tenth Victim, Petri was one of the finest and yet most underrated Italian directors of the 1960s and 70s. Highly acclaimed on its original UK release but unjustly neglected since, L'Assassino is a remarkably assured debut from one of the cinema's sharpest chroniclers of Italian social and political realities. Petri said that he wanted to reflect the changes wrought by the early sixties, and to examine "a new generation of upstarts who lacked any kind of moral scruple".
Arrow Academy is proud to present the first ever UK video release of L'Assassino in a gorgeous high-definition restoration created by the Cineteca di Bologna.
Special Features:
New 2K digital restoration from the Cineteca di Bologna
Uncompressed Mono 2.0 PCM Audio
Elio Petri and L'Assassino, an introduction by Italian cinema expert Pasquale Iannone
Tonino Guerra: A Poet in the Movies: Nicola Tranquillino's documentary about the great Italian screenwriter
Theatrical Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jay Shaw
Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Elio Petri expert Camilla Zamboni, plus a selection of contemporary reviews
STREET DATE: JULY 21.
The Beast
Originally turned down flat by the British Board of Film Censors and initially released exclusively in London in a version heavily cut by its nervous distributor, The Beast is Walerian Borowczyk's most notorious film, although it's much wittier and more playful than its subject matter might suggest.
Lucy Broadhurst (Lisbeth Hummel) is due to inherit a substantial fortune, but on condition that she marries the son of her late father's best friend. But Mathurin de l'Espérance (Pierre Benedetti) seems more interested in his horses than in his bride-to-be, and when Lucy finds out about the story of his 18th-century ancestor Romilda (Sirpa Lane) and brings her to life in one of the most outrageous dream sequences in cinema history, we begin to realise just how bizarre Mathurin's bloodline truly is.
Receiving its Blu-ray world premiere, this new high-definition restoration by Argos Films is supported by the original short-film version of The Beast, and Venus on the Half-Shell (1975), Borowczyk's portrait of the painter Bona Tibertelli de Pisis and her erotic fusions of men, women and molluscs.
Special Features:
New high definition digital transfers of the feature and the shorts
Uncompressed Mono 2.0 PCM Audio
Optional English subtitles
Introduction by film critic Peter Bradshaw
The True Story of the Beast of Gévaudan (1972), the original short-film version of The Beast
Venus on the Half-Shell (1975)
The Making of 'The Beast': camera operator Noël Véry provides a commentary on footage shot during the film's production
Frenzy of Ecstasy, a new visual essay on the evolution of Borowczyk's beast and the sequel that never was, Motherhood
Theatrical trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original poster design
Booklet featuring new writing on the film by Daniel Bird and archive pieces by David Thompson and Craig Lapper, illustrated with original stills
STREET DATE: JULY 28TH.
Branded to Kill
Seijun Suzuki's delirious 1967 hit-man film has drawn comparisons with contemporaries Le Samourai and Point Blank and influenced directors such as John Woo, Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino among others.
The story of laconic yakuza Hanada, aka 'No. 3 Killer', the third rated hit-man in Japan who takes an impossible job from the mysterious, death obsessed Misako. Hanada bungles the hit and finds himself the target of his employers and a bullet ridden journey leads him to face the No. 1 Killer.
Shot in cool monochrome with beguiling visuals, Branded to Kill is an effortlessly cool crime film with a jazzy score that caused Suzuki to be fired by the studio's executives but is now rightly recognised as his masterpiece.
Special Features:
New High Definition digital transfer
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation
Newly translated English subtitles for both films
Interview with director Seijun Suzuki
Interview with star Jo Shishido by critic and author Koshi Ueno
Trapped in Lust [Aiyoku no wana] (1973) – A delirious roman porno re-imagining of Branded to Kill from Atsushi Yamatoya, one of Branded to Kill's screenwriters and Suzuki's regular collaborators
Original Trailers for Branded to Kill and Trap of Lust
Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork by Ian MacEwan
Booklet by Japanese film expert Jasper Sharp, illustrated with original stills and new artwork by Ian MacEwan
STREET DATE: JULY 28TH.
Mark of the Devil
Once proclaimed as "positively the most horrifying film ever made", Mark of the Devil finally arrives uncut in the UK.
A bloody and brutal critique of religious corruption, Mark of the Devilsees horror icon Udo Kier (Flesh for Frankenstein, Suspiria) play a witchfinder's apprentice whose faith in his master (Herbert Lom) becomes severely tested when they settle in an Austrian village. Presided over by the sadistic albino (a memorably nasty turn from Reggie Nalder), the film presents its morality not so much in shades of grey as shades of black.
Written and directed by Michael Armstrong, who would later penEskimo Nell, The Black Panther and House of the Long Shadows, this classic shocker has lost none of its power over the years – especially now that British audiences can finally see it in one piece.
Special Features:
High definition digital transfer
Newly created and exclusive content including interviews with cast and crew!
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film and more!
More to be revealed closer to the release date
STREET DATE: AUGUST 4TH.
Kidnapped
Following difficulties in his career, Mario Bava happened across an idea that would enable him to compete with the younger directors lighting up the Italian box office such as Dario Argento and Sergio Martino.
Rabid Dogs begins as $70,000 of wages are being transferred when the Ajaccio gang hit. With a hail of bullets in a quick raid they speed off in their waiting getaway car. Tough, violent and realistic, Bava's film ramps up the tension and doesn't stop as hostages are added and the film builds to its dizzying finale.
Unfolding in real time, a rare device seen only in earlier films such asHigh Noon and 12 Angry Men yet totally unheard of in Italian cinema at the time, Rabid Dogs is a singular film in Bava's filmography and one of the greatest crime films of the period.
Special Features:
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of two versions of the film; 'Rabid Dogs' – Bava's original version posthumously completed from his notes & 'Kidnapped' – the re-edited, re-dubbed and re-scored version, supervised by Bava's son and assistant Lamberto Bava and producer Alfredo Leone
Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing on both versions
Audio Commentary with Bava biographer and expert Tim Lucas
End of the Road: The Making of Rabid Dogs – A documentary featurette including interviews with Lamberto Bava, Alfredo Leone and star Lea Lander
Original Trailer
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Stephen Thrower, a history of the multiple versions of the film from Semaforo Rosso to Rabid Dogs to Kidnapped by Peter Blumenstock, illustrated with original stills and posters
More to be announced!
STREET DATE: AUGUST 11TH
Brute Force
Before making the French crime classic Rififi, Jules Dassin was arguably the greatest of film noir directors, responsible for a string of gems including The Naked City, Thieves' Highway and Night and the City. Brute Force kickstarted that run of pictures and never did a film live up to its name more.
Burt Lancaster is Joe Collins, one of a number of convicts squeezed into cell R17 intent on staging a prison break. Not only does he need to return to the side of his cancer-ridden wife (Ann Blyth), he also wants to escape the clutches of sadistic warden Captain Munsey (an unforgettable performance from Hume Cronyn) who enjoys a reign of terror over the inmates.
Beautifully shot by the great William H. Daniels, tautly written by Richard Brooks (Blackboard Jungle, In Cold Blood) and impeccably acted by its ensemble of noir familiars, Brute Force remains a prison movie classic.
Special Features:
High definition digital transfer
Newly created and exclusive content
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork to be revealed!
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film and more!
More to be revealed closer to the release date
STREET DATE: AUGUST 18TH.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space
Clowns can be terrifying at the best of times – especially when they're Killer Klowns from Outer Space! When Mike and his girlfriend Debbie turn up at the local police station warning that a gang of homicidal alien clowns have arrived in the town of Crescent Grove, the cops are naturally sceptical. Talk of popcorn-firing guns and a spaceship shaped like a circus tent out in the woods hardly helps to convince them.
Before long, however, reports start coming in from anxious locals reporting similar run-ins with the colourfully-dressed, large shoe-wearing assailants. There can no longer be any doubt - the Killer Klowns from Outer Space are here and they're out to turn the population into candy floss!
The sole directorial effort from the Chiodo brothers – the special effects team behind such hits as Critters and Team America: World Police – Killer Klowns from Outer Space is the wacky 1988 horror comedy classic against which all other knowing B-movie efforts should be measured. So, in the words of the film's opening theme song, hop aboard the "nightmare merry-go-round" and brace yourself for a cinematic experience unparalleled in this galaxy!
Special Features:
High definition digital transfer
Audio Commentary with the Chiodo Brothers
The Making of Killer Klowns – a 20-minute featurette comprising interviews and behind-the-scenes footage
Komposing Klowns – interview with composer John Massari
Visual Effects with Gene Warren Jr.
Kreating Klowns – with Charles Chiodo and creature fabricator Dwight Roberts
Chiodo Brothers' Earliest Films - a look back on the first Chiodo Brothers' productions
Two Deleted Scenes with Director's Commentary
Killer Bloopers
Klown Auditions
Theatrical Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork to be revealed! [Amaray only]
Limited Edition SteelBook featuring original artwork [SteelBook only]
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film
STREET DATE: AUGUST 25TH.
Stray Cat Rock: The Collection
The Stray Cat Rock series stars Meiko Kaji (Lady Snowblood, Blind Woman's Curse) who with these five films began her reign as the badass action queen of the era. In these five tales of rebellious youth she stars alongside the gorgeous Bunjaku Han (Love Letter) and Tatsuya Fuji (In the Realm of the Senses).
In Delinquent Girl Boss, the girl gang go up against criminal organisation the Seiyu Group, following a fixed boxing match blood is shed and friendships are tested. In Wild Jumbo, Kaji and the gang get involved in a kidnapping and the robbery of a religious organisation. InSex Hunter Kaji's girl gang go up against The Eagles, a group led by Fuji where sex and violence erupt over the treatment of 'half-breeds'. In Machine Animal gang rivalry is once again the focus with two gangs pursuing some LSD pushers looking to move a big score. The series swansong, Beat'71, sees Kaji framed and sent to prison by her boyfriend's father and with the help of some hippies she strives to be re-united.
Directed by genre veterans Yasuharu Hasebe (Female Prisoner Scorpion: #701's Grudge Song) and Toshiya Fujita (Lady Snowblood) the films feature a psychedelic mix of girl gangs, bikers, sex, drugs and rock and roll with plenty of ass-kicking to boot, all captured in a delirious mash up of pop aesthetics including split screens, freeze frames, injections of colour, frenetic editing and dizzying angles, making these films a riotous joy from beginning to end.
Special Features:
Limited Edition Blu-ray (2000 copies only)
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentation of all 5 films in the Stray Cat Rock series, available in the English speaking world for the first time
Original Mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
New English subtitle translation of all five films
Interview with Yasuharu Hasebe director of Delinquent Girl Boss,Sex Hunter and Machine Animal
Interview with actor Tatsuya Fuji, star of all five films
Original Trailers for all five films
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the films by Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp
STREET DATE: AUGUST 8TH.
Salvatore Giuliano
Salvatore Giuliano can be seen as a Citizen Kane-like portrait of a man by those who knew him but is also as a crime film about the mafia and their entanglements with politics and corruption. Francesco Rosi's influential (its style can be seen as a strong precursor to The Battle of Algiers) film is, according to Rosi, best explained by the original title: Sicily 1943-60, a stunning investigative portrait that would form the template for his later films.
Telling the story of Salvatore Giuliano, Italy's most wanted criminal who is found dead with a hand gun and rifle by his side, Rosi's films asks difficult questions and courted much controversy in Italy upon release. Filming in the exact locations, utilising original court reports as well as casting the actual persons involved Rosi garnered stunning performances from his part non-professional crew but also from his stars, Frank Wolff (Once Upon a Time in the West) and Salvo Randone (Satyricon).
Stunningly shot by Gianni di Venanzo (Fellini's 8½), the film was never released in the UK despite glowing reviews; "outstanding" (Variety), "one of the most courageous things the Italian cinema has ever attempted" (Sight & Sound), "the most aesthetically satisfying and inventive film of its type in many years" (Monthly Film Bulletin), finally it can now be appreciated in a stunning new 4K restoration.
Special Features:
New 4K film restoration carried out with support from Martin Scorsese's Film Foundation at the Cineteca di Bologna film laboratory
Newly created and exclusive content
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned by Jay Shaw
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film and more!
More to be revealed closer to the release date
STREET DATE: SEPTEMBER 15TH
Night of the Comet
Life can be tough when you're a Valley girl. First, there's making sure you're on time for pep squad practice. Then there's having to live under the same roof as your bitchy stepmother who, you suspect, is making it with Chuck from across the road. And then, of course, there's having to keep on the lookout for the occasional marauding zombie hungering after your flesh!
Eighteen year-old Reggie (Catherine Mary Stewart – Weekend at Bernie's, The Last Starfighter) misses out on the event-of-a-lifetime when she ditches watching the comet in favour of copping off with the projectionist at the cinema where she works. But this turns out to be a wise move when, the next day, she discovers that the entire population has been reduced to piles of red dust – leaving only Reggie, her sister Sam (Kelli Maroney – Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Chopping Mall) and a handful of other survivors to fend off the roving gangs of glassy-eyed zombies.
Taking its cue from classic "doomsday" movies such as The Day of the Triffids and The Omega Man (and with a healthy dose of Dawn of the Dead thrown in for good measure), Night of the Comet is an irresistible slice of Reagan-era B-movie fare which features Cyndi Lauper dance-alongs as well as some truly gravity-defying bouffant hairstyles… Well, it was acceptable in the 80s!
Special Features:
High definition digital transfer
Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Thom Eberhardt
Audio Commentary with Stars Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart
Audio Commentary with Production Designer John Muto
Valley Girls At The End Of The World – Interviews with Stars Kelli Maroney and Catherine Mary Stewart
The Last Man On Earth? – An Interview with Actor Robert Beltran
Curse of the Comet – An Interview with Special Make-Up Effects Creator David B. Miller
Theatrical Trailer
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork to be revealed!
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film
STREET DATE: SEPTEMBER 22.
Shivers
Initially reviled in its native land (some critics took exception to the fact the film was largely funded by the Canadian taxpayer), Shivers is an intensely claustrophobic, subversive masterpiece and an essential entry in the oeuvre of one of the horror genre's most gifted auteurs. Some 40 years after its release, it still retains its power to shock.
Starliner Island is an idyllic community. Cut off from the rest of the world, the luxury apartment block affords its occupants the chance to escape from the hustle and bustle of the big city. But this isolation is to prove fatal when a new breed of parasite – a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease which arouses sexual aggression in its hosts – is let loose in the building, resulting in an orgy terror and mayhem.
Known under a host of alternate titles such as The Parasite Murdersand They Came From Within!, Shivers is the startling debut full-length feature from director David Cronenberg which anticipates the body-horror concerns of his later films such as The Fly and Videodrome.
Special Features:
High definition digital transfer
Newly created and exclusive content
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork to be revealed!
Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film and more!
More to be revealed closer to the release date
STREET DATE: SEPTEMBER 29TH.
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