For this week’s home media releases, we have killer superheroes, prehistoric creatures, Frankenstein by way of Hammer, Anjelica Huston as a witch, the final farewell to Rick Grimes, and more on tap. Kino Lorber is keeping busy this Tuesday with several new Blu-rays, including 4D Man, Dinosaurs! and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (which I’ve never seen, but now I really want to), and Scream Factory is releasing the recent indie horror flick I Trapped the Devil and more Hammer genre goodness with Horror of Frankenstein as well. Another film I’m very excited to see hitting Blu is The Witches from the Warner Archive Collection, and William Friedkin’s Cruising is getting the special edition treatment from Arrow Video.
If you missed it in theaters, Brightburn will arrive on various formats this week, and for those of you who want to enjoy Rick Grimes’ final moments from this past season of The Walking Dead, you’ll get your chance on Tuesday as season 9 will be coming home on both Blu and DVD.
Other notable releases for August 20th include American Gods: Season Two, Frightworld, Camp Wedding, Play or Die, and Wronged.
4D Man (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray & DVD)
Brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative! He walks through walls of solid steel and stone… into the 4th dimension! From legendary producer Jack H. Harris and director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., the team behind cult favorites The Blob and Dinosaurus!, comes this sci-fi horror classic starring Robert Lansing (The Grissom Gang), Lee Meriwether (Catwoman/Miss Kitka of Batman: The Movie), Robert Strauss (Stalag 17), James Congdon (The Left Handed Gun) and Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker). Science whiz Dr. Tony Nelson (Congdon) has made an amazing discovery: he has developed a method of stimulating the molecular structure of solid objects so that they can be joined or passed through one another. Stumbling upon this incredible secret is Tony’s older brother, Scott (Lansing), a fellow scientist who decides to take the experiment one step further—and soon finds himself able to pass through doors and walls. But his newfound freedom of movement has unforeseen side effects, for each time the power is used, Scott ages a bit, and only by touching other living beings and draining their energy (and thus, their lives) can he maintain his age. In addition, this incredible force is driving Scott quite mad... and he’s just noticed his beautiful would-be fiancée (Meriwether) expressing an interest in his brother Tony. Filled with eye-popping special effects, 4D Man takes sci-fi to a whole new dimension!
Special Features:
-Audio Commentary by Film Historian Richard Harland Smith
-Audio Commentary by Kris Yeaworth
-Reflections from The 4D Man - Interview with Producer Jack H. Harris
-Interview with Co-star Lee Meriwether
-Animated Image Gallery
-Theatrical Trailer
Billy the Kid vs. Dracula (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray & DVD)
Billy the Kid vs. Dracula is an outrageous low-budget horror-western directed by cult filmmaker William Beaudine (The Ape Man, Voodoo Man). Traveling by stagecoach, Dracula (the great John Carradine) plots to convert Billy the Kid’s (famed stuntman Chuck Courtney) fiancée, Betty Bentley (Melinda Casey), into his vampire bride. When the sinister bloodsucker kidnaps Betty and takes her to an abandoned silver mine, Billy must confront the Count, but soon realizes his six-shooters’ bullets are no match for the undead—and an all-out battle of good vs. evil ensues. Filmmaker Carl K. Hittleman (36 Hours) wrote the screenplay for this wild cult classic, beautifully shot by Lothrop B. Worth (Gog) and featuring Marjorie Bennett (What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?) and Harry Carey Jr. (Cherry 2000).
Special Features:
-Audio Commentary by Film Historians Lee Gambin and John Harrison
-Trailers
Brightburn (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 4K Ultra HD/Blu Combo, Blu/DVD & DVD)
What if a child from another world crash-landed on Earth, but instead of becoming a hero to mankind, he proved to be something far more sinister? With Brightburn, the visionary filmmaker of Guardians of the Galaxy and Slither presents a startling, subversive take on a radical new genre: superhero horror.
BONUS MATERIALS:
- 3 “Quick Burns” Vignettes hosted by Actor Elizabeth Banks, Producer James Gunn & Director David Yarovesky
- “Hero-Horror!” featurette: It’s not often filmmakers successfully and seamlessly combine both Horror and Superhero into a genre-bending “Hero-Horror” category. Hear from Producer James Gunn and Screenwriters Brian and Mark Gunn as we will learn the methods of their filmmaking style and their dotting of the “i”’s and slashing of the “t”’s storytelling process.
- “Nature vs. Nurture” featurette: Hear from Actor Jackson A. Dunn, Producer James Gunn, Screenwriters Brian and Mark Gunn and understand the creative process involved in flipping the script of the traditional “Superhero” and diving into what motivates and moves our new Anti-hero, Brandon Breyer.
- Filmmaker Commentary with Director David Yarovesky, DP Michael Dallatorre, and Costume Designer Autumn Steed
Dinosaurs! (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray & DVD)
Brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative! Alive with thrills that started a million years ago! From legendary producer Jack H. Harris and director Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr., the team behind sci-fi classics The Blob and 4D Man, comes this cult fantasy-adventure starring Ward Ramsey, Paul Lukather and Kristina Hanson. Building a new harbor off the coast of a Caribbean island, an American engineer (Ramsey) sets off a blast on the ocean floor that uncovers the frozen bodies of a Brontosaurus, a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Neanderthal Man. The dinosaurs are hauled ashore by the construction crew, who are unaware that the giants are still alive. Struck by lightning during a fierce tropical storm, the monsters awaken and prowl the island jungles! Also restored to life is the caveman (Gregg Martell), an amiable brute who joins the island boy Julio (Alan Roberts) in a series of wacky misadventures. A merry grab-bag of sci-fi, action and comedy, Dinosaurus! features stop-motion dinosaur animation by the legendary Projects Unlimited effects team (The Time Machine, The Outer Limits). Beautifully shot in Scope by the great Stanley Cortez (Since You Went Away, The Night of the Hunter).
Special Features:
-Audio Commentary by Kris Yeaworth
-Dinosaurus!: A Monstrous Story - Interviews with Producer Jack H. Harris, Co-star Paul Lukather and Film Historians Donald F. Glut and Bill Warren
-Reversible Art
-Theatrical Trailer
Horror of Frankenstein (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)
Young Victor Frankenstein returns from medical school with a depraved taste for beautiful women and fiendish experiments. When he runs out of fresh body parts for his research, he turns to murder to complete his gruesome creation. Now, his monster (David Prowse, the Star Wars films) has unleashed its own horrifying killing spree. The true horrors of Dr. Frankenstein have only just begun ...
I Trapped the Devil (IFC Midnight/Scream Factory, Blu-ray & DVD)
A man descends into paranoia after trapping what he believes to be the devil in his basement, but things take a dark turn when his family unexpectedly arrive for Christmas.
The Walking Dead: The Complete Ninth Season (Lionsgate, Blu-ray & DVD)
Last season brought the culmination of "All Out War," which pitted Rick Grimes and his group of survivors against the Saviors and their cunning leader, Negan. With Negan's life in his hands, Rick had a character-defining choice in front of him. By making the unilateral decision to spare Negan, Rick upheld the values his late son, Carl, championed in order to build for the future, but created conflict within his group.
Now, we see our survivors a year and a half after the end of the war, rebuilding civilization under Rick's steadfast leadership. It is a time of relative peace among the communities as they work together, looking to the past to forge the future, but the world they knew is rabidly chanaina as man-made structures continue to degrade, and nature takes over, changing the landscape and creating new challenges for our survivors. As time passes, the communities confront unexpected obstacles, danger, and of course, walkers, but nothing quite prepares them for the formidable force they are about to encounter, which threatens the very idea of civilization that our survivors have worked so hard to build.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Deleted Scenes
- “Seasons Change” Featurette
- “In Memoriam” Featurette
- “The Whisperers: Behind the Mask” Featurette
- “Rick Farewell” Featurette
- “Time Jump” Featurette
- Bonus Scene: Episode 908
- “Inside Episode …” Featurettes per episode
- “Making of …” Featurettes per episode
The Witches (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray)
From Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Wizard of Oz, many classic tales through the centuries wouldn’t be half as exciting without the devious doings of a witch. Now add another to the venerable tradition of stories that deliver family fun every witch way, a collaboration combining the effects wizardry of executive producer Jim Henson and the imagination of Willy Wonka creator Roald Dahl. Academy Award® winner* Anjelica Huston won the Los Angeles and National Society of Film Critics Best Actress awards for her marvelous work as the Grand High Witch in this enchanting fable directed by Nicolas Roeg. Jasen Fisher plays Luke, the 9-year-old boy who must foil the plans of a society of witches to turn the world's children into mice. It won't be easy: They've already transformed him into one! But some big, bad witches may be no match for the resourcefulness of a single tiny rodent.
ALSO AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
American Gods: Season Two (Starz/Anchor Bay, Blu-ray & DVD)
Camp Wedding (Gravitas Ventures, Blu-ray & DVD)
Cruising: Special Edition (Arrow Video, Blu-ray)
Frightworld (SRS Cinema, Blu-ray)
Play or Die (Samuel Goldwyn Films, DVD)
Prison of the Psychotic Damned (SRS Cinema, Blu-ray)
Red Scream Vampyres (SRS Cinema, Blu-ray)
Wronged (Indican Films, DVD)
Heather A. Wixson was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, until she followed her dreams and moved to Los Angeles in 2009. A 14-year veteran in the world of horror entertainment journalism, Wixson fell in love with genre films at a very early age, and has spent more than a decade as a writer and supporter of preserving the history of horror and science fiction cinema. Throughout her career, Wixson has contributed to several notable websites, including Fangoria, Dread Central, Terror Tube, and FEARnet, and she currently serves as the Managing Editor for Daily Dead, which has been her home since 2013. She's also written for both Fangoria Magazine & ReMind Magazine, and her latest book project, Monsters, Makeup & Effects: Volume One will be released on October 20, 2021.
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