The fourth week of home entertainment releases in January doesn’t offer up a ton of titles, but we are getting several great Blu-ray and DVDs our way that horror and sci-fi fans will definitely want to check out. Arrow Video has put together a badass Two-Disc Limited Edition set for the Thanksgiving-themed cult classic, Blood Rage, and Lionsgate is bringing The Monster, the latest from Bryan Bertino (The Strangers), to both DVD and Blu-ray this Tuesday.
Other releases for January 24th include Wait Until Dark, The Harrow, and Beauty Queen Butcher.
Beauty Queen Butcher (Bayview Entertainment, DVD)
''Mean Girls'' meets ''Carrie'' when a shy, overweight and bullied girl exacts bloody revenge on her popular classmates in this early 90s shot-on-video shocker inspired by the horror classic ''Carrie'' and the slasher favorite ''Prom Night''! It was bad enough when the popular girls of Slivis Slough High pranked fattie Phyllis into entering the beauty queen pageant, but when they microwaved her cat…watch out! Watch the pretty girls pay in the most gruesome ways when Phyllis, armed and dangerous, exacts her gory revenge! Produced and Directed by Shane Parlow and Jill Zurborg; starring Tammy Pescatelli, Jim Boggess, Rhona Brody. Special features: Behind-the-Scenes, Trailer Vault.
Blood Rage: Two-Disc Special Edition (Arrow Video, Blu/DVD Combo)
IT’S NOT CRANBERRY SAUCE! What do you get if you combine Thanksgiving, American TV star Louise Lasser (Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman), killer '80s synths and some truly gruesome special effects courtesy of Ed French (Terminator 2: Judgment Day)? Why, it's Blood Rage of course!
Twins Todd and Terry seem like sweet boys that is, until one of them takes an axe to the face of a fellow patron at the local drive-in. Todd is blamed for the bloody crime and institutionalized, whilst twin brother Terry goes free. Ten years later and, as the family gathers around the table for a Thanksgiving meal, the news comes in that Todd has escaped. But has the real killer in fact been in their midst all along?
Shot in 1983 but not released until 1987, Blood Rage is a gloriously gruesome slice of '80s slasher heaven now restored from the original negative for its world Blu-ray debut.
2-DISC SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
The Harrow (Breaking Glass Pictures, DVD)
Miller, a southern drifter, lives in seclusion in an abandoned 100-year-old slaughterhouse -- his only company is a vision of Gale, his dead lover who was murdered a decade ago. When Gale's daughter Ruth arrives, looking to dig up the past, she and Miller reassemble the shards of his shattered memory and are horrified at what they uncover. BONUS DVD FEATURES will include two Short Films from director Kevin Stocklin - EVE and THE POSITION, as well as a Q&A from the Big Apple film Festival.
The Monster (Lionsgate, Blu/Digital HD & DVD)
Acclaimed horror filmmaker Bryan Bertino (The Strangers) wrote and directed this suspenseful and scary film, in which a divorced mother (Zoe Kazan) and her headstrong daughter must make an emergency late-night road trip to see the girl’s father. As they drive through deserted country roads on a stormy night, they suddenly have a startling collision that leaves them shaken but not seriously hurt. Their car, however, is dead, and as they try in vain to get help, they come to realize they are not alone on these desolate backroads — a terrifying evil is lurking in the surrounding woods, intent on never letting them leave.
Wait Until Dark (Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray)
Now two are left: Susy, recently blinded and still learning how to live in a sighted world, and Roat, a psychopathic killer. Roat wants a heroin-stuffed doll he thinks Susy has. All Susy wants is to survive. Dim the lights, check the door’s chain lock, and brace yourself for a chiller as polished as the steel of Roat’s blade. Audrey Hepburn earned her fifth Academy Award nomination as Susy. Alan Arkin is pure evil as Roat, master of disguise and accents. Jack Weston and Richard Crenna costar as his henchmen. Building to a heart-pounding one-on-one confrontation, Wait Until Dark belongs to the screen’s most memorable thrillers (David Shipman, The Story of Cinema).
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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