June 18th is shaping up to be a killer day for genre fans, as two of my favorite movies of 2019 are making their way home: Jordan Peele’s Us and Lords of Chaos (on DVD) from Jonas Åkerlund. Kino Lorber is showing Chan-wook Park some love this week with their Blu-ray release of Thirst, and Scream Factory has put together the impressive-looking Universal Horror Collection: Volume 1 set as well.
Other home entertainment releases for this Tuesday include Under the Silver Lake, The Monolith Monsters, Crypto, The Nightmare Gallery, Derangement, and Disappearance.
Lords of Chaos (Unobstructed View, DVD)
The story of True Norwegian Black Metal and its most notorious practitioners: a group of young men with a flair for publicity, church-burning and murder: MAYHEM. Oslo, 1987. Seventeen-year-old Euronymous is determined to escape his idyllic Scandinavian hometown and create "true Norwegian black metal" with his band, MAYHEM. He's joined by equally fanatical youths - Dead and Varg. Believing that they're on the cusp of a musical revolution, the group gets even darker, driven by the black metal dogma to spread evil. They begin burning down churches throughout the countryside and stealing tombstones for their record store. But when the press catches up with them and Euronymous takes more credit than he's earned for the group's violent acts, Varg, fresh out of jail, arranges a dark encounter to settle the score and ultimately determine who the darkest black metal musician is.
The Monolith Monsters (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)
A giant meteor crashes to Earth near the small town of San Angelo and local geologist Ben Gilbert (Phil Harvey, The Deadly Mantis) brings a fragment back to his lab for testing. Shortly afterwards, fellow geologist Dave Miller (Grant Williams, The Leech Woman) arrives to find the lab filled with rocks ... and Ben is dead ... his body turned completely to stone! Now in a desperate race against time, Dave and Professor Arthur Flanders (Trevor Bardette, Death Valley Days) must unlock the secret of the deadly rocks from outer space before they turn the world to stone and destroy mankind! Also featuring Lola Albright (Peyton Place), William Schallert (The Man From Planet X), and Troy Donahue (Monster On The Campus), The Monolith Monsters ratchets up the "tension and suspense ... and the actors really put it across to the viewer, creating a very compelling film" (The Telltale Mind)!
Thirst (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray)
From Chan-wook Park, the director of Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance and Stoker, comes a shockingly original vampire story with a chilling, erotic style. A blood transfusion saves the life of a priest (Kang-ho Song, Memories of Murder, The Host, Snowpiercer), but also transforms him into a vampire. He struggles to control his insatiable thirst for blood until a love affair unleashes his darkest desires in deadly new ways. Daring and operatic, Thirst is a truly wicked love story that takes classic vampire lore to twisted new heights.
Special Features:
-NEW Audio Commentary by Entertainment Journalist and Author Bryan Reesman
-Theatrical Trailer
Universal Horror Collection: Volume 1 (Scream Factory, Blu-ray)
Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi created some of the most memorable performances in cinematic history. Their unforgettable performances as Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster terrified a generation of moviegoers and when these two legendary actors came together for a series of films in the 1930s, audiences could not get enough. Scream Factory now pays homage to these legendary actors with the first of two collections, presenting classic films with all the care that horror fans have come to expect from the brand.
THE BLACK CAT
Special Features:
NEW Audio Commentary by author/film historian Gregory William Mank
NEW Audio Commentary by author/film historian Steve Haberman
NEW Dreams Within a Dream: The Classic Cinema of Edgar Allan Poe – narrated by Doug Bradley
NEW A Good Game: Karloff and Lugosi at Universal Part One: The Black Cat
Vintage footage - The Black Cat Contest
Still Gallery
THE RAVEN
Special Features:
NEW 2K scan of the original film elements
NEW Audio Commentary with author/film historian Gary D. Rhodes
NEW Audio Commentary with author/film historian Steve Haberman
NEW A Good Game: Karloff and Lugosi at Universal Part Two: The Raven
Audio Recording: Bela Lugosi reads “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Still Gallery
THE INVISIBLE RAY
Special Features:
NEW 2K scan of the original film elements
NEW Audio Commentary with authors/film historians Tom Weaver and Randall Larson
NEW A Good Game: Karloff and Lugosi at Universal Part Three: The Invisible Ray
Re-Release Theatrical Trailer
Still Gallery
BLACK FRIDAY
Special Features:
NEW 2K scan of the original film elements
NEW Audio Commentary with filmmaker/film historian Constantine Nasr
NEW A Good Game: Karloff and Lugosi at Universal Part Four: Black Friday
Inner Sanctum Mystery Radio Show: “The Tell-Tale Heart” starring Boris Karloff
Theatrical Trailer
Still Gallery
Us (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, 4K Ultra HD/Blu Combo, Blu/DVD Combo & DVD)
From Academy Award-winning visionary Jordan Peele comes another original nightmare. Starring Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave) and Winston Duke (Black Panther), an endearing American family is pitted against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.
Special Features:
ALSO AVAILABLE THIS WEEK:
Crypto (Lionsgate, Blu-ray & DVD)
Derangement (Wild Eye Raw, DVD)
Disappearance (Gravitas Ventures, Blu-ray & DVD)
The Nightmare Gallery (Gravitas Ventures, Blu-ray & DVD)
The Running Man (1963) (Arrow Academy, Blu-ray)
Under the Silver Lake (Lionsgate, Blu-ray & 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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