Lower Decks

Note: this is not a comprehensive list of all DVD release for November 11th, 2008.  Rather, it reflects titles that may be more of interest to genre fans.

TV
Chuck – The Complete 1st Season (Blu-ray)
Firefly – The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein – Gory Gory Transylvania (Canada)
The Lone Ranger – 75th Anniversary Collector’s Edition
The Sopranos – The Complete Series
Supernatural – The Complete 3rd Season (Blu-ray)
The Tudors – The Complete 2nd Season: Uncut Edition (Canada)

Film
Blood and Bones
Blood Wars
Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romney
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Single-disc Edition)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Special Edition) 3-DISC SET
JFK (Ultimate Collector’s Edition) 3-DISC SET
Quo Vadis (Special Edition) 1951 2-DISC SET
Ski Wolf
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Single-disc Edition)
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Special Edition) 2-DISC SET
The Thunderbolt Fist
Tokyo Zombie

The DVD Dungeon 10.28.08

The barrage of horror titles continue in this last week before Halloween. Of special note are new releases for the 80’s slasher classic Pieces as well as Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond. Both have been released before, and while Fulci’s film had a respectable edition from Anchor Bay, Pieces has been mostly available in crappy versions that look to have been VHS transfers. Now both films get the special treatment, and while Pieces never looked so good, don’t pass up on this edition of The Beyond just because you own a previous version. This one has plenty of new extras, including a commentary track by star Catriona MacColl. Also of note for fans of cult films is the DVD debut (aside from cheap DVD-R copies floating about) of The Curse of Bigfoot. This notorious cheapie is well known for having taken years to complete, with new footage shot to accompany that which had sat around for many years. The end result is a hodge podge of 60’s and 70’s schlock concerning Bigfoot, ancient North American mummies and monster make-up straight out of a sixth grade production of King Kong. Don’t miss it! As for TV offerings, there is not a whole lot, but this week does seem to be the week of complete series sets. Both The 4400 and Millenium get this treatment. Also, for the Misties out there, don’t forget about the 20th anniversary limited edition tin box set. Jeez, has it been twenty years already?!

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TV pickings are rather slim this week for genre fans. Aside from the 8th season of C.S.I. and a box set that collects the entire original Ultraman series in one package, the only noteworthy release is the complete series set for Quark, the short lived 70’s science fiction comedy about the crew of an interstellar garbage ship. Yeah, it’s about as funny and as interesting as it sounds, which is to say, not a whole lot. When it comes to movies, October continues to see numerous horror flicks in hopes of cashing in on the Halloween season. Included in that is a 30th anniversary box set for the John Carpenter film of the same name (Halloween, duh). Of special note to cult film fans is the Icons of Horror: Hammer Films set, which offers up four classic horror flicks from Hammer studios. The films are The Two Faces of Doctor Jekyll (1960), Scream of Fear (1961), The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964) and The Gorgon (1964), which features horror legends Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. All four films are presented in pristine anamorphic widescreen prints and look stunningly gorgeous. This is a must have for fans if classic horrors. Of course, the big release this week is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the first film in that franchise nearly twenty years. The film arrives on both DVD and Blu-ray in both single and double disc sets.

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The DVD Dungeon 10.06.08

There’s quite a bit out this week for genre fans, though obtaining it all may break a few wallets. On TV, the standouts are the two latest releases in the classic Doctor Who line. The Frankenstein-ish The Brain of Morbius featuring fourth Doctor Tom Baker is unleashed as well as the 14 part Trial of a Time Lord, which unfolded over the course of the entire 23rd season and which featured sixth Doctor Colin Baker in his final year in the role. Also Who related is the first season of The Sarah Jane Adventures, one of the modern Doctor Who spin-off series. On the movie front, with it being October, there a slew of horror themed flicks just in time for Halloween. In fact, there are just too many to get into at the moment, but the many and various titles span several decades an include everything from gorefests to psychological horror.

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Of note this week on the TV front is the release of The Starlost: complete series. This 1973 Canadian series created by Harlan Ellison, ran for only 16 episodes and was hampered by low ratings and TV executives who didn’t “get” the show. Featuring actor Keir Dullea (Dave from 2001: A Space Odyssey), it featured a huge spaceship know as The Ark which contained numerous biospheres, each one preserving a lost Human culture. When an accident sent the ship off course, the various peoples must work together to save their collective hides. Also on DVD this week is the complete series of Beauty and the Beast, the CBS show that featured Ron Perlman as the beast-like Vincent and Linda Hamilton as his great love, Catherine.

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It’s another rather lackluster week on the DVD front, though there are a couple of choice items for fans. Television releases are very thin this time around, with the notable exception of the long anticipated first season of Friday the 13th: The Series, which ran for three years in syndication and which only had the most tangential connection to the films of the same name. For film fans there are lots of flicks representing Asian cinema though the real standouts are two Italian films. First we have The Last House on the Beach, a cheap rip-off of Wes Craven’s horror classic The Last House on the Left, and more notably, the debut of Dario Argento’s Mother of Tears, the long awaited final installment of his Three Mothers trilogy. The big news is the re-release of the three Godfather films, both individually and as a set. Deemed the Coppola Restoration versions, these will be a must have for fans of the series.

Note: this is not a comprehensive list of all DVD release for September 23rd, 2008. Rather, it reflects titles that may be more of interest to genre fans.

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This is a good week for fans of genre television. The ABC series Pushing Daisies arrives with its first season on both DVD and Blu-ray. Likewise the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood arrives in both formats as well: Blue-ray for the previously available on DVD first series and the region one DVD debut for the second series. The first season of the NBC comedy/action series Chuck also hits stores and those who wish to recall their youth may be interested in a trio of Goosebumps stories. The big treat for Star Trek fans is the Alternate Realities Fan Collective, which compiles twenty episodes spanning the five live action series, all built around the theme of alternate realities. The Mirror Universe stuff is included as well as some one-shots from various series that fit the theme. The five-disc set includes these episodes:
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Fall is nearly here and the season for the annual DVD deluge is upon us, the time when all the studios and independent DVD labels flood the market in eager anticipation of the approaching holiday season. If you’re like me, you limit your purchases throughout the year just so you’ll have the cash for the really good stuff come fall. If you’re like me, you’ll also have far more things you want to buy than money with which to buy them.

This week, the big news for fans of Daikaiju Eiga – or loosely translated, Giant Monster Cinema – is the long awaited arrival of Toho’s 1966 epic War of the Gargantuas, known originally in Japan as Furankenshutain no kaijû: Sanda tai Gaira (Frankenstein’s Monsters: Sanda vs. Gaira). Released on DVD for the very first time, it will be packaged as part of set along with another classic giant monster from Toho studios, 1956’s Rodan AKA Sora no daikaijû Radon (Radon, Monster from the Sky). Rodan saw release on DVD once before, but in a no frills budget release. Now, as they have done with the Godzilla films in their catalog, Classic Media has gone all out in providing tons of extras for both these films, as well as the American and original Japanese versions for both features. A definite must have for fans of Japanese monsters.

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