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Roger Corman’s ‘Sharktopus’ Swims Into Horror In Your House
It’s Sharktopus week everyone! Roger Corman’s latest B-horror flick is unleashed in Blu-ray and DVD formats today. And who isn’t excited for that? Well, I am anyway. In other news, not much in the way of “must have films” were released this week. Japan brings us an erotic vampire thriller by the name of Blood and a double feature of Gamera flicks. The one film I do have my eye on is Interplanetary, a wryly comedic alien monster movie that was made for about the price of a couple Beef `N Cheddars from Arby’s. Check out of the rest below.
Horror In Your House
March 15th, 2011
THE ABSENT – Passion River
When twin brothers Oscar and Vincent discover their parents are plotting to kill them for insurance money, they beat them to the punch. Twenty-five years later, adult Oscar (Denny Kirkwood) languishes in prison while his brother (Bryan Kirkwood) lives a quiet life as a science teacher in a small town. Their worlds collide when Oscar is released from prison and strange things start happening to Vincent’s students.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK: THE MASTER OF THE MACABRE – Image Entertainment
This collection features three unedited full-length movies from the Master of the Macabre, including cult favorite Murder!, a superb thriller that shows the deft directorial touch later seen in his most famous films. The set features all the action, heart-pounding suspense and visual artistry that Hitchcock is famous for. These entertaining and intriguing movie classics show the filmmaker creating a style that was to make him a legendary figure in the history of movies. Films: Murder!, Sabotage, and Jamaica Inn.
BLOOD (Blu-ray/DVD) – Well Go USA
Police Detective Hoshino (Kanji Tsuda) investigates the murder of a maid at a mansion belonging to Miyako Rozmberk (Sugimoto), a seductive vampire mistress and cougar all in one. Ukyo Kuronuma (Jun Kaname), an Edo-era swordsman who was turned into a vampire by Miyako is fingered for the crime but before anything can be done about it Hoshino ends up under Miyako s spell as well. This leads Hoshino and Ukyo to battle one another for the privilege of staying with Miyako for eternity.
MICAH SAYS: As of Tuesday morning the Blu-ray is temporarily out of stock on Amazon (DVD has less than 10 copies). Anyway, it’s another martial arts / vampire flick from Japan and the trailer makes it look like an erotic vamp melodrama with trademark Japanese over-the-top violence.
GAMERA VS. ZIGRA / GAMERA: THE SUPER MONSTER (Double Feature) – Shout! Factory
From Shout! Factory come the final two films in the illustrious Gamera franchise: Gamera Vs. Zigra and Gamera: Super Monster! Witness twice the excitement as Gamera takes on the malevolent underwater alien creature Zigra and then revisits each of his deadliest foes one by one while trying to save the world! Both films feature newly remastered transfers in their original Japanese language as well as English dubs!
INTERPLANTERY – Shock-O-Rama Cinema
Nine men and women, employees of Interplanetary Corporation, live and work on Mars. Their days aren’t particularly interesting, much less exciting, until they are assaulted by a murderous band of strangers and a seemingly unstoppable alien creature. Do these attacks have anything to do with the Martian fossil recently uncovered by one of the employees? Will the rapidly increasing body count adversely affect Interplanetary’s stock price? And can anyone survive long enough to fill out the inevitable paperwork?
MICAH SAYS: A no budget alien thriller complete with a monster in a rubber suit and tons of dry humor. If you liked LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA you may want to check this one out. And it gets bonus points for reminding of the Beastie Boys.
SHADOW – MPI Home Video
Director and co-writer Federico Zampaglione’s terrifying film recalls Sam Peckinpah’s ferocious “Straw Dogs” and Tobe Hooper’s horror classic “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” yet it feels as immediate as today’s headlines. Jake Muxworthy plays a young soldier who embarks on a mountain-biking trip, walks into a cafe and meets the love of his life (Karina Testa). Unfortunately, he also meets a pair of violent hunters who make him their prey after he defends the young woman from their sleazy advances. But what appears at first to be a vicious cat-and-mouse game set in treacherous terrain turns into a full-blown nightmare when these adversaries become the captives of a mountain dweller whose depraved plans for them soon become all too apparent. Both a relentless horror film and a searing account of the brutal after-effects of war, “Shadow” is a scream-inducing descent into an abyss of unspeakable terror.
SHARKTOPUS (Blu-ray/DVD) – Anchor Bay Entertainment
An eight-tentacled nightmare hybrid of shark and octopus, “S-11” was created by genetic scientist Nathan Sands (Roberts) as the U.S. Navy’s next super-weapon. But when its control implants are damaged during a training experiment off the Mexican coast, the beast escapes to Puerto Vallarta to sample the local fare — bikini babes, jet-skiers, and spring-breakers. With the ocean terror now out of control and seemingly invincible, a ragtag group – comprised of a hotshot mercenary, an investigative reporter, and Sand’s biomechanical engineer daughter – have come together to stop the unholy beast from turning a seaside tourist resort into the ultimate human buffet. But it won’t be easy: it possesses problem-solving intelligence, attacks without mercy or warning – it even has the ability to walk on land. Not to mention a decided affinity to snack on bungee jumpers… Kerem Bursin and Sara Malakul Lane co-star, with a hilarious cameo by Corman himself.
MICAH SAYS: For fans of bad movies and SyFy channel lovers. I have a soft spot for horror movies that feature Eric Roberts and Shark monsters that can walk on land and like to eat bungee jumpers. The only bad thing about this movie is that, unlike the PIRANHA remake, all the ladies remain scantily clad here. This is my pick of the week.
Night School, director Ken Hughes and writer Ruth Avergon‘s tale of a headhunting slasher on the streets of Boston, arrived in the early Golden Age of the slasher film and never quite broke through the endurance test that other films in the subgenre, like Friday the 13th, managed to pass with flying colors. Blame it on a more cerebral tone, a crowded market, whatever you like, but saying it’s a shame that the film didn’t break through doesn’t begin to cover it.
Night School isn’t just an underrated slasher, or an underseen one. For my money, it’s one of the best films the subgenre has ever produced, full stop, and Vinegar Syndrome’s new 4K UHD restoration, arriving just in time for the film’s 45th anniversary, is must-have proof. Stacked with special features highlighting the craft of the film and its place in slasher history, and headlined by a gorgeous restoration showcasing the wonderfully textured production, this is Night School as it’s meant to be seen for slasher devotees everywhere.
So, what makes the film so effective? It starts very simply, with the revelation that a killer with a very cool knife and a motorcycle helmet as a mask is murdering young women in Boston, taking off their heads, and dropping those heads in the nearest body of water (no matter how small).
Solving the case falls on Judd Austin (Leonard Mann), a detective with an academic background who traces all of the victims in one way or another back to a local night school. There, suspicion falls on a womanizing professor (Drew Snyder) who sleeps around on his research assistant and romantic partner, Eleanor (Rachel Ward), whose own death could be right around the corner.
I’m doing my best to stay as spoiler-free as possible here, not just because I think plenty of slasher fans still need to see Night School, but because the film is quite determined to be a whodunit in the classic Italian giallo sense. The kills are brutal and elaborate, the killer deliberately covered head-to-toe in leather and a gleaming black helmet, the knife and the headhunting a disturbing signature. Avergon’s script is well-versed in the trappings of exactly this kind of story, complete with red herrings galore. And yet, by the time it’s all wrapping up, there’s also the sense that the answer was right there in front of you the entire time, something the very best films by legends like Mario Bava and Dario Argento could also achieve.
But on to the restoration: Like the best of the gialli, Night School is also a beautifully engineered film full of colors and delicate camera compositions and sound design. The opening kill, which takes place on a playground carousel outside of a daycare, is rich in exactly this kind of thing, from the cityscapes that lead into the scene to the sound of a motorcycle slowly rolling forward, its engine already dead. Cinematographer Mark Irwin, best known for his many collaborations with David Cronenberg, paints the film in rich reds, absinthe greens, and haunting, chilled blue-white light on wet Boston streets, all of which are preserved beautifully by the restoration team at work on this one.
It’s a movie that very deliberately evokes a specific place – the aging streets of Boston in the 1980s, and the halls of relatively low-level academia – and then takes that place into haunted territory, saturating every frame with color and shadow that suggests a killer lurking just out of view.
Night School is not a massively gore-heavy film, but it does deliver the slasher goods with a series of tense, often unpredictable kills and body discoveries that range from the darkly comic to the flat-out jaw-dropping. That’s thanks to the sound design, the score, the editing from Robert Reitano, and more, all of which add to the film’s giallo soul.
In every case, the scene’s geography is outstanding, and it’s easy to see where the simplest possible kill shot might land, but the film never goes for the obvious. Throw in a surprisingly (for 1981, anyway) feminist bent to the storytelling and some very progressive moments for an early slasher film, and this one fits right in with Black Christmas and The Slumber Party Massacre as a film with depth you can just keep unpacking.
That depth, helped along by a load of featurettes and two new commentary tracks featuring members of the crew, is what stands out the most in this new 4K set. Night School may be a niche film recognized mostly by horror addicts and the slasher faithful, but it deserves to be something more, a landmark on the roadmap of slasher cinema history. It’s one of the best in the genre, and this restoration highlights, underlines, and shouts that from the rooftops.
Night School is now available in 4K UHD from Vinegar Syndrome.
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