Hello!

We’re on the mend from a bug picked up on vacation, but are gearing up to review the best of what’s on the CineSavant table. Around this time of year a vocal group of friends / readers / film fans beccomes either excited over or depressed by what’s in the offing for the Halloween season. Some even ask for a recommended buying list for collectors of horror / Sci-fi / the fantastic.

You know, if someone as astute and discriminating as Richard Harland Smith can get so excited about Halloween fun, why can’t the rest of us do the same?  This year Trick or Treat night is shaping up as a genuine video-enhanced holiday, with a number of desirable titles. We haven’t seen any of these, but the list is promising — it includes several titles in 4K Ultra HD, too.

Here’s the list, with links, of hot titles on our radar, not necessarily a list of what we’ll be able to review:

 

The Bat  1926 Undercrank Productions

The Beast with Five Fingers  The Warner Archive Collection

Burn, Witch Burn  KL Studio Classics

Circus of Horrors  4K  KL Studio Classics

Columbia Horror: Behind the Mask, Black Moon, Air Hawks, Island of Doomed Men, Cry of the Werewolf, Soul of a Monster  Powerhouse Indicator – Region B

Creature with the Blue Hand + Web of the Spider  Film Masters

Daiei Gothic: Japanese Ghost Stories  The Ghost of Yotsuya, The Snow Woman, The Bride from Hades  — Radiance

Demon Pond  4K  The Criterion Collection

I Walked with a Zombie – The Seventh Victim  4K  Double Feature  The Criterion Collection

J-Horror Rising:  Shikoku, Isola: Multiple Personality Girl, Inugami, St. John’s Wort, Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman, Persona, Noroi: The Curse  — Radiance

The Return of Dr. X  The Warner Archive Collection

El Vampiro: Two Bloodsucking Tales from Mexico  Powerhouse Indicator – Region B

The Walking Dead  The Warner Archive Collection

… and, just missing Halloween:

Godzilla ’54  4K  The Criterion Collection

The NeverEnding Story  4K  [Imprint]

I Vampiri  Radiance

 

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And while we’re at it, why not a round-up of desirable fantastic titles released in the last couple of years. This is just a sampling, with links to reviews. And just below, a guessing game quilt of key images. They don’t link, but each does enlarge …

 

Cloverfield 4K ••• The Asphyx ••• Dragonslayer 4K ••• Wings of Desire 4K ••• Deep Impact 4K ••• The Boy with Green Hair ••• Castle of Blood 4K ••• The Night of the Hunter 4K ••• Time Bandits 4K ••• The Tale of Tsar Saltan ••• La fin du monde (1931) ••• Gorgo 4K ••• Robot Monster 3-D ••• Cocaine Bear 4K ••• The Giant Gila Monster + The Killer Shrews ••• Freaks, The Unknown, The Mystic ••• The Horrible Dr. Hichcock ••• The Devil-Doll ••• Beast from Haunted Cave ••• World of Giants: the Complete Series ••• The Criminal Acts of Tod Slaughter: Eight Blood-and-Thunder Entertainments, 1935-1940 ••• Messiah of Evil ••• Barbarella 4K ••• Horrors of the Black Museum ••• Our Town ••• Red Planet Mars ••• Devil’s Partner + Creature from the Haunted Sea ••• Contagion 4K ••• The Whip and the Body ••• The Playgirls and the Vampire ••• *batteries not included ••• Dune ’84 – Dual Version Edition ••• Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors 4K ••• The Mask of Fu Manchu ••• Peeping Tom 4K ••• Back from the Dead ••• Planet of the Vampires ••• Cemetery Man ••• When Worlds Collide ••• Invasion of the Body Snatchers ’56 4K ••• Revenge of the Blood Beast (The She-Beast) ••• Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet ••• Reptilicus 4K ••• Alphaville 4K

 

                        

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson