Hello!

We’ll be going back to look for typos in today’s reviews — this was quite a work crunch and I need to turn my brain off for a couple of hours.

The solution for the column arrived on Saturday afternoon, with a delivery of fancy Halloween horror offerings that we’ll probably still be reviewing halfway to Thanksgiving. Some are pre-order titles. They’re attractive and colorful, and each looks like it took thousands of hours of curatorship work to produce. Here’s a quick list with links to more product info:

Forgotten Gialli Volume Seven (Vinegar Syndrome) has the Italo rarities  Mystère,  Obsession: A Taste for Fear and  Sweets from a Stranger.

The Tenant 4K (Vinegar Syndrome) is a deluxe disc of the Roman Polanski suspense picture newly remastered — it comes in an elaborate box with bay windows that open.

Cruel Brittania: Three Killer Thrillers From The UK (Vinegar Syndrome) collects Ted Hooker’s  Crucible of Terror, Jack Cardiff’s  Penny Gold and Freddie Francis’s  Craze, produced by Herman Cohen.

Trick ‘R’ Treat 4K (Arrow) an omnibus presentation of four horror stories by Michael Dougherty. Note: I’m not finding American pages for some of these Arrow disc sets, but the review copies received are domestic discs. I’ve read online that they are/are going to be available here; some readers report ordering the identical U.K. versions.

Hellraiser: Quartet of Torment 4K (Arrow) is a full-on compendium of the Clive Barker series, starting with  Hellraiser and all three sequels,  Hellbound,  Hell on Earth and  Bloodline, plus a 200 page book, ‘Ages of Desire.’  We’re still waiting for ‘Hellraiser V: Sunday School Picnic.’

J-Horror Rising (Arrow) is a multiple-title set, with  Shikoku,  Isola: Multiple Personality Girl,  Inugami,  St. John’s Wort,  Carved, the Slit-Mouthed Woman,  Persona,  Noroi and  The Curse plus a thick booklet.

Delirium Photo of Gioia (Vinegar Syndrome) is a 1987 Lamberto Bava thriller with Daria Nicolodi.

Daiei Gothic – Japanese Ghost Stories (Radiance) has  The Ghost of Yotsuya,  The Bride from Hades and  The Snow Woman plus an 80-page book.

These are gift boxes, for sure — the long lists of extras, essays and other goodies is too much to take in. You’ll have to click about online to figure out where to buy these. Some come only direct from the company, and there should be news online about U.S. release dates for the ones for which we only found U.K. pages.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson