DVD and Blu-Ray Releases for January 18, 2010

Hey Fiends!  Happy Monday!  Got another list of flicks on the format of your choice.

Roger Corman’s Cult Classics Triple Feature (Attack of the Crab Monsters / War of the Satellites / Not of This Earth)

Format: DVD
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Three Films Produced And Directed By Honorary Academy Award Recipient And King Of B-Movies, Roger Corman: With All New Film Transfers From The Negative!

In Attack Of The Crab Monsters, a group of scientists become marooned on an island while investigating the disappearance of researchers who were looking into atomic activity in the Pacific. They quickly fall prey to giant, mutant crustaceans that have the ability to absorb the minds of their prey. Starring Russell Johnson (Gilligans Island), Richard Garland and Mel Welles (Little Shop Of Horrors).

An alien comes to Earth, masquerading as a human, to scout our planet for a new blood source in Not Of This Earth. He needs the blood of humans to take back to his planet of Davana for his dying race. Starring Paul Birch, Beverly Garland (It Conquered The World) and Jonathan Haze (Little Shop Of Horrors). These two films played as a double feature back when they were released theatrically and both films were penned by longtime Corman collaborator Charles B. Griffith, who wrote such classics as A Bucket Of Blood, Creature From The Haunted Sea and Death Race 2000.

In War Of The Satellites, an unknown force declares war against planet Earth when the United Nations disobeys warnings to cease and desist in its attempts at assembling the first satellite in the atmosphere. Starring Dick Miller (Bucket Of Blood), Richard Devon (Blood Of Dracula), Susan Cabot (The Wasp Woman) and a cameo by Roger Corman.

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Pick of the Week:

Buried (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

Format: Blu-Ray/DVD Combo
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Paul Conroy is not ready to die. But when he wakes up six feet underground with no idea of who put him there or why, life for the truck driver and family man instantly becomes a hellish struggle for survival. Buried with only a cell phone and a lighter, his contact with the outside world and ability to piece together clues that could help him discover his location are maddeningly limited. Poor reception, a rapidly draining battery, and a dwindling oxygen supply become his worst enemies in a tightly confined race against time; fighting panic, despair and delirium, Paul has only ninety minutes to be rescued before his worst nightmare comes true.

 

Read the Theatrical Review of Buried here

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Dark Skies: The Declassified Complete Series

Format: DVD
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On July 2, 1947, a spacecraft of unknown origin crashed in the New Mexico desert outside Roswell Army Air Base. Four bodies, known as the Grays, were recovered. From that moment on, everything you think to be true about American history has been influenced by that event. On February 17, 1962, another event occurred, related to the first, but one that has, until now, been kept completely suppressed. You are being trusted with that secret.

In 1996, television audiences were introduced to John Loengard (Eric Close) and Kimberly Sayers (Megan Ward), two heroic freedom fighters charged with the unearthly task of protecting humanity against an alien infestation known as the Hive while showing us, through their own experiences and actions, the truth behind our own recent past. Call it alternative history or call it the unthinkable truth. Either way, call it Dark Skies.

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Death Race 2

Format: DVD | Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital Copy Combo
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Explores the origins of the first “Frankenstein” car driver, Carl “Luke” Lucas, who died in a race at the beginning of the first film.

 

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The Naked Kiss (The Criterion Collection)

Format: DVD | Blu-Ray

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The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute (a crackerjack Constance Towers) relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit in with mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller (Shock Corridor, The Big Red One), perverse secrets inevitably simmer beneath a seemingly wholesome surface. Featuring radical visual touches, full-throttle performances, brilliant cinematography by Stanley Cortez (The Night of the Hunter), and one bizarrely beautiful musical number, The Naked Kiss is among Fuller’s greatest, boldest entertainments.

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Shock Corridor (The Criterion Collection)

Format: DVD | Blu-Ray

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In Shock Corridor, the great American writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller (The Naked Kiss, The Big Red One) masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia. Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Constance Towers (The Naked Kiss) costars as Johnny’s coolheaded stripper girlfriend. With its startling commentary on race in sixties America and daring photography by Stanley Cortez (The Night of the Hunter), Shock Corridor is now recognized for its far-reaching influence.

 

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Up From The Depths / Demon Of Paradise (Roger Corman’s Cult Classics)

Format: DVD
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In Up From The Depths, staff and vacationers at a first-class resort on the island of Maui are beginning to mysteriously disappear. A biologist believes that an underwater earthquake has caused a giant, and very hungry dormant prehistoric fish to be released from his slumber. Voraciously, the fish helps himself to a tourist buffet. Now it is open season for the local fishermen to find the creature and kill it! Starring Sam Bottoms (Apocalypse Now, The Outlaw Josey Wales).

The hunters become the prey when illegal dynamite-fishing prematurely ends the hibernation of a mythological carnivorous lizard-man in Demon Of Paradise. The owner of the local resort, whose patrons have become the appetizers on this predators menu, and a herpetologist join forces with the sheriff to save the tourists from succumbing to the feasting of the beast. Starring Kathryn Witt (Cocaine Wars, Star 80) and directed by cult filmmaker Cirio H. Santiago (The Big Doll House, TNT Jackson).