From the Big Screen:

No Major Theatrical Releases This Week

This Week’s Highlights:

The mid-nineties were a fertile period for the vampire movie. Big-name stars such as Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy flocked to the genre, as did high-caliber filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola, veterans Wes Craven and John Landis, independents Michael Almereyda and Jeffrey Arsenault, and up-and-comers Quentin Tarantino and Guillermo del Toro. Amid the fangs and crucifixes, Abel Ferrara reunited with his “King of New York” star Christopher Walken for “The Addiction” (1995), a distinctly personal take on creatures of the night. Philosophy student Kathleen (Lili Taylor) is dragged into an alleyway on her way home from class by Casanova (Annabella Sciorra) and bitten on the neck. She quickly falls ill but realizes this isn’t any ordinary disease when she develops an aversion to daylight and a thirst for human blood. Having made a big-budget foray into science fiction two years earlier with “Body Snatchers,” Ferrara’s approach to the vampire movie is in a lower key. Shot on the streets of New York, like so many of his major works – including “The Driller Killer,” “Ms. 45” and “Bad Lieutenant” – and beautifully filmed in black and white, “The Addiction” sees the filmmaker on his own terms and at his very best: raw, shocking, intense, intelligent, masterful. Brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative by Arrow Films. On 4K UHD from Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment. Read more here.

Buzzin’ the ‘B’s:

In “Abruptio” (2023), with the voices of James Marsters, Christopher McDonald, Hana Mae Lee, Robert Englund, Jordan Peele and Sid Haig, Les Hackel hates his life. He works a dead-end job, was just dumped by his high-maintenance girlfriend, and still lives with his nagging mom. One night, he discovers a fresh incision behind his neck. His friend Danny tells him it’s a bomb, that someone has implanted one in his neck, too. And then the messages start coming in, forcing Les to carry out missions with deadly results. Les is partnered up with a series of oddball characters to commit heinous tasks. The violence escalating around him, Les pieces together the clues that reveal the horrific plans to breed a monstrous race of beings. On DVD, Blu-ray from the resurrected Anchor Bay Entertainment … In “The Block Island Sound” (2020), directed by Kevin and Matthew McManus and starring Chris Sheffield, Michaela McManus, Neville Archambault, Ryan O’Flanagan and Matilda Lawler, strange things are happening on the remote Block Island Sound. Harry notices that his father Tom is starting to act very differently, becoming forgetful and angry, and taking his fishing boat out in the middle of the night. It’s also alarming that birds and fish have been dying around the island. Harry’s marine biologist sister Audry arrives on the island to investigate the wildlife deaths for the Environmental Protection Agency. She brings along her daughter to enjoy island life with her family. Audry’s research exposes chilling truths about the strange occurrences in the area and her family. Are the unimaginable calamities being caused by man’s interference, nature running amok, or something beyond? On Blu-ray, 4K Ultra HD from Synapse Films … “Crust” (2023), starring Sean Whalen, Daniel Roebuck, Alan Ruck, Felissa Rose and Ricky Dean Logan, follows the story of a depressed has-been child actor and laundromat owner, Vegas Winters (Whalen), who keeps the leftover socks from customers and uses them to clean himself. When he gets abused and weeps into the pile of socks, it turns into a creature who seeks revenge on Vegas’ enemies. On DVD, Blu-ray, from Anchor Bay.

On the Indie Front:

A love letter to video rental stores and the B-movie treasures that lined their walls, Cody Kennedy & Tim Rutherford’s debut feature “The Last Video Store” (2023) is a genre-loving blast of pure joy. When her estranged father passes, twenty-something Nyla is tasked with the thing she hates the most – cleaning up his mess. Left behind are a collection of VHS tapes, and with them, the burden of returning them to “Blaster Video,” a time capsule to an era in which cover art and a catchy movie title were king, run by Kevin, a human encyclopaedia of VHS history and a friend of her father. Amongst the returns is an unknown tape, a movie not even Kevin has heard of. Was this the last movie Nyla’s father watched before he died? The mystery is too much to resist. But when Kevin and Nyla press play, they unwittingly activate a long-dormant curse and a series of classic cinematic villains are plucked from B-movie heaven and hell to be unleashed into the store itself. With style, charm and note perfect performances, “The Last Video Store” is a must for physical media fans. An elegy to the cinephilic havens of movie wisdom that could once be found on every corner, and the heroes like Kevin who staffed them. On Blu-ray from Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment. Read more here … In “Cursed in Baja” (2024), starring Jeff Daniel Phillips, Barbara Crampton and Finnegan Seeker Bell, Pirelli, an ex-lawman, travels to Mexico searching for the heir to a Los Angeles fortune, while confronting his own complicated past. But what he finds in Baja challenges him to the core. On DVD, Blu-ray, from Anchor Bay.

Foreign Films:

Often described as the “Godfather of Hong Kong Cinema,” Chang Cheh made nearly a hundred films during a long and storied career spent at the Shaw Brothers Studio, where he directed such landmark films as “The One-Armed Swordsman,” “Five Deadly Venoms,” and “The Heroic Ones.” Many of his films drew upon Chinese history for inspiration – and many of them were based on real people and events. In “Horrible History: Four Historical Epics From Chang Cheh,” Eureka Classics presents four of his best historical epics in this limited-edition set: “Marco Polo,” “The Pirate,” “Boxer Rebellion,” and “Four Riders.” In “Marco Polo”, the eponymous Venetian explorer (Richard Harrison) becomes embroiled in a battle between the Mongol Empire and Chinese rebels in the thirteenth century. In “The Pirate,” the infamous 19th-century raider Cheung Po Tsai (Ti Lung) must evade agents of the Imperial Court while attempting to aid the downtrodden residents of a coastal village. In “Boxer Rebellion,” a group of Chinese patriots use kung fu to protect their nation against invading forces at the turn of the 20th century. Finally, in “Four Riders,” a Chinese veteran of the Korean War enlists three comrades to help him escape the South Korean Military Police Command after he is falsely accused of murdering an American soldier. Limited Edition of 2000 copies. On Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment … In “The Beast” (2023 — France), it’s the year 2044, artificial intelligence reigns and human emotions are a liability that must be surgically removed to produce a more pliant workforce. But this procedure triggers Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) to experience haunting memories of her past lives, as she encounters different incarnations of her paramour, Louis (George MacKay), first in belle epoque Paris and then in 2014 Los Angeles. As she once more undergoes the pains and pleasures of romance — and rediscovers what it means to be truly alive — Gabrielle awaits the erasure of her humanity with growing fascination and dread. In his most ambitious film yet, visionary director Bertrand Bonello freely adapts Henry James’s novella “The Beast in the Jungle” into a visually stunning science-fiction labyrinth that is as metaphysically mysterious as it is emotionally powerful. On DVD, Blu-ray, from Janus Contemporaries. Read more here.

All DVDs and Blu-rays are screened on a reference system consisting of an Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player w/SACD & DVD-Audio, a Rotel RSX-972 Surround Sound Receiver, and Phase Technology 1.1 (front), 33.1 (center), and 50 (rear) speakers, and Power 10 subwoofer.