From the Big Screen:

No Major Theatrical Releases This Week

This Week’s Highlight:

The contemporary American auteur Michael Mann’s bold artistic sensibility was already fully formed when he burst out of the gate with “Thief” (1981), his debut feature. James Caan stars, in one of his most riveting performances, as a no-nonsense ex-con professional thief planning to leave the criminal world behind after one last score—but he discovers that escape is not as simple as he’d hoped. Finding hypnotic beauty in neon and rain-slick streets, sparks and steel, Thief effortlessly established the moody stylishness, tactile approach, and drama that would also define such later iconic Mann films as “Heat,” “The Insider,” “Ali,” and “The Last of the Mohicans.” On 4K UHD + Blu-ray with new 4K digital restoration of the director’s cut, supervised and approved by director Michael Mann, with 5.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features. Read more here. From The Criterion Collection.

“Buzzin’ the ‘B’s:

In “Trick or Treat” (1986), teenage loner Eddie Weinbauer (Marc Price) is constantly bullied by the jocks at his high school, including Tim Hainey (Doug Savant). The only thing that gives Eddie relief is his love of heavy metal. His favorite performer is Sammi Curr (Tony Fields), an infamous local musician who became a superstar, and Eddie takes it hard when he learns that Sammi has died in a mysterious fire. Eddie’s friend Nuke (Gene Simmons of KISS), a local radio DJ and friend of Sammi’s, comforts the grieving Eddie by handing him a demo record of Sammi’s unreleased upcoming album. When Eddie gets home, he puts the record on the turntable and plays it in reverse, revealing a personal message for Eddie that at first gives him some relief from the bullies at school. But Sammi’s messages soon take a dark turn. Is his idol using him to get revenge against those who tortured him at the same high school years earlier? Can Eddie say “no” to his heavy metal hero or will Sammi have to come out of the speakers to finish the job? Director Charles Martin Smith turns up the volume on this supernatural metal/comedy/horror film that features Ozzy Osbourne in a cameo role as a minister. On DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD from Synapse Films … Beth Conner (Lyndsey Craine) is a vegan-goth introvert who attends an elite high school in England in “Eating Miss Campbel” (2022). She emerges from her shell when new teacher Miss Campbell (Lala Barlow) arrives on campus. Their affair triggers Beth to develop a new appetite. Let’s just say she’s definitely not a vegan anymore. The new Beth is eager to win the school’s celebrated “All You Can Eat Massacre” contest that has a very unique first prize. Can she devour everything to achieve her dream? “Eating Miss Campbell” turns a dark comic light on posh academia, cannibalism, school violence, child predators, alternate realities, horror movies, and Alec Baldwin. The movie is director Liam Regan’s follow up to “My Bloody Banjo.” On Blu-ray from Troma … After being accused of crimes he did not commit, a lonely circus performer exacts his revenge on those who unjustly condemned him in “100 Tears Director’s Cut” (2007), starring Georgia Chris, Joe Davison, Raine Brown, Jack Amos, Kibwe Dorsey and Rod Grant. The act sparks something inside of him which he cannot stop and now, years later, his inner-demons have truly surfaced. Part urban legend, part tabloid sensationalism… he is now an unstoppable murderous juggernaut, fueled only by hate. Going to the circus will never be the same!
On Blu-ray from Unearthed Films.

Foreign Films:

In “The Killer Is Not Alone” (1973 — Spain), starring Lola Flores, James Philbrook, Teresa Rabal, David Carpenter and Maria Rohm. the only son of a wealthy businessman, Julio, living in the coastal city of Avilés in the north of Spain, is a young man with many problems, including a pathological fear of women due to a psychological trauma he suffered during his childhood. One night, as he prowls the sleazier quarters of the city, he picks up a prostitute and follows her to a seedy hotel room. As she tries to arouse him to action, he responds violently, garrotting her with a length of piano wire, leaving her dead on the bed, covered with blood. Julio takes the train to Madrid and checks into a boarding house in the city. He is much younger than the rest of the residents and soon Monica, the boarding house owner’s teenage daughter, finds herself attracted to the new arrival. More murders by the sinister “wire killer” are reported in the newspapers and it seems the police have no clue as to who it might be. As Monica gets ever closer to the troubled Julio her mother tries to warn her off the young man. But it’s too late; and soon it seems likely that Monica herself will fall victim to the dreaded “wire killer.” New 4k restoration from original negative. On Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro … In “The Hungry Snake Woman” (1986 — Indonesia), starring Suzzanna, Advent Bangun, George Rudy and Nina Anwar, desperate for wealth and glory, Burhan decides to visit the Snake Woman, a mysterious and powerful deity who can confer instant riches on those who obey her commands. She tells Burhan he must kill three women, feast on their blood and eat their breasts. Transformed into Dracula, with cloak and fangs, he sets off on his mission. One killing is all he can take before abandoning the task. He encounters Nyi Lajang, the Snake Woman’s enemy, a half human/half snake creature. Nyi Lajang offers Burhan a way out of his contract with the Snake Woman. She gives him a silver pin that he must stab Snake Woman with during sex while she is in human form. This will turn her back into a snake and neutralize all her magical powers. This is what Burhan does. But his problems are far from over. One of the wildest and craziest Indonesian horror films ever made, this is a phantasmagorical ride through a world of cannibal slave maidens, chainsaw wielding heroes, a possessed go-go dancer, exploding rib cages, bizarre black magic spells, a dash of kung fu fighting, buckets of gore, and even a little bit of sex, featuring the legendary Suzzanna, Indonesia’s “queen of horror.” This is a US video premiere and a world premiere on Blu-ray, digitally restored from the original negative. From Mondo Macabro … In “Tokugawa Sex Ban” (1972 — Japan), starring Miki Sugimoto, Sandra Jullien, Hiroshi Nawa and Yoko Mihara, set in Tokugawa era Japan, Princess Kiyo (Sugimoto), youngest daughter of mighty Shogun Ienari Tokugawa, weds country lord Tadateru Ogura. Unfortunately for Kiyo, her new husband is a “man’s man” who has no interest in women. To help Tadateru discover his sexual side, his courtiers bring in Sandra (Jullien), a French courtesan who arrives in a wooden box, like a porcelain doll. Her extraordinary sexual technique awakens Tadateru to the fun he’s been missing all these years. Unfortunately, he enjoys it so much that he decides it’s too good for commoners and so enforces a sex ban on the rest of his subjects, decreeing that any of them having intercourse will be executed. Soon the enraged populace are storming Tadateru’s castle with a battering ram shaped like a giant phallus. On Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro.

Special Interest:

Directed and co-written by four-time Academy Award- nominee Ethan Hawke, the documentary “Wildcat” (2023) invites the audience to weave in and out of celebrated Southern Gothic writer Flannery O’Connor’s mind as she ponders the great questions of her writing: Can scandalous art still serve God? Does suffering precede all greatness? Can illness be a blessing? In 1950, writer Flannery O’Connor visits her mother Regina in Georgia when she is diagnosed with lupus at 24 years old. Struggling with the same disease that took her father’s life when she was a child and desperate to make her mark as a great writer, this crisis pitches her imagination into a feverish exploration of belief. With Maya Hawke, Laura Linney, Philip Ettinger, Rafael Casal, Willa Fitzgerald, Liam Neeson, David Towne, Steve Zahn, Cooper Hoffman, Nikola V. Pajic. On DVD, VOD, Digital from Oscilloscope. Read more here … “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found” (2025) is a new documentary chronicling the life and work of Ernest Cole, one of the first Black freelance photographers in South Africa, whose early pictures, shocking at the time of their first publication, revealed to the world Black life under apartheid. Cole fled South Africa in 1966 and lived in exile in the U.S., where he photographed extensively in New York City, as well as the American South, fascinated by the ways this country could be at times so vastly different, and at others eerily similar, to the segregated culture of his homeland. On DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital from Magnolia Home Entertainment. 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.