Arrow Video US - March 2017 Releases Detailed

TAKASHI MIIKE'S DEAD OF ALIVE TRILOGY 

on DVD and Blu-ray (March 14)

HOUSE: TWO STORIES LIMITED EDITION [HOUSE 1 and 2] 

on Blu-ray (March 21)

via MVD Entertainment Group

     
MVD Entertainment Group furthers the distribution of Arrow Video in the US with two amazing releases tailor made for cult and horror fans.

First out is Takashi Miike's classic Dead or Alive Trilogy starring Riki Takeuchi and Show Aikawa as their various characters deal drugs in Tokyo, put their yakuza assassin skills to good use and even meet cyborg soldiers in future Yokohama. Each film deftly shows off Miike at the height of his skills, and weaves a captivating tapestry of crime, action and character study.

Next up is a franchise any horror fan around in the late 80s and early 90s will recognise: House: Two Stories Limited Edition [House 1 & 2] which has a gorgeous 2K restoration of the first two films. With each film telling a different tale, and getting increasingly bonkers as the series goes on, the House films are equal parts funny, scary and entertaining. As much a joy for fans of weird cinema as they are for horror lovers.

Earlier in March, Arrow splits up the Death Walks Twice box set and offers Death Walks On High Heels and Death Walks At Midnight both on DVD and Blu-ray. These two films by Luciano Ercoli are beautifully restored Italian horror classics, with plenty of bonus features.

TAKASHI MIIKE'S DEAD OF ALIVE TRILOGY 

on DVD and Blu-ray (March 14)

Beginning with an explosive, six-minute montage of sex, drugs and violence, and ending with a phallus-headed battle robot taking flight, Takashi Miike's unforgettable Dead or Alive Trilogy features many of the director's most outrageous moments set alongside some of his most dramatically moving scenes. Made between 1999 and 2002, the Dead or Alive films cemented Miike's reputation overseas as one of the most provocative enfants terrible of Japanese cinema, yet also one of its most talented and innovative filmmakers. 

In Dead or Alive, tough gangster Ryuichi (Riki Takeuchi) and his ethnically Chinese gang make a play to take over the drug trade in Tokyo's Shinjuku district by massacring the competition. But he meets his match in detective Jojima (Show Aikawa), who will do everything to stop them. 

Dead or Alive 2: Birds casts Aikawa and Takeuchi together again, but as new characters, a pair of rival yakuza assassins who turn out to be childhood friends; after a botched hit, they flee together to the island where they grew up, and decide to devote their deadly skills to a more humanitarian cause. 

And in Dead or Alive: Final, Takeuchi and Aikawa are catapulted into a future Yokohama ruled by multilingual gangs and cyborg soldiers, where they once again butt heads in the action-packed and cyberpunk-tinged finale to the trilogy. 

Each of them unique in theme and tone, the Dead or Alive films showcase Miike at the peak of his strengths, creating three very distinct movies connected only by their two popular main actors, each film a separate yet superb example of crime drama, character study, and action film making.

Bonus Materials
- High Definition digital transfers of all three films
- Original stereo audio
- Optional English subtitles for all three films
- New interview with actor Riki Takeuchi
- New interview with actor Sho Aikawa
- New interview with producer and screenwriter Toshiki Kimura
- New audio commentary for Dead or Alive by Miike biographer Tom Mes
- Archive interviews with cast and crew
- Archive making-of featurettes for DOA2: Birds and DOA: Final
- Original theatrical trailers for all three films
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Orlando Arocena

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the films by Kat Ellinger

Label: Arrow Video »
Genre: Action/Adventure
Run Time: 291 mins
Number of Discs: 2
Audio: STEREO
Year of Production: 1999
Director: Takashi Miike
Actors: Riki Takeuchi, Sho Aikawa
Territory: US
Language: Japanese
SRP: $49.95

HOUSE: TWO STORIES LIMITED EDITION [HOUSE 1 and 2]

 on Blu-ray (March 21)

Limited to 5000 units!

Step inside, we've been expecting you! At long-last, Arrow Video is proud to present the first two instalments of hit horror franchise House on Blu-ray for the first time! In the original House, William Katt (Carrie) stars as Roger Cobb, a horror novelist struggling to pen his next bestseller. When he inherits his aunt's creaky old mansion, Roger decides that he's found the ideal place in which to get some writing done. Unfortunately, the house's monstrous supernatural residents have other ideas... 

Meanwhile, House II: The Second Story sees young Jesse (Arye Gross) moving into an old family mansion where his parents were mysteriously murdered years before. Plans for turning the place into a party pad are soon thwarted by the appearance of Jesse's mummified great-great-grandfather, his mystical crystal skull and the zombie cowboy who'll stop at nothing to lay his hands on it! 

From the team that brought you Friday the 13th, House and House II are era-defining horror classics - now newly restored and loaded with brand new extras!

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
- Brand new 2K restorations of House and House II: The Second Story
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- "The House Companion" limited edition 60-page book featuring new writing on the entire - - House franchise by researcher Simon Barber, alongside a wealth of archive material

HOUSE
- Audio commentary with director Steve Miner, producer Sean S. Cunningham, actor William - Katt and screenwriter Ethan Wiley
- Ding Dong, You're Dead! The Making of House - brand new documentary featuring interviews with Steve Miner, Sean S. Cunningham, Ethan Wiley, story creator Fred Dekker, stars William Katt, Kay Lenz, and George Wendt, composer Harry Manfredini, special make-up and creature effects artists Barney Burman, Brian Wade, James Belohovek, Shannon Shea, Kirk Thatcher, and Bill Sturgeon, special paintings artists Richard Hescox and William Stout, and stunt coordinator Kane Hodder
- Stills Gallery
- Theatrical Trailers

HOUSE II: THE SECOND STORY
- Audio commentary with writer-director Ethan Wiley and producer Sean S. Cunningham
- It's Getting Weirder! The Making of House II: The Second Story - Brand new documentary featuring interviews with Ethan Wiley, Sean S. Cunningham, stars Arye Gross, Jonathan Stark, Lar Park Lincoln, and Devin DeVasquez, composer Harry Manfredini, special make-up and creature effects artists Chris Walas, Mike Smithson, visual effects supervisor Hoyt Yeatman, and stunt coordinator Kane Hodder
- Stills Gallery
- Theatrical Trailer

Label: Arrow Video
Run Time: 93 mins
Number of Discs: 2
Audio: STEREO
Year of Production: 1986
Director: Steve Miner, Ethan Wiley
Actors: William Katt, George Wendt, Arye Gross, Jonathan Stark
Territory: US

DREAMSCAPE (1984) (Blu-ray Review)

DREAMSCAPE (1984) 

Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Duration: 99 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround, DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Director: Joseph Rubin
Cast: Christopher Plummer, Kate Capshaw, Eddie Albert, David Patrick Kelly, George Wendt

Alex Gardner (Dennis Quaid, Innerspace) is a psychic-wunderkind who at the age of nineteen was a participant in a scientific research project headed Dr. Paul Novotny (Max Von Sydow, The Exorcist) until he dropped out and disappeared. Now in his twenties he seems to have been using his psychic-gift to win at the horse track. Thinking about it now, I am unsure how that works, being a psychic is one thing, but knowing the outcome of a horse race in sounds more like clairvoyance to me, but whatever, I'll agree not to over-think it, and just go with it.  

Anyway, Alex ends up running afoul of a local thug named Snead (Redmond Gleeson) and his pair of henchmen who want in on his track-action. In an effort to avoid them he accepts an invitation by is former mentor Dr. Novotny to participate in a brand new research program, one now funded by a dark arm of the U.S. government, embodied by the cold-menace Bob Blair (Christopher Plummer, Murder By Decree). The new program is designed to allow gifted psychics to link minds with sleeping patients who have been experiencing sleep disorders, such as horrific nightmares. The combination of psychic powers and science enables the psychics to become part of the dream and to help them address the root cause of the problem. Alex doesn't seem that keen to join in on the program but is smitten by the attractive scientist Dr. Jane DeVries (Kate Capshaw), and the alternative involves being beat to a pulp by the thugs. Devries and Alex have good chemistry together, there's a spark but she keep a professional distance from him, for a while any, until the dream-rape, but we'll get to that. 

The dream sequences are pretty creepy, hyper realistic and surreal, some are downright frightening, some are silly, such as a middle-aged man suffering from a fear that his wife is cheating on him. When Alex enters his dream the two sneak into the couple's home and find the too-hot-for-him wife cheating on him with his own brother, and under the bed they find more men still, including the stereotypical 80s Japanese gardener complete with a groan-inducing Japanese music cue, ugh, the 80s.

Alex befriends a young boy at the institute who is suffering from horrific nightmares so intense that when another psychic entered his dreams to help he was stricken catatonic, we learn that dreams have real life and death consequences, if you die in your dreams you die in reality, an idea that A Nightmare On Elm Street, which released just a few months after this hit the cinema, would explore even further. Feeling confident of his dream-link prowess Alex volunteers to enter the boys dreams, and whoa nelly is it horrific, a snake headed man that was pure nightmare fuel to me as a kid, it still has some intrinsic fright about it even now. Alex and the kid barely make it out of the dream intact, but Alex does help him, and he next takes aim at entering the the dreams of sexy Dr. DeVries. Inside her mind he seduces her in what amounts to a bit of dream-rape, even though it's not actually rape, he did enter her dreams without her permission, which is a bit weird but not too weird for PG-13, oh the eighties, I miss you. 

At some point Alex makes a brief acquaintance of a book writer named Charlie Prince (George Wendt) at a local bar, the author warns him that Blair is using the research center to create an army of dream assassins, and sure enough, it turns out to be true. Poor Wendt is there and gone in just a few moments, just long enough to plant the seeds of conspiracy, then he's shot dead. His warning turn true soon enough when we realize that Blair is friends with the President, played by Eddie Albert (Escape to witch Mountain), who has been suffering from debilitating nuclear apocalypse nightmares, and big bad Blair fears that these anti-nuke nightmares are leading toward a path of nuclear disarmament and perhaps a defunding of his own black ops, which he cannot allow. To this end he enlists the help of Novotny and his team of dream warriors to aid the President, however, Blair has ulterior motives, a new recruit at the lab, the psychotic Tommy Ray Glatman (David Patrick Kelly, The Warriors, Twin Peaks),is meant to assassinate the President in his dreams while at the lab, and it's up to Alex to stop him. 

I love the concept of this movie, it was first of many that would tackle dreams, from A Nightmare on Elm Street on through to Inception, these movies owe a tip of that hat to Dreamscape. The hyper realistic dreams are fun stuff, as are the nightmare fuel within, we have glowing-eyed nuclear fallout dogs, a killer with finger-knives (hmm, sound familiar?), glowing nun chucks, post-apocalyptic subway tunnels, the dreaded snakeman, and surreal glowing environs that are creepy and weird. Created using dated optical effects, claymation, matte paintings and garish 80s lighting, this is just fun stuff. 

Plummer and Von Sydow play wonderfully off each other, both actors are legendary in their own right and they do a lot with what was probably not much on paper. Future Mrs. Steven Spielberg, the sweater-rocking Kate Capshaw, and Dennis Quaid have good on-screen chemistry, with Quaid's character coming off as a likable scammer, while Capshaw is a more refined buttoned-down type, they make for a good coupling. The real fun here though is actor David Patrick Kelly as the killer-psychic Tommy, who adopts the snakeman viage at some point during a nightmare in an effort to unhinge Alex, he's a great scuzzy character with some deep-seated daddy issues, while he's not quite chewing up the scenery he's certainly licking it little awkwardly, he gets under your skin.

Glad to see this one get the deluxe treatment from Scream Factory, it's a bit of an under seen gem of the 80s, a PG-13 sci-fi horror adventure with creepy visuals that deserves to be seen by a new generation of kids, this is a good gateway horror watch. Sure, some of the dated optical effects might not come off as effective as they once did, but the heart of the movies is solid, this is fun stuff.  

Audio/Video: Dreamscape (1984) arrives on single-disc Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a freshly minted 2K scan, looking the best it ever has on home video. I never did buy the 2010 Blu-ray from Image, but I have the Image DVD and this is a damn sight nicer all the way around. The image is crisper, the blacks are blacker and there looks to have been a nice clean-up of the dirt and debris that was more noticeable on previous versions of the movie, even some of the optical effects look cleaner. Pleasingly the film grain is left intact and nicely resolved, Scream Factory did some good work reinvigorating this 80s cult-classic

Audio options on the disc include both DTS-HD 5.1 ad 2.0 mizes with the surround option winning the day this time around with some decent use of the surrounds and more depth in general, the dated Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia) synth score still sounds a bit jarring at times, but the score, dialogue and effects are nicely balanced and clean. 

Onto the extras we have a full plate of fan-fuel beginning with an audio commentary with Bruce Cohn Curtis, David Loughery And Craig Reardon, the snakeman test footage, a trailer and an image gallery. I think all this stuff was on the previous Blu-ray. The new stuff begins with a 15 min interview with Dennis Quaid who just seems like a cool guy, reflecting on his work in the movie and his co-stars like Capshaw, Eddie Albert and Plummer. There's a new hour long doc about the movie with new interviews from Director Joseph Ruben, Co-Writer David Loughery, Actor David Patrick Kelly, cinematographer Brian Tufano, editor Richard Halsey, and members of the special effects team including James Aupperle, James Belohovek, Susan Turner, Kevin Kutchaver, Peter Kuran, and Craig Reardon. Truly an in-depth look at all facets of the film, this is a treasure trove of information about the production and fans will be quite pleased. 

The special effects team get their own featurette with 23-min “Nightmares and Dreamsnakes” as Ruben, Russell, Loughery and Reardon wax nostalgic on creating the dated but still impressive visual effects of the movie, including Reardon voicing his disdain for how his magnificent snake man creature was shot. It's hard to argue because when you see the test footage of the snakeman it is in my opinion better than what we see in the finished movie. The last of the new features is a 23-min in-depth conversation with Producer Bruce Cohn Curtis And Co-Writer/Producer Chuck Russell who speak about the project coming together, crafting the script being somewhat annoyed with the synth score and their first movie together, the porno film Chatterbox, which was one of the first porns I ever saw at way too young of an age.  

As a Collector's Edition from Scream Factory we also get a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring a new illustration by artist Paul Shipper which is featured on both the sleeve and the slipcover, the reverse side of the sleeve is the original Drew Struzan artwork, which while cool looks a bit too much like an action adventure film along the lines of Indiana Jones, not that the new illustration does much better at capturing the essence of the movie, this movie was never marketed right. 

Special Features:
- NEW 2K Scan of the Film
- NEW “The Actor’s Journey” - Interview with Dennis Quaid (15 Min) 
- NEW “Dreamscapes and Dreammakers” Retrospective (62 Min) including Brand-new interviews with Director Joseph Ruben, Co-Writer David Loughery, Actor David Patrick Kelly and other members of the special effects team
- NEW “Nightmares and Dreamsnakes” – Looking Back at the Snakeman with Craig Reardon, David Patrick Kelley and others. (23 Min)
- NEW In-Depth Conversation Between Bruce Cohn Curtis And Co-Writer/Producer Chuck Russell (24 Min) 
- Audio Commentary With Bruce Cohn Curtis, David Loughery And Craig Reardon
- Snake Man Test Footage (2 Min) 
- Still Gallery (3 Min) 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Min) 

This movie was nightmare fuel for me when I caught in on cable in '85 or '86 and it haunted by dreams for a while after. Watching it now the movie is a bit dated and goofy, but the thing was ahead of its time and while the movie overreached what it could actually deliver it still makes for a fun, nostalgic 80s sci-fi horror trip. The new Collector's Edition from Scream Factory looks and sounds great, a worthy Collector's Edition that should please fans, the movie has never looked better on home video, and is loaded with a wealth of cool extras.