Blu-ray Review: NEMESIS

Posted by Luis Ceriz in Delirium News & Updates on February 12th, 2019
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Flashing back to video store action classic courtesy of MVD’s Rewind Collection

If you EVER entered a video rental store and made it to the science fiction or fantasy section, you definitely came across some of Albert Pyun`s cinematic opuses. The art on the VHS covers were always dynamic: SWORD AND THE SORCERER with it`s Frazetta-esque painting, CAPTAIN AMERICA with the good Captain coming straight for us (and for once the suit was comic-book accurate!), CYBORG with new action star JCVD facing down a gang of badass post apocalyptic thugs and NEMESIS, with cool painted Oliver Gruner ( think 50% JCVD, 50% Dolph Lundgren ) as a sleek trench-coat wearin`, machine gun totin` terminator with a  babe in the background holding an even bigger hand cannon to sweeten the deal.

Well, courtesy of MVD we now have NEMESIS in a remastered, special edition Blu-ray / DVD set, packaged in a retro looking slipcase with that selfsame cover, with a ‘worn’ look and adorned with video store `stickers`.

NEMESIS is the kind of `serious` 80`s sci-fi film where everyone wears sunglasses and you know what the hero’s thinking because of his serious, baritone voice over.

Before I continue I just want to say that the following review has some spoilers so be forewarned.

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NEKROMANTIK 2 Coming to Limited Edition VHS!

Posted by Chris Alexander in Delirium News & Updates on February 11th, 2019

Cult Epics release Jorg Buttgereit’s Gruesome Horror Comedy on VHS for Valentine’s Day

As Valentine’s Day fast approaches, necrophiliacs can rejoice as Cult Epics has just announced the upcoming return of the loving dead – with the official VHS release of Jörg Buttgereit’s NEKROMANTIK 2. Produced in three exclusive variants (some signed), and featuring ghoulish new artwork by Martin Trafford and cover design by Parker Richardson, these numbered editions are strictly limited (with very low numbers), be quick as our previous VHS of NEKROMANTIK was a sell-out last year. Also unleashed is a delightfully gory antique enamel pin based on NEKROMANTIK 2’s original poster art – the perfect gift for your loved one at any time of year (alive or otherwise!).

You have an exclusive window to order the special edition here!

In case you haven’t seen this wild and sick sequel, NEKROMANTIK 2 tells the tale of a beautiful necrophiliac, who works by day as a nurse and prowls by night in cemeteries searching for fresh corpses, finds the grave of Nekromantik’s Rob––and brings him home. When her real-life relationship begins to falter, she has to make a final choice between the living and the dead, with gruesome consequences.

Dig in!

HEAD OF THE FAMILY: A Closer Look

Posted by Trevor Parker in Delirium News & Updates on February 5th, 2019
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Flashing back to Charles Band’s Gothic Black Comedy

I’m always a bit baffled when I see other members of my generation mist over with nostalgia when regarding the moribund video rental store experiences of our youth. Maybe my own corner video store was somehow that much shabbier than theirs, but I say confidently that modern streaming media are superior, an upgrade in every sense. What was really all that charming about dragging yourself down to the video store, only to be disappointed that all available copies of whatever new release you had your heart set on had already been snapped up? So there you were, stuck either settling on re-watching something or taking a chance on some suspect object with come-hither cover art—anyone else out there stare in the mirror with sour recrimination the morning after renting BARB WIRE? There was also the anxiety of knowing that you might be watching a cut or altered version of the movie you rented, as dictated by stodgy, stuffy store owners—no NC-17 BAD LIEUTENANT waiting for you at a certain blue-and-yellow family-values video chain, just keep on walking. There was also the issue of cost; adjusted for inflation, five bucks then is like ten bucks today. It hurt to know that being sucked in by a cleverly-marketed dud just burned up your entertainment investment. With subscription streaming, picking a stinker only costs you in terms of your time. All the other trappings of the video store—having to remember your membership card, being compelled to rewind VHS tapes that usually stunk of pizza grease and stale weed, dealing with snotty, judgmental film-school-dropout clerks looking down their pimply noses in disdain at the copy of SHOWGIRLS clutched in your grasp—streaming has efficiently sanded all those irritating edges off of the home movie viewing experience. Worst of all was having to arrange one’s day around returning that rented tape, lest the punitive anvil of late fees be dropped upon one’s head. This process might not have been such a hassle to city folks, but for rural people serviced by dirt roads pocked with more craters than the Ho Chi Minh trail after a USAF strafing run, the drive back to the video store could be a trek of Odyssean proportions.

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Blu-ray Review: JACK THE RIPPER (1959)

Posted by Chris Alexander in Delirium News & Updates on February 5th, 2019
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Severin restores and releases both cuts of this undervalued shocker

The mystery of the Victorian-era serial killer dubbed “Jack the Ripper” has endured the ages, with countless fictionalized novels and films riffing onthe  sordid story of the fiend who once slashed his way through the flesh of London’s ladies of the night. The fact that “Saucy Jack” himself was never caught has only fueled the fantastical, with conspiracies ladled upon conspiracies as to who or what the murderer might have been, most potently in Alan Moore’s FROM HELL graphic novel and the freely adapted (and absolutely undervalued) Hughes Brothers feature film. But one of the more obscure remounts of the Jack the Ripper crimes can be found in Robert S. Baker and Monty Berman’s crackerjack 1959 chiller, simply called JACK THE RIPPER. Working from a script by Hammer Horror vet Jimmy Sangster, the film is a low budget but deft little murder mystery that sends ample chills up the spine, especially in its original UK theatrical cut, the likes of which is represented here – alongside the more sensational American re-edit – on Severin’s snazzy new Blu-ray release.

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Cover Reveal: DELIRIUM #19

Posted by Chris Alexander in Delirium News & Updates on January 28th, 2019
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Dario Argento graces the cover of DELIRIUM Magazine’s 19th lurid issue

Coming next month, DELIRIUM Magazine slips on our black leather gloves and flips on the color gels for our 19th lurid issue, featuring a brand new interview with the undisputed master of Italian horror, director Dario Argento! The dark, fevered mind that brought you such classics as DEEP RED (PROFONDO ROSSO), SUSPIRIA, INFERNO, TENEBRE, PHENOMENA and MOTHER OF TEARS gets the full-throttle DELIRIUM treatment in this marvelous mag, featuring a lush cover by photographer Ama Lea and designer Ryan Brookhart. The photo features Argento as he is today, saturated in the same reds and greens and violets that stain his signature works like SUSPIRIA and INFERNO and surrounded by imagery from many of his most talked about movies. And the interview inside – by our Italian correspondent Roberto D’Onofrio – is a marvel, with Dario discussing his storied past and upcoming projects.

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Blue Underground’s “Butcher’s Dozen” coming from Full Moon!

Posted by Chris Alexander in Delirium News & Updates on January 18th, 2019
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12 iconic cult and horror classics coming to Full Moon’s streaming channels starting this month

Director and producer William (MANIAC, MANIAC COP) Lustig’s venerable home video distribution imprint Blue Underground has been lovingly restoring and re-releasing dozens upon dozens of iconic and obscure international cult, science fiction, horror and dark fantasy films for almost two decades. Movies like Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBIE (recently released by Blue Underground in a delirious 4K transfer), Sergio Corbucci’s DJANGO, Jess Franco’s VENUS IN FURS and so many more, have put BU on the macabre map as one of the most respected and acclaimed labels in genre film history.

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Review: FRANKENSTEIN ALIVE, ALIVE! THE COMPLETE COLLECTION

Posted by Luis Ceriz in Delirium News & Updates on January 15th, 2019

A look at Steve Niles and Bernie Wrightson’s magnum macabre opus


FRANKENSTEIN ALIVE, ALIVE! continues the tale of Mary Shelley’s titular creature, beginning in it’s “I am never what they expect..so I have also learned it is always best to give them what they expect. Give them what they want. A monster.

At the beginning of the graphic novel the creature is now living a content life as a part of the ‘freak’ portion of a travelling circus and carnival as… ‘The Frankenstein Monster’! Having found a family of sorts who accept people as they are, without preconditions and without questions he can afford to remember back to a time when things weren’t so idyllic. From that prologue, the creature’s thoughts travel back to it’s attempt to the end of Shelley’s novel.  Up in the arctic it tries to end it’s existence as it is haunted by it’s maker, Dr Frankenstein.  Relying on the frigid waters to do the deed,  but to no success.  It seems the creature is, like original sin, immortal.   When it is found and brought to a benevolent doctor’s isolated clinic it finds a peace, living in relative solitude but acceptance… at least for a while. Continue reading “Review: FRANKENSTEIN ALIVE, ALIVE! THE COMPLETE COLLECTION”

Blu-ray Review: Brian De Palma’s OBSESSION

Posted by Chris Alexander in Delirium News & Updates on January 10th, 2019
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One of Brian De Palma’s most underrated films is out now from Scream Factory

Maverick director Brian De Palma’s own obsession with Alfred Hitchcock is the farthest thing from a secret. In almost every one of De Palma’s films, the Master of Suspense is referenced and fetishized, from the basic PSYCHO meets REAR WINDOW structure of SISTERS, in which the male – as opposed to the female – lead is murdered graphically in the first reel and is witnessed by a nosy neighbor, to PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE, where the PSYCHO shower scene is riffed -on, replacing a toilet-plunger with a knife, to CARRIE’s slow-burning, operatically suspenseful bucket-mount finale to DRESSED TO KILL, which amalgamates almost ALL of Hitchcock’s signature set-pieces into one over-sexed, kinky souffle.

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Contest: Win a HALLOWEEN Blu-ray Combo Pack!

Posted by Chris Alexander in Delirium News & Updates on January 2nd, 2019
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Happy New Year from DELIRIUM Magazine! In honor of this fresh, frightful 2019, we’re offering our readers the chance to win a Blu-ray Combo Pack edition of David Gordon Green’s HALLOWEEN, the acclaimed direct sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 landmark of stylish stalk and slash, courtesy of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment!

HALLOWEEN is out now on Digital and Digital movie app MOVIES EVERYWHERE and hits 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray and DVD and On Demand on January 15, 2019. Hailed by critics as“a near perfect blend of craft, character growth and nostalgia” (Perri Nemiroff, Collider), HALLOWEEN takes place four decades after Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) narrowly escaped the masked Michael Myers’brutal killing spree. Packed with bonus features including chilling deleted and extended scenes as well as special featurettes showing behind-the-scenes looks at creating the film, Halloween delivers spine-chilling, hair-raising intensity and thrills to both new and repeat viewers.

To win your copy of HALLOWEEN, email chris@fullmoonfeatures.com with the words “THE SHAPE” in the subject line and your mailing address in the body of the email. Winners will be chosen at random. Good luck!

Blu-ray Review: THE NIGHT STALKER

Posted by Brooks Davis in Delirium News & Updates on December 18th, 2018
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Dan Curtis’ classic TV horror movie gets the 4K treatment from Kino Lorber

The Seventies was a great decade for horror films. The genre was rocked with such hits as THE EXORCIST and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, but some of the best horror could be found right at home on the television set. Producer Dan Curtis brought horror to daytime television with his hit show, DARK SHADOWS but in 1972, Curtis unleashed a vampire onto the streets of Las Vegas and introduced the world to one of horror’s unsung heroes… Carl Kolchak. Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey (CITY OF THE DEAD) and written by the legendary Richard Matheson (I AM LEGEND, THE TWILIGHT ZONE), THE NIGHT STALKER would turn out to be a huge and unexpected success.

When bodies drained of blood start littering the streets of Vegas, intrepid news reporter Carl Kolchak (played by the great Darren McGavin, A CHRISTMAS STORY) jumps on the case. It’s not long before Kolchak comes to the conclusion that a vampire is responsible for the grisly slayings. Naturally this doesn’t go over well with his editor (Simon Oakland) and the local police, who view Kolchak as not much more than an irritant and seem to completely ignore his vampire theory. Never one to be deterred, Kolchak assumes the mantle of an amateur vampire hunter and goes after the creature of the night. What follows is a lean, mean TV movie that would spawn a sequel, a TV series and would inspire many of today’s leading horror filmmakers.

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