Here are some of the horror DVD/Blu-Ray releases for Nov. 2nd!
From acclaimed director Chris Smith comes THE BANISHING, which tells the true story of the most haunted house in England. A young reverend and his wife and daughter move into a manor with a horrifying secret. When a vengeful spirit haunts the little girl and threatens to tear the family apart, the reverend and his wife are forced to confront their beliefs. They must turn to black magic by seeking the help of a famous Occultist…or risk losing their daughter.
Gale Sondergaard (The Cat and the Canary, The Mark of Zorro) returns as the sinister Spider Woman, a role she originated as the femme fatale Adrea Spedding in the Sherlock Holmes whodunit The Spider Woman. In this non-canonical spin-off, she is even more diabolical as Zenobia Dollard, a wealthy blind woman shrouded in mystery. Jean (Brenda Joyce, Jane in several Tarzan films) is hired as Zenobia’s caretaker after all the preceding caretakers vanish without a trace. She becomes entangled in a web of horror as she discovers that her employer, aided by a hideously deformed household servant played by legendary creeper Rondo Hatton (The Pearl of Death, The Brute Man), has used the blood of her predecessors to create a death serum when it is mixed with spider venom—and that her own blood is now being harvested at night, while she is in a drugged sleep, to continue the experiment. Veteran director Arthur Lubin (Hold That Ghost, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves) delivers a terrifying tale chock-full of bizarre blood-drinking plants, old-dark-house spookiness and the wickedness of the Spider Woman!
Looking for an escape from her recurring nightmares, 18-year-old Sarah (Julia Sarah Stone) submits to a university sleep study, but soon realizes she’s become the conduit to a frightening new discovery. Dreams twist and nightmares come true in this mind-altering new work of science-fiction from Anthony Scott Burns (Our House) that haunts the space between wakefulness and sleep. Come True is an unforgettable cinematic dream well worth the submersion.
A deadly secret from the past returns to haunt a young woman and her loved ones in The Secret of the Blue Room. Irene von Helldorf’s twenty-first birthday celebration is eclipsed when her father shares the dark details of his estate’s guest room: twenty years earlier, three people were killed there and their murders remain unsolved. Hoping to prove their own bravery and win Irene’s love, each of her three suitors agrees to spend a night in the room… and a new string of deadly mysteries is set into motion. Lionel Atwill (Doctor X, The Song of Songs), Gloria Stuart (The Kiss Before the Mirror, Titanic), Paul Lukas (The Lady Vanishes, The Ghost Breakers) and Edward Arnold (Easy Living, You Can’t Take It with You) star in this delightfully chilling Pre-Code murder-mystery movie directed by Kurt Neumann (Son of Ali Baba, The Fly).
Starring Claude Rains (The Invisible Man, Casablanca), Heather Angel (The Undying Monster, Lifeboat) and David Manners (Dracula, The Death Kiss), The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a haunting film adaptation of the unfinished novel by Charles Dickens. An opium-addicted choirmaster, John Jasper (Rains), becomes obsessed with a young student named Rosa Bud (Angel). His nephew, Edwin Drood (Manners), also holds a torch for the girl and asks her to marry him. Circumstances in their small Victorian town grow more perplexing when Drood disappears and the sordid details of Jasper’s secret life come to light. Featuring beautiful sets, lavish costumes and wonderful direction by Stuart Walker (The Eagle and the Hawk, Werewolf of London), this gripping tale remains as mysterious as ever. Douglass Montgomery (The Cat and the Canary), Francis L. Sullivan (Great Expectations), Valerie Hobson (Kind Hearts and Coronets) and E.E. Clive (The Bride of Frankenstein) round out the fine cast.
Death Lurked in His Hypnotic Eyes! In the nerve-jangling thriller The Mad Doctor, the great Basil Rathbone (The Black Sleep, The Comedy of Terrors) is Dr. George Sebastien, a smooth and sinister physician who woos, weds and murders several of his wealthy women patients for their fortunes. Aided by his demented manservant (Martin Kosleck, House of Horrors), he sets up a Park Avenue psychiatry practice and effects an apparently miraculous cure for troubled heiress Linda Boothe (Ellen Drew, Isle of the Dead), whom he makes his fourth wife. Can the suspicious Dr. Downer (Ralph Morgan, Strange Interlude) and Linda’s ex-fiancé Gil (John Howard, The Undying Monster) foil Sebastien’s schemes and save Linda before it’s too late? Rathbone is splendid as the diabolically debonair doctor in this psychological chiller from director Tim Whelan (The Murder Man, The Thief of Bagdad) and cinematographer Ted Tetzlaff (My Man Godfrey, Notorious).
A Murder a Day Keeps the Landlord Away! When six mild-mannered senior citizens are told that their old brownstone is going to be torn down, they don’t take the news lightly! Led by a pixie-faced lady (Paula Trueman, The Outlaw Josey Wales), the oldsters decide they must exert “Gray Power” and take action. After a little plotting and planning, they become an oddly lovable assortment of “hit men,” carefully getting rid of those who would attempt to disrupt their lives. This hilarious horror story from director Larry Yust (Trick Baby) will not only make you laugh, it’ll also make you look twice at that sweet old lady who lives next door! Peter Brocco (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest), Frances Fuller (They Might Be Giants), William Hansen (The Laughing Policeman), Ruth McDevitt (TV’s Kolchak: The Night Stalker) and Ian Wolfe (Witness for the Prosecution) round out the cast of pernicious pensioners. Beautifully photographed by Isidore Mankofsky (Somewhere in Time).
”Night of the Bloody Apes” is a remake of Cardona’s Doctor of Doom (1962), spiced with women, medical footage, women wrestling, and cheap gore shots. Female masked wrestler Lucy (who looks like the devil) beats the stuffing out of an opponent – a wrestling lady with a red costume like Catwoman. Lucy finally hurls her opponent from the squared circle and knocks her out cold. Although Lucy’s cop boyfriend tries to convince her that it’s all part of the show, Lucy can no longer handle the stress of wrestling. Meanwhile, a mad scientist (Dr. Krellman) attempts to cure his son’s leukemia by doing the first ‘ape-to-human’ heart transplant. He decides to put a gorilla’s heart into the lad and orders his flunky to ”prepare the gorilla!”. There is actual footage of a graphic open-heart surgery inserted in the ape operation scenes! This of course causes the boy to turn into a big stinky man-ape. He becomes deformed and mutated, as he sprouts excessive facial hair and takes on the characteristics of the organ’s donor, who immediately goes on a bloody rampage, tearing clothes off women and faces off men.
The lives of ten strangers intersect through a terrifying chain of events as a mutating fungus begins to spread through a small town wiping out everyone that comes into contact with it.
Neve Campbell leads an all-star cast in this iconic slasher thriller that launched the Scream franchise and breathed new life into the horror genre. After a series of mysterious deaths befalls their small town, an offbeat group of friends led by Sidney Prescott (Campbell) become the target of a masked killer. As the body count rises, Sidney and her friends turn to the “rules” of horror films to help navigate the real-life terror they’re living in. Also starring Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Skeet Ulrich, Matthew Lillard, Rose McGowan and Drew Barrymore, buckle up for an irresistible killer ride!
