Mill Creek Entertainment “teased” its first home
entertainment product offering for 2017 last week — and it was a pretty “big”
tease — with the Jan. 3 DVD debut of the five-part look at the mysterious
creatures known throughout the world by such names as Yeti, Sasquatch or just
Bigfoot. The release is titled Chasing
Bigfoot: The Quest for Truth.
This week that early January “footprint” grew even
bigger!
Also hitting retail shelves on Jan. 3 is the restored
Blu-ray presentation of filmmaker H.B. Halicki’s 1974 independently produced
action blockbuster, Gone in 60 Seconds.
Henry Blight Halicki — aka “Toby” — saw what Tom Laughlin
had accomplished by taking back control of Billy Jack after Warner Bros. had
bungled the initial 1971 film release.
As a result of Laughlin’s success, four-walling theatres
(renting the theatre at a guaranteed price) became all the rage in the early
1970s and H.B. Halicki was right there in the vanguard with Gone
in 60 Seconds as writer, director, producer, star and distributor! He turned a reportedly $150,000 investment
into $40 million in box office receipts!
While he is the human star of the film — even doing his own
stunts — the real star of
Gone in 60 Seconds is the elusive
“Eleanor,” a 1973 Ford Mustang, which is part of a 48-car shopping list that Maindrian
Pace (Halicki) and his crew must steal in just five days.
The climax of the film, which is still one of the best stunt
sequences ever put to film, is a 30 minute-plus chase sequence that required
the destruction of close to 100 automobiles … and our anti-hero got away clean
(cleverly so, we might add)!
Mill Creek Entertainment will be releasing this Blu-ray
action gem with a SRP of just $9.98!
Bonus goodies include footage of Eleanor going through her paces and video
sessions with drivers Parnelli Jones and J.C. Agajanian Jr. (who both had small
roles in the film) as well Lee Iacocca and Bobby Ore.
The following week, Jan. 10, Mill Creek is back with the
Blu-ray debut of actor-turned-director Paul Michael Glaser’s 1986 film release
of Band
of the Hand.
Five teenage thugs are given a second chance by agreeing to
participate in a “unique” survivalist program.
They are turned over to “Indian Joe” (Stephen Lang), a Vietnam vet who
runs an Everglades program that makes the desperate group work together to
survive!
In the process they become a fighting machine and decide to
clean up the streets that made them the young criminals that they had become … of
course when drug lord “Cream” (played by Laurence Fishburne) learns of this it
is all out war!
Also heading home on Jan. 10 from Mill Creek Entertainment
are three priced-to-own DVD film collections.
The first of these is 80's Beat, a double disc collection
featuring eight films showcasing the talents of the hottest new stars from the
1980s … the SRP is just $14.98.
Included in the mix are True Believers (Robert Downey Jr.), The
New Kids (James Spader), Little Nikita (River Phoenix), The
Legend of Billie Jean (Helen Slater and Christian Slater), Private
Resort (Johnny Depp), Like Father Like Son (Sean Austin,
Kirk Cameron), Side Out (C. Thomas Howell) and Flatliners (starring
everyone … Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and
Oliver Platt).
The next collection, priced at just $9.98, is the
single-disc, four-film set titled
Don't Forget About Me.
This includes
The Freshman (1990, teaming
Marlon Brando with Matthew Broderick),
Immediate Family (1989, starring Glenn
Close, James Woods and Mary Stuart Masterson),
Fresh Horses (1988, stars
Andrew McCarthy and Molly Ringwald) and
No Small Affair (1984, finds Demi
Moore teamed with Jon Cryer).
And last, but not least in this first wave of 2017 DVD and
Blu-ray product offerings from Mill Creek Entertainment is the double-disc,
11-film collection titled Strange Things. The SRP for this sci-fi and horror blend is
just $14.98.
On the sci-fi side of the ledger are Spacehunter: Adventures in the
Forbidden Zone, Krull, Slipstream and Alien
Contamination.
For horror fans, Mill Creek has included Pulse,
My
Mom’s a Werewolf, The Hearse, Lurkers, Mutant,
Death
Warmed Up and Eternal Evil (aka: The
Blue Man).