Mill Creek Entertainment's Retro VHS Packaging Blu-ray Blitz On Aug. 13

Mill Creek Entertainment, this past week, announced its first round of priced-to-collect Blu-ray releases that will be heading home during the month of August.   

Streeting on August 13 will be four new additions to the company’s popular Retro VHS Packaging line of Blu-ray products.   With an SRP of just $14.98 each (and that’s before discounts at retail), these new film treasures on Blu-ray are just too good to pass up.

So where does one begin with this latest round of priced-to-own Retro VHS Packaging Blu-ray releases?   How about with director Fred Schepisi’s summer of 1987 comedy, Roxanne, which was based loosely on Edmond Rostand’s 1897 play, Cyrano de Bergerac, and adapted for the screen by none other than the film’s star, Steve Martin (his first solo attempt). 

C. D. “Charlie” Bales (Steve Martin) is the fire chief in the Canadian resort town of Nelson and if you know Charlie, you know better than to make comments about the nature of his very long and distinctive nose.   Fights usually begin when someone snaps, “WOW, that’s a BIG nose!”

When an astrophysics student by the name of Roxanne (Daryl Hannah) shows up for the summer with her telescope in hand, the romantic sparks begin to fly.   She is there for the purpose of proving that her calculations about a rogue comet are correct … it will appear during the summer and she will be in the right spot at the right time to document it!   Her arrival does not go unnoticed by Charlie!

Through a series of comical events, Charlie becomes smitten with Roxanne, but can’t muster the courage to tell her about his feelings for her, except through a proxy … that nose, you know, it can get in the way!   

In the meantime, a new fireman by the name of Chris (Rick Rossovich — fresh from his Top Gun role), who is none too bright, but certainly has the good looks, gets involved with Roxanne … ironically, with the help of Charlie.

Roxanne is great fun and Steven Martin seems to be having a marvelous time with his Cyrano de Bergerac-like character … his success here as a solo screenwriter paid off with his next theatrical script in 1991 being for the classic comedy, L.A. Story.

One of the most unrated film releases of 1985 was director Sean S. Cunningham’s The New Kids.    Cunningham had become an instant horror icon with his 1980 film release of Friday the 13^th (as producer and director) and one suspects that genre audiences wanted more of the same, but instead got a well-written bullying tale that begins as a bet on who can bed the new girl in town and quickly escalated into attempts at rape, torture and more.

Loren (Shannon Presby … who gave up acting for a career in law enforcement) and Abby (Lori Loughlin — at the beginning of her entertainment career … who is making headlines these days for other reasons) play brother and sister military brats.   The know how to take care of themselves thanks to their father’s training (that will come into play as the story develops).   

When their parents are tragically killed in an auto accident, they end staying with their Uncle Charlie (Eddie Jones), who operates a dilapidated theme park called Santa’s Funland.   It is here that the local teenage thugs, lead by Eddie Dutra (James Spader) and his buddy, Gideon (John Philbin), encounter Abby and wager fifty bucks on who can have sex with her first.

When she keeps telling them to buzz off, things start to get ugly.   The theme park is vandalized, Loren uses his combat training to try and intimidate the bullies, but that just makes it worse.   Abby is eventually kidnapped, tortured and nearly set on fire by Eddie and his buddies … that was big, big mistake.

She escapes, teams up with her brother, and Santa’s Funland becomes a war zone … by dawn, Dutra and his gang will pay the ultimate price for messing with these siblings.    Action film … horror film … revenge thriller … pick one, they all fit and Cunningham’s The New Kids mixes these genres perfectly.

Rounding out this Aug. 13 Retro VHS Packaging Blu-ray promotion are writer/director Jonathan Kaplan’s 1975 thriller, White Line Fever, starring Jan-Michael Vincent and Kay Lenz and director Joseph Ruben’s 1989 crime drama, True Believer, teaming Robert Downey Jr. with James Woods.