Voodoo and Vampires On DVD From Image Entertainment To Open 2014

With the anthology horror entry Sanitarium from filmmakers Bryan Ortiz, Bryan Ramirez and Kerry Valderrama in place for its DVD debut from Image Entertainment on New Year’s Eve, you might think that Image might take a few weeks off.

When you consider the company’s very busy horror-themed Q4’13 release schedule — Shiver, Oct. 8; The Colony, Oct. 15; Homecoming, Oct. 22; All Hallow’s Eve, Oct. 29; I Am Zozo, Nov. 19 — it would be quite understandable if you figured that they’d take some time off.  Nothing could be further from the truth!

News arrived this week that director Evan Tramel’s documentary-turned-death struggle, Black Water Vampire, has been tabbed for Jan. 21 DVD debut and filmmaker Walter Boholst’s ultra-scary Voodoo Possession will be heading to DVD one week early on Jan. 14.   Hell of a start to 2014!

We can’t be sure if Haiti has any insane asylums — somehow, it just seems so inappropriate for a country that looks more and more like hell on earth with each passing year (between earthquakes, crime, violence and grinding poverty) — but if they do have one, we could easily imagine cult actor Danny Trejo as the hospital administrator.

That’s the premise of Voodoo Possession as Aiden (Ryan Caltagirone) goes in search of his missing brother.   Can you imagine the horror of coming face-to-face with Danny Trejo as the head of the nut house … the horror of it all!!!

In Black Water Vampire a group of would-be “investigators” decide to track down the infamous killer behind the Black Water murders — a serial killer.   But as the film’s title implies filmmaker Evan Tramel serves up more than just a run-of-the-mill serial killer for this quartet to document.  

Raymond Banks, as played by Bill Oberst, Jr., who starred as Abraham Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies, is the subject of their investigation.   Perhaps a trip to Disneyland would be a better choice than filming this sinister creep.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

FF6 And Despicable Me 2 From Universal Studios Home Entertainment On Dec. 10

Last week we mused that the good folks over at Universal Studios Home Entertainment were clearing the decks for some blockbuster action with a flurry of important, but nevertheless lesser grossing summer films that needed to get placed on the release calendar — and safely out of the way — before the heavy-hitters stepped to the plate.

2 Guns ($75 million) and World's End ($25.7 million) were set for a Nov. 19 launch, while Jobs ($16.1 million) was given a Nov. 26 rollout date.   That left Despicable Me 2 and Fast & Furious 6 as the proverbial “elephants in the corner.”

Sure enough, Dec. 10 has been tabbed as the street date … drum roll please … for not just one, but both of these summer blockbusters!   

DVD and Blu-ray/Combo Pack (both with UltraViolet) As for Fast & Furious 6.  The ARR is a leisurely 200 days and the box office take this past summer was a monster $238.7 million (any bets on when F&F 7 gets a green light?).

Bonus goodies include commentary from director Justin Lin (Annapolis, Fast and Furious, Fast Five), deleted scenes, the four-part featurette titled, “The Making of Fast & Furious 6” and a one-on-one featurette with Vin Diesel titled, “On the Set with Vin.”

Exclusive to the Blu-ray SKU is an extended cut of the film, plus an interactive feature titled “Take Control.”  There are five additional production featurettes, including the multi-part “Planes, Tanks and Automobiles,” which covers the major stunt set-pieces from the film.

Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), Lucy (voiced by Kristen Wiig) and Gru’s Minions will be ready for action on the same Tuesday in early December as Universal Studios Home Entertainment unleashes a three-SKU product offering for Despicable Me 2.

The ARR is 158 days and the box office take was an amazing $361.8 million!

Planned for consumers to choose from will be a Blu-ray/DVD 3D/2D Combo Pack, a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and a stand-alone DVD edition (all with UltraViolet).

Bonus features include commentary from co-directors Chris Renaud & Pierre Coffin and two featurettes — “Gru’s Girls” and “Gadgets Galore.”   

Exclusive to the Blu-ray SKUs are three newly-created “mini movies” — “Puppy,” “Panic in the Mailroom” and “Training Wheels” — a making-of featurette devoted to this “mini movies” titled “The Making of the Mini-Movies,” four additional featurettes, including one titled “El Hombre Malo: The Villainy of El Macho” and a deleted scene.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Midnight Releasing Says Dec. 3 For The DVD Release Of Director Rob Walker's Demon

Director Rob Walker’s Demon, a tightly crafted homage to ‘50s creature features, will be heading to DVD as a Brain Damage Films production from Midnight Releasing on Dec. 3.

The oh so sexy Jasmine Waltz (Lost Angeles, Cheerleader Massacre 2) stars as FBI Special Agent Nicole Diaz, who is assigned to the backwater Florida hamlet of Oro Negro — more or less as punishment for some backstory transgressions — to investigate a series of blood-draining murders.   

On the surface it seems like a demented serial killer, but what she finds is that there is some strange secret government science project that has run amok … it, a creature designed for combat, lives and hunts for just one thing — human BLOOD!

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Cinema Libre's Wong Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest To DVD On Nov. 26

Performance artist, lecturer and stand up comedian Kristina Wong’s one-woman show, Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, will be heading to DVD courtesy of Cinema Libre on Nov. 26.

In collaboration with filmmaker Mike Closson, Wong’s unique comedy-with-a-message stage play/concert/performance (it’s actually a little of each) has been put to video in front of a live audience and it works likes a charm.  

She can miraculously take on the subject of depression and suicide among Asian-American women in one moment and then have the somber audience bend-over in raucous laugher the next … a rare talent, indeed!

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Jump On DVD From Breaking Glass Pictures This Coming Dec. 10

Oh my!  Breaking Glass Pictures announced this past week that they’ve landed domestic DVD distribution rights to writer/director Kieron J. Walsh’s award-winning film, Jump.   The street selected is Dec. 10.

Let’s just say it straight up.  This film deserved a theatrical release and not just competition exhibition on the festival circuit.   While the lack of a theatrical break is somewhat disappointing, savvy film lovers will have the opportunity to savor this gem in the home entertainment arena come December.

We begin with the amazing Nichola Burley (Donkey Punch, Kicks, Edge, etc.) as Greta, an alluring beauty complete with “angel wings” (a New Year’s Eve costume), standing on a bridge spanning the Foyle River in Derry, Northern Ireland.  It’s party time, but she has decided to end her life.

At the moment of truth along comes Pearse Kelly (Martin McCann — as R.V. Burgin in The Pacific mini-series, Clash of the Titans, Killing Bono, etc.), who has had the snot kicked out of him by a couple of thugs for asking too many questions about his MIA brother.

He saves her, talks her down, and their evening together begins.  But as with films like Crash and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, the time frames shift around and we jump from the Greta/Pearse storyline to others connected to them, including her gangster father, Frank (Lalor Roddy) and her two friends (sort of comic relief), Marie (Charlene McKenna) and Dara (Valene Kane), who are expecting her for drinks and a New Year’s Eve celebration.

The storylines — the violence, pathos and comedy — all come together in the final stanza, but it is the getting there that makes Jump work so marvelously well.

Bonus features on the DVD release of Jump include cast and crew interviews and footage from the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in Sept. of 2012.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Sets Elysium For A Dec. 17 DVD And Blu-ray Debut

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has selected Dec. 17 as the DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack (with UltraViolet) rollout date for South African-born filmmaker Neill Blomkamp’s latest political allegory dressed up as a sci-fi thriller, Elysium.

The ARR is 130 days and the domestic box office take was $91.9 million.

You can layer anything that comes to mind over the components of Blomkamp’s futuristic tale — South Africa as the space station Elysium would be one of them, with the suffering in Los Angeles (which sure looks a lot like present day Detroit, only with hoards of homeless people) representing the rest of Africa.   

You could also argue that the paradise of Elysium could be a nice stand in for modern day China’s elite Orwellian-based ruling class, with the dregs of Los Angeles representing the rest of the population of the country.   Indeed, Matt Damon’s gig on the assembly line at the Armadyne Corp would fill in nicely for some poor sick Chinese laborer toiling away at some remote Apple factory — call in sick and we have nine other schmucks ready to take your spot.

Elysium is the ultimate gated community, occupied by limousine royalists and run by Jodie Foster as Secretary of Defense Jessica Delacourt — she does an excellent job of channeling a Nurse Ratchet persona squared.   Matt Damon, who swore off politics after Promised Land tanked last Christmas, is ready to heroically storm the barricades, but doesn’t have a clue as to how to solve the underlying problems of an over-populated and under-productive Earth (Los Angeles; Africa, etc.).   

An eye-rolling ending, punctuated by the premise of free health care for all, is how Blomkamp ends Elysium … if only it were that simple.   You fully expect the closing credits to be accompanied by a full cast rendition of “Kumbaya.”

The film, as with Blomkamp’s District 9, works just fine as an action/thriller, especially if you are able to set aside the beat-you-over-the-head allegory elements.   Despite the film’s political bent, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will do just fine with its home entertainment launch on Dec. 17.

Bonus features include a pair of featurettes — “Collaboration: Crafting the Performances in Elysium” and “Engineering Utopia: Creating a Society in the Sky.”   Exclusive to the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack are an extended scene, the multi-part “The Journey to Elysium” and the featurette “Visions of 2154.”

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

The Wolverine On DVD And Blu-ray From 20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment On Dec. 3

20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment was up bright and early Tuesday morning, Oct.1, with the release news for director James Mangold’s latest edition to the X-Men film franchise, The Wolverine.

We suspect that the first couple of weeks of October are to going to be exceptionally busy as the “Hollywood” studios stake out their calendar turf selections for the remaining big-budget summer theatrical releases that will be headed to the home entertainment market place during the fourth quarter of 2013.

Planned for Dec. 3 is a three-SKU product offering of The Wolverine from Fox — a DVD edition featuring the theatrical cut, Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack edition (also the theatrical cut) and a 3 Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack titled The Wolvervine: Unleashed Extended Edition (featuring a 3D version of the theatrical cut and a 2D presentation of an unrated cut of the film — clocking in at extra 13 minutes in running time).

The ARR is 130 days and the domestic box office tally currently stands at $131.3 million.

As to special features for this Hugh Jackman action thriller, the DVD has only one bonus goodie, a featurette titled “Inspiration: A Ronin’s Journey.”

The Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack showcases an alternate ending, the “Second Screen” interactive production of “The Path of the Ronin” and the featurette titled “X-Men: Days of Future Past Set Tour.”

The “Unleashed Extended Edition” SKU includes all of the aforementioned bonuses, plus commentary from James Mangold.

Also heading to the Blu-ray arena on Dec. 3 are eight film vault treasures selected by consumers as part of 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment’s “Voice Your Choice” promotion.

The winners include two starring Tyrone Power, Jesse James and Black Swan; a pair of John Wayne films from the 1960s, North to Alaska and Undefeated; plus Call of the Wild, Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Carmen Jones and Desk Set. 

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report:  DVD & Blu-ray Release Report