Icarus Films Selects Oct. 15 For The Domestic DVD Debut Of Documentary Filmmaker Jessica Gorter's 900 Days

Dutch documentary filmmaker Jessica Gorter began making regular visits to Russia shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union.   By 2004, this graduate of the Dutch Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, had assembled enough material to make her first documentary film, Piter, an insightful look at the lives of seven life-long residents of St. Petersburg.   

The people she followed in her film lived through the city’s name being changed to Leningrad, the horrors of World War II, the Cold War and the change back to St. Petersburg in 1991.   She made many friends and learned of many things about life in the Soviet Union … behind the “Iron Curtain.”

One thing that kept coming up over the years were the stories about the horrors and the misinformation about the “Siege of Leningrad.”   Gorter listened, learned and eventually gained the confidence of a number of the survivors, who were at first reluctant to talk about what they new first hand to be true, versus the “official” line about the glory and the heroism of the resistance to the invading German forces.

By 2011 she had enough material to construct her next Russia-themed documentary, 900 Days.   The last survivors of the “Siege of Leningrad” tell their stories and it’s not the official Soviet-era line.   

Word arrived from Icarus Films this past week that this award-winning film from Jessica Gorter will be making its domestic DVD debut on Oct. 15.

The survivors are heroes and they have the medals to prove it.   There are parades and memorials, but the individuals that Gorter interviews, who were but kids at the time, open up about what really happened … and if even half of what they say is true, then Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the fire bombings of Tokyo and Dresden were but blips on the human carnage meter.   

Between the Germans, their own Soviet Army and the ruthless KGB and starvation, 1,000,000 residences of Leningrad died.   One-third of the pre-war population of the city perished during the siege that lasted from September of 1941 until January of 1944.

The stories these survivors tell are of a nightmare world.   The family cat is a meal, and cannibalism raised its ugly head … after the war, the Soviet government stonewalled all talk of such things.   The people of the city were heroes!

Bonus features include additional interviews with filmmaker Jessica Gorter and “Siege of Leningrad” survivors.   900 Days is presented in Dutch and Russian with English subtitles. 

Cleopatra Entertainment's Nekromantix: 3 Decades of Darkle Heads Home As A Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Edition On Oct. 11

January 4, 2019, the New Year had barely settled in, but filmmaker Vicente Cordero was just getting warmed up with news that he would be filming the Nekromantix 30^th Anniversary concert at the Observatory Theatre in Santa Ana, California that evening.   Sold Out … a night for fans to remember!!

Cleopatra Entertainment, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, announced this past week that a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack — featuring a 4K scan of the complete 19-song concert — will be ready for fans to revisit (along with those who didn’t have the opportunity to attend the event) on Oct. 11.    

Title Nekromantix: 3 Decades of Darkle, the Combo Pack presentation also includes a CD of the complete 19-song set.

Included in the mix of 19 sons were selections from Nekromantix’s various albums over the year …  “Alice In Psycholand” and “Brain Error” from “Curse of the Coffin” (1991); “Driller Killer” from “Brought Back to Life” (1992); “Nightnurse” and “Demons Are A Girl's Best Friend” from the “Demons Are a Girl's Best Friend” album (1996); “Gargoyles Over Copenhagen,” “Nice Day for a Resurrection,” “Haunted Cathouse” and “Who Killed the Cheerleader” from “Return of the Loving Dead” (2002); “Struck by a Wrecking Ball from “Dead Girls Don't Cry” (2004) and “Horny In A Hearse” from “Life Is a Grave & I Dig It!” (2007) and “Nekrotastic Extacy” from the 2001 release of “What Happens in Hell, Stays in Hell.” 

Bonus goodies include newly prepared video session with the band members Kim Nekroman, Franciso Mesa and  Rene De La Muerte, plus a gallery of rare photos.

Indican Pictures Preps Director Hunter West's Ridge Runners For Release On DVD On Aug. 27

We know the reason and that makes it all the more terrifying!   

Indican Pictures will be bringing director Hunter West’s base-on-actual-events sex-trafficking thriller, Ridge Runners, to the DVD marketplace on Aug. 27.  If you like your mysteries filled with an ever-building element of suspense, then this award-winning indie release is certain to please.

We, as the audience, have critical evidence to the mystery that is about to unfold.  The film is actually designed that way.   West’s Ridge Runners constructed to make you squirm.   

Indeed, in an opening tease we find out what has happened to 12-year-old Halley Dawn (Tatum Chandler in her film debut) and it isn’t pretty.   She’s gone missing and even though we — the audience — don’t know where she is right at the moment, we do know what is happening to her and it is horrifying.   The young girl is being forced to turn tricks at a local truck stop (nothing more to be said on that subject).

Next, filmmaker Hunter West takes us to the core of the film.   Halley has been reported missing by her mother, Maddie (Charlee Graham), and the case has been handed off to detective Rachel Willow (Jennica Schwartzman — Parker’s Anchor, Brick Madness, Gordon Family Tree, Before the Lights Come Up, etc.) and her partner Rob Shepherd (Austin Haley — Chasing the White Dragon, Losers Take All).   

On first glance it appears to be a routine runaway.   Search for a bit, rattle some cages and eventually she will come wandering home.   So Willow and Shepherd go through the motions of interviewing mom, the neighbors, her teacher at school and the characters at the local racetrack where Halley’s mother works.

It is frustrating to no end … and that’s the point.   Ridge Runners is designed to wind you up.   You soon find yourself telling the detectives to move it along!!   This girl is in serious danger and everyone they interview seems like a possible suspect.   There is always something just a little off about each one.

Will Halley be saved?   Will those responsible see justice?   Will someone get too close and pay the price?   Aug. 27, DVD, Ridge Runners and learn the terrible secret.

Arrow Video Restores Writer/Director Stanley H. Brassloff's Toys Are Not For Children For Blu-ray Release On Oct. 08

No one will be admitted during the last 12 minutes of the film!!   That was the promotional gimmick for writer/director Stanley H. Brassloff’s June of 1972 theatrical release oddly-titled Toys are Not for Children.

Arrow Video, with domestic sales and distribution expertise provided by MVD Entertainment Group, has a new 2K restoration (from the original film elements) ready for a Blu-ray release on Oct. 8.

Harry Novak’s Boxoffice International Pictures handled the distribution of Toys are Not for Children, with Harry Novak in the role of executive producer … this was right in his “wheelhouse.”   Sexploitation was the hallmark of Boxoffice International Pictures in the late 1960s and early ‘70s — such gems as The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet, The Notorious Cleopatra, The Toy Box and Erika's Hot Summer (among others) are to be found among the theatrical releases from Boxoffice International during the period.

He also had has share of horror films — Rattlers, Axe, The Mad Butcher and I Dismember Mama.   You get the idea.

Toys are Not for Children is clearly in the sexploitation category, but wanders off the Boxoffice International reservation just a bit with some pretty intense psychological trappings.    These begin with something of a prologue where a young Jamie (played by Tiberia Mitri) is confronted by her mother (Fran Warren) over some inappropriate sexually activity.   

We learn that this is spurred by being abandoned by her father and her mother constantly harping on her over how awful men are.   This sets up the backbone of the story that is to follow.

Skip ahead to an adult Jamie (Marcia Forbes), who moves to New York City, gets a job in a toy store and meets a nice young man by the name of Charlie (Harlan Cary Poe — The Yum Yum Girls, Someone to Watch Over Me, The Dogs of War) and they marry.   However, mom’s admonitions come back to haunt her and she becomes frigid with her new husband.

In the meantime, she makes friends with a high-classic hooker by the name of Pearl (Evelyn Kingsley), who introduces her to the profession.   In no time Jamie becomes an in-demand call girl, who specializes in (are you ready for this) pleasing men who are into “Daddy Issues.”  

This brings us to the final 12 minutes of the film and if you haven’t already settled into your seat, it’s too late.   You’ll have to wait until the start of the next showing to find out what happens … or you can pick up your new Blu-ray edition of Toys are Not for Children on Oct. 8 to find out what the big secret is.

As to bonus goodies, there’s a new commentary featuring Kat Ellinger and Heather Drain, the newly prepared featurette titled “Dirty' Dolls: Femininity, Perversion and Play” and a new video session with “Nightmare USA” author Stephen Thrower.

   

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Tabs Oct. 8 For Home Entertainment Launch Of Writer/Director Gary Dauberman’s Annabelle Comes Home

The Conjuring/Annabelle film franchise gets a new home entertainment addition on Oct. 8 with the arrival of the latest theatrical hit in the series, writer/director Gary Dauberman’s Annabelle Comes Home.  

That second street-date Tuesday in October will be the release window for both Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and stand-alone DVD editions, so says Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

With a domestic multiplex haul of $72.3 million for the seventh film in the series, it is pretty obvious that Warner Bros. can make as many “Conjuring Universe” films as it pleases … indeed, three are currently in the works, with The Conjuring 3 targeted for release in September of 2020 and a new The Nun sequel in development, plus The Crooked Man also in the planning stages.

For the record, the ARR works out 102 days.

It does get a bit confusing, but there is an actual timeline for the series, with Annabelle Comes Home falling into the fifth slot in this horror saga.   That would put it right after The Conjuring and right before The Curse of La Llorona in the early-1970s timeline of events.   The series has been jumping back and forth in the story-telling of events, but genre fans don’t seem to mind.

As to bonus features (which are exclusive to the Blu-ray SKU), there are deleted scenes and a trio of featurettes — “The Artifact Room and the Occult,” “The Light and the Love” and  “Behind the Scenes: The Ferryman/Demon, The Bloody Bride and The Werewolf.”

In other release news from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, a new 4K scan of The Wizard of Oz (a new 8K 16bit scan of the original Technicolor camera negative supervised by Janet Wilson) will be available on Oct. 29 as a 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Pack.

Bonus goodies include a vintage commentary track hosted by Oz-expert (and author) John Fricke, who is joined by Margaret Hamilton, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Barbara Freed-Saltzman, John Lahr, Jane Lahr, Hamilton Meserve, Dona Massin, William Tuttle, Buddy Ebsen, Mervyn LeRoy and Jerry Maren, the 1990 CBS Special, “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: The Making of a Movie Classic,” featurettes titled “The Making of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” and “Wonderful Wizard of Oz Storybook” (narrated by Angela Lansbury), plus the nine-part presentation titled “We Haven't Really Met Properly.”

Other bonus features include a “Music & Effects Track,” “Sing Along Tracks,” the Christmas Day Lux Radio Broadcast of 1950 featuring Judy Garland and Hans Conreid … and more!!!

Writer/Director Ari Aster's Midsommar From Lionsgate Home Entertainment On Oct. 01

Lionsgate Home Entertainment will be guiding the A24 film release of writer/director Ari Aster’s Midsommar to the home entertainment packaged media marketplace on Oct. 1 as a two-SKU product offering.

The ARR is a swift-to-market 88 days and domestic box office receipts were $25.9 million.

As to consumer choices, there will be a stand-alone DVD edition and a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack, but no 4K Ultra HD selection at this time.   Rumors are currently floating around that a director’s cut of the film might be waiting in the wings (4K perhaps if that happens).

As to bonus features, there is a single featurette titled “Let the Festivities Begin: Manifesting Midsommar.”

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment's Toy Story 4 Settles In On Oct. 8

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment slapped down the early “retailer rumors” of a Sept. 24 street date for director Josh Cooley’s animated mega-hit, Toy Story 4, by circulating a press announcement on the morning of Thursday, Aug. 22 making it official … Oct. 8 is the date (oh how those retailers love to get a jump on the competition by locking in pre-sales).   

What’s two weeks among friends, right?

The ARR comes in at 109 days (no rush when you have the gold) and domestic box office receipts currently register a whopping $424.4 million — and that’s just the domestic haul!   When you add in foreign markets this installment in the adventures of Woody and Buzz Lightyear has pulled in a cool billion dollars in ticket sales.

Come Oscar time it will be a tough one to beat in the Best Animated Feature category.

As to the “official” Oct. 8 release package, there will be a three-SKU array of packaged media selections.   Combo Packs for both 4K Ultra HD (with Blu-ray) and Blu-ray (with DVD), plus a stand-alone DVD edition.

Bonus features, which are exclusive to the Combo Pack editions, include a commentary option, which is unspecified at this time.  However, director Josh Cooley (his feature film directing debut … Oscar-nominated for his Inside Out script) is providing intros to a package of six deleted scenes, so it seems reasonable that he, and perhaps others, will be featured in the commentary of the film.

In addition to the aforementioned six deleted scenes, there are also five production featurettes — “Toy Stories: The Toy Story 4,” “Woody & Buzz,” “Bo Rebooted,” “Toy Box” and “Let’s Ride With Ally Maki.”