New Releases for October 24 2023!

THE OTHERS (2001) (Criterion Collection)

A remote manor; hushed, candlelit atmosphere; and shivery, supernatural menace. With his first English-language feature, Chilean Spanish writer-director-composer Alejandro Amenábar resurrected the classic gothic chiller to create a ghost story of uncommon emotional resonance. Nicole Kidman stars as a World War II–era mother whose imperiousness masks a terrifying pain, as she keeps her light-sensitive children enshrouded in darkness on her country estate. The arrival of three new servants punctures her insular world—and seems to disturb the balance between the living and the dead. With each stunning twist and turn, Amenábar immerses us more deeply in a realm haunted not only by spirits but also by guilt, trauma, and repression. (BLU-RAY and 4K ULTRA HD)

WEREWOLF OF WASHINGTON (1973)

Watergate-era governmental corruption inspired this cinematic howl of anger from boundary-breaking auteur Milton Moses Ginsberg (Coming Apart). The Werewolf of Washington is a biting satire that savagely attacks beltway politics while paying playful homage to the wolfman pictures of the past. Dean Stockwell (Blue Velvet) stars as a presidential aide whose rise to power is exacerbated by the bite of a wolf, transforming him into a bloodthirsty beast with the rising of every full moon. As history has shown, a monster in the White House is not strictly a 1970s phenomenon, and so, half a century later, The Werewolf of Washington is as eviscerating and relevant as ever. This edition includes a special director’s cut prepared by Ginsberg shortly before his death in 2021, as well as a 2K restoration of the 1973 theatrical release version. (BLU-RAY)

LORNA THE EXORCIST (1974)

Haunted by erotic visions, a young woman (Lina Romay) comes to discover that her sexual possession is the result of a bargain struck nineteen years earlier between her playboy father (Patrick Mariel) and an ethereal, pansexual seductress (Pamela Stafford). In a parallel narrative, a visionary doctor (Jess Franco) tries to unravel the particular form of psychopathia sexualis that torments a beautiful patient (Catherine Lafferière). In the 1970s, Franco's films reached a level of voyeuristic extremes, especially when collaborating with Romay, his soulmate and creative muse. Along with Shining Sex and Female Vampire, Lorna the Exorcist (Les possédées du diable) demonstrates the outer limits the erotic horror film: hallucinatory films with languorous love scenes, drenched with lyrical music, and punctuated with moments of stark horror. (BLU-RAY)

STAYING ALIVE (1983)

Five years later and Tony Manero’s Saturday Night Fever is still burning. Now he’s strutting toward his biggest challenge yet—making it as a dancer on the Broadway stage. Screen legend John Travolta  is larger than life as he recreates his iconic character in this spectacularly visual musical. Like its predecessor, Staying Alive pulsates with the groove-powered excitement of 5 new Bee Gees songs plus Frank Stallone’s high-intensity scoring which includes his hit, “Far from Over.” And watch closely to catch a Hitchcockian cameo appearance by producer-director-writer-superstar Sylvester Stallone. (BLU-RAY and 4K ULTRA HD)

IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (1958)

Summoned to the silver screen by sci-fi specialist Edward L. Cahn (Curse of the Faceless Man)—and too terrifying to even have a name!—"It" is a seemingly invincible monster that is hell-bent on killing everybody on a mission to Mars. This life-devouring alien brushes aside bullets and even nuclear blasts—making it one very cold-hearted Cold War-style invader. When his crew is brutally murdered on a Mars expedition, Commander Carruthers (Marshall Thompson, First Man into Space) becomes the prime suspect. Taken into custody and facing a court-martial back on Earth, he discovers that the real killer—a grotesque, slithering "It"—has stowed aboard the earthbound ship. But the indestructible creature has already begun a harrowing in-flight rampage, knocking off the members of the crew one by one. Now, as the spaceship heads home toward a panic-stricken Earth, the remaining crew must find some way to stop the unstoppable…"It." (BLU-RAY)