New to Rent By Mail for August 21 2024

LADYWORLD (2018)

Eight teenage girls are trapped at an endless birthday party after a massive earthquake. When one goes inexplicably missing, a menacing power struggle takes hold. Then, rumors of a male prowler push the girls' fragile psyches even further into a series of strange rituals and fierce delirium. (BLU-RAY)

SUITABLE FLESH (2023)

After murdering her young patient, a once-esteemed psychiatrist helplessly watches her life spiral into a nightmarish maelstrom of supernatural hysteria and gruesome deaths, all linked to a seemingly unstoppable ancient curse. (BLU-RAY)

WALK UP (2022)

In his ninth film for Hong Sangsoo, Kwon Haehyo plays Byungsoo, a film director who goes with his daughter Jeongsu (Park Miso), an aspiring interior designer, to a building owned by an old friend (Lee Hyeyoung) already established in the design field. She gives them a tour of the property, which includes a restaurant and cooking studio on the first two floors, her office in the basement, a residence on the third floor and an artist’s studio at the top. The three of them amicably chat the day away. But when his daughter leaves to get more wine, Byungsoo is left to spend time with the landlord and the other residents of her building.

With Walk Up, Hong Sangsoo returns to an interest in structure that has been a defining characteristic of his work from the beginning. And this time the structure is a literal one. As Byunsgoo makes his way up the floors of the building, Hong fills these spaces with a profusion of everyday details spanning art, love, career, religion, dietary decisions and home renovations. (BLU-RAY)

MYSTERIOUS CASTLE IN THE CARPATHIANS (1981)

A unique and almost indescribable mix of Gothic fiction, steampunk gadgetry (designed by Czech animation wizard Jan Švankmajer), slapstick comedy and romantic opera, director Oldřich Lipský’s wonderfully bonkers delight has elements of THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS, Terry Gilliam, Mel Brooks, and "The Benny Hill Show." Based on an 1892 Jules Verne novel The Carpathian Castle (which partially inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula), the film follows Count Teleke of Tölökö (Michal Dočolomanský) on the trail of the count’s lost lover, opera singer Salsa Verde (Evelyna Steimarová) – only to discover she’s been abducted by fiendish Baron Gorc of Gorceny (Miloš Kopecký), whose castle home is filled with the bizarre inventions of mad scientist Orfanik (Rudolf Hrušínský). Littered with puns, sight gags and non-sequiturs – "Later, in Werewolfston", an invented dialect, a detached golden ear for eavesdropping, a staff topped by an enormous TV eyeball – MYSTERIOUS CASTLE was the third fantastical film from the team of director Lipský and writer Jiří Brdečka after their much-loved musical western spoof LEMONADE JOE (1966) and their detective/horror satire ADELA HAS NOT HAD SUPPER YET (1977), both major Czech cult hits. (BLU-RAY)

CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO (2013) 

A unique and riveting theatrical experience, CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO (CVR) is a performance documentary derived entirely from the "Black Box" transcripts of six major real-life airline emergencies.

When you board an airplane, who are those people in uniform to whom you entrust your life? What do they really do when things go horribly wrong? Derived entirely from the Cockpit Voice Recorder transcripts of six major airline incidents and accidents, CHARLIE VICTOR ROMEO puts the audience inside the tension-filled cockpits of actual flights in distress, offering a fascinating portrait of the psychology of crisis and a person’s will to live to the last second. (BLU-RAY)