Editorial Note: The Amazon links provide below are for my own gross profiteering your convenience, but as Amazon doesn’t always offer the best price, you should check at DVDpricesearch.com before buying. That said, thanks to anyone who uses one of my Amazon links, even if (maybe especially if) you are just shopping there for different stuff and you take the time to hit one of my links first.
Not a lot this week, but what there is, is cherce.
First of all, we finally get a release I’ve had on my “Top Ten Most Wanted List” ever since DVDs started. Criterion (yay!) releases the Cornel Wilde action classic The Naked Prey. Ah, the days when a suspense movie could run a lean 96 minutes. I don’t want to blow the film, but it is basically about a white safari guide being hunted by members of a native African tribe. I haven’t seen this since I was a kid, and normally I’d be just a bit afraid it wasn’t as good as I remembered, but hey, if Criterion thinks it’s worthy of release, then I’m not the only fan.
The only downside to Criterion putting it out is that is it expensive, with a MSRP of $40, although it can be found for under $30 if you check DVDpricesearch.com. However, you may want to instead get this through Netflix or your local library. You will want to see it, though. The disc features a remastered digital presentation and an audio commentary.
Meanwhile, Kurosawa completeists will want to check out Criterion’s Eclipse Series 7 set, which offers five obscure Kurosawa films from his post-war period in one nice package.
Second, two Ray Harryhausen classics hit DVD today in two-disc special editions. These include colorized versions of the films (personally vetted by the thankfully still extant Harryhausen), but also Harryhausen commentaries, etc. Also, the films have been remastered since their first DVD releases, so ’50s sci-fi buffs may wish to go ahead and double dip on these, or at least put them on their wish lists.
Earth vs. the Flying Saucer remains one of the great alien invasion spectacles. This is everything ’50s sci-fi is about. Review of this exact DVD here.
It Came from Beneath the Sea can be a bit dull during the human scenes (although Kenneth Tobey stars, and you can’t beat that), but the giant octopus (quintipus, actually; Harryhausen wasn’t given enough money to do eight tentacles) stuff is dynamite. DVD review here.
By the way, this is the third such Harryhausen set, following this one:
Schlock fans meanwhile will want to check out Monster, the latest flick from the guys at Asylum, who specialize in the venerable b-movie tradition of putting out cheapie rip-offs of whatever the current big sci-fi movie is. There is their version of Cloverfield, which *just coincidentally* is hitting theater screens this weekend. Watch for Scott Foy to be posting a review of this any minute now, I’m sure. UPDATE: DO NOT WATCH, MUCH LESS BUY, THIS FILM! IT SUCKS, AND NOT IN THE GOOD WAY!
