Why don’t you all vote and I’ll try (if I still can after all these years) to review whatever the highest vote getter is from the list below. Let’s say I’ll have the piece up by the end of January, just to give myself some sort of deadline.
DVDs
I mostly bought DVDS because they were on severe clearance and really, really cheap. Obviously most of my purchases were Blu Rays, of course. These represent various Black Friday spending sprees at Severin, Vinegar Syndrome, Kino Lorber and a few stray purchases at Amazon. Several of the latter were Christmas movies.
Stone 2-disc Special Edition Never seen the movie, but it’s considered kind of the Godfather of Ozploitation, the Australian exploitation genre that later led to Mad Max and so on. It looks like a Aussie biker flick.
Speaking of, the DVD for Ozploitation Trailer Explosion features 65 trailers for crazy Aussie exploitation flicks.
Grindhouse Trailer Classics is a similar collection of 55 trailers for ‘70s American exploitation films. Many of the films covered would probably be too sleazy for me to watch—Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS, for instance—but the trailers are generally fun.
The Misadventures of Biffle and Shooster A collection of modern shorts meant to emulate the old black and white shorts of the heyday of Laurel & Hardy, Olsen and Johnson, etc. A loving homage, from what I hear, and Joe Dante says they’re hilarious, which is good enough for me.
Baffled Leonard Nimoy’s entry into the generally failed ‘70s TV movie pilot hoping to inspire a TV series about a paranormal investigator. I think only Kolchak actually went to series, but there were many such attempts (I have Louis Jourdan’s two tries on Blu Ray) and most of them are pretty good. I haven’t seen this one. Nimoy is a race car driver who gains ESP after a crash.
Coronet Blue the Complete Series A ‘60s cult show about a man who wakes up with amnesia and finds people out to kill him and has no idea why, much less who he himself is. All he remembers is the phrase “Coronet Blue.” The 13 episode series famously ended without a resolution (inspiring, as I recall, an episode of Monsters or Tales from the Darkside). The show was the work of Larry Cohen, so c’mon, right here. TONS of great guest stars, as you’d expect from the period.
That’s Sexploitation A 3 ½ hour compilation of vintage sexy/strip act shorts from Something Weird.
Blu Rays
Two sets of vintage Kung Fu Trailers. Four hours plus of trailers plus extras, including commentaries on all the trailers.
The Green Man A Brit black comedy starring Alastair Sim and Terry-Thomas. Never seen it, and don’t want to know more than that until I actually watch it. Commentary track (as nearly all KL releases have).
Murder He Says Saw this in Texas for the first time recently, easily the best attempt to make an Arsenic & Old Lace style murder comedy. Stars Fred McMurray and Marjorie Main. Commentary.
The Undying Monster From 1942, a disappointing attempt at a werewolf movie. Other studios wanted a cut of that horror movie box office but were too sniffy to actually make Universal-style monster movies. Basically an Old Dark House movie with a wolfman who appears for like 20 seconds right at the end. Still, it’s the kind of thing I buy. Commentary and more.
Panic in the Year Zero Very good post-apocalyptic survival tale featuring, natch, a Cold War nuclear exchange. To save money it follows one family fleeing a destroyed Los Angeles up into the mountains. Ray Milland is the hard-bitten patriarch willing to abandon a lot of civilized codes to keep his family alive. Commentary and a Joe Dante interview.
Supernatural Old movie I’ve never seen about, I would guess, a medium. Stars Carol Lombard and Randolph Scott. Commentary by Tim Lucas.
Hangmen Also Die Special edition Blu Ray and a Fritz Lang WWII-era anti-Nazi film. You had me at Fritz Lang. Commentary and other stuff.
Christmas films include Remember the Night (never seen it) with Fred McMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, Christmas in Connecticut, also with Stanwyck, The Silent Partner, a great gritty ‘70s crime film with Elliot Gould and Christopher Plummer, and the French A Christmas tale—never seen it—from the Criterion Collection. Lots of extras, especially for Silent Partner.
Also from Criterion I got The Phantom Carriage, a silent Swedish movie about how the first person to die each year becomes Death for that year. Heavily influenced the later work of Ingmar Bergman. Lots of extras.
The Wild Geese Never seen it, an action film about mercenaries starring Richard Burton, Roger Moore and Richard Harris. Commentary and lots of other stuff.
Carnival Magic A kid’s movie made by Al Adamson (!). Never seen it, but it joins the ones made by folks like H.G. Lewis and Bert I Gordon. Commentary and more.
Asylum The Amicus portmanteau horror film with the usual great cast. Director’s commentary and a ton of other extras.
Wild Beasts a West German killer animal film that I have some severe content qualms about, but man, the stuff that’s good is FANTASTIC. Various extras.
Grizzly One of the better Jaws rip-offs, and certainly one of the nastiest. Directed by William Girdler. This is a slip-case edition, and I haven’t opened it, so I’m not sure what extras are on it.
Speaking of Girdler, I also got the slipcover edition of Day of the Animals.
Finally (Severin had put all these out in one month a while back) I got a non-Slipcover Edition for Deep Red Blood (thanks, Cullen), a typically stupid Italian Jaws rip-off directed by Joe D’amato. Only a trailer as an extra.
Speaking of dumb Italian flicks:
Shocking Dark, an infamous mash-up of Aliens and the Terminator from the internationally renowed comedy team of Bruno Mattai and Claudio Fragasso. A couple of shorts.
Burial Ground A slip-cover edition of hand’s down the stupidest Italian zombie movie, which is saying something. May indeed be the stupidest Italian horror movie, bar none. I once asked Sandy Petersen if any movie had a dumber set of characters than Ghosthouse, and he cited Burial Ground, and I had to agree with him. Lots of interviews.
Robowar Another infamous Mattai/Fragasso production. Stars the woeful Reb Brown. Kind of a Predator/RoboCop mash-up. Tons of interviews and such.
Meanwhile (shiver) I added a Jess Franco movie to my collection. It’s Attack of the Robots with Eddie Constantine. A black and white Bond knock-off with sci-fi stuff. Commentary by (of course) Tim Lucas.
Curse of the Vampires is a Philippine vampire flick with two commentaries, one by (of course) Sam Sherman. Lots of other extras.
Patrick, the Australian telepathic killer classic. Never seen it. Already owns the zany Blu Ray set for the (non-connected?) Italian sequel Patrick Returns.
Back to American fare.
Change of Habit The Elvis movie that was the subject of the very first review I actually wrote for the site back when it was Ken’s World of Awful Movies. Commentary.
Cool as Ice Yes, the Vanilla Ice movie. Commentary.
3 Disc special edition for Lost Soul, the crazy, hilarious and fascination documentary about Richard Stanley getting fired from the awful Brando/Kilmer version of Island of Dr. Moreau. An essential watch.
Seven (no, not that one), which I think was Andy Sidaris’ first movie and more of a straight, if crazy, action film. Stars the essential William “Big Bill” Smith. Commentary and more.
Two extra cheap Blu Rays for Birdemic, which I tend to hand out to people.
I also have a Vinegar Syndrome order in the mail. Not a giant order, but some super high-quality items. In case you want to vote for one of those, here’s the stuff:
Raw Deal
Rest in Pieces (Mexican horror)
Don’t Panic (Mexican horror)
The Beastmaster (the crazy 4 Blu Ray set, half price from the $50 list price; I think it’s sold out now)
The Cellar (’80s horror)
Televised Terror–TV movie collection; Are You in the House Alone? / Calendar Girl Murders / Child in the Night
