Warner Archive warns DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (review)

Kim Darby moves into her grandmother's creepy old mansion and accidentally unleashes three demons that terrorize her and have everyone else questioning her sanity in this sublimely creepy seventies TV movie (remade by Guillermo del Toro in 2010).

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region ALL Blu-ray (DVD Drive-in)

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
• Optional English SDH Subtitles
• Audio Commentary by Dread Central's Steve 'Uncle Creepy' Barton, "Final Destination" screenwriter Jeff Reddick, and Fangoria magazine writer Sean Abley
• Audio Commentary by Made for TV Mayhem podcaster Amanda Reyes 

Warner Archive unleashes THE SWARM (review)

Irwin Allen's disastrous disaster movie THE SWARM is coming... from Warner Archive.  When African killer bees attack a Texas town, an entomologist, a team of scientists, and the military try to destroy the swarm before it reaches the cities.  Michael Caine, Richard Widmark, Katherine Ross, Henry Fonda, and Bradford Dillman star.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region ALL Blu-ray (DVD Drive-in)

THE SWARM Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• "Inside THE SWARM" behind the scenes featurette
• Theatrical Trailer

Warner Archive babysits BAD RONALD (review)

Every neighborhood has a weird kid, but you don't call Ronald Wilby weird or you will pay.  When outsider Ronald accidentally kills a local girl, his mother hides him in a secret room in their old house.  When she dies and a new family moves in, Ronald targets one of the daughters as his object of obsession and sets about removing any obstacle between him and her.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region ALL Blu-ray (DVD Drive-in)

BAD RONALD Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
• Optional English SDH subtitles

Warner Archive enrolls in NIGHT SCHOOL (review)

The women of Wendell College's night school are literally losing their heads when a headhunter starts whittling down the student body in this eighties studio slasher.  Leonard Mann, Rachel Ward, and Drew Snyder star.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region ALL Blu-ray (DVD Drive-in)

NIGHT SCHOOL Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• Theatrical Trailer

Warner Archive satiates THE HUNGER (review)

Catherine Deneueve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon star in Tony Scott's lavish eighties vampire film sporting music by Bauhaus and Iggy Pop and a legendary lesbian vampire love scene.  Based on the novel by Whitley Strieber.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region ALL Blu-ray (DVD Drive-in)

THE HUNGER Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• Theatrical Trailer

Warner Archive presents THE STRANGER COLLECTION (review)

American actor Tony Anthony (COMIN' AT YA) makes a bid for Clint Eastwood-esque spaghetti western stardom in THE STRANGER COLLECTION, three Italian westerns produced by Allan Klein with "The Other Man with No Name".  In A STRANGER IN TOWN, The Stranger tangles with Mexican bandits (lead by Frank Wolff) over a fortune in gold.  In THE STRANGER RETURNS, The Stranger hopes to profit from a gang of bandits' (lead by Dan Vadis) robbery of a stagecoach carrying gold.  In THE SILENT STRANGER, The Stranger heads to Japan to return a stolen scroll for $20,000 only to find himself in the middle of a war between two clans.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region 0 NTSC DVD (DVD Drive-in)

THE STRANGER COLLECTION (A STRANGER IN TOWN/THE STRANGER RETURNS/THE SILENT STRANGER) DVD-R specs:

• Three films on two DVD-Rs
• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono
• Theatrical Trailer for THE STRANGER RETURNS

Warner Archive takes a bite out of WOLFEN (review)

In this tense horror film from the director WOODSTOCK and the author of THE HUNGER, a detective and a criminal psychologist investigate the savage murders of an old money real estate mogul and his wife and tie them to similar killings in the derelic South Bronx and discover that the killer may not be human.  Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Gregory Hines, Tom Noonan, and Dick O'Neil star.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region ALL Blu-ray (DVD Drive-in)

WOLFEN Blu-ray specs:

• 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen
• English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
• Optional English SDH subtitles
• Theatrical Trailer

For Warner Archive: NIGHT MUST FALL (review)

Fresh off of TOM JONES, Albert Finney tackles the role of a murderous madman in this 1964 remake of the play NIGHT MUST FALL.  An unstable young man charms his way into the household of a wheelchair bound old woman and her icy daughter as the fiance of their housekeeper.  As all three women fall for him and fight over him, the police have found a headless body in the nearby lake and there may be one more by the end of the film.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region 0 NTSC DVD-R (DVD Drive-in)

NIGHT MUST FALL DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.66:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono
• Theatrical Trailer

Warner Archive is throttled by the HANDS OF A STRANGER (review)

"The Surgeon's Scalpel Writes a Thriller" in HANDS OF A STRANGER directed by Newt Arnold (BLOOD THIRST).  When a concert pianist's hands are mangled in a traffic accident, an innovative doctor transplants the hands of a John Doe onto him, but has the pianist inherited the donor's murderous impulses?  Paul Lukather (FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER), Irish McCalla (SHE DEMONS), and James Stapleton (THE KILLING JAR) star.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD-R (DVDBeaver)

HANDS OF A STRANGER DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono

Warner Archive is TORMENTED (review)

Richard Carlson (CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON) stars as a man TORMENTED by the ghost of an old flame before his wedding in this supernatural thriller from Bert I. Gordon (FOOD OF THE GODS).  Also stars Lugene Sanders, Susan Gordon, Juli Reding, and Joe Turkel.

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD-R (DVD Drive-in)

TORMENTED DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono

Warner Archives ascends THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (review)

In this seventies retelling of Robert Siodmak's classic thriller THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (based on the Ethel Lina White novel "Some Must Watch") Jacqueline Bisset plays Helen, a beautiful young woman struck dumb by a traumatic event.  Staying on her grandmother's country estate on a dark and stormy night without power, Helen must evade a killer who has a thing for handicapped women.  Christopher Plummer, John Philip Law, Gayle Hunnicutt, and Sam Wanamaker also star.  From Peter Collinson, director of FRIGHT, STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING, and TEN LITTLE INDIANS.


REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region 1 NTSC DVD-R (DVD Drive-in)


THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE DVD-R specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono

Warner Archive presents CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD (review)

Cleopatra Jones (Tamara Dobson, CHAINED HEAT) jets off to Hong Kong to do some ass-kicking in CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD.  Norman Fell (TV's THREE'S COMPANY) and Stella Stevens (THE MANITOU) also star!

REVIEW LINK: Warner Archive (US) Region 1 NTSC Burn-on-Demand DVD-R (DVDBeaver)

CLEOPATRA JONES AND THE CASINO OF GOLD DVD specs:

• 16:9 anamorphic 2.40:1 widescreen
• English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono

More Burn-on-Demand DVD reviews from various companies at  Update the Tags: On Demand DVDs.