Tartan
grindhouse favourites in October/November
9
September 2007
Is
it me or is the word Grindhouse being thrown about an
awful lot at the moment? Thanks to Mr. Tarantino and Mr.
Rogriguez, interest in the grindhouse films of the 70s
and 80s has been rekindled (well it never dropped off
here), and UK distributor Tartan have responded with the
announcement of four titles under the new banner of Tartan
Grindhouse, three of them genre favourites, the fourth,
well....
BASKET
CASE (1982)
This
delightfully oddball low budget horror from occasional
director Frank Henenlotter, who also gave us the 1990
Frankenhooker ("You wanna date?")
had horror fans the world over muttering "What's
in the basket?" at just about any container they
encountered. It's cult reputation really took shape when
it made it to VHS and has even spawned a 20th Anniversary
Special Edition DVD in the US.
The
plot? Well there's Duane, who seems a pleasant enough
guy but he always carries a big basket around with him,
inside which is his grotesquely deformed brother. They
were once Siamese twins, separated against their will
and there's going to be hell to pay once they find the
doctor who did it.
A
re-release from Tartan of a deleted title, this new disc
will feature a gallery, the original trailer and an interview
with genre writer Alan Jones.
Release
date is set for 22nd October 2007 at the attractive RRP
of £7.99.
SOCIETY
(1989)
Whether
Society qualifies as a grindhouse film
at all is a debatable point, so potent is its sociopolitical
subtext and so smart its handling. But we're talking personal
favourites here.
Beverly
Hills: playground of the rich and famous where perfect
families live in perfect homes and perfect people meet
perfect partners. For most people, it’s the stuff
of dreams, but for Billy Whitney it’s becoming a
nightmare. Paranoia takes hold as he’s increasingly
suspicious of the behaviour and activities which his friends
and family are involved in, especially since it seems
to involve strange sexual goings-on. Billy’s belief
that his entire social set is somehow plotting against
him gets stronger and stronger. Soon his worst fears will
be realised, as he prepares to gatecrash the most shocking
and perversely surreal socialite gathering from hell...
Society
was Re-Animator
producer Brian Yuzna's first feature as director, and
although it met with some hostility on home turf if found
an enthusiastically appreciative audience in Europe and
especially the UK, where its class war message really
hit home. If you're a horror fan who has yet to discover
the joys of Society then Tartan's release
will be welcome, especially with Anchor Bay's US disc
now deleted (and with it, tragically, the fine Brian Yuzna
commentary). The extras will include filmographies, a
trailer, and a Brian Yuzna Recollects featurette.
Release
date is 12th November 2007 at the RRP of £9.99.
You
can read our review of the Anchor Bay US release here.
BRIDE OF RE-ANIMATOR (1990)
If
Anchor Bay's recent Double Disc Collector's edition of
Re-Animator has whetted your appetite
than you'll probably be keen to sink your teeth into the
sequel, which carries through the Frankenstein parallels
by having doctors Dan Cain and Herbert West (yes, he's
back!) turn their attention to creating the perfect woman
from dead tissue using Cain's ex (and I do mean ex) girlfriend
as the model.
Directed
by the producer of the the original film, Brian Yuzna,
who also gave us Society, this sequel
inevitably falls a little short of the remarkable original,
but there's still plenty here for fans to savour, not
least in the blood and gore quota and the performances
of Jeffrey Combs, Bruce Abbott and Fabiana Udenio.
Bride
of Re-Animator is another Tartan re-release,
and although the extras are limited to a trailer, the
price is right at £9.99. Release date is set for
12 November 2007.
Jess Franco's KILLER BARBY'S V. DRACULA
OK,
now we come to the one whose cult reputation is, how can
I put it, non-existent. I'm actually surprised by this,
given the wonderfully cheesy title and the reputation
of its director in the field of quickie horror movies,
but the misspelled Killer Barby's v. Dracula
has attracted some rather hostile reaction in its time,
one on-line commentator describing it as the worst film
he's ever seen. Mind you, I hear that so often in this
world of binary oppositional opinions that it's ceased
to have any real meaning.
A
rock band is performing at a wild west theme park on Costa
Del Sol, their gigs attracting a weird bunch of followers.
A Transylvanian tourist official arrives with a glass
coffin in the back of a car. But the bands’ music
brings the coffin’s occupant to life and this time
our much-loved, blood sucking Count becomes obsessed with
the band’s lead singer, Silvia Superstar (lead singer
of Spain’s punk band, Killer Barbys). But where
is a vampire hunter when you need one? Could it be the
blind Dr Seward? Stake your bets now.
Tartan's
DVD will include a behind-the-scenes featurette and a
trailer, will retail at £9.99 and will be unleashed
on the UK public on 12th November 2007.
