Description: When wealthy, eccentric Lord Arnold Dwellyn dies, his funeral also doubles as a wedding: Arnold gets hitched to his mistress Karen, who will inherit his vast estate...if she agrees to meet several conditions. This includes remaining in his mansion with Arnold's corpse by her side. Karen—along with Arnold's ex-wife, his brother, and several members of his family—are unhappy with this arrangement, but desperate to get their hands on Arnold's vast wealth, which allegedly includes a pile of money hidden somewhere on the grounds. But as each of the guests attempt to break or subvert the conditions of Arnold's will, the consequences end up being lethal and Karen finds herself caught up in a series of grisly murders. Has Arnold returned from the dead to take revenge on his greedy loved ones, or is there a living, breathing killer lurking around the mansion?
With a stacked cast of Hollywood legends including Norman Stuart, Stella Stevens, Elsa Lanchester, Roddy McDowall, and Farley Granger, among others, ARNOLD, is a glorious nod to the old dark house chillers so popular during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Director Georg Fenady offers a tribute to everything from the lush early Hammer horrors to Roger Corman's colorful cycle of gothic thrillers, with an extra helping of macabre humor, all filtered through a 70s drive-in movie sensibility. Vinegar Syndrome is delighted to present the Blu-ray debut of this delirious B movie treat, freshly restored in 4k from its 35mm interpositive!
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM AN INTERPOSITIVE
Brand new commentary track by Mike White, author and co-host of The Projection Booth Podcast
"The Gothic Horror Comedy in Hollywood" (21 min) - a brand new video essay by film historian Samm Deighan
Description: Aspiring young dancer Janet is desperate to leave her dead-end waitressing job - so, after a fight with her sleazy boyfriend Dino, and with the encouragement of her friend April, she decides to try her hand at prostitution. The two women set off to spend the night with one of April's regular clients, a strange older man named Ron who lives in a vast, secluded old mansion. But before proceedings can get underway, the house is plunged into darkness and a razor-wielding assailant brutally slashes the throats of both Ron and April. Waking up the next day in a hospital bed, Janet attempts to relate the horrific events to grizzled Detective Armstrong, who dismisses her story as a drug-induced hallucination. However, as the mutilated corpses continue to pile up - and Armstrong continues to ignore the obvious - Janet and Dino attempt to uncover the truth, only to find themselves thrust into a nightmarish maze of murder, madness, and diabolical conspiracies.
One of the lesser-known productions to benefit from Canada's tax incentive heyday, Claudio Castravelli's EVIL JUDGMENT is a twisty-turny thriller inspired in equal parts by the contemporary slasher movie boom and the stylistic giallo offerings of the likes of Dario Argento - complete with menacing blue hue lighting and a razor-wielding, black-gloved killer. Filled to the brim with gloriously gushy throat slashings courtesy of future Academy Award-winning make-up artist Michčle Burke (Bram Stoker's Dracula), EVIL JUDGMENT arrives in its Blu-ray world premiere, restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative by the slash-happy folks at Vinegar Syndrome, and complete with a judicious array of revelatory new bonus features which shed light on this long-overlooked Canuxploitation classic.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Commentary track with director/producer/co-writer Claudio Castravelli, production manager/associate producer Pietro L. Serapiglia and co-writer Victor Montesano
Commentary track with The Hysteria Continues!
"The Executioner" (18 min) - an interview with director/producer/co-writer Claudio Castravelli
"Getting It Done" (8 min) - an interview with production manager/associate producer Pietro L. Serapiglia
"It's About Vibes" (17 min) - an interview with composer Corky Laing
"Canadian Giallo" (21 min) - writer and filmmaker Caelum Vatnsdal on Evil Judgment and the influence of the giallo genre on Canadian exploitation cinema
Description: Three young couples head off into the woods for a weekend of camping, beer-guzzling and love-making. Shortly into their trip, however, one of their group, Kiyomi, notices the strange sound of bells ringing in the distance, prompting her would-be boyfriend Mel to investigate. Upon stumbling across a Civil War cemetery, Mel makes the ill-fated decision to pocket an old diary he finds hidden at the site, which details the violent fate of the Confederate soldiers buried there. Little does he realize that this seemingly small act of theft will have grave consequences, as its pilfering triggers a horde of rotting, undead soldiers to awaken from their tortured slumber, ready to feast on Yankee flesh!
The second feature from producer/director Tony Malanowski, THE CURSE OF THE SCREAMING DEAD (aka Curse of the Cannibal Confederates) came into being when Malanowski was offered money by the distributor of his first film, Night of Horror, to shoot additional gore scenes for that picture - and decided to make a new movie altogether! Taking the basic premise of Night of Horror (and several cast members for good measure), Malanowski's second directorial effort dramatically ups the ante, filling its runtime with grisly zombie action, complete with innumerable exploding heads and lingering scenes of gleefully gooey entrail-chomping. Now lovingly restored in 2K from its original 16mm camera reversal by the gut-munching ghouls at Vinegar Syndrome, THE CURSE OF THE SCREAMING DEAD claws its way up from the dirt, loaded with a veritable feast of newly-produced extras telling the fascinating story behind the making of this regional zombie epic, alongside a new restoration of Night of Horror, all hitting Blu-ray for the very first time!
Special Features and Technical Specs:
TWO-DISC SET
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL 16MM CAMERA NEGATIVE
Commentary track with producer/director/editor Tony Malanowski and actor Steve Sandkuhler for The Curse of the Screaming Dead
"Night of Horror" (1981) - a feature-length film directed by Tony Malanowski
Commentary track with producer/director/editor Tony Malanowski and actor Steve Sandkuhler for Night of Horror
"Scream On! The Making of The Curse of the Screaming Dead" (50 min) - documentary featuring interviews with producer/director/editor Tony Malanowski and actors Steve Sandkuhler, Rebecca Bach and Chris Gummer
"Bart Mixon: The Man Behind the Masks" (12 min) - an interview with special make-up effects artist Bart Mixon
"The Score of the Screaming Dead" (15 min) - featurette with composer Charlie Barnett and recording engineer Jim Crenca
"Oh, What a Night... of Horror!" (43 min) - documentary on the making of Night of Horror, featuring interviews with producer/director/editor Tony Malanowski and actors Steve Sandkuhler and Rebecca Bach
"A Morning After a Night of Horror: The "Unmade" Making of..." (20 min) - an interview with Night of Horror fans Rosie Nakamura and Autumn Nakamura Neal
"I Put a Spell on You" (29 min) - Nightmare USA author Stephen Thrower on Night of Horror and The Curse of the Screaming Dead
Outtakes for The Curse of the Screaming Dead (8 min)
Original video trailer under the title of Curse of the Cannibal Confederates
Description: Jackie is having bad luck with her life in Hong Kong so she travels to Thailand, believing that a change of scenery will do her well. Shortly after arriving, she learns from a mystic known as the "God of Gold" that if she agrees to "nurse" a ghost child, her fortunes will change for the better. Deciding that anything is worth trying, she sets up the required altar and begins to feed the ghost drops of her own blood. The protective young spirit helps turn her life around, but when she becomes distracted by a new boyfriend and forgets to feed the ghost, all hell breaks loose, leading the ghost to fight off an academic studying the occult and posses Jackie's boyfriend, thus setting into effect an increasingly violent chain reaction.
In the grand tradition of Hong Kong black magic movies, director Wilson Tong's GHOST NURSING gleefully indulges in all of the genre's most beloved tropes: women in supernatural distress, rampaging ghosts, mystical black magic rituals, bodily possession, Taoist sorcerer monks, a botched exorcism and, of course, plentiful graphic and gruesome horror replete with squirming bugs, scalp mutilation, and gushing bodily fluids. Starring Norman Chu (36th Chamber of Shaolin), Shirley Yim (Dragon Lord), Melvin Wong (Righting Wrongs), and Billy Chan (The Big Boss), Vinegar Syndrome proudly presents a brand new restoration of this stylish and underseen piece of proto Category III on Blu-ray for the first time!
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Presented in its original Cantonese language soundtrack with newly translated English subtitles, along with a Mandarin language dub track
"From The Big Boss to Ghost Nursing" (8 min) - an interview with actor Billy Chan
"Ghosts and Black Magic in Hong Kong Cinema" (18 min) - a video essay by Samm Deighan
Description: In late 15th century China, "The Master," a Taoist priest, has been destined to fight the Japanese "Demon King;" a vengeful spirit who has power over the forest. The Demon King has fallen in love with a woman named Gigi and forces her to be his bride. As The Master begins his fateful battle with the Demon King, they're unexpectedly thrust into a time vortex which transports them 500 years into the future to modern-day Hong Kong wherein they discover Gigi's reincarnation, who is being terrorized by her vicious ex-boyfriend, Ben.
Skillfully blending fantasy and wuxia with touches of horror, Thomas Yip's AN ETERNAL COMBAT is a thrilling and fast-paced rarity which stars Ching-Ying Lam (Mr. Vampire), Joey Wang (A Chinese Ghost Story), along with legendary character actor, Anthony Wong (Ebola Syndrome) playing the type of deranged psychotic for which he would become famous. Packed with thrilling sword fights, death-defying stunts, along with laser-shooting weaponry and black magic, Vinegar Syndrome Archive is delighted to present the Blu-ray debut of this Hong Kong hidden gem, presented in a new restoration.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Presented in its original Cantonese language soundtrack with newly translated English subtitles, along with a Mandarin language dub track
"From Magic to Direction" (9 min) - a brand new interview with action director Benz Kong To-Hoi
A never-before-seen career-spanning archival interview with actor Anthony Wong conducted by Frédéric Ambroisine (13 min)
Description: Mexican director Enrique Gómez Vadillo is one of the country's forgotten cult cinema notables. Responsible for a series of genre films, gritty melodramas, and erotic works throughout the '80s, '90s, and early '00s, Vadillo's films have been largely unavailable for English language audiences until now. Notable as much for their beautiful landscapes as for their perverse subversion of Telenovela storytelling by wildly upping the volume of sexual debauchery, homoeroticism, and general sleaze, Vadillo's films represent a rare transgressive subset of Mexican genre cinema. Vinegar Syndrome Labs is proud to present this collection of his key features.
VERANO SALVAGE aka Savage Summer (1980) is an erotic exploration of an illicit threesome at the beach besieged by violence, and is a notable representation of Vadillo's typical blend of sexually confrontational storytelling and traditional melodrama. Ostensibly following a woman (Ana Martín) on her journey of sexual discovery, but rife with homoerotic imagery, Verano Sslvage is an outlier in hypersexualized Mexican genre filmmaking where men's bodies are the focus of objectification.
JOHNNY CHICANO (1981) updates the tropes of classical Hollywood melodrama to sweaty, working class, early '80s Mexico. Poor young land worker Johnny (Fernando Allende) falls in love with the daughter of his wealthy American employer (Verónica Castro), setting into play chaos in his family and community, which ultimately leads to violence.
MUERTA EN EL PLAYA aka Death on the Beach (1991) returns to a sunny beach setting with this homoerotic tale of a serial killer. David, a disturbed young man who has been molested by his teacher, begins murdering all those around him who he sees as responsible for his trauma, while trying to overcome his own homosexual desires.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
TWO-DISC SET
NEW 2K RESTORATIONS FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVES
Presented in their original Spanish language soundtracks with newly translated English subtitles
"Wearing David's Skin" (10 min) - an interview with "Death on the Beach" actor Andrés Bonfiglio
"A Beautiful Chapter" (15 min) - an interview with "Savage Summer" actor Orlando Urdaneta
8-page booklet with an essay by writer, programmer and filmmaker Juan Barquin