Eureka Entertainment has announced its October batch of releases. They are: The Screaming Skull (1958), Beneath the Trees: Folktales at DEFA II (1959-1991) Ghouls Gone Wild (1987-1988), and Martyrs (2008).
Adapted from a short horror story by Francis Marion Crawford and marking the directorial debut of Alex Nicol (better known for his acting performances in the likes of The Man from Laramie and The Twilight Zone), The Screaming Skull is a hidden gem from the vaults of American International Pictures – an atmospheric and deeply eerie gothic chiller than plays like a meeting between Daphne du Maurier and William Castle.
Following her marriage to Eric Whitlock (John Hudson), the wealthy Jenni (Peggy Webber) moves into her husband's secluded country mansion, inherited following the death of his first wife Marion. Upon arriving at the house, Jenni begins to feel uneasy about Marion's fate: supposedly, she drowned after hitting her head on the edge of a decorative pond in the gardens. Jenni then learns that Mickey (Alex Nicol), the groundskeeper, believes that Marion's ghost roams the estate – and soon Jenni herself has experienced things she can't explain, terrified that she is in the grip of the supernatural.
Clearly influenced by gothic melodramas such as Rebecca and Gaslight and presaging the disquieting menace of such haunted house classics as House on Haunted Hill, The Innocents and The Haunting, The Screaming Skull is filled with hair-raising set-pieces and deserves its place in the pantheon of independent American horror cinema. Eureka Classics is proud to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
High-definition transfer
New introduction to The Screaming Skull by horror novelist Stephen Laws
Shrouded in Mystery – new video essay on The Screaming Skull and the gothic horror tradition by film and literature scholar Mary Going
Trailers
Original English mono audio
Optional English subtitles (SDH)
Limited edition O-card slipcase and interior packaging featuring new artwork by John Dunn [2000 copies]
Limited edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on the production and marketing of The Screaming Skull by film historian Jon Towlson, author of Subversive Horror Cinema [2000 copies]
Following the breakout success of pioneering genre films Encounter of the Spooky Kind, The Dead and the Deadly and Mr Vampire, horror movies became a mainstay of film production in Hong Kong and Taiwan throughout the 1980s. Collected here are three of the standout titles from that horror boom, starring the likes of Chow Yun-fat (The Seventh Curse), Wu Ma (A Chinese Ghost Story) and Ricky Hui (Mr Vampire): Scared Stiff, The Haunted Cop Shop and Magic of Spell.
Lau Kar-wing (Crouching Tiger, Fatty Dragon) directs Scared Stiff, in which a young everyman develops the ability to enter other people's dreams following an accident – and then finds himself using his gift to bring a sadistic murderer to justice. Co-written by Wong Kar-wai (Ashes of Time) and indebted in equal measure to Mr Vampire and Fright Night, The Haunted Cop Shop sees cops and crooks alike forced to confront vengeful beings from beyond the grave in a police station built on a site of violence. Finally, in a supernatural wuxia fantasy on par with The Miracle Fighters and Shaolin Drunkard, Magic of Spell follows a kung fu master who must defeat the infernal demon responsible for his mother's death.
Ranging in tone from laugh-out-loud comedy to straight-faced terror (sometimes in the same film) and featuring a litany of ruthless killers, restless spirits, vengeful jiangshi and infernal devils, Scared Stiff, The Haunted Cop Shop and Magic of Spell encapsulate the incredible range of Chinese-language horror filmmaking in the 1980s. Eureka Classics is thrilled to present all three films for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATIONS OF BOTH FILMS
Two presentations of Scared Stiff, the original Hong Kong theatrical cut and uncut extended version
Original Cantonese mono audio tracks
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
New audio commentary on Scared Stiff by East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival)
New audio commentaries on The Haunted Cop Shop and Magic of Spell by genre cinema expert Arne Venema and filmmaker Domting
Restless Spirits – new interview on the history of horror cinema in Hong Kong and Taiwan with film writer, curator and East Asian film expert Fraser Elliott
Limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Darren Wheeling [2000 copies]
Limited edition collector's booklet featuring an essay on the borrowing and remixing of world genre traditions in Scared Stiff, The Haunted Cop Shop and Magic of Spell by Iain Robert Smith, author of The Hollywood Meme: Transnational Adaptations in World Cinema [2000 copies]
Possessing an eternally uncanny, weird and phantasmagorical quality, Märchenfilme – or adaptations of popular folk and fairytales by the likes of Wilhelm Hauff, Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm – remain the productions that most distinctly characterise the cinema of East Germany and its state-operated film studio, DEFA. Collected here are some of the greatest – and strangest – folktale films made in the German Democratic Republic: The Tinderbox, Snow White, Snow White and Rose Red, The Frog King and The Robe.
In The Tinderbox, a young soldier agrees to help a conniving witch in her quest to retrieve a magical tinderbox protected by a guard dog of monstrous proportions. Snow White sees an evil queen task a hunter with murdering her stepdaughter when a magic mirror deems her the most beautiful woman in the land. Then, in Snow White and Rose Red, two young sisters encounter a pair of princes who have been transformed into animals by an evil mountain spirit. The Frog King follows a princess who must endure a series of trials to reach the castle of the Frog King, where she hopes to reunite with the handsome prince she once mistreated. Finally, in The Robe, two weavers arrive in a town surrounded by an impenetrable wall and are tasked with making garments befitting of a tyrannical ruler in an adaptation of "The Emperor's New Clothes."
Collected here are some of DEFA's best-known Märchenfilme – including The Tinderbox, which was shown in a dubbed version on the BBC as part of the Tales from Europe series – and some true rarities, including The Frog King and The Robe, which was put into production in 1961 but not completed and released until after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present these five Märchenfilme for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
FIVE RESTORATIONS BY DEFA
New audio commentary on The Tinderbox by socialist cinema expert Ally Pitts, host of A Russian and Soviet Movie Podcast
New audio commentary on The Robe by film historian Michael Brooke
Two Kingdoms – new interview with German cinema expert Rachel Palfreyman on the history of folktales in German culture and their adaptations in West and East Germany
Mirror, Mirror – new video essay on DEFA's adaptations of Snow White and Snow White and Rose Red by film and animation scholar Sam Summers
The Emperor's New Clothes (Herbert K. Schulz, 1956) – short stop-motion animation adapted from the Hans Christian Andersen tale by the DEFA Studio for Animation Film
Hans Christian Andersen tale by the DEFA Studio for Animation Film The Fisherman and his Wife (Werner Krauße, 1975) – short stop-motion animation adapted from the Brothers Grimm tale by the DEFA Studio for Animation Film
Beauty and the Beast (Katja Georgi, 1976) – short stop-motion animation adapted from the Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve tale by the DEFA Studio for Animation Film
Original German soundtracks
Optional English soundtrack for The Tinderbox
Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release
Limited Collector's Edition Box Set [2000 copies]
Limited edition hardbound slipcase featuring new artwork by Carly A-F [2000 copies]
Limited edition 60-page book featuring a new essay on the production design of DEFA's folktales by Märchenfilme expert Corinna Alexandra Rader, new notes on each film in this set by DEFA historians Sebastian Heiduschke and Qinna Shen, plus the original Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm stories that inspired The Tinderbox, Snow White, Snow White and Rose Red, The Frog King and The Robe [2000 copies]
**The Robe started production in 1961 but was not completed and released until 1991**
**Only The Robe is 2.35:1**
The rare film with a reputation that speaks for itself, Martyrs is perhaps the defining film of the New French Extremity movement and director Pascal Laugier's masterpiece. Horrifying and thought-provoking in equal measure, it is a deeply philosophical and challenging work of extreme cinema – and undoubtedly one of the finest horror films produced in the twenty-first century.
In 1971, a young Lucie Jurin (Jessie Pham) manages to escape from a slaughterhouse in which she has been subjected to unspeakable torture. Placed in an orphanage, she forms a strong bond with Anna (Erika Scott), who tries to help her to recover from her trauma. Fifteen years later and now in adulthood, Lucie (Mylène Jampanoï) breaks into the isolated home of the Belford family, believing that they were involved in the horrific abuse she suffered in childhood. When she receives a call from Lucie, Anna rushes to her aid – but soon comes to regret ever having set foot in the Belfond house, where she will experience things beyond human comprehension.
Featuring heartbreaking performances by its two female leads and truly shocking imagery that lingers long in the mind courtesy of special effects designer Benoît Lestang, Martyrs has risen above debates surrounding "torture porn" to emerge as one of the truly great works of extreme cinema. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the film on 4K Blu-ray accompanied by a wealth of new and archival extras.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
4K RESTORATION by Eureka Entertainment from the original camera negative
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
Original French audio (5.1 and stereo options)
Optional English subtitles, newly revised for this release
Audio commentary with Nia Edwards-Behi, co-director of Abertoir Horror Film Festival
Revisiting the Belfond House – interview with lead actor Mylène Jampanoï
Beauty and Brutality – interview with New French Extremity expert Alice Haylett Bryan
Over Her Flayed Body – video essay on Martyrs and body horror by Xavier Aldana Reyes, author of Contemporary Body Horror
Organic Chronicles – archival feature-length documentary on the making of Martyrs
Archival interview with director Pascal Laugier
Archival interview with special effects designer Benoît Lestang