DVD - January 08

Australian slasher 'Storm Warning' touches down on DVD

Always ready to cover horror flicks from far flung places, we've word in that director Jamie Blank’s new Aussie hack 'n' slash horror ‘Storm Warning,’ is to be released on unrated R1 DVD.

Synopsis: "Caught in a massive storm that throws them off course, a young couple are stranded on a remote island where they seek refuge in an abandoned farmhouse. Once there, they soon realize they are not alone and are being held hostage by a group of deranged killers."

Blank’s most well know work to date was the teen horror 'Urban legend,' but from the looks of the trailer, his latest offering is a more mature and FAR darker. 'Storm Warning' stars Robert Taylor and Nadia Fares.

Storm Warning (Official site)

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French horror 'ILs' aka 'Them' on DVD

French filmmakers David Moreau and Xavier Palud's tense, low budget horror thriller 'Ils' aka 'Them,' is coming to R1 DVD. The movie was a huge hit in Europe, combining old style suspense with modern film techniques. To see a trailer for the film, we've included a link to the UK official website. The U.S. sites trailer has "Mr Voiceover " talking all over it, which seems to serve no purpose other than to ruin the mood of the clip. 'Them' hits the shelves on Feb 26th.

Synopsis: Clementine, a young teacher and her boyfriend Lucas live an idyllic, isolated existence in a large house in the middle of rural Bucuresti, Romanian. But tonight, that paradise will be shattered beyond all comprehension because something is watching. Something is waiting. Something unknown, unhinged and unrelenting. They are all around, they are in the shadows, and they will stop at nothing to get inside the couple's home. As blind panic takes over, they must face a terrifying test of endurance to discover the true nature of the evil just outside their door - the true nature of "THEM".

Them (Official UK site)

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Shinya Tsukamoto's 'Nightmare Detective' makes it to R1 DVD

Shinya Tsukamoto's (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) 'Nightmare Detective' is coming to R1 DVD, through the Dimension Extreme label. Returning to the fore of exploring the darker side of human nature, 'Detective' is moody, violent, and imaginative.

Detective tells the story of Kirishima Keiko who is investigating a series of mysterious deaths. In both cases they appear to be suicides, but as the case proceeds it appears they are far from open and shut. Colleagues dismiss the cases, but Keiko decides to dig deeper. Believing that the key to the mystery lies with the strange dreams the victims are reported to have been having, they try to enlist the help of Kagenuma Kyoichi a troubled man whose psychic powers give him the ability to enter dreams, earning him the nickname "Nightmare Detective."

Nightmare Detective English subtitled trailer

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'The Warlords' on English subtitled DVD

Still tearing its way through every Asain box office record there is, 'The Warlords' has just come up to pre-order on DVD. Jet Li, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro star in this grand and gritty tale of war, and brotherhood in 19th-century China. The film features action choreography from Ching Siu Tung (Hero) and large-scale battle scenes befitting a true blockbuster. ' Warlords' is released on an English friendly 2-disc special addition DVD, February 5th.

The Warlords website

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Kelvin Tong's J-Horror '1942' on R1 DVD

Singapore born director Kelvin Tong’s WWII horror film ’1942’ is now finally getting an R1 English subtitled DVD release, through Tartan's Asia extreme label. ‘1942’ marked Tong’s first foray into the horror genre, but it wasn't until his second excellent fright pic ‘The Maid,’ that he really made a name for himself.

1942. Malaya. Sgt. YASUO FUJII, a war cameraman, is huddled in a trench, waiting to film the Japanese 6th Army cross the Slim River on its way south to Kuala Lumpur. An enemy mortar shell lands in the trench and, in a heartbeat, Sgt. FUJII is running through the jungle for his life. Armed with nothing except his 8mm camera, the young soldier soon hooks up with remnants of the scattered 6th Army.

Together with three soldiers, he must race against time to get a fatally wounded soldier back to the division in Kuala Lumpur. However, everything starts to go wrong and they get lost in the maze-like jungle. All their maps are wrong and their radio malfunctions. Sgt. FUJII starts sighting mysterious figures through his camera viewfinder, and a female ghost starts to haunt them. Survival is at stake and the ghost is hot on their heels. Will they make it to safety?

1942 (Official site)

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Johnny To's 'Mad Detective' on English subtitled DVD

Johnny To's 'Mad Detective,' a cop/crime drama with a subtle hint of the supernatural, is now available to order on English subtitled DVD.

Synopsis: Inspector Ho (Andy On) has on his hands a dead case, a series of crimes linked to the gun of a missing cop. Desperate, he turns to retired detective Bun (Lau Ching Wan) for help. Famous for his eccentric, but effective crime-solving methods, Bun was forced to leave the job years ago after he cut off his own ear and presented it as a gift to his boss. He seems to have gotten even madder with time, but Ho knows that only Bun can solve this case.

Bun tells Ho that he can see through to one's inner personalities, to the weaknesses and vices that lead people astray. In Bun's eyes, these inner ghosts are living and breathing beings, revealed in their true form. Despite the protests of his wife (Kelly Lin), Bun agrees to take the case and his top suspect is the missing cop's partner (Gordon Lam), a man with seven personalities, walking side by side.

Mad Detective (Hong Kong trailer)

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Japanese horror 'Exte: Hair Extensions' hits English subtitled DVD!!

What a great start to the new year. Sion Sono's (director of Suicide Club) weird and wacky ‘Exte,’ a horror film about killer hair extensions no less, is now available on English subtitled DVD. If the bizarre premise wasn't reason enough to want to see it, there's a second. The movie stars one of our favourite Japanese actresses Chiaki Kuriyama, best known in the west as the psychopathic schoolgirl Go Go, in Tarantino's 'Kill Bill.'

Synopsis: "What if extensions carried the grudge of the individual to which the hair originally belonged too and started attacking people wearing them at random? Customs agents discover a huge amount of human hair used as materials for 'hair extensions' along with the dead body of a young girl with a shaved head. The results of the autopsy determine that the woman's internal organs have been harvested. The possibility is that she was kidnapped in some foreign country and was a victim of black market human organ smuggling ring."

Exte trailer (Youtube) Order the DVD here