Streeting April 28 from Media Blaster’s genre arm Shriek Show comes Gorman Bechard’s PSYCHOS IN LOVE (1987) one of the most charming retro slashers to date – a slash-rom-com, and with a killer theme song to boot. What a pants tingler to see the original Wizard Video artwork is being used!
Joe (Carmine Capobianco) was a lonely psychotic killer. After all, it’s tough to find the right woman when you re compelled to murder them after a few dates. When Kate (Debi Thibeault) walked into Joe’s bar, she seemed perfect. She was gorgeous, she hated grapes. But each of them had a terrible secret: they were killers. Is that the kind of thing you can risk telling the one you love? They shared passion, they shared laughter, they shared a few little murders. But then they met Herman, a local plumber and part-time cannibal, and he wanted bodies. Kate and Joe are two young lovers just trying to make ends meet. And everyone they meet, meets the end pretty quickly. It s not Ozzie and Harriet, but it’s Psychos in Love!
Special Features:
Feature Commentary with Gorman Bechard (2009)
Feature Commentary with Gorman Bechard & Carmine Capobianco (2005)
Original Trailer
Alternate Opening
Making Psychos in Love
Extensive Photo Gallery
Extended Scenes
Highlights from Psychos in Love: The Stageplay
Gorman Bechard Short Films: Bartholomew the Strangler, Short Film (1983), The Only Take, Short Film (1983), Objects in the Mirror are Further Than They Appear, Short Film (2003)
Gorman Bechard Trailers: You Are Alone (2005), Friends with Benefits (2009)
Video Promo for Gorman Bechard Novel: Unwound (2007)
Visit the official website put together by Bechard himself @ psychosinlove.com
In a win for retro slashers everywhere, SLAUGHTER HIGH (1986) is the #1 selling title at DVD Empire currently, out of all possible DVDs to buy. One of Lionsgate’s other releases this week, MY BEST FRIEND IS A VAMPIRE, is #2, proving everyone indeed loves the 80’s. With #3 being THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, it warms the heart to know that Simon Scuddamore has beaten Keanu Reeves. Rest easy, misunderstood cult hero.
Apparently the DVD buying public at large were unfettered by the lack of special features/film transfer and opted to dip in to a little Marty Rantzen goodness anyway. And that’s a good thing – at the end of the day, it’s the film that matters.
And as much as we’ve slagged the cover art, it was neat that Lionsgate were able to add an UNCUT banner onto the packaging.
Whereas the gore in slasher flix usually amused me, the gore in COMBAT SHOCK (1986) repelled me. In a good way. Example – picture the self-surgery scene in THE TERMINATOR minus the robotic parts. It wasn’t just the gore department that I got more than I bargained for – the film oozed dingy dread from its every film spec. And I’m pleased to be informed it’s heading to DVD in prime fashion.
Also, great that Buddy G’s MANIAC 2: MR. ROBBIE (minus the MANIAC 2 tag, probably for legality or creative reasoning) is being put out there on this and THE LAST HORROR FILM DVD, makes it that much harder to ever become lost footage again.
TROMA TO RELEASE 2-DISC NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN DIRECTOR’S CUT OF NIHILISTIC MASTERWORK WITH A ‘TROMASTERPIECE TREATMENT’
“Raw, nightmarish and absolutely devastating. Ranks among the most uncompromising and powerful indie films of the ’80s.” MITCH DAVIS (Director, Fantasia Film Festival)
“Combines the New York City angst of Taxi Driver, the gritty nihilism of Fassbinder and the unfiltered dementia of Eraserhead… one of the great cult films of the 1980’s.” STEVE PUCHALSKI, SHOCK CINEMA
“Makes you want to slit your wrists.” JOHN MCNAUGHTON (Director, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer)
Troma Team Video is proud to present the 2-Disc Never-Before-Seen Director’s Cut of Buddy Giovinazzo’s dark, nihilistic masterwork ‘Combat Shock’. Combat Shock has remained hidden in the underground video universe for more than 25 years, and has now fully ripened to disgust, revolt and depress a new generation of indie film viewers. Released theatrically in 1986, the film was dismissed mostly by mainstream critics, but scarred the retinas of the indie cult/horror counterculture and is now regarded as one of the supreme classics of 1980s underground cinema. Inspired by true ghastly headlines about tormented war veterans, Giovinazzo centers his story on Frankie Dunlan, a Vietnam veteran whose life is a festering sewer of poverty, hopelessness and violence.
His wife is pregnant and hungry. His one year old son is sick and horribly deformed from exposure to Agent Orange. His family is being evicted from their rundown apartment. He roams the streets looking for work. His childhood friend is a strung-out junkie. He sees underage prostitutes working the streets. Yet he doesn’t give up hope. Maybe there’s a job at the unemployment office. Maybe his father will help. As Frankie returns home, he finds a way out of the horror – desperate times call for desperate measures.
‘Combat Shock’ culminates into one of the most lurid and yet melancholic endings ever committed to celluloid.
“An angry, grueling, brutal, and uncompromisingly pitch-black work.” CINEFANTASTIQUE
Included in this fully comprehensive package will be the heavily sought-after, never-before-seen original cut of the film entitled American Nightmares, which is viciously more repulsive and grim than any other available version. Giovinazzo enthusiasts and cult film fanatics alike will celebrate this highly anticipated set, which also features ‘Post-Traumatic, an American Nightmare’, a new featurette which contains interviews with Giovinazzo contemporaries lending their praise and critical analyzes of Combat Shock. Present in the featurette is John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer), William Lustig (Maniac), Jorg Buttgereit (Necromantik), Jim Van Bebber (Deadbeat at Dawn, The Manson Family), Roy Frumkes (Street Trash), Mitch Davis (Fantasia Film Festival), Joe Kane (The Phantom at the Movies), Rick Sullivan (The Gore Gazette – his first interview in 20 years!), David Gregory (Severin Films), and the star of Combat Shock, in his first interview ever, Rick Giovinazzo. The set will also include, an audio commentary with Giovinazzo and Buttgereit, an all new interview with Giovinazzo conducted by Lloyd Kaufman, three never-before-seen short films, a look at the locations from Combat Shock as they appear today, original press and photo galleries, new liner notes written by Steve Puchalski of Shock Cinema, and other highly anticipated material which we have yet to announce.
“Explict ugliness and revolting realism.” VARIETY
Combat Shock’s underground success and Buddy Giovinazzo’s unflinching artistic vision eventually led to his remarkable 1996 sophomore feature, No Way Home, starring Tim Roth, James Russo and Deborah Kara Unger. Giovinazzo is also an accomplished novelist, whose literary works have been championed as the 90s answer to Herbert Selby Jr. (Last Exit to Brooklyn, Requiem for a Dream). Currently, Giovinazzo lives and works in Berlin where he is continually directing and producing films for the German market which has embraced his unique output. Life is Hot in Cracktown, based on his own powerful, disturbing novel of the same name, is currently playing the festival circuit and is distributed by Lightning Media.
2-DISC TROMASTERPIECE DVD INCLUDES:
American Nightmares (100 min): The Never-Before-Seen Director’s Cut
Combat Shock (90 min): The Troma Theatrical Cut
Audio Commentary with Director Buddy Giovinazzo and Jorg Buttgereit
Optional Spanish Language Track
Post-Traumatic, An American Nightmare (40 min): A look at Combat Shock’s Everlasting Underground Following and an Examination of ‘Nihilistic Cinema’ featuring all-new interviews with: Rick Giovinazzo, John McNaughton, William Lustig, Jorg Buttgereit, Jim Van Bebber, Roy Frumkes, Mitch Davis, Joe Kane, Rick Sullivan, David Gregory and more!
All-New Interview with Director Buddy G Conducted by Lloyd Kaufman
Never-Before-Seen Short Works by Buddy Giovinazzo: Mr. Robbie, starring Joe Spinell (Maniac), More to be announced!
Hellscapes (10 min): A Look at the Locations from Combat Shock as they appear today
I don’t know what the hell has happened to Fangoria.com lately but I do still trust the word of longtime scribe for the mag, Michael Gingold. Being a super-duper SLAUGHTER HIGH fan it was less his comments about the quality of the film that reached me, but those about the quality of the DVD.
Video transfer? I can live with that. Video is not a dirty word in my household. But the pop-up track idea was awkward yet full of possibility – possibility squandered, according to Gingold. A damn shame, too, all Lionsgate had to do was pluck someone from Retro Slashers to do the writing and it would have been a far better affair!
Unless you’re a die-hard slasher completist, it’s understandable if SLAUGHTER HIGH is, as stated on the case of its “Lost Collection” Lionsgate DVD edition, one of those “movies you totally forgot about.” And if you do happen to recall catching it during its very brief theatrical release or via VHS from Vestron back in the day, well, it’s pretty much as goofy as you remember.
This very late-in-coming entry in the 1980s slasher cycle (completed in 1985 but not released till a couple of years later) starts with a protracted prologue in which high-school misfit Marty (Simon Scuddamore in oversized dork glasses) is tormented by his cruel 20- and 30something classmates, until one of their pranks ends with him being horribly burned. Cut to an undisclosed amount of time later, when one of those students, Carol (Caroline Munro), is now an actress turning down a sleazy movie offer from her agent, played by SLAUGHTER producer Dick Randall. (Would that Munro had followed her character’s lead…) Instead, she heads off to a reunion at the old school with her old friends, all of them now “grown up” but not looking appreciably older.
Fans of the form will immediately know, of course, that the get-together has been staged by the deranged, vengeance-seeking Marty—though why, if he’s so thirsty for payback, he makes it so hard for his would-be victims to get into the building (it’s all locked up when they arrive), goes unexplained. Anyway, they eventually do get in and, after much wandering through darkened halls, arrive at a well-lit room decked out for a party. Cue the beer-drinking, drug-taking, splitting up for sex and other good reasons and a Harry Manfredini score comprised of borrowed riffs from his classic FRIDAY THE 13TH compositions combined with cheesy synthesizer noodlings.
The blood soon flows freely, though not quite as freely as some viewers may expect or hope given that this is the “Uncut Version.” The only scene that might challenge an R today involves a naked woman burned to death via acid in a bathtub, a setpiece that also challenges credibility for those who might wonder why she doesn’t just clamber out. They might also ponder why murderous Marty dons a jester costume, whose jingling bells would seem to preclude the possibility of sneaking up on potential victims. A good deal of SLAUGHTER HIGH, the brainchild of no less than three writer/directors (George Dugdale, Mark Ezra and Peter Litten, the latter of whom also oversaw the makeup FX), is over-the-top enough in its embrace of the subgenre’s clichés—with acting that follows suit—that it almost, but not quite, suggests that the whole thing is intended as a sendup. Those who enjoy the camp value of nuggets of nostalgia like this might derive a certain amount of amusement from it anyway.
They shouldn’t let the “Uncut Version” status lead them to believe a video restoration has been undertaken here, though: the fullscreen picture has the appearance of a VHS transfer, complete with attached Vestron logo. There’s also a vintage trailer that once again, while played straight, today suggests a satire on the order of Eli Roth’s THANKSGIVING from GRINDHOUSE. And what’s supposed to be the key extra, an optional subtitled “trivia track,” is a great disappointment. Playing out very sporadically, and largely as a series of multiple-choice and true-or-false questions, it’s barely concerned with the movie for about the first 20 minutes, instead dealing with factoids about brassieres, gymnastics and bunsen burners. When Marty is given some reefer and the viewer is hit with, “A ‘joint’ commonly contains what drug?” you may find yourself wondering who wrote this stuff, and who it was intended for.
Finally, the queries get around to SLAUGHTER HIGH itself (testing your ability to recognize its plot as being ripped off from CARRIE), but things don’t improve much. All the info here seems to have been gleaned from a quick study of the movie’s IMDb pages, and the debt to that site is revealed when the potential answers to one name-that-title question include “DER NAME DER ROSE.” Potentially interesting subjects go ignored—surely there’s a reason two different onscreen characters insist that “April Fool’s Day ends at noon”—and the assertion that 1989’s CUTTING CLASS was a “spin off” of HIGH is just plain wrong (despite a German DVD release suggesting a connection). By the time lone survivor Carol is being endlessly pursued by the villain and the track is challenging your knowledge that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD doesn’t have a “final girl,” it’s clear that this feature is aimed at people who are far from dedicated stalker-film devotees. But who else would pick up this disc in the first place?
“They got Alfalfa!” The good lads at Deadpit Radio dropped us a line to let us know while recording their April 3rd edition with DVD producing mogul Michael ‘Slipcase’ Felsher from Red Shirt Pictures. They learned that this Halloween is going to be creepier than ever with Fred Dekker’s Night of the Creeps at least hitting official DVD. Felsher stated:
‘In October Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will be releasing Night of the Creeps to DVD in a directors cut special edition, it is coming out officially for the first time ever. Fred Dekker is already working on it, It’s going to be the director’s cut with the original ending. We’re going to go balls to the wall with the special features on it…I talked to Sony today its official, we’re going ahead and its coming out in October!’ ‘It’s officially In production…and moving forward, its coming!’
We here at Retro Slashers are big fans of ol’ pockmark-face Joe Spinell’s thematic acting follow-up to Bill Lustig’s MANIAC, and are excited about its forthcoming S.E. DVD release via the bastions of the bad, Troma Entertainment.
The uncut status and special features sound mouth watering – it even contains the “lost” remnants of the MANIAC sequel MR. ROBBIE! We hope to have a review for you soon – for now, read on for the details:
TROMA TO RELEASE CLASSIC 80s SLASHER GEM – UNCUT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AMERICA!
THE LAST HORROR FILM: THE UNCUT SPECIAL EDITION – THE TROMASTERPIECE COLLECTION #3
Street Date: 5.19.2009 – List Price: $14.95
“Cuts deeper than the average slasher film.” – MOVIE GAZETTE
“The late, great Joe Spinell is a knockout…a must-see!” – RETROSLASHERS.NET
Troma Team Video is proud to unleash for the first time uncut on DVD, one of Joe Spinell’s (Rocky, The Godfather) most perverse, unnerving performances, since his unforgettable starring role in Maniac, in this underrated gem of the 80s — The Last Horror Film.
The Last Horror Film will be the third installment in the ‘Tromasterpiece Collection’ – Troma’s new line of video product which promises fans and new audiences alike, optimum quality releases, along with the comprehensive supplemental material, of the world’s greatest obscure entertainment.
Cult/horror fans will rejoice, as this film also reunites Spinell with another Maniac-alum; Hammer horror film star and Bond-girl babe Caroline Munro. Contrary to the typical psycho-stalker-roaming-the-streets affair, The Last Horror Film at the height of the American slasher revolution takes place during the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.
Vinny Durand (Spinell), a lonesome New York cab driver who lives at home with his mother, has dreams of becoming a famous film director. Consumed by his depraved obsession with beautiful horror actress Jenna Bates (Bond-Girl Caroline Munro) and determined to have her star in his first film, Vinny trails her to the Cannes Film Festival. While Vinny’s disturbing fascination grows, a mysterious killer begins slaughtering all people in Jenna’s entourage. Is the obsessed fanatic and the psychotic killer one in the same? Will this be Jenna’s Last Horror Film?
“Exciting…Like nothing else…” – Steve Swires, STARLOG MAGAZINE
The Last Horror Film DVD will include the uncut version of the film, which has never been released in America on video and was only available on the pre-certification UK VHS tape released over 25 years ago. The Troma Team produced a fascinating new featurette, My Best Maniac which features Spinell’s closest friend, Luke Walter who boldly reminisces about the hilarious antics and vivacious spirit of Spinell during the film’s production. Also inclusive on the disc, is a brand new audio commentary with Walter, a new interview with Maniac director William Lustig, Buddy G’s (Combat Shock) rarely-seen short film Mr. Robbie (aka Maniac 2) which features Spinell in one of his last performances before his untimely death, original and new trailers, and much more!
Special Features include:
My Best Maniac: An afternoon with Spinell’s best friend, Luke Walter
Audio commentary by Walter
Buddy Giovinazzo’s short rarely-seen short, MR. ROBBIE, a.k.a. MANIAC 2, starring Spinell
Interview with Maniac director William Lustig
Original theatrical trailer and tv spots
Introduction by Lloyd Kaufman, President of Troma Entertainment and creator of the Toxic Avenger
Rue Morgue’s Best Fiction Book of 2008, SHOCK FESTIVAL, is getting a DVD adaptation (of sorts). Fangoria recently posted an insightful Interview With Author Stephen Romano which outlines plans for the disc.
Last month you heard about Code Red DVD releasing a lost retro slasher so rare, it isn’t even on the IMDB under any title we know of – that would be NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER. Now the company are back with a slam dunk of an update.
Code Red continue to rescue retro horror flicks from oblivion for future digital consumption. Latest on their slate is Zombie Nightmare (1986) which, despite the fantastic New World artwork is more a revenge pic. Read on for the skinny:
CODE RED recorded an audio commentary & filmed on-camera interviews with John Fasano and Frank Dietz for our upcoming release of ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE, the movie that started the Thor/Fasano craze that is sweeping horror fandom. Thor could not attend the commentary in person, but he joined us via telephone and his comments were recorded at his Canadian studio, making this a joint discussion track for Thor/Fasano/Dietz. The commentary, moderated by THE JITTERS writer Jeff McKay, will be fun and informative to all the horror fans out there who loved or hated the film. This Adam West/Tia Carrere horror film is also beloved by most Mystery Science Theatre fans as one of the craziest movies ever featured on the show! Code Red is planning a late 2009 release and are also planning to HiDef the film with the original camera negatives! Keep checking in for more details!! Same CODE RED time, same CODE RED label!!
Code Red have revealed some startling news via their blog:
NIGHT OF THE DRIBBLER, a comedy slasher shot in 1995, but never released anywhere in the world, will make its world debut via CODE RED DVD this summer! Some psycho wearing a basketball mask is killing off the High School basketball team and it’s up to the famous TV Funnyman Fred Travelena to find the killer! In the vein of Peter Sellers films, Fred plays 3 roles in the movie! Canadian TV’s COLD SQUAD Gregory Calpakis also stars in this demented comedy horror film that has been lost for many years! Directed and produced by the fine folks who brought you SNUFF, THE CARPENTER, and the cult classic ZOMBIE NIGHTMARE! We hope you all will enjoy this lost classic!
I never knew this existed, and I thought I had the 411 on all the lost slashers!
Whereas the gore in slasher flix usually amused me, the gore in COMBAT SHOCK (1986) repelled me. In a good way. Example – picture the self-surgery scene in THE TERMINATOR minus the robotic parts. It wasn’t just the gore department that I got more than I bargained for – the film oozed dingy dread from its every film spec. And I’m pleased to be informed it’s heading to DVD in prime fashion.
“They got Alfalfa!” The good lads at Deadpit Radio dropped us a line to let us know while recording their April 3rd edition with DVD producing mogul Michael ‘Slipcase’ Felsher from Red Shirt Pictures. They learned that this Halloween is going to be creepier than ever with Fred Dekker’s Night of the Creeps at least hitting official DVD. Felsher stated:
We here at Retro Slashers are 
