Pop the space popcorn for a trip to the celestial psycho circus and back all around the world for Arrow Video’s and Arrow Academy’s Blu-Ray release roster for April 2018!
First up, the Arrow express takes us to Japan with the release of Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years, Vol. 2 – Border Crossings: The Crime and Action Movies. This set brings to home video for the first time outside of Japan, 5 films from the first 5 years of Suzuki’s career (1957-1961). Released under Nikkatsu’s Borderless Action line, these thrillers of mob warfare and exuberant action helped set the stage for Japanese action to come.
Moving from the islands of Japan to the island of New Zealand with the release of Roger Donaldson’s Sleeping Dogs. Based on the novel Smith’s Dream, Sleeping Dogs helped launched the New Zealand New Wave movement, introducing a system of government tax breaks and creating a boom of film production in the country. The film is also significant for starring a young Sam Neill who would go on to be sort of a big deal.
The next stop on this April adventure takes us to Europe with a pair of spaghetti westerns with A Pistol for Ringo & The Return of Ringo: Two Films by Duccio Tessari. While Tessari doesn’t have the quite the name recognition as Leone, he was a major player in the spaghetti western world having co-written A Fistful of Dollars a year before making his back-to-back Ringo films. The films were a rousing success and helped kick-start the career of actor Giuliano Gemma.
Arrow’s journey through the world of film comes to a close in the United States with the 80’s cult classic Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Since the beginning of time, clowns have always been scary rather than funny, but it was the release of the Chiodo Brothers horror-comedy that forever cemented clowns as space creatures with a thirst for human blood. If this circus comes to your town, move.
As a child of the ’80s, Freddy Krueger was a huge part of the era we embrace here at Nightmare Nostalgia. The iconic slasher portrayed by Robert Englund, had become a living entity all its own during the slasher decade and unregrettably marketed to kids in the form of talking dolls, lunch boxes, Halloween costumes, and that sweet, sweet little television program you may remember later in the decade that aired in my area right after dinner in my house at 6:00 PM, Freddy’s Nightmares. You can also bet your sweet ass I nearly choked on Mom’s meatloaf several times so as not to miss this week’s Springwood tale of terror. Call me an old nostalgic turd if you will, but there was really nothing like growing up in that time. A time where slashers ruled the decade with a mighty razor-sharp glove. A time whereas a horror-loving kid, an icon like Krueger becoming so mainstream and opening the genre door to new fans such as a few of my own friends, was truly a magical time as a horror Padawan.
Heather Lankenkamp said it best, “Every kid knows who Freddy is. He’s like Santa Claus or King Kong.”
So with me being such a Fred-Head, imagine my excitement when I came across this rare, vintage video from the set of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors where the legend himself Robert Englund is seen giving a hilariously fantastic interview as Freddy to HBO. Uploaded from Youtube account Nightmare Companion, this raw, unedited interview conducted seemingly for promotional purposes for Dream Warriors, touches on Freddy’s goals- one of which is to appear on the Joan Rivers show, whereas it so happens his alter ago Englund did appear later that year to promote the Nightmare film. Also, note that “Freddy” gives actual directions to the original 1428 Elm Street house when prompted as to where Elm Street actually was.
Classic Englund. Check it out in all its vintage glory below!
*This article (written by me-Patti Pauley) was originally written over at iHorror.com.
In my humble opinion, there really isn’t a horror franchise that bleeds the highest of importance to the genre quite like the classic Universal Monsters. Stories such as Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolf Man have been retold countless times over the past 100 years in film, starting firstly with 1910’s silent movie Frankenstein by J. Searle Dawley. However, nobody really pulled it off quite like Universal with its surge of successful flicks that put the fear of GOD into audiences back in the golden age of film. And MCA’s 1991 release of the classic Universal Monsters VHS collection was the ultimate spooktacular event that fans had been waiting to sink their teeth into!
I’ll admit, even though I was already a huge fan of the classics, the promos for the now coveted massive ensemble of VHS monster madness was what had me begging the parental units for $14.98 a week to nab one monster movie after another. Those flying VHS tapes towards your face before the beginning of each Universal monster flick in one of the original promos is the one I remember the most, and also served to hypnotize me into really expanding this ever-growing stack of VHS Universal goodness. And the list just seemed to grow every time we snagged a new cassette!
Slick move there MCA/ Universal Home Video. Mesmerizing the shit out of me with that enthusiastic voice-over urging me to visit my local retailer to ask for the Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection in a dark and serious tone like I meant fuckin’ business. I’m also going to tell you that I totally did that too. It was absolutely worth both the giggles and awkward stares from the guy behind the Video Rental counter.