There are some films that one sees in their youth and then remembers nothing about them (save for a few pieces here and there) in their adulthood. It could be a film they saw on home video or cable. It… Read More ›
Arrow Video
Arrow Video offers a duel restoration of director Shinji Sômai’s 1981 cult hit “Sailor Suit & Machine Gun.”
Sailor Suit and Machine Gun is a film built on dichotomy. The lead character, Izumi (Hiroko Yakushimaru), is a high school teen, suggesting innocence or, at the least, a touch of naiveté. She’s not old enough to have been touched… Read More ›
Arrow Video releases a fourth Yasuzô Masumura remaster, 1969’s “Blind Beast.”
As with previously reviewed films Giants and Toys (1958) and Irezumi (1966), Arrow Video is restoring and offering up to audiences outside of Japan another Yasuzô Masumura film: Blind Beast. Arrow Video provides an opportunity to expand what viewers may… Read More ›
Beware the traps laid within Arrow Video’s restoration of “Irezumi” as the path made lead to your peril.
In the opening moments of Yasuzô Masumura’s Irezumi (1966), we witness a man drug a woman, then design and ink a spider tattoo on her back. As he works on the floor, bent over her, her only reaction is to… Read More ›
Let the spectral agents in: Bring home independent gem “A Ghost Waits” on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
With limited resources at hand, the incredible cast and crew of A Ghost Waits truly came through with teamwork and creativity. Making the most of what they had and pooling resources from family and friends, the team shot the movie… Read More ›
Save the future by stopping the past with this limited edition steelbook of “12 Monkeys” from Arrow Video.
The question as to whether or not the future can influence the past has plagued many a writer, and probably a few physicists, too. It’s a notion explored in a variety of films, most recently with Christopher Nolan’s Tenet (2020),… Read More ›
Director Yasuzô Masumura’s 1958 satire “Giants and Toys” is remarkably prescient of today’s ailments.
It’s rarely more than coincidence when a piece of art intersects with moments in history neatly. Black Panther (2018) released about a year into the Trump presidency, a film in sharp contrast against an administration dealing with accusations of white… Read More ›
Arrow Video’s 2K restoration of “Death Has Blue Eyes” exemplifies their mission of cinematic preservation.
Death Has Blue Eyes (To koritsi vomva) is an easy film to summarize but a difficult one to describe. It’s a science fiction thriller in a sexploitation package. Beyond this, though, is where the film gets tricky due to a… Read More ›
Writer/director Patrick Picard’s “The Bloodhound” is the best unfaithful adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe you can experience at home.
“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heaves, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and… Read More ›
Arrow Video’s HD restoration of director Park Chan-wook’s “JSA: Joint Security Area” is an opportunity to learn from the past.
One of the great things about boutique distributors like Criterion, Arrow, Vinegar Syndrome, and others is that whether a film is lost or beloved, they find new life via a new release. Even though the major studios are starting to… Read More ›
Charming, well-crafted, and funny, Adam Stovall’s romance/horror mashup “A Ghost Waits” is a delightfully spooky good time.
Adam Stovall’s micro-budget flick, A Ghost Waits, makes a pretty convincing argument that romance and horror can work really well together. Stovall doesn’t simply juxtapose the genres or jump back and forth between sweet and horrific moments. Instead, he takes… Read More ›
Experience director Ryûhei Kitamura’s newly restored exercise in controlled escalation, “Versus,” in a brand new way.
By director Ryûhei Kitamura’s own admission, labels are reductive and restrictive. Though they may help audiences to know where to look on the shelf for something or programmers to know where to schedule, labels imply as much the absence of… Read More ›
Arrow Video’s new 4K restoration of “The Last Starfighter” will have you feeling ready to take on the Kodan Armada.
You have been recruited by the Star League to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Kodan Armada. These seemingly innocuous words displayed across an arcade cabinet as an unseen voice declares them are, in fact, a glorious call to… Read More ›
Arrow Video’s restoration of classic horror camp “Elvira: Mistress of the Dark” is worth the price of admission.
As a kid with a profoundly accelerated imagination, there was no way I would ever watch something horror-related even though I frequently wanted to. Scoping out the VHS cover art while waiting in line at Kroger’s or hitting my local… Read More ›
Leaning more into comedy than horror, “Zombie for Sale” provides a welcome escape.
For a population currently living through a viral pandemic that is wreaking havoc on the world, zombie films feel almost a little too on the nose at this point. Take into account how it’s now clear that a good portion… Read More ›
Smartly layered feature-film debut “Why Don’t You Just Die!” brings the carnage as it explores the price of vengeance.
While anyone can insert their influences into their art, it’s something else entirely when the creation stands on its own. Writer/director Kirill Sokolov is open about his fondness for directors Sergio Leone (The Good, The Bad and the Ugly), Martin… Read More ›