Bruno Mattei's ROBOWAR finally... FINALLY... on Blu-ray!!!

They may not be in the porn business but even so the good people over at SEVERIN are trying their best to give fans of action cinema a throbbing hard-on! And they're succeeding!! I mean what other reaction would anybody get (at least if they're an action flick aficionado) when they learn that Severin are putting out Bruno Mattei's 300% entertaining remake of PREDATOR entitled ROBOWAR (Italy/Philippines 1988) on Blu-ray!!!

Street date June 25. There's various different versions (and prices). Go here for the stand-alone Blu-ray. There's a dvd release as well (but get the blu-ray, cabron!). John Dulaney posted about the release on one of my old posts about the film (from 2010!). John was in the film and in 2011 he posted links to behind-the-scenes videos that he and Catherine Hickland did. Incidentally, those very same videos are now being included on this Blu-ray. You saw them here first! (I just had to say that, haha). This is certainly an old dream come true. Thanks, Severin! (Please put out heaps more Mattei stuff!). 



WE'RE ALL USED TO THE OLD SUBTITLED TRAILER FROM JAPANESE VHS SO HERE'S THE NEW ONE FROM SEVERIN [EDIT 2.5.26: The old Severin YouTube channel is gone and ditto is the embedded trailer, but I found this other better copy of the original trailer]





INFO FROM SEVERIN'S SITE:

A year before their jaw-dropper SHOCKING DARK, director Bruno Mattei (VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN’S PRISON) and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi (NIGHT KILLER, ZOMBIE 4) first collaborated on this brain-melting mash-up of PREDATOR, ROBOCOP and Philippines war movie mayhem: When a team of badass commandos is hired for a jungle rescue mission, they’ll instead find them hunted by a kill-crazed creature that is part man, part machine and all glorious ‘80s ItaloSleaze. Reb Brown (UNCOMMON VALOR), Catherine Hickland (ONE LIFE TO LIVE), Massimo Vanni (RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR) and Jim Gaines (ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD) star in this “freaking awesome must-watch for any action fan” (BMovieCitadel.com), now scanned in 4k from the original negative and loaded with all-new Special Features.  

Special Features:

• Robo Predator: Interview with Co-Director/Co-Writer Claudio Fragasso
• Italian Rip Off: Interview with Co-Writer Rossella Drudi
• Violence She Wrote: Career Interview with Screenwriter Rossella Drudi
• Robo-Lady: Interview with Actress Catherine Hickland
• Papa Doc’s War: Interview with Actor John P. Dulaney
• The Robowarrior: Interview with Actor Jim Gaines Jr.
• War in the Phillipines: Interview with Actor/Stuntman Massimo Vanni
• Catherine Hickland’s Behind The Scenes Home Movies
• Trailer

Zombies in the land of Oz

Check out this trailer! It's a new zombie film from Australia called WYRMWOOD: ROAD OF THE DEAD (dir: Kiah Roache-Turner) and it looks awesome. It's out on DVD and blu-ray in the UK (and most likely on DVD in Oz as well) but not yet in the US. I ordered the UK DVD over the weekend and can't wait to get it. Everyone I've spoken to says it's pretty cool (well, except for one Aussie collector on fb, haha) so I'm certainly looking forward to this flick which, judging by the trailer, looks like MAD MAX with zombies!

Five bucks from Amazon UK.

Last MAD MAX 2 clone from Santiago now on DVD

I posted about WATER WARS, Cirio H. Santiago's last film, way back in 2011. The film is yet another MAD MAX 2 post-apocalypse rip-off (and yay to that!) from the Philippines. The initial title was Road Raiders but it was later retitled WATER WARS.

Unfortunately, Santiago passed away during production and apparently Jim Wynorski had to finish the film. It dawned on me a couple of days ago that WATER WARS is now on DVD in Thailand!! (I'm told it actually came out last year!). As far as I know, the Thai DVD is the only release worldwide. I placed my order last week but haven't received the film yet. According to the webstore in Thailand the DVD carries the English dubbing.

A few people have pointed out that WATER WARS uses quite a bit of footage from WHEELS OF FIRE, another of Santiago's post-apocalypse films that he shot in the Philippines. And that the film isn't all that great. Oh well, on this blog we (royal "we") often find great entertainment in pop-culture that the squares and mainstreamers discard as trash. Maybe it is trash but I've seen quite a few flicks in my time that delivered heaps of entertainment despite (or because of) their being trash. Let's wait and see. I knew I had to, simply haaaad to, order a copy when I found out the film had been released.

More info on the disc as I receive it. The DVD is available from eThaiCD. I've never had any problems with them and they've got free postage worldwide!

Trailer:

Alright, bring on the virgin apocalypse!

I wrote about the upcoming German dvd release of ANGELS WITH GOLDEN GUNS aka Virgin Apocalypse here. The dvd is coming from the video label CineClub and altho there's still no word no a release date, Spannick, who works for the video label, posted some cool screen grabs from the release over on Cinehound forum. The screen grabs in the proper aspect ratio certain look much better than the fullscreen version of the film that I've got! Spannick has also uploaded a clip from the print and re-uploaded the film's original IFD trailer. Check them both out! (the trailer is posted in the post just before this one).

Battle of the Wonder Women

I bought Something Weird video's dvdr release of the Filipino/US film WONDER WOMEN (1973) and wrote about it in February 2011. Bruce Holecheck commented that Code Red were going to give the film a proper release on dvd and blu-ray.

I quite like the film and have been waiting impatiently for Bill Olsen to get his finger out his arse and release this cool Filipino film (along with the wild Filipino/US production RAW FORCE which Code Red also announced many, many moons ago!). Then about a month ago, Bill Olsen posted on his blog that Code Red were going to chuck everything else aside because they (i.e. he) were going to concentrate only on the WONDER WOMEN release! And the reason? Apparently another video label in the US, Fred Olen Ray's Retromedia, were also planning to release the film!

I've been trying to follow this confusing mess on Facebook and where ever else in Cyberspace there's been news about it, and it appears that both labels somehow have gained copyrights for the film! So as of right now, it seems we can expect a dvd release of WONDER WOMEN from both Retromedia and Code Red! The cover posted here is for the Retromedia release. I haven't seen a cover for the Code Red dvd yet. I must admit Retromedia's cover looks pretty fucken awesome! The extras sound great too:

16x9 35mm HD transfer
Commentary Track by director Bob O'Neil
Super 8mm Home Movies behind the scenes in Manila
Radio Spots
TV Spots
Theatrical Trailer
European scenes missing from US theatrical
and more...

The only Code Red extras that I'm aware of is the commentary track that was mentioned on their blog and which features director O'Neil with Nathaniel Thompson (it's a different track than the one for the Retromedia dvd).


Here are some screen grabs from the SWV dvdr:

GATOR BAIT finally on DVD soon!

Very good news indeed! The two GATOR BAIT films are finally gonna get released on DVD!!! They're cool "woman takes revenge" films set in swamp land. I tracked them both down years ago on NTSC VHS and was surprised they weren't on DVD (I've later got hold of #1 on a Danish ex-rental as well). Thanks to Bruce Holecheck for the info!! The films were directed and produced by the couple Beverly and Ferd Sebastian, and they're also behind the upcoming DVD releases on Panama Films. Hopefully that means they'll be using proper prints. The DVD's are listed on Amazon here and here.

DEMONEN DER NACHT - finally being released on DVD!

My... gawd!! I have somehow completely overlooked the brilliant piece of news that the American branch of RARO (Italy) is going to release NIGHT OF THE DEVILS (aka La Notte dei Diavoli) on DVD and blu-ray in a few days!!!

A few of us oldtimers in the field of horror film collecting know the film as Demonen der nacht as that's the title of the old uncut Dutch VHS but regardless of whatever title is used this is certainly splendid news!!!

NIGHT OF THE DEVILS has never been released on DVD before and the old VHS releases are all few and far between. The film is directed by Giorgio Ferroni and it's based on the same story as Mario Bava's BLACK SABBATH.

The DVD is going to carry both the Italian and English dubs, and it'll have subs in English and German. Oh, and restored print too! NIGHT OF THE DEVILS is the best film you'll ever see! So see it!!

For more info go to RARO US's site here and go here for Richard Schmidt's (from dvdmaniacs aka Richard of DM) great review.






The Dutch cover isn't from my own tape but from Horror CK's blog. Cheers, mate.