Got a horror itch this week? DVD is inexplicably stepping up to the plate, providing a couple of lost classics for the true genre fan. Dario Argento’s “Four Flies On Grey Velvet,” the Ennio Morricone-scored third film from the Italian master, gets a nice Blue Underground treatment, with the original widescreen transfer, deleted scenes and an alternate opening. Wes Craven’s “The Last House On The Left,” gets a re-release with a remake on the horizon, but this time the catalog title gets a puzzling “Unrated Collector’s Edition”- this movie is about forty years old, give or take, so it would be odd to see reinserted scenes, but you can look for never-before-seen outtakes and featurettes for the horror classic, as well as a commentary by stars David Hess, Marc Sheffler, and Fred Lincoln.
In other genres, the DeNiro-Levinson comedy “What Just Happened?” hits disc, as does the little seen doc “Dear Zachary” and the even lesser-seen Minnie Driver drama “Take.” The teen sex comedy “Sex Drive” also gets an unusual “Unrated” edition, where they’ve edited in nude extras of both sexes to walk in and out of scenes and left in alternate takes where cast and crew interact. Fourth wall, shattered- thy victor is “Sex Drive.” And please, for the love of breasteses, do not be confused into treating your child to a big blockbuster by renting this week’s deceptively-titled “Batbabe: The Dark Nightie” from Seduction Films or high anticipated porno blockbuster (no, really) “Pirates 2: Stagnetti’s Revenge.”
On Blu-Ray, you can further the Argento love as his first film, “The Bird With The Crystal Plummage” gets ported over. Horror fans can also dig into the second and third installments of “Friday the 13th” as well as John Carpenter’s “The Fog.” Fans of Blu-Ray and vehicular manslaughter can also lose a ton of cash this week with the release of anime classic “Akira,” John Frankenheimer’s “Ronin,” cult classic “Vanishing Point” and, most anticipated, a remastering of “The French Connection” and “The French Connection 2” which has been controversially re-colored to look intentionally grimy and add contrast to a grainy image that runs counterintuitive to the crystal-clear Blu-Ray technology.
