Arrow Video July Titles
The Criterion of cult, Arrow Video, posted their July Blu-ray announcements this morning, and it’s an interesting mix of horror, crime, yakuza, giallo, and films that are less easy to categorize.
Being that Arrow is a British company, keep in mind that not all of their titles will be released both in the U.K. and the U.S., due to distribution rights. However, Arrow always makes it perfectly clear which Blu-rays will be offered in both the U.K. and U.S. versus which ones are U.K. only.
Listed below are the disc descriptions directly from the Arrow Video Facebook page:
UK TITLE: The Endless (Blu-ray and DVD separates)
A truly unique mind-bending, genre-blending indie gem that will leave you spinning.
Release date: 2 July
Among the most exciting voices in genre cinema to emerge in recent years, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead return with their third feature, The Endless.
Benson and Moorhead play brothers, former members of a “crazy UFO death cult”, who receive a mysterious video cassette in the mail. The tape contains an eerie calling card from their past, inviting them to attend an event called the Ascension. Despite their apprehension, the pair agree to return for one day. At first their old friends in the cult seem warm and welcoming, but things soon turn strange as the brothers find themselves drawn into a vortex of bizarre rituals, strange messages, unseen forces and sinister supernatural secrets that threaten to tear apart the very fabric of reality.
Following on from the acclaimed Resolution – also included on this limited-edition release – and Spring (which earned accolades from Guillermo del Toro and Richard Linklater), The Endless is a truly unique mind-bending, genre-blending indie gem that will leave you spinning.
BLU-RAY TWO-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations of The Endless and Moorhead & Benson’s first feature, Resolution
- DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Reversible sleeve with a choice of artwork designs
- Limited edition collector’s booklet containing new writing on the films by critics Jamie Graham and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
BLU-RAY DISC ONE: THE ENDLESS
- Audio commentary by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead
- Brand-new interview with Benson and Moorhead, recorded exclusively for this release
- Behind-the-scenes featurette
- Breaking the News, Benson and Moorhead pull a practical joke on actor Vinny Curran
- Casting Aaron, Benson, Moorhead and producer Dave Lawson audition for the role of Aaron
- Casting Smiling Dave, Lawson auditions for the role of Smiling Dave
- VFX Breakdown
- UFO Cult Comedy, improvised short film made whilst Benson and Moorhead were on the festival circuit
- Vinny’s Story, a behind-the-scenes documentary filmed on-set by Curran
- Michael Felker, a tongue-in-cheek featurette referencing The Endless’s editor
- Seven deleted scenes
- Outtakes
- Theatrical Trailer
BLU-RAY DISC TWO: RESOLUTION
- Audio Commentary with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and actors Peter Cilella and Vinny Curran
- Audio Commentary with Benson and Moorhead
- Audio Commentary with Carmel the Dog
- Brand-new interview with Benson and Moorhead, recorded exclusively for this release
- Archive interview with Benson and Moorhead • Behind the scenes featurette
UK/US/CA TITLE: Detective Bureau 2-3 Go to Hell Bastards! (Blu-ray)
A hard hitting, rapid-fire yakuza film that redefined the Japanese crime drama.
Release dates: 9/10 July
Starring original Diamond Guy, Jo Shishido, Seijun Suzuki’s Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! is a hard hitting, rapid-fire yakuza film that redefined the Japanese crime drama.
Detective Tajima (Shishido) is tasked with tracking down a consignment of stolen firearms, as the investigation progresses things take an anarchic, blood-drenched grudge match.
Rapidly paced, darkly funny, and extremely stylish, Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! is unlike anything seen before and rightly deserves its cult status. Suzuki’s send up of post-war greed would go on to cement his domestic and international status as one of the leading directors to come out of Japan.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
- High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation
- DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
- Newly translated optional English subtitles
- Interview with historian and Japanese cinema expert Tony Rayns
- Gallery of original production stills
- Theatrical trailer
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin
UK TITLE: The Boondock Saints (Blu-ray)
With its irreverent humour and unflinching portrayal of violence, The Boondock Saints offers its own distinctive take on the seedy world of organised crime.
Release date: 9 July
THY KINGDOM COME. THY WILL BE DONE.
Boston, Massachusetts. Home of clam chowder, the Red Sox and Harvard. Home, too, to some of the roughest, toughest criminals ever to walk the streets. When the bungling McManus brothers, Conner (Sean Patrick Flanery, Saw 3D) and Murphy (Norman Reedus, The Walking Dead), inadvertently end up taking out a pair of Russian Mafiosi, they realise they’ve found their calling and embark on a mission to cleanse their city of criminals, inspired by the tactics of on-screen vigilantes like Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson. But their vigilante antics soon attract the attention of Paul Smecker (Willem Dafoe, To Live and Die in LA), an FBI agent with his own unique approach to fighting crime, setting the stage for an epic confrontation that will redefine the words “truth” and “justice”.
Released in early 2000 in the wake of the infamous Columbine High School massacre, writer/director Troy Duffy’s tale of ultra-violent vigilantism was all but buried during its brief theatrical run but went on to enjoy a second wind on home video and has since attained cult status. With its irreverent humour and unflinching portrayal of violence, The Boondock Saints offers its own distinctive take on the seedy world of organised crime.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS:
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation of the director’s cut of the film
- Original 5.1 lossless English audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Audio commentary by writer/director Troy Duffy
- Audio commentary by actor Billy Connolly
- Outtakes
- Deleted scenes
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kieran Fisher
UK/US/CA TITLE: The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail (Blu-ray)
The second giallo by genre master Sergio Martino
Release dates: 16/17 July
One of the major consequences of Western Europe’s post-war Economic Miracle was the proliferation of international travel. Eager to tap into audiences’ desire to experience the glamour of the jet set lifestyle, the popular filmmakers of the day rushed to make the most of the exotic locales at their disposal.
Arguably no other giallo captured this trend as vividly as The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail. The film begins in London, where Lisa Baumer (Evelyn Stewart, The Psychic) learns that her husband has died in a freak plane accident. Summoned to Athens to collect his generous life insurance policy, she soon discovers that others besides herself are keen to get their hands on the money – and are willing to kill for it. Meanwhile, private detective Peter Lynch (George Hilton, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh) arrives to investigate irregularities in the insurance claim. Teaming up with a beautiful reporter, Cléo Dupont (Anita Strindberg, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key), Lynch resolves to unearth the truth… before he too ends up on the wrong end of the murderer’s straight razor.
The second giallo by genre master Sergio Martino (Torso, The Suspicious Death of a Minor), The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail combines stunning views of Athens and the Greek coastline with brutal bursts of violence, a typically tangled script by Ernesto Gastaldi (Death Walks on High Heels), and a cast overflowing with Euro cult talent, including Alberto de Mendoza (A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin), Janine Reynaud (Jess Franco’s Succubus) and Luigi Pistilli (A Bay of Blood).
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- Brand new 2K restoration of the film from the original camera negative
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- Original lossless mono Italian and English soundtracks
- Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtrack
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtrack
- Audio commentary with writer Ernesto Gastaldi, moderated by filmmaker Federico Caddeo (in Italian with English subtitles)
- New interview with star George Hilton
- New interview with director Sergio Martino
- New analysis Sergio Martino’s films by Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film
- New video essay by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films
- Theatrical trailer
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Rachael Nisbet and Howard Hughes, and a biography of star Anita Strindberg by Peter Jilmstad
NEW UK/US/CA TITLE: Doom Asylum (Blu-ray)
A riotous mix of gore, gags and goth girl groups galore!
Release dates: 16/17 July
If you thought Sex and the City 2 was a stomach-churner, you ain’t seen nothing yet! Long before playing one of Carrie Bradshaw’s best gal pals, actress Kristen Davis found herself up against an altogether different kind of horror in 1987’s Doom Asylum: a riotous mix of gore, gags and goth girl groups galore!
When a group of horny teens wind up on the grounds of a creepy abandoned asylum, they think they’ve found the perfect place to party. Little do they know that inside the building’s crumbling walls lurks a freakishly deformed maniac, driven to madness by the tragic loss of his fiancée in a car accident. With an array of grisly surgical tools at his disposal, it’s only a matter of time before the youngsters begin meeting various splattery ends at the hands of the ghoulish Coroner. Helmed by director Richard Friedman (Scared Stiff and Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge), and also starring Penthouse Pet of the Year 1988 Patty Mullen (Frankenhooker), Doom Asylum combines outlandish gore and a wise-cracking villain to create one of the most wildly entertainingly blood-spattered slashers of the late ’80s.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- Brand new 2K restoration from the original camera negative
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
- 1.85:1 and 1.33:1 versions of the feature
- Original uncompressed PCM mono audio
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Brand new audio commentary with screenwriter Rick Marx
- Brand new audio commentary with The Hysteria Continues
- Tina’s Terror – a brand new interview with actress Ruth Collins
- Movie Madhouse – a brand new interview with director of photography Larry Revene
Morgues & Mayhem – a brand new interview with special make-up effects creator Vincent J. Guastini - Archival Interviews with producer Alexander W. Kogan, Jr., director Richard Friedman and production manager Bill Tasgal
- Still Gallery
- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Justin Osbourne
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Fully-illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Amanda Reyes
UK/US TITLE: The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (Blu-ray)
A bold and often startling fusion of medieval fantasy and time travel science fiction, quite unlike anything you’ve seen.
Release dates: 23/24 July
Following the release of his 1984 debut feature Vigil, Vincent Ward returned four years later with The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey, a film that would cement his position as one of the most exciting filmmaking talents to emerge during the eighties.
Cumbria, 1348 – the year of the Black Death. Griffin, a young boy, is plagued by apocalyptic visions which he believes could save his village. Encouraging a small band of men to tunnel into the earth, they surface in 1980s New Zealand and a future beyond their comprehension but must complete their quest.
Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey is a bold and often startling fusion of medieval fantasy and time travel science fiction, quite unlike anything you’ve seen.
SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS
- High Definition (Blu-ray) presentation
- Original mono audio (uncompressed LPCM)
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
- Brand-new appreciation by film critic Nick Roddick, recorded exclusively for this release
- Kaleidoscope: Vincent Ward – Film Maker, a 1989 documentary profile of the director made for New Zealand television
- Theatrical trailer
- FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Kim Newman and an introduction by Vincent Ward
