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A Series of Calamities

In 1846, the Donner-Reed Party set out from Independence, Missouri to make the journey west to a better life in California. What befell them was a horrific fate that some blamed on incompetence and others suggested embodied the dangers of manifest destiny.

In a new mini-primer for Murder Made Fiction podcast, Joe tells Jenn about the calamities that befell the group and left them stranded for the winter under 22 ft of snow with no food, which ultimately forced them to resort to cannibalism. The story includes their perilous journey across the Great Salt Lake desert, the dire conditions of the camp at Truckee Lake and Alder Creek, and the four (!) rescue attempts to reach survivors before they perished during the winter of 1946-47.

It’s a horrifying story about desperation, starvation, hubris, and the enduring will to live. It also involves the murder of indigenous people and the deaths of many children.

While Hollywood typically has a good instinct for turning great films into box office gold, as seen with Marvel's Avengersmovies, this isn't always the case. Considering how much money can be spent on films and how much competition there is, it's always easy for great stories to get lost in the cracks, only to find new love later on. Some movies enjoy success in the home video market as word-of-mouth spreads, while others are only ever appreciated by a small minority.

While some box office flops earned their failure, others crashed and burned despite being among the best of their era. The 1990s in particular had no shortage of fantastic movies that didn't make a strong impression in theaters, but have since earned the respect of fans of their respective genres. From gritty crime movies to stylish Westerns, the decade proved even the best movies can struggle to fill up theaters.

Horror is a tricky genre, where it's hard to impress and effectively send shivers down the spine of all audiences and critics, and plenty of horror films from the 1990s prove this. Though the '90s is a year generally looked at as having some of the best and most influential films within the horror genre, there were a handful of films that earned a divided response from critics. More often than not, the films with the biggest divide between critics were those that combined horror with comedy.

Though it is possible to create a successful mix of the two genres, plenty of films fail in the eyes of critics, as divisive horror comedies tend to inadequately prioritize one genre over the other. Many of these films have earned cult followings and the critical reception has changed drastically over the years, with movies like Scream being viewed as a crucial film in the horror genre.

Since the Golden Age of Hollywood, Westerns have delivered audiences some of the most powerful performances and best-written stories of cinema, from John Wayne in The Searchers to Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven. In 1993, Tombstone shook up the genre by bringing a star-studded, action-heavy story to the West, quickly winning over a new generation of viewers to the Western and revitalizing the film industry's interest in it.

Since the success of Tombstone, the Western genre has proven to be incredibly versatile, and studios have been more open to experimenting with the Old West than ever before. Films like Horizon: An American Saga, 3:10 To Yuma, and True Grit represent some of the most ambitious, best-written, and entertaining Westerns of all time. However, in the age of blockbuster superhero cinema, it's never been easier for great Westerns to go overlooked by mainstream audiences -- and these films prove it.

Ravenous Is A...

These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.

James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...

The ’70s shocked you, the ’80s gored you . . . now the ’90s come in for the kill!

The Criterion Channel has announced this year’s Halloween spectacular, which “celebrates an era that saw terror undergo unsettling new transformations.”

The team previews, “In the ’90s, horror movies got bigger budgets, became playfully self-aware, and even won some Oscars—but they’re just as nasty as what came before.

“Featuring cult heroes like John Carpenter (In the Mouth of Madness) and Abel Ferrara (The Addiction) plunging the dark depths of their uncompromising visions, established auteurs like Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker’s Dracula) taking on the genre, and new voices like Ernest R. Dickerson (Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight) and Antonia Bird (Ravenous) offering fresh perspectives on familiar tropes, this selection curated by Clyde Folley offers a hair-raising tour through an oft-overlooked decade in horror that’s ripe for rediscovery.”

The full...

The 1990s were one of cinema's most creatively prolific decades. The rise of the indie scene produced singular early masterpieces from the likes of Peter Jackson and Quentin Tarantino, with big studios following suit. Of course, it still produced its share of terrible movies, along with underrated gems that took time to find their audiences.

Said gems often involved strong performances from great actors, overlooked and sometimes forgotten amid their better-known works. A list of 10 of them appears below: protagonists from '90s movies who never quite gained the attention they deserved.

Related: 10 Funniest '90s Rom-coms

Johnny Mnemonic Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

In and of itself Johnny Mnemonic is a well-intentioned misfire, despite author William Gibson -- who helped create the cyberpunk genre -- adapting his own work with the screenplay. The film's ideas play far better on the printed page, and time hasn't been kind to either its by-the-numbers plot...

Even though "Yellowjackets" fans are always hungry for more, the Showtime series' sophomore season has come to an end. Season 3 has already been confirmed, but it'll be a while before it airs; for what it's worth, the gap between seasons 1 and 2 was 16 months, the former beginning on November 14, 2021, and the latter on March 24, 2023.

Fear not, antler queens, because there's a movie out there perfect to tide you over. "Ravenous," directed by the late Antonia Bird. Released in 1999, the film's genre is just as hard to pin down as that of "Yellowjackets" — "Ravenous" oscillates from horror to bemused comedy, sometimes in the same scene. What the two works do have in common is that they're both stories about people on the edge of civilization, goaded by supernatural forces to devour their fellow man.

Guy Pearce plays John Boyd, a cowardly soldier fighting in the Mexican-American war. Boyd became an accidental hero...

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

First Love (A.J. Edwards)

Following The Better Angels and Age Out, A.J. Edwards’ third feature, First Love, is both a tender tale of blossoming romance and nuanced depiction of the pride and human frailties that can disrupt a decades-long bond. The writer-director, who got his start working with Terrence Malick on The Tree of Life, The New World, To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, and Song to Song, displays an immense amount of grace in this recession-era portrait of family and romance. Led by Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Diane Kruger, Jeffrey Donovan, and Sydney Park, the film got a quiet release earlier this summer, but certainly deserves to find an audience in coming years.

Where to Stream: Hulu

The Legend of Molly Johnson...

You can always count on horror to test boundaries, so it’s no surprise that the genre has long explored the taboo of cannibalism. Cannibals are most often associated with exploitation horror, leading to a cannibal horror boon in the ’70s and early ’80s, thanks to Italian horror filmmakers like Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato, and Joe D’Amato. But as the Video Nasty craze came and went and time evolved the genre, so did the depiction of cannibalism.

The ’90s brought horror’s most common depiction of cannibals out of the jungle and into society, largely thanks to The Silence of the Lambs’ Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins). The Academy Award-winning feature adapted Thomas Harris’ 1988 novel and introduced a supporting character so fascinating that he overshadowed the film’s actual antagonist, Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine). Protagonist Clarice Starling gets assigned to interview the incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer in the hopes that Dr.

Holidays loom, but don’t fear TBS marathons of A Christmas Story. If, like me, you once enacted some good and let studio classics stream on Criterion during family Christmas, you know the trip home will be easier with December’s additions. (People at Criterion: please don’t report me for logging into multiple devices.) As family arrives, drinks are downed, and questions about what you’ve been up to are stumbled through it’ll be nice to stream their “Screwball Comedy Classics” series—25 titles meeting some deep cuts (10 via Venmo if you’ve recently watched It Happens Every Spring).

Personally I’m most excited about the 11 movies in “Snow Westerns,” going as far back as The Secret of Convict Lake, as recently as Ravenous, with the likes of Wellman, Peckinpah, and Corbucci in-between. I personally cannot stand soccer but I appreciate the World Cup giving occasion for a series...

2022 is a great year for women in horror, and the best and most controversial horror films of the year were led by female performances, with Barbarian and Nope being two great examples. Additionally, women are also present as directors in thrilling movies, such as Bodies Bodies Bodies and Nanny.

From gripping horror stories about the darkest feminine desires to gory westerns, Letterboxd's list of highest-rated horror films directed by women offers a bit of everything, with choices from the film community that might even compel those who aren't even into the genre.

Ravenous (1999): Antonia Bird - 3.6/5

Set in the 19th century, the film follows Captain John Boyd and his regiment in a horrifying struggle for survival after they are ambushed by a sadistic cannibal with mystic abilities.

Related: 10 Best Horror Westerns Of All Time Ranked

Ravenous is the perfect mix of western and horror with some ghastly scenes involving cannibalism and bloody wounds,...

Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker-pilot on the United 93 flight, is reinvented as a considerate husband in Anne Zohra Berrached’s film

Anne Zohra Berrached’s film is ambitious and interestingly intended, but naive and flawed, with a fundamental problem, which is right up there in the title. It presents us with a romantically imagined fictional couple inspired by Ziad Jarrah, the Lebanese-born 9/11 hijacker-pilot on the United 93 flight and his one-time German-Turkish girlfriend Aysel Şengün, whom he had met while a student drawn into al-Qaida’s notorious Hamburg Cell. Jarrah is often regarded as different from the other hijackers in that he came from a wealthy family, was not averse to the western world of pleasure, and was even rumoured to have had (temporary) qualms about the mission itself. Jarrah was dramatised as a rich-kid jihadi convert in Antonia Bird’s TV drama The Hamburg Cell in 2004, and made an appearance in...

The way to a man’s heart is allegedly through his stomach, but as with all things we love, this wisdom old as the patriarchy itself calls for the hashtag #itscomplicated. Whether this particular saying is true or not, many emotions are passed in our digestive system though tiny mechanisms in brain that make us crave for certain type of food, or avoid it at all costs.

“301,302” screened as part of the Korean Cultural Centre UK‘s “Trapped! The Cinema of Confinement” programme

Asian cinema has a very special relationship with food. For quite some time, dinning rooms or restaurant tables have been playing a crucial role in presenting the key movie characters, their milieus and thoughts, influencing the narrative, often turning into the main stage. It is very hard to imagine a Hong Sang-soo film without a variety of food and an impressive amount of Soju or Makgeolli flowing...

The writer/director of Tigers Are Not Afraid takes us through some of her most formative cinematic experiences.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

The Innocents (1961)

Tigers Are Not Afraid (2017)

The Goonies (1985)

Gremlins (1984)

Ghostbusters (1984)

Ravenous (1999)

Raw (2016)

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

Macario (1960)

Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)

The Lady From Shanghai (1947)

Lake Mungo (2008)

The Witches of Eastwick (1987)

Happy Feet (2006)

Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)

Babe (1995)

Mad Max: Fury Road (2014)

Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)

Blade Runner (1982)

Casablanca (1942)

Gone With The Wind (1939)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Terrified a.k.a. Aterrados (2017)

Terrified (1963)

Gates of the Night (1946)

Other Notable Items

Rome TV series (2005-2007)

Jack Clayton

Ray Bradbury

Jonathan Pryce

Walt Disney Pictures

Walt Disney

Shudder

Richard Donner

Steven Spielberg

The Donner Party

Antonia Bird

Guy Pearce

Robert Carlyle

Once Upon A Time TV series (2011-2018)

Julia Ducournau

Roberto Gavaldón

Gabriel Figueroa

The Criterion Channel

“The Third Guest” short story by B. Traven (1953)

The Haunting of Hill House...

Andrea Riseborough came to Park City with two films this year, and they couldn’t have been more different.

In Brandon Cronenberg’s blood-drenched cyber-thriller Possessor she plays a cool, calculating hit-woman who takes over other people’s bodies to carry out increasingly brutal assassinations to order. In Zeina Durra’s sophomore film Luxor, however, which premiered at the Library earlier today, the actress shows a softer side as Hana, a medical doctor recovering from her time spent working at a clinic on the Jordanian-Syrian border, where she treated victims of the war in Syria. Taking a much-needed hotel break, Hana finds herself accidentally-on-purpose in the city of Luxor, Egypt, where she lived in her 20s and dated an archeologist named Sultan (Karim Saleh). By chance, Hana bumps into Sultan on a ferry, and the two find themselves irresistibly drawn back together on a journey of self-discovery.

While shooting, in case of life imitating art,...

Crazy Rich Asians having opened the spigot on the previously untapped audience for Asian-diasporic considerations of family and multicultural identity, Joy Luck Club director Wayne Wang arrives with Coming Home Again, adapted with Chang-rae Lee from the latter’s New Yorker essay about home cooking and bittersweet nostalgia. A film that will surely be misleadingly marketed as a heartachy children-of-immigrants story, Coming Home Again is authentically a real weird one: Wang, flexing formalist muscles that have atrophied considerably since the early stages of his career, has made his 15:17 to Paris.

Chang-rae (Justin Chon) has taken a step back from his Exeter-Yale-Wall Street trajectory to return to his family’s home in San Francisco, where his mother is dying of cancer in a room off the kitchen. The apartment, designed in hospice neutrals, is almost the film’s only location, and basically a memory palace: over the course of last day of the year,...

With his epic fourteen-hour documentary “Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema,” writer/director Mark Cousins doesn’t skimp in his continuing pursuit to celebrate female filmmakers. Set to finally screen at its full-length (in five parts) next month at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie is narrated by an eclectic list of voices.

UK actresses Adjoa Andoh and Thandie Newton, New Zealander Kerry Fox, India icon Sharmila Tagore, and Hollywood star Debra Winger all join previously announced narrators Jane Fonda and Tilda Swinton, who is an executive producer. Swinton narrates the first four hours of the film, which debuted at Venice 2018.

“We have 11 decades of women making films,” Swinton told IndieWire. “Another slight tweak of the goalpost is talking about women filmmakers. Women have made films since Mary Pickford onwards in incredible numbers. We know who made Hitchcock’s films with him (Alma Reville), but we don’t focus on it.

With his epic fourteen-hour documentary “Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema,” writer/director Mark Cousins doesn’t skimp in his continuing pursuit to celebrate female filmmakers. Set to finally screen at its full-length (in five parts) next month at the Toronto International Film Festival, the movie is narrated by an eclectic list of voices.

UK actresses Adjoa Andoh and Thandie Newton, New Zealander Kerry Fox, India icon Sharmila Tagore, and Hollywood star Debra Winger all join previously announced narrators Jane Fonda and Tilda Swinton, who is an executive producer. Swinton narrates the first four hours of the film, which debuted at Venice 2018.

“We have 11 decades of women making films,” Swinton told IndieWire. “Another slight tweak of the goalpost is talking about women filmmakers. Women have made films since Mary Pickford onwards in incredible numbers. We know who made Hitchcock’s films with him (Alma Reville), but we don’t focus on it.

As a horror fan, one of my favorite sub-genres is the good old horror western. And today we have word an all-new flick is heading our way soon called Spirit Reckoning. The movie is coming to us via Heart and Fire Productions and Terror Tales writer-director Jimmy Lee Combs and is all set to star Lew Temple (The Walking Dead) and Sean Patrick Flanery (The Boondock Saints).

Sean Patrick Flanery will be playing the role of a gunfighter named Lawson Lovette whose psychotic tendencies and skills with a revolver make him the perfect candidate to aid The Skull Cowboy Sam Conley on his blood-soaked journey of revenge.

Lew Temple will play the role of Ottis Clement, who causes chaos and anarchy in the Wild West alongside his brother Ed and leader of their posse Savage Bill. Clement is described as being just as crazed as Flanery's gunfighter Lawson, thus sparking...

The United States is “my country, right or wrong,” of course, and I consider myself a patriotic person, but I’ve never felt that patriotism meant blind fealty to the idea of America’s rightful dominance over global politics or culture, and certainly not to its alleged preferred status on God’s short list of favored nations, or that allegiance to said country was a license to justify or rationalize every instance of misguided, foolish, narrow-minded domestic or foreign policy.

In 2012, when this piece was first posted, it seemed like a good moment to throw the country’s history and contradictions into some sort of quick relief, and the most expedient way of doing that for me was to look at the way the United States (and the philosophies at its core) were reflected in the movies, and not just the ones which approached the country head-on as a subject.

As I reported earlier this week, "multiple" audience members passed out at the Toronto International Film Festival screening of Julia Ducournau's debut feature Raw, a film about a 16-year-old vegetarian who develops a sudden taste for human flesh following a gruesome hazing ritual at her new school. In addition to a number of allegedly disgusting scenes, the film is also, apparently, very good, with critics and general viewers alike singing the film's praises in print and on social media. With all the current hullabaloo around that film, it's interesting to note that another movie revolving around cannibalism, Ana Lily Amirpour’s The Bad Batch, also had its North American premiere at Tiff this week before being picked up for U.S. distribution by Screen Media Films. That film, billed as a "dystopian love story set in a Texas wasteland amongst a community of cannibals," is Amirpour's followup to 2014's...

British cannibal drama is chilling and effective. Director Alex Lightman’s fascinating apocalyptic Brit-flick Tear Me Apart is indeed a cannibal film. But it’s not one in line with the exploitative jungle shenanigans the Italian masters are revered for, nor is it a sly, blackly comic romp like Antonia Bird’s Ravenous. No, Tear Me Apart is…

The post Review: Tear Me Apart appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Featured in today's roundup are an interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose Endless Poetry premieres in Cannes on Saturday, Jonathan Rosenbaum on John Cassavetes, new pieces in Bright Lights on Béla Tarr, Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch as well as on Alex Proyas’s I, Robot and Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep, an Otto Preminger series in New York, work by the late Antonia Bird in London, Joanna Hogg in Cambridge, a video essay on Jacques Rivette, an interview with Whit Stillman—and remembering Isao Tomita. » - David Hudson...

Featured in today's roundup are an interview with Alejandro Jodorowsky, whose Endless Poetry premieres in Cannes on Saturday, Jonathan Rosenbaum on John Cassavetes, new pieces in Bright Lights on Béla Tarr, Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch as well as on Alex Proyas’s I, Robot and Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep, an Otto Preminger series in New York, work by the late Antonia Bird in London, Joanna Hogg in Cambridge, a video essay on Jacques Rivette, an interview with Whit Stillman—and remembering Isao Tomita. » - David Hudson...

Exclusive: UK sales company Film Constellation launches with drama from Fish Tank producer.

Oscar-nominee Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine) and rising actor Jack Lowden (’71) are set to star in UK drama Cross My Mind, the first film on the slate of fledgling UK sales outfit Film Constellation.

Written by MacArthur Fellowship recipient Naomi Wallace and Bruce McLeod (Flying Blind), the film follows the intense and erotic love affair between a recovering blinded soldier (Lowden) and a married woman (Hawkins) who is taking care of him.

But the clock is ticking, as he is beginning to recover his sight, and the carer is not who the young soldier thinks she is.

Set against Glasgow’s iconic waterfront docks, the feature is produced by Fish Tank producer and Peter Greenaway regular Kees Kasander with Julia Ton under their Cinatura banner alongside John Archer’s Hopscotch Films, who initiated the project together with the late director Antonia Bird, who was on...

Although relatively scarce, horror movies directed by women are out there. You may have to turn over a few rocks to know who they are and their material might be a little more difficult to get your hands on, but these directors deserve just as much attention and scrutiny as their male counterparts, who have long dominated the genre. The following discusses selections of female directors’ forays into the business of terror. (This post contains spoilers)

Antonia Bird

The late director Antonia Bird’s Ravenous is a bizarre amalgamation of humor and horror that explores cannibalism with warped nuance. The strangely cacophonous score builds up tension as craven outcasts face a glutinous and depraved attacker whose strength seems fortified by his consumption of human flesh. Set during America’s westward expansion, the metaphor of humanity’s insatiable appetite for power is plain to see, but its execution indulges in such...

As you may remember from my last column (and you better… you better), The Diabolical was well and truly “the s–t”! Well, guess what, creeps? That’s right, that flick’s co-writer/die-rector Alistair Legrand has stopped by the Crypt o’ Xiii to talk all about his foray into our beloved horror biz!

Famous Monsters. Welcome Big A! As this is yer first time at the rodeo known as the horror biz, what challenges did you face bringin’ The Diabolical to the screen?

Alastair Legrand. First of all, I can’t believe I’m talking to Famous Monsters; this is amazing. In response to your question, this was the best graduate film program I could have done, and a proper response would be ten pages long. The first main challenge was convincing the producers that I was the right man for the job—proving to them that I had...

It’s what most horror films are known for: the gore that splatters on the screen. But when done right, the flying viscera becomes more than just gallons of red stuff, it becomes a chilling reminder of the fragility of the human body and of the ingenuity of filmmakers in making our most twisted fears and fantasies into a stomach churning reality. Grab your barf bag!

*****

Antichrist (2009)- His and her pain

As far as horror sub-genres go, torture porn is up there with found footage as the most understandably reviled by audiences. With Antichrist, Lars Von Trier attempted to write a film that dealt with his personal demons. Confessing that he had been suffering from depression while writing the screenplay, Trier ended up bringing torture porn to its logical conclusion by taking the title of the sub-genre all too literally and creating a macabre near-masterpiece out of trashy genre origins.

Horror isn't known for being a woman-friendly genre. From the flailing histrionics of Fay Wray in "King Kong" to the slasher sub-genre and its attendant bevy of brainless, scantily-clad female victims, there's a perception -- in some ways warranted -- that the horror film caters in misogyny. And yet that's also a frustratingly reductive viewpoint. It seems obvious but I'll say it anyway: boiling down the horror genre to "Friday the 13th Part VII" is like boiling down the comedy genre to Adam Sandler's "Grown-Ups." There is so much more to horror than "a girl running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door." So what of the women working behind the scenes? The number of high-profile woman directors who have worked in the genre remains frustratingly limited, yet there are a few who have not only managed to infiltrate the boys' club but created...

Ravenous

Written by Ted Griffin

Directed by Antonia Bird

USA, 1999

Ravenous is a film that is deceitful above all things. Almost from the outset, and certainly from the trailers, it portrays itself as a horror comedy in the vein of perhaps Evil Dead II or Cabin Fever. However, as the film comes together, the viewer quickly begins to see it for the maddening Frankenstein’s monster it truly is.

Ravenous tells the story of two outcasted men. The first is a disgraced former soldier, Calhoun, struggling with his “heroic” past, while the second, Ives, is the sole survivor of a wilderness trek. Both mens journeys ended bad and bloody, and because of this, there is a kinship among them. They seem to know and understand one another.

Oh, and one other thing, they’re both cannibals.

And so, in the quiet California snow of the 1800s, we find these two...

Stars: Robert Carlyle, Guy Pearce, Jeffrey Jones, Jeremy Davies, Neal McDonough, David Arquette, Stephen Spinella, John Spencer, Joseph Runningfox | Written by Ted Griffin | Directed by Antonia Bird

In honor of Ravenous finally being released on Blu-Ray from those magnificent madmen at Scream Factory, I thought I’d conjure up some words about one of the great, underrated chillers of the 90’s. It’s a film I’ve deemed a personal favorite amongst mixed fans of film. I’ll recommend it without batting an eye. It’s essential viewing for horror fans, period. One of the key elements to understanding why I love Ravenous, you have to understand the background of my film going history that brought me to it.

For a great period in the 90’s, I saw many films in theaters with my uncle, and when I say many, I’d say it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of a metric ton.

I have seen Ravenous at least a couple dozen times. I’ve seen it on VHS, and I’ve seen it on DVD, and now, thanks to Scream Factory, I have seen it on Blu-ray, and I couldn’t be happier. I read a scathing review of the disc before I watched it, as I’m sure some of you did, but I’ve learned that bad reviews of Scream titles are to be taken with a grain of salt. Scream have become popular now, so with all of their millions of fans, will naturally come a handful of loudmouth detractors. I watched the disc from start to finish, including all of the extras, and I can say without issue that this release is definitely a worthy upgrade to one of my favorite weird little movies. I’ve been trying to save the new Scream releases for the night before the retail date,...

Summer is officially right around the corner, which means horror DVD and Blu-rays are starting to heat up as well. This week, we’ve got several cult classics hitting high definition for the first time, another special edition set of the first three seasons of The Walking Dead,and the recent RoboCop reboot directed by Jose Padilha and starring Joel Kinnaman.

As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a special Doctor Who David Tennant-themed collection being released, several indie creature features and we’re finally seeing the official arrival of the Video Nasties documentaries stateside on Tuesday. Check out all the horror and sci-fi fun you can add to your home collections this week below!

Spotlight Titles:

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats (Cult Epics, Blu-ray)

Prepare yourselves… The strangest bedtime story ever told! Cult Epics brings you Death Bed, George Barry’s uniquely weird journey through a world of wind demons,...

The Weekend Watch is an open thread where you can share what you’ve recently watched, offer suggestions on movies and TV shows we should check out (or warnings about stuff to avoid), and discover queue-filling goodies from other Fsr readers. The comments section awaits. I’ll get the ball rolling with the movies/TV my eyeballs took in this weekend. I missed Oliver Stone’s Alexander when it marched into theaters back in 2004, but the upcoming Blu-ray release of his preferred director’s cut gave me the opportunity to close that gap. The film didn’t do well back then commercially, and it’s pretty easy to see why. Put simply, the movie is a mess. The editing and narrative choices overpower Alexander’s (Colin Ferrell) character and actions and deflate any hope of an emotional reaction from viewers. Antonia Bird’s Ravenous has been a favorite of mine for years, and...

Exclusive: Dutch producer to resume his long-standing relationship with Peter Greenaway.

Dutch producer Kees Kasander is to resume his long-standing relationship with British director Peter Greenaway – and they already have several new projects together in the pipeline.

Greenaway’s current production - Eisenstein in Guanajuato (sold by Rezo) - is the first film he has made without Kasander for many years. With Kasander unavailable, it was produced instead by fellow Dutch producers Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix of Submarine alongside Cristina Velasco.

Now, Kasander and Greenaway are back in business together and already looking a long way ahead with 15 projects together.

The next film they are making together is Walking To Paris, a biopic about artist Constantin Brancusi. When he was a young man, Brancusi walked all the way from Romania to Paris. Stealth are in talks to handle international sales. The aim is to start shooting in the autumn.

Kasander is producing...

Exclusive: Dutch producer to resume his long-standing relationship with Peter Greenaway.

Dutch producer Kees Kasander is to resume his long-standing relationship with British director Peter Greenaway – and they already have several new projects together in the pipeline.

Greenaway’s current production - Eisenstein in Guanajuato (sold by Rezo) - is the first film he has made without Kasander for many years. With Kasander unavailable, it was produced instead by fellow Dutch producers Femke Wolting and Bruno Felix of Submarine alongside Cristina Velasco.

Now, Kasander and Greenaway are back in business together and already looking a long way ahead with 15 projects together.

The next film they are making together is Walking To Paris, a biopic about artist Constantin Brancusi. When he was a young man, Brancusi walked all the way from Romania to Paris. Stealth are in talks to handle international sales. The aim is to start shooting in the autumn.

Kasander is producing...

Blu-ray Release Date: June 3, 2014

Price: Blu-ray $24.97

Studio: Shout! Factory

It’s a cannabilistic fest in 1999 horror movie Ravenous.

Guy Pearce (Lockout) stars in the independent film as Capt. Boyd, a disgraced war veteran who’s quietly sent to a remote fort inhabited by soldiers half-mad with boredom. Then a frozen stranger (Robert Carlyle, California Solo) arrives and tells them about a group of settlers who are trapped in a cave and forced to eat one another. When Boyd and soldiers go to help, they fall into a deadly ambush.

David Arquette (Black Limousine) and Jeffrey Jones (TV’s Deadwood) also star in the thriller, which was directed by Antonia Bird (Priest) and written by Ted Griffin (Tower Heist).

Critics panned Ravenous, which grossed $2 million when it was in theaters. But moviegoers like it much better. The film scored 40% with critics and 79% with moviegoers, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

This Blu-ray release...

For the first time, Ravenous - a true cult classic to come out of the '90s - is makings its U.S. Blu-ray debut thanks to Scream Factory. The late Antonia Bird directed this period film which stars Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, Jeremy Davies, Jeffrey Jones, Neal McDonough and David Arquette. It's really great stuff that deserves to be seen. Today, our Scream Factory reps passed along the list of bonus features which will be included in this Blu-ray presentation.

The post Scream Factory Reveals Ravenous Blu-ray Specs appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

Inspired by twisted tales of cannibalistic survival like the real-life Donner Party, cult terror feature Ravenous graphically depicts a twist on an old cliché: You are who you eat. Directed by the late Antonia Bird (Priest), this unnerving cult thriller stars Guy Pearce (Iron Man 3, Prometheus), Robert Carlyle (TV’s Once Upon A Time), Jeremy Davies (Lost, Saving Private Ryan), Jeffrey Jones (Deadwood, Sleepy Hollow), John Spencer (The West Wing), Stephen Spinella (Milk, Royal … Continue reading →

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The Scream Factory just offered the world a glimpse of what's to come when Ravenous, the cult Guy Pearce-starring cannibal thriller set during the Mexican-American War, hits Blu-ray from them on June 3rd! Read on!

The underrated 1999 cannibal film stars Pearce along with Robert Carlyle, David Arquette and Jeffrey Jones. The late Antonia Bird directs.

In the film, Captain John Boyd’s (Pearce) promotion stations him at a fort where a rescued man tells a disturbing tale of cannibalism.

Special Features

New interview with Actor Jeffrey Jones Commentary With Director Antonia Bird And Composer Damon Albarn Commentary With Screenwriter Ted Griffin And Jeffrey Jones Commentary With Actor Robert Carlyle Deleted Scenes With Commentary By Antonia Bird Theatrical Trailer & TV Spot Two Still Galleries – Costume Design And Production Design

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Peer pressure is bad enough, but peer pressure to be a cannibal? Now that’s a nightmarish situation. Alas, it’s exactly what Captain John Boyd (Guy Pearce) faces when he’s sent to Fort Spencer circa mid-1800′s in 1999′s Ravenous. At Fort Spencer, you are who you eat, and if Boyd doesn’t partake in the fort’s rituals, he’ll be next on the menu.

We recently reported that Scream Factory had announced Ravenous as part of their Summer of Fear Blu-ray lineup, and now Scream Factory has revealed the bonus features they’ll be including in this tasty release.

With multiple commentaries, a new interview, and deleted scenes, this special Scream Factory release of Ravenous should sate the appetite of even the hungriest horror hound:

“**Final list of extras for our upcoming blu-ray edition of Ravenous revealed!**

- New interview with Actor Jeffrey Jones

– Commentary With...

★★★☆☆In 1994, the late Antonia Bird paired up Linus Roach and Robert Carlisle for Priest (1994), the tale of a Catholic priest torn between the church and his homosexuality. Now, another female director, Malgorzata Szumowska tackles the same subject but from a different social perspective. In the Name Of (2013) is a poignant exploration of burgeoning homosexuality within both Polish society and the strict confinements of the Catholic Church. Adam (Andrzej Chyra), a charming but troubled man, arrives to take over a small parish in rural Poland. He soon becomes popular with his congregation and a pillar of the community.

Scream Factory has already announced a couple of 90′s horror movies that they’ll be releasing to Blu-ray for the first time this year and they’ve added another to the list. Here’s their announcement and cover art for 1999′s cannibal movie, Ravenous:

“*Breaking!* We know you guys have been hungry for a new title announcement from us for awhile…so here’s one to satisfy your appetite…

Ravenous – the 1999 cannibal film starring Guy Pearce, David Arquette and directed by Antonia Bird – will be coming to blu-ray for the first time come this June with all-new extras planned!

No other details to report at this time. But check back here in next few months for more updates on this exciting project. The original theatrical poster key art will be used as artwork (as seen here).”

The post Ravenous is Coming to Blu-ray appeared first on Daily Dead.

Guys. Guys! It’s finally happened! Scream Factory just announced on their Facebook page that Ravenous, the cult Guy Pearce-starring cannibal thriller set during the Mexican-American War and one of my favorite films of all time, is hitting Blu-ray in June!

According to the Facebook post, it will include a slew of all-new extra materials. Beyond that, the only information available right now is the art for the Blu-ray, which will use the original – and inferior – poster key art.

Sadly, director Antonia Bird passed away last October. For those who didn’t know, she was actually the second director on the film, replacing director Milcho Manchevski at the behest of star Robert Carlyle. The film received mixed reviews upon its release, but has since gone on to become a cult favorite among those who like their horror gritty and philosophical.

Rejoice!

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I have always felt that Antonia Bird’s 1999 film Ravenous was misunderstood upon its release. Luckily, it has garnered a little bit of a cult following. Now, 15 years later, fans of the film will be able to enjoy it on Blu-Ray. Better yet, the company behind its release is one of the best companies in genre oriented home entertainment.

Announced on their Facebook page, Scream Factory announced that they will be releasing Ravenous on Blu-Ray this June. While no specifics have been announced, they did mention that they are working on all new extras for the release. We will be sure to report back with any details as they roll out.

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The American remake of We Are What We Are (review) hits VOD on December 17, and while the Mexican thriller of the same name is superior, Jim Mickle’s take on ritualistic cannibalism is a damned fine film in its own right and certainly one of the better cannibal-centric movies to come out recently.

Making a list of the “best” cannibal movies out there is a fool’s errand, if only because it invariably leads to someone saying I have no idea what I’m talking about because I left this film or that film off the list, prompting me to question everything I know and love. You proud of yourself now?

Therefore, instead of a “Best Cannibal Films” list, I’m treating you to a list of my favorite cannibal-centric movies. And no, Cannibal Holocaust is not on the list ‘cause that movie is gross and made me leave the room twice while watching it.

Writer Irvine Welsh pays tribute to the inspirational film and TV director whom he was a partner with in the British production company 4Way

• See the Observer's obituaries of 2013 in full here

I first met Antonia Bird in the late 90s, and in 2001 she and Robert Carlyle and [the film-maker and critic] Mark Cousins invited me to become partners with them in a production company. When they asked me, I thought, God, how many years in film school would that be worth? Mark, an encyclopedia of film; Bobby, one of the greatest actors of his generation; and Antonia, this amazing director: who could say no to that?

The first proper meeting we had, I walked from Islington down to her house near Brick Lane, in Jack the Ripper country. It was one of these really drizzly London days, but I was so excited about all the ideas I wanted to share with her that...

Odd List Ryan Lambie Simon Brew 21 Nov 2013 - 05:51

The underappreciated films of 1999 are the focus in our last list of 90s overlooked greats...

The year 1999 was a significant year for film in many ways. Apart from being the year that George Lucas began his Star Wars prequels with The Phantom Menace, it also saw the release of The Blair Witch Project, a horror film which became one of the first to use the internet as a marketing tool, resulting in a massive hit. The Matrix ushered in a new age of special effects filmmaking, arguably paving the way for the superhero blockbusters crowding into multiplexes today.

Mainly, though, 1999 was simply a brilliant year for film. Justly lauded movies like Fight Club, The Green Mile and Eyes Wide Shut aside, there were a huge number of films that didn't get the critical or financial success they deserved - so many,...

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies who have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Norma Bengell (1935-2013) - Brazilian actress who starred in Planet of the Vampires (see below), Mafioso and the Oscar-nominated The Given Word (aka Keeper of Promises). She died from lung cancer on October 9. (Uol) Antonia Bird (1927-2013) - British director of Ravenous, Mad Love and the famously controversial Priest. She died of anaplastic thyroid cancer on October 24. (BBC) Daniel H. Blatt (1937-2013) - Producer of Cujo, The...

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