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For his second feature film—and first full collaboration with co-writer/producer/mentor Dario Argento—writer-director Michele Soavi unleashes a “mind-blowing” (Bloody Disgusting), “breathtaking” (Slant), “masterwork” (DVD Drive-In), now in Uhd for the first time ever: In a Gothic cathedral built on the mass grave of a Teutonic purge, an ancient discovery by the new librarian will release an unholy maelstrom of madness, violence, and demonic vengeance. Tomas Arana (The Sect), Feodor Chaliapin (Inferno), Hugh Quarshie (Nightbreed), Barbara Cupisti (Cemetery Man), and Asia Argento co-star in this Italian horror milestone co-written by Franco Ferrini (Phenomena), with a Soavi-approved 4K scan from the original negative and over three hours of special features—including new interviews with Soavi and Argento.

The Church is available on 4K Uhd on April 30.

Enter for your chance to win a 4K Uhd of The Church, courtesy of Severin Films. Three (3) winners will be selected at random.

Jean-Jacques Annaud directs Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose (Der Name Der Rose), the film version of the novel by Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose is a great adaptation of the most important work by Umberto Eco. A mystery story set in an era of supersitions (Fourteenth century) with the Inquisition in the middle.

Orson Welles said that one should adapt lesser literary works. This time, the director and the entire team do a great job by focusing on the detective story part of the literary work.

Story line

Brother William of Baskerville (Sean Connery) and his disciple Adso de Melk (Christian Slater) arrive at an abbey where one of the monks died recently, where the abbot hopes that Brother William will be able to solve the crimes.

Our erudite friend is a man far removed from superstition and he tries to find a logical explanation for everything,...

Criterion refreshes a bona fide classic with a new remaster and makes their release especially attractive with some well-chosen extras that give us first-person input from writer John Patrick Shanley and star Cher. The show isn’t technically a holiday movie but it plays really well at family gatherings. Heck, even Cher says ‘she can watch this movie’ which from her is a high compliment. The answer to ‘who needs to see this? is that a lot of people have been born since 1987.

Moonstruck

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1056

1987 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date November 17, 2020 / 39.95

Starring: Cher, Nicolas Cage, Vincent Gardenia, Olympia Dukakis, Danny Aiello, Julie Bovasso, John Mahoney, Louis Guss, Feodor Chaliapin Jr.

Cinematography: David Watkin

Film Editor: Lou Lombardo

Original Music: Dick Hyman

Written by John Patrick Shanley

Produced by Norman Jewison, Patrick Palmer

Directed by Norman Jewison

John Patrick Shanley has a...

Visionary Italian director Michele Soavi helmed this unique monster-fest five years before the release of his signature work, the apocalyptic Dellamorte Dellamore. The 1989 chiller finds a group of explorers trapped inside a demon-infested church rigged with devilish Rube Goldberg-like contraptions set to ensnare any unsuspecting trespassers. Feodor Chaliapin Jr., son of the opera-singing star of Pabst’s Don Quixote, has a supporting role as a bishop.

The post The Church appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Federico Fellini’s best non-narrative feature is an intoxicating meta-travelogue, not just of the Eternal City but the director’s idea of Rome past and present. The masterful images alternate between nostalgic vulgarity and dreamy timelessness. Criterion’s disc is a new restoration.

Fellini’s Roma

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 848

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 120 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2016 / 39.95

Starring Peter Gonzales, Fiona Florence, Pia De Doses, Renato Giovannoli, Dennis Christopher, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Elliott Murphy, Anna Magnani, Gore Vidal, Federico Fellini.

Cinematography Giuseppe Rotunno

Film Editor Ruggero Mastroianni

Original Music Nino Rota

Written by Federico Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi

Produced by Turi Vasile

Directed by Federico Fellini

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Federico Fellini stopped making standard narrative pictures after 1960’s La dolce vita; from then on his films skewed toward various forms of experimentation and expressions of his own state of mind. Most did have a story to some degree,...

Stars: Tomas Arana, Barbara Cupisti, Hugh Quarshie, Asia Argento, Feodor Chaliapin, Jr., Giovanni Lombardo Radice | Written by Dario Argento, Michele Soavi, Franco Ferrini, Dardano Sacchetti, Lamberto Bava, Fabrizio Bava | Directed by Michele Soavi

It has been a Long time since I last watched Michele Soavi’s The Church - the last time I saw it was a rare TV screening on Bravo if memory serves… It’s not like I’m not a fan of the film, after all – thanks to the heavy promotion of the film in The Darkside magazine – I first saw the film on the very day it hit VHS here in the UK… I actually “pre-ordered” my rental of the film at my local, now long defunct, video store and fell in love with the glorious religious iconography and the overall otherworldy, eerie, look of the film – from the prologue, to the [literal] heart-wrenching scene featuring Tomas Arana,...