Schlock-Wire: Warner Archive On A Roll With September Horror/Cult Releases

Just a quick update to acknowl­edge that the last few waves of releases from Warner Archives have been tar­get­ing a lot of cult movie sweet spots.  Recent releases have included hard-to-find the­atri­cal release fea­tur­ing icons like Fred Williamson and Joe Don Baker as well as a num­ber of t.v. movies.  For those not famil­iar with the pro­gram, Warner Archive sells these titles via DVD-R at $20 a title (more for multi-disc sets and you can get deals via monthly sales).  Read on for a quick overview of recent releases Your Humble Reviewer con­sid­ers worth explor­ing for any card-carrying Schlockmaniac…

(Note: the fol­low­ing syn­opses come directly from the Warner Archive site, which you can access by click­ing here.)

THE PACK: Writer/director Robert Clouse, whose Enter the Dragon deliv­ered hard-hitting action and whose Deadly Eyes pro­vided gnaw­ing rodent ter­ror, com­bines both fright and fight in this sur­vival tale where a walk in the woods becomes a long, dark jour­ney into fear. Set on a remote island where vaca­tion­ers have sense­lessly aban­doned their unwanted pet dogs, The Pack shows man’s inhu­man­ity com­ing back to haunt him with fanged fierce­ness. The con­fused, starv­ing pets form a ram­pag­ing pack – and man’s best friend becomes his worst fiend. Joe Don Baker (Walking Tall, The Natural, The Living Daylights) stars as the heroic marine biol­o­gist who comes up with a do-or-die scheme that will either reestab­lish man as top dog – or turn him into a tasty tid­bit. The sus­pense is ferocious.

BLACK EYE: Since he gave up his police badge, Shep Stone’s tried to make a go of it as a PI. A snoop job here, a shake­down there: work hasn’t exactly poured into the run­down bar where he occu­pies a stool keep­ing office hours. But one night, Stone walks into his own apart­ment – where a mur­der vic­tim is still warm…and the killer is lying in wait for Stone. Fred Williamson (Black Caesar, Original Gangstas) is Stone, whose search for a mur­derer spins into a spider’s web of sus­pense link­ing a reli­gious cult, a porno ring, a miss­ing per­son and a noto­ri­ous drug under­ground. Labeled “The Hammer” for his grid­iron style, the for­mer pro foot­ball star plays Stone with the same hard-hitting direct­ness. From a high-rent high-rise to a shabby amuse­ment park, from alley­ways to the beach, Stone sorts out clues, side­steps a grow­ing num­ber of corpses and shows tough guys what tough is all about.

KILLER PARTY: It’s April Fool’s Day and the sis­ters of Sigma Alpha Pi have found the per­fect place to throw a party: the aban­doned fra­ter­nity house where a guil­lotined pledge lost his head in a haz­ing gone slightly awry. But shortly after the rev­elry begins, the stu­dent body count starts to rise as the venge­ful pledge returns from the grave and makes it a party to die for. Featuring appear­ances by Eating Raoul’s Paul Bartel, debut­ing Joanna Johnson (who a year later would grad­u­ate to her long­time best-known role on The Bold and the Beautiful) and teen heart­throb Martin Hewitt (Endless Love) plus a ban­gin’ per­for­mance of April (You’re No Fool) by ’80s hair metal band White Sister, Killer Party is the stuff of leg­ends, a one-of-a-kind slasher-horror-musical-sex com­edy of terrors!

SWEET HOSTAGE: Stranded when her truck breaks down, 17-year-old Doris Mae (Linda Blair) accepts a ride from Leonard Hatch (Martin Sheen), unaware he’s an escaped men­tal patient. Held against her will, Doris Mae is taken to Leonard’s ram­shackle hide­out, a cabin nes­tled deep within the woods. Frightened at first, she soon finds her cap­tor to be a kind and car­ing soul. So with time run­ning out and the police clos­ing in, Doris Mae must make a deci­sion: return to her safe exis­tence or run off with a mis­un­der­stood man. A 1976 Golden Globe® nom­i­nee as Best Television Movie, Sweet Hostage is an unfor­get­table tale of pas­sion and fate, adapted from Nathaniel Benchley’s acclaimed novel Welcome to Xanadu. It’s also an invig­o­rat­ing show­case for the blaz­ing tal­ents of Blair (fresh off The Exorcist) and Sheen (soon after Badlands).

SHAFT — THE T.V. MOVIE COLLECTION: He’s the coolest pri­vate detec­tive around, caught up in all the hottest cases. Can you dig it? Richard Roundtree por­trays streets­mart Harlem sleuth John Shaft, repris­ing the film role he played in three trend-setting movies of the early 1970s (and would revisit in the 2000 Shaft remake star­ring Samuel L. Jackson). In these seven episodes that each ran in a 90-minute times­lot, Shaft likes his women chic, his cars fast and his clothes expen­sive – and takes the fight to mob lowlifes, scum­balls and vig­i­lantes who prey upon Shaft’s pals and other decent, every­day peo­ple. And, yes, it just wouldn’t be Shaft with­out the sig­na­ture theme music of Isaac Hayes. That’s here, too. Right on!

SNOW DEVILS: Big, hairy and very scary. When a Himalayan weather sta­tion is smashed to smithereens by crea­tures who leave super-sized foot­prints, sus­pi­cion falls on Abominable Snowmen. A heroic expe­di­tion braves snow-whipped precipices and dis­cov­ers the dreaded humanoids. But wait – these are extrater­res­trial yetis who zipped in from outer space to con­quer Earth by melt­ing the polar ice caps with high-energy pro­ton fields. Will mankind be global-warmed into sur­ren­der? Antonio Margheriti (aka Anthony Dawson) of The Wild, Wild Planet and War of the Planets fame directs this cult-classic freak­fest that’s a Big Foot tan­gled up in a shoe­string f/x budget.

THE BLACK ZOO: The most sav­age ani­mal in a gar­den of beasts, animal-worship cultist and pri­vate zoo owner Michael Conrad (Michael Gough) has trained his lions well, sic­c­ing the big cats on any fool who dares get in his way. First it was a snoopy sec­re­tary, then a schem­ing real­tor (Jerome Cowan). But only when his unhappy wife (Jeanne Cooper) runs off with his beloved chimps does Conrad unleash his inner beast, and the fur really flies. Shot by Academy Award®-winning* cin­e­matog­ra­pher Floyd Crosby on a sound­stage stocked by famed ani­mal behav­ior­ist and Marine World cre­ator Ralph Helfer, Black Zoo is the third and final col­lab­o­ra­tion of Gough (who later played Alfred the but­ler in four Batman movies) and pro­ducer Herman Cohen (Horrors of the Black Museum and Konga), a furo­cious last trip to the maul.

THE SUPER COPS: Better cool your jets, all you Bed-Stuy deal­ers, oper­a­tors and lowlifes: the heat that will take you down is on the street. The Super Cops zip­pily chron­i­cles the crime-busting adven­tures of David Greenberg and Robert Hantz, the unortho­dox police duo “who became known, not always fondly, as Batman and Robin,” writes Vincent Canby in his review in The New York Times. “The nick­names define the comic-book style of the film,” Canby adds, a film directed by renowned Life pho­to­jour­nal­ist and Shaft film­maker Gordon Parks and amped by enthu­si­as­tic per­for­mances from leads Ron Leibman and David Selby. The real-life Greenberg and Hantz appear in the film in news footage and in bit roles.

DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (REMASTERED SPECIAL EDITION): It’s back! The clas­sic TV MOW that con­tin­ues to cast a spell almost 40 years after it was first broad­cast, in a new remas­tered and enhanced edi­tion. Sally (Kim Darby) and Alex Farnham’s (Jim Hutton) mar­riage has a sin­is­ter wedge dri­ven through it, when her occult “imag­in­ings” threaten to derail his career after they inherit Sally’s grandmother’s house. Also star­ring William Demarest. Enhanced Content: Superfan com­men­tary track from hor­ror fans and pros Jeffrey Reddick, Steve Barton (“Uncle Creepy”) and Sean Abley.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. — 8 MOVIES COLLECTION: Combine the spy-against-spy Cold War era with ’60s cool and the result is the trend-setting series that became a cul­tural touch­stone – and gen­er­ated 8 Theatrical Movies derived from and expand­ing upon key episodes. Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) are intre­pid U.N.C.L.E. agents who main­tain tongue-in-cheek style as they con­front the deadly schemes of THRUSH in the U.S. or any­where else spy chief Mr. Waverly (Leo G. Carroll) sends his two top oper­a­tives. Guest stars caught up in the glo­be­trot­ting intrigue include Joan Crawford, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, Leslie Nielsen, Jack Palance, Eleanor Parker, Telly Savalas, Rip Torn and more. NOTE: all movies are pre­sented in their orig­i­nal 4X3 aspect ratio, as orig­i­nally filmed.

THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS — COMPLETE T.V. MOVIES COLLECTION: Mysterious mer-man Mark Harris washed ashore on the nation’s TVs in early ’77 and quickly became a break­out hero. America fell hard for the Atlantean amne­siac, gen­er­at­ing big rat­ings for the Man from Atlantis pilot movie and its three sub­se­quent follow-up TV movies. Starring new­comer Patrick Duffy and over­seen by Robert Justman (Adventures of Superman, Star Trek, Then Came Bronson, Probe/Search), the orig­i­nal TV movies eas­ily swim between the par­al­lel gen­res of Science Fiction and Super-Heroics, cre­at­ing a fan­tasy that is still fun and fresh today. This 2 disc col­lec­tion con­tains all 4 TV movies. Also stars Belinda Montgomery. PILOT(Newly remas­tered!): Mark Harris washes ashore, pos­sess­ing strange sea-faring pow­ers but no mem­o­ries. The Death Scouts: Mark bat­tles scuba diver abduct­ing aliens. The Killer Spores: Intelligent spores from space pos­sess Mark in a bid to return to the yawn­ing galac­tic gulf. The Disappearances: Scientists all over the world are dis­ap­pear­ing — includ­ing Mark’s asso­ciate, Elizabeth.

THE MAN FROM ATLANTIS — COMPLETE T.V. SERIES: Go deeper below the sur­face than ever before with the adven­tures of the being who is both human and aquatic. Atlantis sur­vivor Mark Harris (played by Patrick Duffy just before start­ing his lengthy run on Dallas) breathes under­wa­ter, with­stands extreme depth pres­sures and wields super­hu­man strength. And those astound­ing abil­i­ties are show­cased in this 4-Disc Collection con­tain­ing All 13 Exciting Episodes. Submerge with Mark and the crew of the Foundation for Oceanic Research sub­ma­rine Cetacean (includ­ing costars Belinda J. Montgomery and Alan Fudge) into a world of science-fiction won­ders. Guest stars include Victor Buono (in sev­eral episodes as the vil­lain­ous Mr. Schubert), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Pernell Roberts, Rene Auberjonois and Pat Morita.