Scary thought: Halloween DVDs on way

Some things wicked this way come. They're early for the party, as usual.

For the DVD business, Halloween starts sometime around Labor Day, when the sinister season's horror titles begin their lurch into the market. Kind of like hearing Christmas carols when it's still 90 degrees out there, only not as creepy.

(Update: Check out the "7 Days of Halloween" series, with the witching season's best releases.)

Here are the most interesting titles I've seen so far:

The Shining: Redrum on HD DVD and Blu-ray. Forget the costume party this year. Part of the Stanley Kubrick rereleases. (Oct. 23, Warner)

Planet Terror: Robert Rodriguez's zombie hoedown arrives solo, without Quentin Tarantino's half of the "Grindhouse" double feature. Second-best zombie pic of the year. Unrated and extended = gore galore. (Oct. 16/Weinstein)

Bram Stoker's Dracula: "The deep crimson blood never looked so succulent," Sony says of the Blu-ray debut of the Francis Ford Coppola film. The director does a new commentary. (Oct. 2)

Hostel/Hostel Part II: The best new horror series in a decade comes to DVD/Blu-ray in unrated versions. Cutting edge, no doubt. (Oct. 23/Sony).

The Fly Collection/Vincent Price Collection: Back when Jeff Goldblum was still in the larvae stage, Vincent Price cranked out the mad scientist classic "The Fly" and its sequels "Return of the Fly" and "The Curse of the Fly." In the Price box set, we get the Dr. Phibes movies plus "Tales of Terror," "Theater of Blood," "Witchfinder General" and two others. (Sept. 11/MGM-Fox)

Sam Katzman Collection: B-movie king Katzman takes a revisionist bow with this pair of double-features from the mid-1950s. All four movies make their DVD debuts: "The Giant Claw," "Zombies of Mora Tau," "Creature With the Atom Brain" and "The Werewolf." (Oct. 16, Sony)

Midnight Movies: MGM resurrects its popular series, citing an online petition that chalked up 5,000 votes to revive the two-fers. Titles include "The Beast Within"/"Bat People" ... "Return of Dracula"/The Vampire" ... "Yongary, Monster From the Deep"/"Konga." H. G. Wells' "Food of the Gods" goes out single. Plus, from distribution overlord Fox, more midnight madness: "Devils of Darkness"/"Witchcraft" ... "Tales From the Crypt"/"Vault of Horror" and so on. (Sept. 11)

Species: Collector's Edition: One of the first great-looking DVD titles returns with several hours of extras, and various production and post-production featurettes. Natasha Henstridge plays the alien with baby fever. Also "Species IV: The Awakening." (Oct. 2/MGM)

Check out the even-scarier sequels to this post: Halloween DVDs 2 and Halloween DVDs 3 for more horror movies.

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Comments

[rod / upcomingdiscs.com]

Nice to see the Midnite Movies series back - those releases were always great entertainment.