British Summertime is now officially here (even if it doesn’t feel like it), Arrow Video already planning what’s in store for the season.
Coming this June, it will by ‘Hypnotic and Epic‘ with 4K goodies including Robert Eggers’ maritime masterwork, an amazing box set of amazing trilogy of films starring Toei action star Yusaku Matsuda, and a Kevin Costner sci-fi epic in UHD. All come with the usual array of delights from Arrow Video including collectables, perfect bound books, extras and even an Arrow Video Store membership card!
First in June will be Robert Eggers The Lighthouse. The visionary director of The Witch and The Northman, a hypnotic and hallucinatory tale of two men teetering on the edge of sanity. Featuring virtuoso performances by Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, period-authentic monochrome photography, and shot through with wickedly dark humour, The Lighthouse is an intense, claustrophobic experience like no other that cements Eggers’ status as one of the most exciting filmmakers of our time. It is available on Limited Edition 4K UHD and Limited Edition Blu-ray, and includes a brand new documentary, made for the release, Art of Darkness: Making The Lighthouse, a definitive and in-depth look at the production, its themes and influences.
This month will also see the release of The Game Trilogy on Limited Edition Blu-ray. Made at the end of the 1970s, Tōru Murakawa‘s trilogy launched actor Yusaku Matsuda as the Toei tough guy for a new generation. Matsuda was the definitive screen icon of the 1980s until his career was tragically cut short by cancer at the age of 40, following his Hollywood debut in Ridley Scott’s Black Rain. Released for the very first time outside Japan, with their cool blue cinematography by Nagisa Ōshima collaborator Seizô Sengen and a sultry score by jazz legend Yuji Ohno, Murakawa’s masterful set of films raised the bar for the Japanese action movie to new heights.
Next up is Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams, a five-disc box set of films from entrepreneurial producer and director Charles Band, who founded Empire International Pictures, which would go on to make some of the most memorable and beloved genre movies of the 1980s. Empire became a mainstay of video stores across the world with their catchy titles, outlandish art and Band’s wholehearted belief in giving audiences a good time. The films included here – The Dungeonmaster (AKA Ragewar), Cellar Dweller, Arena, and from director Stuart Gordon, Dolls and Robot Jox – are freshly restored for the digital era with a wealth of new and archival extras, and have never looked better. This fantastic Limited Edition Blu-ray set, that celebrates the dawn of the beloved era of home video entertainment, comes in striking packaging, with reversible sleeves, double-sided posters for each film, 15 postcard-sized reproduction artcards, an Arrow Video store “membership card”, and an 80-page perfect bound book.
Finally in June, Waterworld, on Limited Edition 4K UHD, a definitive post-apocalypse blockbuster starring Kevin Costner. The most expensive film ever made at the time of its release, Waterworld has thrilled audiences through the years with its awe-inspiring action scenes, gargantuan maritime sets and ground-breaking special effects. Famous for both its epic scale and the controversy that swirled around its production, Waterworld is a key cult film of the 1990s, and an essential entry into the subgenre of ecologically-minded blockbusters. Presented here in an exclusive new restoration of the theatrical cut in 4K Ultra HD, alongside Blu-ray presentations of the TV and Ulysses cuts, and with a wealth of extra material, this high-water mark of high-concept Hollywood can now be enjoyed as never before.
The Lighthouse On Limited Edition 4K UHD / Blu-ray 12th June
Two “wickies” – one inexperienced (Robert Pattinson, Tenet), the other a grizzled veteran (Willem Dafoe, To Live and Die in LA) – arrive on a remote New England island in the 1890s for a four-week stint maintaining the local lighthouse. But as isolation and personal differences take their toll, both men slowly succumb to their inner demons and to the strange, otherworldly allure of the lighthouse itself…
The Game Trilogy On Limited Edition Blu-ray 19th June
Yusaku Matsuda is Shohei Narumi, an ice cool hitman of few words, a steely trigger finger, and a heart of stone, hired in The Most Dangerous Game by a company bidding for a lucrative government air defence contract to take out the competition. In The Killing Game, Narumi finds himself caught in the midst of violent yakuza gang warfare, while his own brutal past catches up with him in the form of two beautiful women still bearing the emotional scars of his past assignments. In The Execution Game, Narumi falls for a mysterious saloon bar chanteuse who may or may not be part of the same, shadowy underworld organisation as the rival hitmen he is employed to rub out.
Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams On Limited Edition Blu-ray 26th June
In The Dungeonmaster (AKA Ragewar), computer programmer Paul Bradford is sucked into a fantasy world by Mestema, a demonic sorcerer in search of a worthy opponent. Meanwhile, fresh from the one-two punch of Re-Animator and From Beyond, director Stuart Gordon takes a turn toward fairytale gothic in Dolls, in which a group of strangers find themselves forced to seek shelter at the isolated home of an old toymaker and his wife, only to find that the puppets and dolls have a vicious life of their own. In Cellar Dweller, a comic book artist (Jeffrey Combs) with a penchant for the macabre takes inspiration from an ancient tome and unleashes an ancient evil. Arena presents the ultimate fight night event: man vs monster! In the far future of 4038, a short order cook becomes the first human in fifty years to compete in an intergalactic boxing event on the far side of the universe. Finally in Robot Jox, Stuart Gordon directs Empire Pictures’ most ambitious movie yet, as men and women pilot giant machines in gladiatorial battle to settle international disputes over territory.
Waterworld On Limited Edition 4K UHD 26th June
Kevin Costner (The Untouchables) stars as The Mariner – a mutant trader, adrift in a dystopian future where Earth is submerged under water and humankind struggles to survive on boats and in ramshackle floating cities. The Mariner becomes embroiled with the Smokers, a gang of pirates who, led by villainous leader Deacon (Dennis Hopper, Blue Velvet), are seeking Enola (Tina Majorino, Napoleon Dynamite), a girl with a map to the mythical realm of Dryland tattooed on her back.
