Dead Ringers – Available Nov 15th
Elliot and Beverly (both Jeremy Irons) are identical twins and gynecologists who have had a lifelong obsession with biology and human anatomy. Elliot, the ‘ladies’ man’ twin, is in the habit of sleeping with their patients and then passing them off to Beverly without their knowledge. Their whole world is thrown upside down when Claire (Genevieve Bujold, fun fact, she was cast as Capt Janeway on Voyager and famously quit after two days but you can see her completed footage on youtube), an actress, comes to see them with a ‘trifurcated cervix’. What follows is a tale of drugs, madness, obsession, and novel medical instruments. It is a stunning example of Cronenberg at his finest and the cool grey 80’s color palette has never looked crisper than in this new 2K transfer.
These Cronenberg collection films are quite a feather in their cap for Scream Factory and they’ve pulled out all the stops. On first sight, you are struck by the new slip cover layout and classy cover art (reverse sleeve has the original art) that makes SF look ‘grown up’ somehow, as if they are coming into their own as the ‘Criterion’ of horror films. The set comes with two discs that have interesting distinctions. The first disc has the film in HD in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio and two audio commentaries. The second disc has a new 2K scan of the film in 1.66:1 aspect ratio that is billed as the ‘director’s preferred’ format and the rest of the special features including four new interviews (Heidi Von Palleske, Stephen Lack, SFX artist Gordon Smith, and DP Peter Suschitzky), a collection of vintage interviews, a vintage ‘making-of’ featurette, and the Trailer.
Rabid – Available Nov 22nd
If you haven’t experienced the early Cronenberg films, namely Shivers, Rabid, and The Brood (it wouldn’t be your fault, Rabid was super hard to come by till now and Shivers remains out of our grasp), then you’ve been missing some of the best body horror anywhere. This is the story of a Rose, a young woman badly injured in a motorcycle accident. In an effort to save her life, the doctors perform an experimental type of graft on her. This causes her to grow a new organ, a spike in her armpit that is used to drink human blood. It is all she can now ingest and her vampiric victims turn into rabid murderous madmen. Soon she’s causing a plague all over Montreal (Cronenberg and many of his films are very Canadian).
Similar to Ringers, Rabid features a sleek new cover image with the original ‘old school’ cover art on the reverse sleeve. The transfer is positively stunning, this film has been out of circulation for so long that I’ve only ever seen it in low res home video or fading and scratched 35-year-old 35mm prints. It is the marvelous preservation and restoration of this film that we’ve all been waiting for years to buy. This disc is loaded with a mountain of extras, starting with a new 2K scan from the negative (again in Director David Cronenberg’s ‘preferred’ aspect ratio 1.66:1) and audio commentaries from author Jill C. Nelson and Ken Leicht, David Cronenberg, and William Beard, author of The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg. There are interviews with David Cronenberg, Ivan Reitman, Don Carmody, and actress Susan Roman. Also included are a video essay, Trailer, TV spots, a still gallery, and radio spots.
Adam Ruhl is a writer and life long Cinephile. He is the Executive
Cinema Editor of Pop Culture Beast’s Austin branch; covering festivals,
conventions, and new releases. When not filing reports, Adam can be
found stalking Alamo Drafthouse Programmers for leads on upcoming
DrafthouseFilms titles. Adam once blocked Harry Knowles entrance to a
theater until he was given extra tickets to a Roman Polanski movie.