Headsup: Horror DVDs Adapted From the Minds of King, Barker and Poe

Christine: Special Edition. She’s a classic lady in red with dangerous curves and a body built for sin. In Detroit. But when Arnie Cunningham finds her, she’s down on her luck and a bit rusty. Arnie gives her some TLC and some serious body work and she returns this by making him a bad boy out of a James Dean movie. Problem is she’s got a mean streak and she’ll take out anyone who messing with her man. Or tries to get between them. For Christine, it is truly apt that she is a Plymouth Fury. Stephen King‘s story about a car from Hell is back with three new feturettes on taking the book to the screen, making the movie, and the impact it has made. There is a ton of deleted and alternate scenes, and a commentary from uber-director John Carpenter and the other star of the film, Keith Gordon. (Buy it from Amazon.)

Children of the Corn: Divimax Edition. No good deed goes unpunished. That is certainly true for the Stantons when they try to get help for a boy after he runs out of a cornfield and in front of their car. So they go to Gatlin, a little town where the children worship some old time religion. Not Christian fundamentalism, we’re talking a religion of the harvest, of blood, and of death. So Vicky (a pre-Terminator Linda Hamilton) and Burt (Peter Horton) must battle the bloodthirsty Malachai, the charismatic boy preacher Isaac, and the god they serve, He Who Walks Behind the Rows. With this new edition, there is a new documentary on the making of the film, Harvesting Horror: Children of the Corn. Also, you get a commentary with director Fritz Kiersch, producer Terrence Kirby, and actors John Franklin (Isaac) and Courtney Gains (Malachi) and a fairly impressive photo gallery. Come see the franchise that eventually convinced King he needed to pull sequel rights from his contracts with Hollywood. (Buy it from Amazon.)

Clive Barker’s Saint Sinner. Brother Tomas is the worst monk of 1815. No joke, he’s got a plaque up on the wall and everything. Certified. Not only is he a hedonistic slacker, he incompetently releases two sexy succubae sisters from their imprisonment. While this mind sound like a good time to some of you, the movie doesn’t go that direction: instead, the sisters find the 19th century a bit dull, and use some relic to travel to the much sluttier 21st century. Tomas is sent after them to clean up the mess he made with a +1 dagger of succubae slaying. He partners up with a skeptical cop and they follow the trail of corpses of men who were obviously too horny to live. This is a Sci-Fi Original Picture so make of that what you will. This disc from Universal has some “unrated” and deleted scenes with some directory commentary. The movie itself has commentary from Clive Barker, director Josh Butler, and the composer Chris Lennertz. (Buy it from Amazon.)

Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Poe‘s influence on literature, never mind just horror, is truly overwhelming. His dark tales of decay, depravity, and death continue to inspire and disturb. However, like many other literary giants, most people have been turned away by inept and uninspiring English teachers. But there are ways to remedy this like this DVD box set from BFS. This series, hosted by the macabre Christopher Lee, can be a good primer on Poe’s work for the interested. The thirteen episodes feature some of Poe’s well-known stories like The Tell-Tale Heart and The Masque of the Red Death to lesser known tales such as The Oval Portrait and Berenice. Included is a dramatic retelling of Poe’s own dark life. (Buy it from Amazon.)