The Bollywood Horror Collection Vol.1: Bandh Darwaza (NR)
Directed by Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay
Mondo Macabro / Release: Sept. 26
DVD reissuers Mondo Macabro should be awarded a medal. This year alone, they've gotten me obsessed with Indonesian fantasy cinema, and now, with their Bollywood Horror Collection, the previously unknown world of Hindi horror. The vampire tale of Bandh Darwaza has everything Bollywood is famous for, from the morality play of honoring the virtuousness of a woman, right down to the song-and- dance numbers. And, all the while, a vampire-demon and his cult are running around the countryside, kidnapping and possessing women at will. Forget those pretentious art-house French diatribes that bore and jade, folks. This what people the world over really like. This is real world cinema. Louis Fowler
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Trilogy of Terror: Special Edition (NR)
Directed by Dan Curtis
Dark Sky Films
Ask most people who grew up in the '70s people who really don't even care for horror what they thought was scary, and almost always they'll recall seeing a TV movie where Karen Black was chased around an apartment by a murderous Zuni fetish doll. Dan Curtis (Dark Shadow) was the mastermind behind that 1974 TV gem, Trilogy of Terror. Here, he directs an anthology composed of three stories by Richard Matheson (Psycho). All starring Black, they range from the sublime and psychological to the terrifyingly claustrophobic. Dark Sky's special edition also has featurettes with Black and Matheson in which they disavow the horror genre but fans know better. I'm actually quite surprised no one has remade this yet. Louis Fowler
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Ultraman: Series One, Volume One (NR)
Various Directors (TV Series)
BCI Eclipse
Japanese kaiju was made even more accessible to American kids in the '70s when the beloved program Ultraman hit TV airwaves, inciting more than a handful of kids to play "giant monsters versus karate alien" in the playground. And that's really what Ultraman is about: A dying member of the Science Patrol (whose bright orange uniforms come with a tie and crash helmet) is given a second life as Ultraman, who, in the occurrences of giant monster attacks, becomes a high-kicking, armored warrior, beating up spectacularly hilarious man-in-a-rubber-suit creatures that are often doing something innocuous, like eating Japan's pearl supply. For a kid's program, it's surprisingly gory but, in the end, it only makes you wistful for the non-PC times past. A definite must-own. Louis Fowler
