From the early 90s, Baby Blood is a French film that sits somewhere bloody ‘n’ sleazy exploitation & glum/offbeat drama, with moments of limb-ripping violence, demented body horror, and dark humour. It regards a female circus worker, who gets something strange slipping into her, which slowly but surely starts growing. Here from Studio Canal- as either a Blu-ray or UHD- is a recent(ish) UK debut release of the film, taking in a 4k scan, and new/ archive extras.

Sergio Corbucci’s The Hellbenders (I Crudeli) was released in 1967. Sandwiched between two bigger and brasher efforts often cited as the director’s best, Django (1966) and The Grand Silence (1968), it’s no wonder that it’s often relegated in conversations of Corbucci’s work. Its profile is limited by swapping the action of those better-known movies for suspense and, on the face of it, reworking the plot of 1965’s The Tramplers (directed by Albert Band, who uncoincidentally produced this).

Malpertuis is an early 70’s blend of fantasy, horror, and off-kilter family drama. It’s a film that’s laden with occult imagery/ themes, with a huge cast of weird ‘n’ wonderful characters that appear from nooks and crannies of the Labyrinthian house the film is set in.  Here from Radiance is a wonderful, classy reissue of the film, taking in a 4k fully uncut version of the picture, a second Cannes cut, new interviews with the director/ genre experts, and a good selection of new/old extras. It comes presented a mystical symbol-dotted slip case, with a colourful eighty-page booklet.

Here from Radiance is the second volume in their Daiei Gothic series, which focuses on period-based Japanese ghost stories. Once again, the set offers three films, dating between the 1960s and 1970s. These move between a hunting a demon action fantasy -come- palace-court drama, a vengeful cat ghost chiller, and a swamp revenge meets melodrama that brings back the dead.

Nestled somewhere between Throbbing Gristle and Einstürzende Neubauten, with a bit of Mark E. Smith thrown in, Split Apex's Thoughts in 3D is a throwback recipe, to be sure, except the ingredients themselves sound very much of today. 

Breaking Point was the debut studio album from LA’s Heretic. Originally surfacing in 1988, the ten-track release offered up an often dramatic & memorable blend of power and thrash metal. And while you can certainly hear nods towards the likes of Metal Church, Anthrax, and a few other bands, it makes for a decent debut album, with the band managing to add in a few of their own touches here & there. Here from Punishment 18 Records is a CD reissue of the album

First released in 2002, Through The Cracks Of Death was the third studio album from this Oakland, California, Death metal band. It saw the three-piece deepening the hardcore punk, doom,  and straight-out metal/ rock elements, for a more distinctive sound, which stood out from the run-of-the-mill stateside death metal. Here from Peaceville is a CD reissue of the album, which adds an extra fifteen bonus tracks- featuring assorted 7”, demos, and split release tracks.

Between The Wall severs up a thickly churning and grit-rattling slab of HNW from this highly prolific/long-running California-based project. The single track slides in at the twenty-nine minute mark, and while it's fairly simplistic in its presentation, it makes for an entrancing/ nicely world around you block-out ride.

Here from Cincinnati, Ohio’s Whore’s Breath are two weather-themed examples of the wall noise form. Each runs around the twenty-six-minute mark, making for a just over fifty-two-minute full-length release.

Here’s a three-way wall noise split, taking in three twenty-minute walls- each themed around each artist's favourite Vtubers.  All of the projects are from the USA, with  a fair variety between each of the tracks

Nightsweater is seemingly the debut release from this Oregon-based wall of noise project. It’s a twenty-minute ‘wall’ with a decidedly soothing clutter & mellowly juddering quality to its crumbling ‘n’ crusty unfold.

Dracula (aka Dracula: A Love Tale) is a 2025 film directed and written by Luc Besson -Subway (1985), La Femme Nikita (1990), and The Transporter( 2002). It stars Caleb Landry Jones, Christoph Waltz, Zoë Bleu, and Matilda De Angelis.

Taking their time and doing it right, Portugal's The Ominous Circle return with Cloven Tongues of Fire, the follow-up to their 2017 debut, Appalling Ascension. Dark and moody, Tongues revels in atmosphere, allowing the mid-paced death to expand out in different tempo directions as needed to punctuate the thick, black, dissonance that fills the speakers. Carried on the backs of five long tracks (with an intro and interlude as well), Cloven Tongues of Fire skillfully continues death metal's Gorgutsian trend of extended, sonically saturated pieces soaked in dissonance and well timed chaos to bring about an unsettling and uncompromising atmosphere. 

A Hyena In The Safe (Una Iena In Cassaforte)  is a crime mystery/ crossbred with glamorously turned-out criminals, disturbingly heady breakdowns/ freakouts, and lots of double crossing/ backstabbing. The late 60s Italian film regards a group of six robbers meeting at a mansion- each with their own key- to open a safe full of diamonds, but one by one they get killed off.  Here from Celluloid Films is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a new HD print, a commentary track, and a few other extras.

From the mid-1960s, The Diabolical Dr. Z blended mad doctor horror, revenge thriller, and low-key sci-fi with a largely grim tone, which is informed by both gothic horror and noir genres. The film is one of the earlier releases from Infamous euro-cult director Jess Franco, and it’s a monochrome affair, being a lot more subtle compared to his later work, though it has a very tangible/dread-filled atmosphere. Here from Eureka is a new Blu-ray release of the film, taking a 2k scan, a new commentary track, and a selection of new/ old extras.

So Unreal is a 2023 documentary film from writer/director Amanda Kramer (Paris Window, Give Me Pity! and By Design) that looks at technological advancements through the lens of sci-fi cinema in the 1980s and 1990s. Narrated by Blondie legend, Debbie Harry (Videodrome,  Hairspray and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie) it takes a look at where filmmakers' anxieties and neuroses lay in the 1980s and 90s as these technological developments became ever more chillingly real. 

Here from Film Masters is a double-bill of two stateside versions of Euro horror films featuring Klaus Kinski. There’s Creature With The Blue Hand- a late 60’s horror focused Krimi. And Web Of The Spider, an early 70’s gothic ghost story where Kinski plays Edgar Allan Poe. The dual Blu Ray takes in HD prints of each film, as well as a commentary track for each picture. Also included is an alternative version of the first film, new featurettes, and a few archive extras.

Ohad Fishof is an Israeli experimental musician and composer with many previous works, who often integrates dance and visual components into his work. Witchcraft and Gardening is his new LP on Solid Coated, and according to their website, his first solo work since 2019. It is a colourful multigenre recording that spans from experimental jazz to vocoder-laden synth pop, apparently with a majority of instruments played by Ohad himself, though there are a couple of guest credits.

La Serenissima is a two-CD set bringing together organ and harpsichord pieces composed by Richard Rijnvos. He’s a radical Dutch composer whose work is often concerned with stacking melodic patterns. Or utilising non-musical elements such as magic squares and chessboards to create his work. Most of his compositions are themed around locations, as is this collection, which takes its title from a nickname for the historical republic of Venice. 

First published in the year 1979, The Tuxedo Warrior looks at the early bouncer career of Cliff Twemlow. Who later went on to become a key figure in micro-budgeted/ often SOV  action/horror/sci-fi cinema of the UK, which this year has been celebrated by the excellent InterVision/ Severin Blu Ray Boxset Bloody Legend- which brought together a doc about the great man, eleven of his features and much more. Here from Severin/ Encyclopocalypse Publications is a reprint of the book.

The All-Night Video Guide: Slashers 70’s & 80’s is a glorious dive back into the golden age of slash ‘n’ stalk films. Instead of an in-depth/ definitive guide to the genre/ period, this is much more of a personal look at some of the favourite films of writer Robc. And it’s all the better for it, as it’s a wonderful, honest, down-to-earth, sometimes informative book, which feels like you're chatting in a bar with a buddy about films, instead of a stuffy study of the genre.

When visionary producer Haruki Kadokawa inherited his father’s publishing business in the mid-seventies, he promptly set about combining his two great interests - books and filmmaking – and transforming the Japanese film industry. In a bid to compete with the blockbusters that were arriving from the US (and which were very popular), he started to introduce 1970s Japanese audiences to the home-grown version.  First up in 1976 was the instantly popular murderous epic The Inugami Family, followed swiftly a year later by the masterful thriller Proof of the Man. Set in New York and Tokyo, it boasted a stellar cast of George Kennedy, Robert Earl Jones (James’ father)  Ozu favourite Mariko Okada and Kurosawa muse, Toshiro Mifune and went on to become Japan’s second highest-grossing film of all time (for a while anyway). 

Appearing four years before his slasher genre-defining classic Halloween, Dark Star was the first feature-length film directed by John Carpenter.  The film is a low-budget slice of Sci-fi regarding a spaceship manned by bearded, long-haired crewmen, who spend their days in deep space blowing up unstable planets. It’s a low-key parody/send-up of the genre, blending bickering/ bored crewmates, bombs that talk back,  a red ball with claws pet alien, a ship captain frozen in ice, and the odd subtle chuckle. Here from Fabulous Films is a dual UHD/Blu-ray release of the film.  It features two cuts of the picture,  a selection of new and archive extras (including a feature-length documentary), along with repro stills and posters, and a limited edition online exclusive clamshell/o-card package with a Dark Star patch.

Deadly Friend was the seventh film directed by horror icon Wes Craven (Last House On The Left, Nightmare On Elm Street, Scream). And the mid-80s film certainly stands as his most weird and tonally unbalancing creation, as it shifts from cute robot family movie to teenage abuse drama, to mad doctor meets supernatural slasher blend. Here from Arrow Video is a recent Blu-ray release- taking in a new commentary track, and a selection of new/ archive extras.

Shelf Life is the previously unreleased final film from director Paul Bartel (Death Race 2000, Eating Raoul and Lust in the Dust). Filmed in 1993, Bartel’s final film is a dark comedy with a fairly original premise that sets it apart from most other comedies of the time. Shelf Life stars O-Lan Jones (Mars Attacks, Edward Scissorhands and Beethoven), Andrea Stein (Hard to Kill, Trouble in Mind and Lois and Clark), Jim Turner (The Lost Boys, Kicking and Screaming and Joe’s Apartment), Paul Bartel (The Usual Suspects, Piranha and Escape from LA) and Shelby Lindley (Noragami, Puella Magi Madoka Magica and K-On!).

Bringing works of William S. Burroughs to the screen alongside an experimental soundtrack from some of the era's biggest names in industrial music, 1984's Decoder stands as a cyberpunk cult classic. With a number of songs by Genesis P-Orridge & Dave Ball, as well as FM Einheit, Einstürzende Neubauten, Soft Cell, and The The, its soundtrack is a testament to a fascinating piece of cinema nestled in a distinct and equally fascinating place and time. Filmed in Hamburg and Berlin by Klaus Maeck and Muscha, Decoder uses current industrial music as a revolution, sparking subterfuge, with the hunter trying to suppress the dissent. Available on a standalone CD for the first time in 33 years (there was a DVD/CD release in 2010), Decoder can now easily be heard by the masses without turning to auctions or haggling with secondhand resellers.

Vermilion Hours is a collaboration between French pianist Melaine Daliber and British soundscaper David Sylvian. The CD or vinyl album takes in two long slices of piano minimalism/ low-key simmering ambience, with two shorter versions of the same tracks topping off the release.

For Volin and Electronics Volume II is a  CD release collecting together nine tracks where violin and electronica wonderfully meet. Irish violinist Darragh Morgan is a supremely talented & versatile player, who here adds his deft/ at times detailed string work to the work of nine different composers.

The instrumentation on Jon Porras' Achlys is hard to pick out, and perhaps that is intentional. Whether guitars or soft synths, the sound sources on this ambient work are kind of all background, with little fury or pathos--very few lead lines or licks. That is the point of this kind of music, at least according to its chief architect, Brian Eno. The lack of counter point and inherent conflict was certainly welcome then, and maybe still is, too. Much on Achlys sounds like a refinement of Eno's early ambient works, specifically Ambient 1 (Music for Airports), the soundtrack to ambivalence. The transitioning and mixing of that seminal work are revived in Porras' hands, smoothing shifts between tracks, eight in all.

Mercedes Bryce Morgan’s third film is a fascinating mash of genres that keeps its audience guessing. On the face of it, the 2024 picture is a punchy entry in the brewing Airbnb horror subgenre popularised by films like 2020’s The Rental and 2022’s Barbarian. Horror fans, however, may be surprised at how well they take to an opening hour of mystery that unravels as an awkward romantic drama before things take a dramatic turn for the bloody.

Foutu is a recent four-track album from Bordeaux-based Raté . It’s another sonic journey into hope-numbing/nihilistically battering walled noise from the project. Each track comes in at just shy of fifteen minutes, and each is as unforgiving/ unrelenting as the other.

Incessant severs up an hour and seven minutes of wall noise head-roasting from this Hungarian project. The track blends thick roiling lows with jittering ‘n’ hissing mids, for a total sonic engulfment.

Etherfall is a new four-track/full-length release from Polish wall noise project Olion. Each ‘wall’ comes in around the fifteen-minute mark, with the entire release featuring an Icelandic ice desert and waterfalls theme.

OK, everyone involved in this project, please look away after this sentence: this is not really my kind of thing. Looking away? Good. This is not great. When I first looked at the album, which arrives on a CD in a somewhat thin cardboard wallet, I thought perhaps the title was a knowing nod and I would be listening to abstract electronics of some description. When I examined the line-up and saw a mixture of traditional folk instruments and ‘drum machine, synth, sampler’ I did raise an eyebrow, but within 90 seconds of pressing play my fears had been well surpassed, and teeth were gritted.

Priest is a powerful and, at times, highly moving British drama regarding a young Roman Catholic fighting with his faith and the hypocrisy of the church. The mid-'90s film was controversial upon release, due to touching on subjects such as child abuse and homosexuality.  Thirty-some years on, the film remains undated( aside from some of the soundtrack cues), retaining both its emotional effect and power regarding hypocrisy uncovered. Here from BFI is a new Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a new HD scan, and a selection of new and archive extras.

Composer, Alone is a three-CD set bringing together solo piano pieces by Swiss modern classical composer Jürg Frey. The largely stark/ sparsely toned works move between pattern-based, haunting tolling/ drifting, and more darting/ abstract. All twelve pieces featured here are played with great clarity, focus and depth by Dutch pianist Reinier van Houdt.

The Willow Bends And So Do I is an hour-long piece from Stockholm-based Magnus Granberg, whose output sits somewhere between modern chamber music & gentle improvisation. This 2024 work is played by Skogen- a nine-piece collective, which features the composer him self on prepared piano.   And as a long-term fan of Mr Granberg's output, I’m happy to report this is another wholly captivating piece which seesaws between haunting, angularly intriguing, and subtle yet rewardingly noisy- with generally enchantingly creative use of textural detail throughout.

Here, from Deaf Crocodile, is a double-disc Blu-ray set bringing together two 1970s sci-fi films from behind the Iron Curtain, produced by East German state-run studio DEFA. Each film features a new HD scan and a commentary track  

Australian composer Peter Knight's latest work was inspired by the sea, sand, and wind of SE Australia, where the beaches and rivers of his childhood rekindled his passion for the area's intriguing beauty while on vacation with his family. For a Moment the Sky Knew My Name speaks to the transience of the wind, how it can shape and affect the landscape, always moving forward, but still echoing the past, much like the body will have its memories slowly blown away and forgotten. Much like the belief in Panta rhei, the beaches and rivers of Peter's youth may have familiar aspects, but they've all changed. But so has Peter. Memories are just that, immutable and in the past, and each new step in an old footprint is a brand new experience. 

Here’s a 2025 feature-length attempt at telling the story of 1970s  towering 6-foot-9 Californian serial killer Edmund Kemper, aka the Co-ed Killer, whose crimes involved decapitation, dismemberment, and necrophilia. The film is somewhat a hit & miss affair- on the positive side, the cast largely works and there are effective moments of shock/ unease. On the less positive side, it has a mixed tonal quality, some cheap period detail, and some decidedly uneven/ ropy editing. Here from Epic Pictures is a Blu-ray release of the film, with a commentary track and a few other extras.

From the late 1970s, Absolution is a  British Catholic boys' school set blend of drama & thriller, which nicely builds up both the feeling of suspense and rewarding plot twists. The film features a great/well-picked cast- bringing together Richard Burton as a pious/ at times cruel priest/teacher & Billy Connolly as a motorbike-bound free spirit/ vagabond- who sets up camp in a nearby forest. As well as some great performances from younger cast members, too. Here from 88 Films, as either a Blu-ray or DVD, is a new release of the film, taking in two versions of the film, two commentary tracks and a few interviews.

Jake Helgren steps away from his usual holiday rom-coms like Dashing in December and gives us the gift of The Naughty List of Mr Scrooge, a 2024 Christmas horror/slasher ensemble. Starring Skye Coyne, Colin Koth, Kim Whalen, Liz Fenning, Adam Bucci, Ali Zahiri, and Coél Mahal, the film follows a group of former college friends reuniting fifteen years after a tragedy during their production of A Christmas Carol, only to find themselves stalked by a killer dressed as a deranged Ebenezer Scrooge.

Circle The Sun is the first album of new material from this British band in four decades. It finds the four-piece band once again firing up their brew of strutting rock, upfront Hammond organ jamming, and gothic-themed prog. 

Leftovers 1970-1988 is a two-CD compilation bringing together rare outtakes, alternative versions, & unreleased tracks from those avant-popsters The Residents. Over the two discs, we get a total of thirty-one tracks, and for a long-term fan of the eyeballed & top-hatted one, it is a truly fascinating/revelatory release.

Disco Love Dub is a two-CD compilation bringing together 12” dub remixers, from 1978 to 1984- all created by respected reggae producer Joe Gibbs  & his band The Professionals.  The thirty-six track collection moves between more pared-back bass ‘n’ beats mixes, onto more dancefloor-focused fare, through to the more quirky/ wonky workouts.

Cyclic Law mainstay Ajna has returned with a lush and elegant follow up, New Revelations of Being, a sprawling seventy minutes, which is a listening experience much like exploring some subterranean city in a dream. For those unfamiliar, Ajna's primary language is rushes of air implying impossible vastness, and melodically imbued reverberant contrails (which is often called 'dark ambient'). This is something of an understated symphony, with three-dimensional modern sound design; a very wide stereo field

Gulskul is the self-titled debut album of this three-piece project, who create a warped, electro-buzzing,  noise-edged mix of lo-fi wave & shouty/baying female-led experimental post-punk. 

King Futile is the new project from Scotland-based Lea  Cummings( Kylie Minoise, Official Music Team, etc), and it’s a big departure from his normal noise or retro sample & electronica sound. Casual Misery is the project's debut, taking in eight tracks of lo-fi acoustic music, with an outsider feel, and often quite tongue-in-cheek/ sharply sarcastic tone to the lyrics.

Here’s a follow-up to Severin’s 2022 box set House Of Psychotic Women Rarities Collection. It’s once again curated by Kier-La Janisse, who penned the 2012 book House of Psychotic Women, which looked at female neurosis in horror and exploitation films. This recent Blu-ray collection brings together four more films from around the world, focusing on unhinged/unbalanced women. The set also takes in ten plus hours of extras- taking in new commentaries, introductions, interviews, short films & more.

Ninja Terminator is a cheapo Ninja action movie from 1986 directed by Godfrey Ho (The Ninja Squad, Ninja Destroyer and Thunder Ninja Kids: The Hunt for the Devil Boxer) and starring Richard Harrison (Ninja Dragon, Secret Agent Fireball and Terror Force Commando),  Jeong-Lee Hwang (Drunken Master, Game of Death II and Snake in the Eagles Shadow),  Jack Lam (The Leopard Fist Ninja, The Spring and Chains of Gold), and Maria Francesca (Operation Las Vegas, Diamond Ninja Force and Day of Violence).

Brian House has put together something of an album, the contents of which really pass over anything resembling the possibility of a critical appraisal (more on this in a sec). The concept of Infrasound –– the auditory information that exists below the threshold of human perception – is a topic closely wed to larger concerns of situatedenss, environmental awareness, and the like. So when Brian House, a professor of such things, set out to construct microphones capable of capturing such phenomena, the die was essentially cast. In other words, House, fully cognizant of this fact, had no real control over what it is said microphones would relay. In order to render these findings perceptible, House used an old chestnut of tape recording: speed things up, which will de facto pitch things up to a frequency range that our little lugs can hold onto.

Human emotion is often difficult to convey through words, so art becomes the perfect channel for those needing to express themselves on a deeper, more intuitive level than glossology alone. War has unfortunately been driving humans to the brink of their emotions since prehistory, but thankfully art has been there even longer to serve as an outlet for those needing to get their fears and frustrations out into the world. French artist Lambwool created Ashes as a necessary response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its profound (and warranted) effect on his mental state, the emotions stirring from current times, as well as the post-war trauma burned deeply into European psyches. This work of dark ambient conveys the cold, brutal essence of this war, but by not getting too mired in the darkness, it presents a hopeful air that can help us all get through dark, terrifying times.

From the early 2020s, Shakespeare's Shitstorm sees Lloyd Kaufman and the Troma team doing their own distinctively crude, wacky, and deranged take on the Bard's play The Tempest. It finds mad doctor Prospero (Kaufman) shipwrecking, via a storm of defecating whales, a boatload of pharmaceutical executives to Tromaville, New Jersey, to carry out his revenge. If you know Troma, this is pretty much business as usual, with self-referential/perverse humour, large-breasted ladies, generally wacky manic-ness, silly musical numbers, and splatter-bound gore. Here from Troma Films is a three-disc release of the film, taking in a UHD, and two Blu-rays, with a good selection of extras

Evil Laugh is a mid-80s slasher with some light touches of humour and ahead-of-its-time postmodern elements. It features a cackling killer, some fairly bloody kills, the most inventive being microwave-based. Sure, it’s not a top-level example of the genre/ plays to the cliches- but it’s engaging enough, and will appeal to fans of the stalk ‘n’ slash form. Here from 88 Films- as part of their Slasher Classic series- is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in an HD scan, commentary track from the slasher-loving podcast The Hysteria Continues, and a full-length archive documentary.

The Gospel According To Hana Haruna is a three-track release, which blurs the lines between spiteful ‘n’ searing wall of noise and more drifting/choral ambience. It’s a release that once again sees this Portland project pushing at the edges of the wall noise genre, for something rather distinctive.

Cranial Collapse is a decidedly swirling, yet crude/ nasty take on the walled noise form. The dead-on, twenty-minute track adds in a sparse/ buried spoken word element to create an extra layer of unease to the proceedings.

Music Of The Future is a more formal, dense/ not so multi-layered/ less ambient take on the wall noise form from this US project, which normally focuses on the more playful/experimental side of the genre.

Cutter's Club is a lost film featuring horror legend Tony Todd as a schizophrenic university medical lecturer. In his spare time, he is part of a secret club, where they are (meant to be) pushing the limits of surgery. The film is a Full Moon/ Charles Band film, with one or two neat effects/ moments, and a great OTT performance from Mr Todd. Here’s the Blu-ray release of the film, with just a few extras.

A band’s disappearance in spring 2024 is the springboard for Director’s Cut, a slasher from writer-director Don Capria.