Arrow Video's American Horror Project: Volume One - February 23, 2016

[RandyK]

American Horror Project Vol. 1 on Amazon

NEW UK/US TITLE: American Horror Project Vol 1 [The Witch Who Came From the Sea + Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood + The Premonition] (Arrow Video) Dual Format Limited Edition

Unique slices of the American Nightmare are brought back into the public consciousness and preserved for all to enjoy.

Pre-order your UK copy here: http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/shop/ind...product_id=642
North American pre-orders links should be live soon!

UK Release Date: 22nd February 2016
US Release Date: 22nd February 2016
Region: Free

Everyone knows the classic American horror titles: Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and A Nightmare on Elm Street, to name but a few. But we want to tell you a different story: a story of the unsung heroes of stars-and-stripes terror, films that have remained on the fringes of the genre either through lack of availability or else sheer obscurity. This is where American Horror Project comes in.

Volume One of this series presents three tales of violence and madness from the 1970s. Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood (Christopher Speeth, 1973) sees a family arrive at a creepy, dilapidated fairground in search of their missing son, only to find themselves at the mercy of the cannibalistic ghouls lurking beneath the park. Meanwhile, The Witch Who Came from the Sea (Matt Cimber, 1976), stars Millie Perkins (The Diary of Anne Frank) as a young woman whose bizarre and violent fantasies start to bleed into reality – literally. Lastly, every parent’s worst nightmare comes true in The Premonition (Robert Allen Schnitzer, 1976), a tale of psychic terror in which five-year-old Janie is snatched away by a strange woman claiming to be her long-lost mother.

Newly remastered from the best surviving elements and contextualised with brand new supplementary material, American Horror Project proudly presents an alternative history of American horror and film heritage.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

- Brand new 2K restorations of the three features
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard DVD presentations
- Original Mono 1.0 audio (Uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- Reversible sleeves for each film featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by the Twins of Evil
- American Horror Project Journal Volume I – Limited edition 60-page booklet featuring new articles on the films from writers Stephen Thrower (Nightmare USA: The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents), Kim Newman (Nightmare Movies), Kier-La Janisse (House of Psychotic Women) and Brian Albright (Regional Horror Films, 1958-1990: A State-by-State Guide with Interviews)

MALATESTA’S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD

- Introduction to the film by Stephen Thrower
- Audio Commentary by film historian Richard Harland Smith
- The Secrets of Malatesta – an interview with director Christopher Speeth
- Crimson Speak – an interview with writer Werner Liepolt
- Malatesta’s Underground – art directors Richard Stange and Alan Johnson discuss the weird, mysterious world of Malatesta’s underground
- Outtakes
- Draft script (BD/DVD-ROM content)
- Stills gallery

THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA

- Introduction to the film by Stephen Thrower
- Audio commentary with director-producer Matt Cimber, actress Millie Perkins and director of photography Dean Cundey
- Tides and Nightmares – brand new making-of documentary featuring interviews with Cimber, Perkins, Cundey and actor John Goff
- A Maiden’s Voyage – archive featurette comprising interviews with Cimber, Perkins and Cundey
- Lost at Sea – director Cimber reflects on his notorious cult classic

THE PREMONITION

- Introduction to the film by Stephen Thrower
- Isolated score
- Audio commentary with director-producer Robert Allen Schnitzer
- Pictures from a Premonition – brand new making-of documentary featuring interviews with Schnitzer, composer Henry Mollicone and cinematographer Victor Milt
- Archive interviews with Robert Allen Schnitzer and star Richard Lynch
- Three Robert Allen Schnitzer short films: ‘Vernal Equinox’, ‘Terminal Point’ and ‘A Rumbling in the Land’
- 4 Peace Spots
- Trailers and TV Spots

American
adjective
i. of or relating to America
ii. of or relating to the United States or its possessions or original territory

Horror
noun
i. a very strong feeling of fear, dread, and shock
ii. the quality of something that causes feelings of fear, dread, and shock : the horrible or shocking quality or character of something
iii. something that causes feelings of fear, dread, and shock : something that is shocking and horrible

Everyone knows the classic American horror titles: Night of the Living Dead, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and A Nightmare on Elm Street, these films remain some of the USA’s most celebrated genre efforts – known the world over, their production histories well-documented, the films preserved for posterity in any number of lavish DVD and Blu-ray releases.

But we want to tell you a different story. A story of the unsung heroes of American horror cinema – films from the USA’s golden age of terror which, for a multitude reasons, have either slipped through the cracks or never gained the recognition they so richly deserve. Films that aren’t mentioned by movie fans in the same hushed tones of reverence as The Exorcist or Halloween – but are every bit as bold, bloody and bizarre as their more famous counterparts.

Arrow Video’s American Horror Project, the first volume of which will be released Feb 22nd (UK) and 23rd (US) 2016, is our commitment to bringing those lesser-known efforts of US genre cinema back into the limelight where they belong. Whether it’s a film that has languished in obscurity for far too long, or a movie that is at risk of being lost forever due to lack of usable materials, American Horror Project is here to ensure that these unique slices of the American Nightmare are brought back into the public consciousness and preserved for all to enjoy. Pleasant dreams…

“In much the same way that Stephen Thrower’s landmark study NIGHTMARE USA told an alternative history of the independent horror film during the 1970s and 80s, Arrow’s Horror Project aims to shine a light on a number of innovative and provocative films made during this period that for whatever reason, have been allowed to languish, under-appreciated and waiting to be rediscovered.

The majority of these films haven’t been seen for many years, and none of them will have ever been remastered for Blu-ray before. In some cases, they will have only been available on VHS!

So for every one of our titles, we’ll be restoring these films from scratch, seeking out the best existing source elements and (whenever possible) involving the original filmmakers to ensure that the films can be seen at the highest quality and in most historically accurate presentations possible. In many cases this may mean extensive detective work and piecing the films back together from a number of separate elements, given the lack of care that some of these titles suffered back in the day. Most of these films will never appear pristine, but viewed in the context of the Horror Project, will reflect their own unique production and distribution histories in a way that they’ve never been afforded before.

This was an incredibly prolific and creative period of independent filmmaking and Arrow’s Horror Project seeks to rescue these important films from being lost to cinema history forever.”

-James White, Head of Technical and Restoration Services at Arrow Video

http://www.americanhorrorproject.com