Stuart Gordon on Blu-ray

[Alexcap]

the film that Treasured films are releasing in the UK is the michael cain film the island from 1980.

[BarnDoor]

Originally Posted by Alexcap

the film that Treasured films are releasing in the UK is the michael cain film the island from 1980.

They've confirmed they're releasing a Stuart Gordon film this year:

We will be releasing 6 Blu-ray titles in 2024 (confirmed), including titles from some of our beloved cult directors e.g. Stuart Gordon and Frank Agrama, that includes Crime Drama, Slashers, another "Section 3 Video Nasty" (don't tell Mummy), and even a favourite of ours from Universal studios...

'Crime Drama' could well suggest King of the Ants.

[Alexcap]

frank Agrama's film dawn of the mummy must be the section 3 video nasty.

[DR Herbert West]

A love letter to Stuart Gordon.

[DR Herbert West]

Originally Posted by ToonySpoonGoon

Coming from Ignite Films on April 3rd





Available in 3 versions

Ultimate Limited Edition Box Set: $129.95
* 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo
* New and previous release extras
* 150-page hardcover book featuring new interviews with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, writer Dennis Paoli, and composer Richard Band. Essays by Scout Tafoya, Kate Rife, Will Sloan, Alex Kittle, and Ben Sachs. Preface by Brian Yuzna.
* Dr. Hill Collector's Bobblehead - A must have for fans! With limited quantities available, this exclusive individually hand painted collectible won't be restocked once it's gone.
* Collector's art cards
Ultimate Limited Edition Box Set Prize Bonus
Some lucky fans will discover green "re-agent" in their order! If you're one of them, you'll receive an exclusive signed poster by Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Brian Yuzna, plus a special Re-Animator gift pack from our friends at Middle of Beyond.

Deluxe Edition Box Set: $79.95
* 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo
* New and previous release extras
* 150-page hardcover book featuring new interviews with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, writer Dennis Paoli, and composer Richard Band. Essays by Scout Tafoya, Kate Rife, Will Sloan, Alex Kittle, and Ben Sachs. Preface by Brian Yuzna.
* Collector's art cards

4K UHD Standard Edition: $49.95
* 4K UHD
* Slipcover
* New and previous release extras

Blu-ray Standard Edition: $39.95
* Blu-ray
* Slipcover
* New and previous release extras

New Bonus Features
Re-Animator at 40: A Conversation with Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, and Brian Yuzna
Piece By Piece: Cutting Re-Animator – A New Interview with Editor Lee Percy
The Horror of It All: The Legacy and Impact of Re-Animator
I Give Her Life: A Look Back at Re-Animator: The Musical
Re-Animating a Horror Classic: The 4K Restoration of Re-Animator
The Organic Theater Company of Chicago: A 1977 documentary featuring Stuart Gordon
New 40th anniversary 4K UHD trailer

Previous Release Bonus Features
Integral Version (105 mins)
Isolated Score
Commentary with Stuart Gordon and actors Graham Skipper and Jesse Merlin of Re-Animator: The Musical
Commentary with Stuart Gordon
Commentary with producer Brian Yuzna, actors Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Bruce Abbott, and Robert Sampson
Re-Animator: Resurrectus - Feature-length documentary on the making of the film featuring extensive interviews with cast and crew
Interviews with director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna, writer Dennis Paoli, composer Richard Band and former Fangoria editor Tony Timpone
Music discussion with composer Richard Band
The Catastrophe of Success: Stuart Gordon and The Organic Theater -
Director Stuart Gordon discusses his early theater roots and his continued commitment to the stage
Theater of Blood - Re-Animator: The Musical lyricist Mark Nutter on adapting the cult classic for musical theater
Extended scenes
Deleted scene
Trailer & TV Spots
Still Gallery
Barbara Crampton In Conversation: The Re-Animator star sits down with journalist Alan Jones for this career-spanning 2015 interview
A Guide to Lovecraft Cinema: Chris Lackey, host of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, provides a comprehensive look at the many cinematic incarnations of Lovecraft's work
Doug Bradley's Spinechillers: Herbert West, Re-Animator actor Jeffrey Combs reads H.P. Lovecraft's original classic story

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[beamish13]

I wish Disney gave a shit about The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

[DR Herbert West]

King of the Ants – Stuart Gordon’s Genre Mashup Is Worth Watching 20 Years Later

These days, Film Noir is mostly associated with cynical private detectives and obnoxious narration, but these movies are actually deeply rooted in the horrors of German Expressionism. In fact, many of the genre’s pioneers fled directly from Germany to Hollywood during World War II, where a growing fascination with True Crime journalism combined with wartime anxieties led to the creation of a new breed of crime thriller. These dimly lit movies told stories of murder and betrayal in nightmarish cityscapes populated by morally grey characters, so it’s only natural that these stories are at their best when presented with a touch of horror.

[Show spoiler]And while you’ll find your fair share of terrifying moments in films like Sin City or even Chinatown, today I’d like to discuss a quintessential example of horror-adjacent cinema, Stuart Gordon’s criminally underseen King of the Ants – a grimy little gem that I think might be more fun now than it was back in 2003.

Like many of the best Noir movies, King of the Ants is adapted from a darkly comedic novel about the seedy underbelly of ’90s Los Angeles. Written by the multitalented English artist Charlie Higson (who would later write the screenplay for the adaptation), the book was something of a moderate success, but a film version of the story would only become a reality after the project was championed by none other than the late, great George Wendt. The Cheers star personally approached his old theater friend (and master of splatter cinema) Stuart Gordon in order to develop Higson’s story into a movie, and Gordon reportedly fell in love with the novel’s strange tone.

Unfortunately, it would take over seven years for Gordon to finance the project, as the story’s disturbing elements made studios hesitant to develop a movie that they felt was too horrific for crime thriller fans and too tame for horror enthusiasts. It was The Asylum that ultimately saved the picture, with the company deciding to take a huge risk by making King of the Ants their first official production, as they had previously only acted as a distributor. Nevertheless, production went by smoothly (albeit with an extremely limited budget), and the film premiered at the 2003 edition of Seattle’s International Film Festival, with a wide DVD release scheduled for June of the following year.

In the finished film, we follow a down-on-his-luck Angeleno named Sean Crawley (Chris McKenna) as he stumbles his way into a job as an amateur hitman once contractor Duke Wayne (George Wendt) introduces him to the dangerous world of shady real estate development. Unfortunately for Sean, his employers realize that it would be much easier to simply make their bumbling hitman disappear than to actually pay him for his service, so they decide to tie up loose ends in the most horrific way imaginable.

Not only did King of the Ants sell and rent enough copies to convince The Asylum to continue producing movies, but the film also reviewed relatively well despite its low budget and lack of mass market appeal. Unfortunately, the flick’s limited distribution and niche subject matter meant that it couldn’t quite reach the same amount of genre fans as Gordon’s previous projects.

This is a huge shame, as there’s a lot to love about the movie if you can get past the low production value. For starters, the lo-fi cinematography feels even more impressive now than it did back in the day, with naturalistic lighting and real locations working together to ground viewers in an appropriately oppressive yet entirely believable depiction of a gritty Los Angeles.

The script is also deeply bizarre in all of the right ways, with the story pulling Crawley in unpredictable directions as he becomes part of a warped version of the criminal conspiracies he once enjoyed inside of pulpy paperbacks. While I wouldn’t want to ruin the experience for readers who have yet to see the film, suffice to say that a sizable portion of the runtime is dedicated to torturing our main character, with Sean only making things worse for himself by deciding to act like the exaggerated protagonists of his favorite detective stories.

This subtle meta twist only works because McKenna does such a great job of establishing the character as something of a bumbling loser during the first half of the film, with his transformation into something decidedly more animalistic feeling even more absurd when you have something to compare it too. Of course, the rest of the cast also does a great job of bringing these tropey characters to life in a believable way, with both Wendt and Daniel Baldwin delivering stand-out performances as burly criminals with a lot more going on underneath the surface than you might initially expect.

We’ve already established that Film Noir is at its best when focusing on the horrific parts of criminal activity, but it takes an experienced director to recognize precisely what common clichés can be turned into nightmare fuel without fully switching genres. That’s why it made a lot of sense for Wendt to bring King of the Ants to Gordon, as this dark genre mash-up has a lot in common with the transgressive stage-plays that used to get Gordon in trouble with the law before he began working in film.

While this is a grounded thriller at its core, the movie manages to sneak in a memorable collection of surreal scenes that harken back to the effects-heavy partnerships between Gordon and Brian Yuzna. From concussion-induced dream sequences featuring horrific monsters to literal jump-scares as our protagonist suffers from PTSD, it’s clear that Gordon is having a lot of fun with Higson’s source material despite removing a lot of the novel’s original humor.

The film may not show as much of Sean’s horrific ordeal as the source material, but King of the Ants somehow feels meaner than the original story. With the exception of the cathartic finale, almost none of the violence here is stylized, and even the initial murder feels more awkward than badass. In fact, every single punch, stab and gunshot is depicted as a messy and ugly affair, and I think this approach meshes quite well with the idea that Sean’s is being forced to confront his glamorized view of criminal life.

That’s why the torture sequence feels so effective, with Gordon even adding a body-horror element as Sean comes to terms with the fact that the thugs intend to reduce him into an animalistic prisoner trapped inside of his own body. And as uncomfortable as this is to watch, it’s almost disappointing to have the film shift gears once Sean inevitably escapes from this horrific predicament and mostly recovers from what should have been irreversible damage to both his body and mind.

King of the Ants is definitely an acquired taste, but it’s also one of Stuart Gordon’s most interesting movies – not to mention one hell of a disturbing deconstruction of Film Noir tropes. That’s why I’m not surprised that the movie still boasts a cult following, with McKenna even getting to briefly reprise his role as Crawley in Joe Lynch’s Suitable Flesh back in 2023. And while the movie suffers from awkward pacing and a severe case of tonal whiplash, I think genre fans will have a blast revisiting this strange little thriller from a time when The Asylum was content with producing movies that didn’t require over-the-top CGI to be entertaining.

[Driver78]

I picked up the UK release but haven't watched it yet. I did have the old DVD but don't actually remember much about the film. I have an image in my mind that it's probably similar to Romero's Bruiser in tone.

[DR Herbert West]

Originally Posted by Driver78

I have an image in my mind that it's probably similar to Romero's Bruiser in tone.

A bit.

[Christian Muth]

KING OF THE ANTS is terrific. Re: that otherwise good review DR Herbert West posted above, this part annoys me-

"And while the movie suffers from awkward pacing and a severe case of tonal whiplash..."

- in other words, it's not designed and structured like most other American movies out there. I remember when I first started branching out into watching European and other world cinema, what initially struck me was how different they "felt" vs. most American movies, and it wasn't just being in a foreign language- it was the structure, the plotting, the pacing. Those movies didn't have the cookie-cutter feel that so many American movies have, and they were much richer for it. KING OF THE ANTS doesn't "suffer" from those supposed flaws the reviewer threw in at the end of their write up at all. It's a much more rewarding film for doing things its own way.

Chris