The “You Can’t Get That on DVD” Film Festival
I've always been amazed that while dreck like every chunk of crap that Adam Sandler has ever appeared in seems to make its way onto DVD in record time, there are loads of great movies that seem to have taken forever to make it, and a bunch that inexplicably still haven't. I waited forever for Buckaroo Banzai, Big Trouble in Little China, Wings of Desire (inexplicably, the sequel, Far Away, So Close came out on DVD years before the original--the execrable remake, City of Angels, of course came out immediately), Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Near Dark, Dragonslayer, The Navigator and Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter, not to mention (DO YOU HEAR ME, GEORGE!?) Raiders of the Lost Ark... Things have improved--this would have been easier to write a year ago, and easier still the year before that--but there are still lots of films among the missing... I recognize that a lot of these aren't great films, but they definitely deserve more love than they've gotten. Particularly if you go to your local video store and look at the glut of DVDs featuring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olson from about age 9 on clogging the shelves. A surpising number of 'em are related to Lovecraft. Coincidence or conspiracy? You decide! Some pulls from earlier films festivals here, 'cause I'm a lazy slacker...
  • Not to beat a dead fucking horse, but where is the Star Wars trilogy? Having seen The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, there can't be either a need or an excuse for any further dicking around with the original films. Just get the original prints, put 'em on DVD, and let us buy 'em, already. What is so difficult about this?
  • Night of the Comet--Another one of my absolute favorites. Catherine Mary Stewart and Kelli Maroney (who's also "Zoe Kelli Simon" and "D. Mason Keener", depending on what she's doing, evidently, but who's cute as blazes no matter what she calls herself) are teenage sisters from the Valley who find themselves the only people left in LA (and maybe the world) after the Earth passes through the tail of a killer comet, and all witnesses are reduced to dust. Turns out partial witnesses turn into mutants, which adds to the fun. The movie is completely stolen by one Ivan E. Roth as "Willie", the leader of the "mall mutants", who gets away with all of the best lines: "If bachelorette number one isn't out here in half a tick, I'm gonna ice bachelorette number two!"
  • Dust Devil--This movie, not for the faint of heart, is one of my very favorites. A...well, a spirit, I guess, has somehow gotten itself trapped here in our universe of matter and form. It's struggling to get the hell out again, an effort which involves multiple murders. In the form of a man, this creature hitchhikes across the bleak African landscape (the whole movie was filmed in Namibia), taking up with the despair-ridden and collecting their pain and desperation. Not your average serial killer here. And not a movie for the squeamish. You Have Been Warned. (This video is not $7.99 at Amazon. When I bought it, and "priced for rental" was a meaningful phrase, I paid ten times that for it. Still a good deal.)
  • Cannibal Holocaust--Another of Ruggero Deodato excursions into the extremely disgustipating, and probalby the most extreme of his cannibal films. You'd probably be happy to give this one a miss, but I actually had an interesting experience during a showing of it, so it's got a sort of sentimental value...
  • Cast a Deadly Spell--Fred Ward plays private detective "Harry" Lovecraft, chasing down unspeakable evil in a post-World War II version of Los Angeles where magick is commonplace. A good story, some decent effects and several good laughs.
  • The Resurrected--Dan O'Bannon brings us a version of Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and a pretty good one, too. Sticking close to the original story, and having more than its share of scary moments, this is one of my favorites in this minuscule corner of a sub-genre.
  • From Beyond--another Yuzna/Gordon production, this is an "amplified" version of the Lovecraft short story, including--beyond some nifty special effects here and there, the addition of Barbara Crampton in S&M fetish rig, among other things.
  • Xtro--Tony's dad got sucked up into a flying saucer one night several years ago. Now Dad's back, but he's more than a little strange. Some cool and disgusting stuff, not to mention the innovative use of a contortionist in a monster suit. Spawned a couple of sequels, neither of which is the least bit worthwhile, but I wouldn't mind seeing this one again...
  • Wax, or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees--This is a very difficult film to describe, but an unforgettable one. It's not a documentary, as it claims, although it presents itself as one. The movie concerns itself with the investigation of a man, a weapons designer, into the life of his grandfather (played by Bill Burroughs), who kept Egyptian bees and--it seems--learned something of the secrets of the universe from them. Low key, evocative and very, very strange, I got a copy of this directly from David Blair, the director....
  • Necronomicon--Yet another missing Lovecraft-inspired film, this one consists of adaptations of three HPL stories separated by bridging sequences invoilving an attempt by Lovecraft (Jeffrey Combs) to steal a copy of The Dreaded Book Itself from an extremely strange temple. The segment based on Cold Air, with David Warner as the in-constant-danger-of-dissolving fellow upstairs, was my favorite...

What's your favorite film you can't get?