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It’s a new year and there are already a host of incredible physical media releases from some of our favorite labels. It really is an embarrassment of riches and given what has been previewed for the next few months, we’ll be eating very well indeed.

But let’s get into the very best home video releases of January 2025!

New Line Cinema “Seven” 4K

2025 is finally the year that some of David Fincher’s masterpieces make their way to 4K. “Fight Club” is in the works for later this year and “Panic Room” and “The Social Network” (which had previously only been available in one of the ultra-expensive Columbia Pictures box sets) are hitting in February. “Seven,” whose new 4K transfer was previewed at the TCM Festival last year, finally makes its way to home video. And while some have taken issue with the new image, which saw Fincher...

Stars: William Shatner, Allyson Ames, Eloise Hardt, Robert Fortier, Ann Atmar, Milos Milos | Written and Directed by Leslie Stevens

Incubus is a 60s experimental horror film starring William Shatner, notable not only for its eerie storyline but also for being one of the few films ever made entirely in Esperanto. Directed by Leslie Stevens (The Outer Limits), the movie blends supernatural horror with art-house sensibilities, resulting in a haunting and unique cinematic experience.

The story revolves around a young soldier, Marc (Shatner), recovering from war wounds in a peaceful village rumoured to possess a miraculous healing spring. This seemingly idyllic setting is tainted by the presence of succubi, demonic beings who seduce and corrupt mortal souls. One such succubus, Kia (Allyson Ames), grows dissatisfied with preying on the wicked and sets her sights on Marc, a pure and virtuous man. The resulting battle between good and evil unfolds in a slow,...

Often under the guise of procedural television that encapsulates suspense, horror, and science fiction, anthologies are a format of cinematic storytelling that often gets tossed under the rug of narrative mediums. However, whenever one does surface, it's often a great labor of love with clever stories, chilling revelations, and spicy plots.

With Prime's Secret Level animated anthology covering stories throughout the gaming universe of both the virtual and tabletop fandoms, it's a great time to revisit or discover some other great televised anthologies that scratch that same itch that present such a variety of style and narrative flare. These anthologies are placed based on their relatability to Secret Level's tone, style, and originality, and how close the listed show relates to that feeling. So what's the next short-story extravaganza to binge to get that fix?

The Outer Limits Zeroed-In On Sci-Fi's Burning Questions

Year

1963-65, 1995-2002

Where Can I Watch?...

Earlier this month, we shared a Marvel Comics fan film called Logan the Wolf, which imagined Wolverine as a Viking. That’s not the only Marvel-inspired fan film that has been going viral in recent weeks – and the other one that has caught a lot of attention can be shared here as a Cool Horror Video! Written and directed by Andy Chen, this one is called The Spider stars Chandler Riggs (best known for playing Carl Grimes on The Walking Dead) and puts a body horror spin on the story of Spider-Man! Some of you may have seen this one already, but if you haven’t, or if you want to watch it again, you can check it out in the embed above.

Featuring a creature suit by Alen Stubbs and Sci-Fi Studios, with visual effects from Gianluigi Carella, Josh Lykkeberg, and the director, The Spider has a short and...

The first-ever attempt at a big-screen Spider-Man movie utterly failed to capture the magic of Marvel's most famous hero. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man was fundamental in the rise of the superhero genre that continues to dominate Hollywood today. However, Raimi's version of the wall-crawler wasn't the original concept for his debut. In 1985, when Cannon Films held the rights to Spider-Man, Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper and The Outer Limits writer Leslie Stevens were tasked with translating Peter Parker's origin story to live-action. To put it lightly, this draft would have been a disaster for the character's cinematic legacy.

In the book "With Great Power: How Spider-Man Conquered Hollywood during the Golden Age of Comic Book Blockbusters", author Sean O'Connell describes how Cannon Films would have turned Spider-Man's story into a body horror nightmare in the vein of David Cronenberg's The Fly. This monstrous Spider-Man would have been...

It’s time for a new episode of our Horror TV Shows We Miss video series, and in this one we’re longing for the return of The Outer Limits – with a specific focus on the revival series that ran for seven seasons, from 1995 to 2002. To find out what we had to say about The Outer Limits, check out the video embedded above!

Created by Leslie Stevens, the first run of The Outer Limits lasted just two seasons (49 episodes), running on ABC from 1963 to ’65. Airing on Showtime and then the Sci-Fi Channel, the revival series was

an anthology of distinct story episodes, sometimes with a plot twist at the end. The revival series maintained an anthology format, but occasionally featured recurring story arcs that were then tied together during season-finale clip shows.

There were 152 episodes of the revival series over the course of its seven seasons.

The Horror TV Shows...

Kino Lorber is looking to control "all that you see and hear" with their announcement that they will release the complete original series run of The Outer Limits on Blu-ray and DVD.

Kino Lorber made the exciting announcement on Facebook, revealing that new HD masters of The Outer Limits 1960s TV series will be released soon, with season 1 coming out on a Blu-ray / DVD box set late this year and season 2 set to be released as a box set in early 2018.

Created by Leslie Stevens and featuring 49 episodes of thought-provoking television, The Outer Limits originally aired from 1963–1965 on ABC, giving fans of The Twilight Zone another anthology series to tune into, one that focused more on sci-fi rather than other genres.

And like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits enjoyed a revival decades after its original time on television came to an end, returning with new episodes on Showtime in...

Leslie Stevens' 1960 film noir Private Property is an incredibly tense psychosexual thriller that is years ahead of its time. Stevens was probably best known as the creator of the influential science fiction TV series The Outer Limits, but before that project got off the ground in 1963 he was a writer and director of a couple of feature films that didn't exactly set the world on fire. Private Property was his first in the director's chair and it is definitely a bold debut, even if audiences in the Us didn't get to see it at the time. Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) are drifters making their way down the Southern California coast when they spy a pretty young woman zooming down the...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The American Murder Song tour is in full swing and its stop in Los Angeles on November 12th is nearly upon us. Continue reading for more info and ticket details. Also in today's Highlights: an exclusive, Nsfw clip from Everlasting, news on the inaugural New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival, Liz Brennan's "Body Bags" music video, and details on Dark Night's AFI Fest screening.

American Murder Song Los Angeles Show Details: Press Release: "The Star of Repo! The Genetic Opera & Songwriters of The Devil's Carnival Arrive With Their New Collaboration in Los Angeles on November 12th.

Cult film composers Terrance Zdunich and Saar Hendelman are no strangers to creating interactive fan events. With their movies Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Devil's Carnival as well as its sequel, they pioneered a punk rock approach to storytelling and distribution, touring their musical films like rock concerts and cultivating a die-hard fanbase in the process.

Is this once-lost film the apex of obscure independent Hollywood filmmaking? Made way outside the limits of the Production Code, it's even better than I hoped it would be. Leslie Stevens' 'backyard movie' is the work of a directorial wunderkind with an inspired crew. Totally original, with three unforgettable performances. Private Property Blu-ray + DVD Cinelicious 1960 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 79 min. / Street Date November 8, 2016 / 34.99 Starring Kate Manx, Corey Allen, Warren Oates Robert Ward, Jerome Cowan, Jules Maitland. Cinematography Ted McCord, Conrad Hall Film Editor Jerry Young Original Music Pete Rugolo Film Technology Alexander Singer Produced by Stanley Colbert Written and Directed by Leslie Stevens

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

I saw Private Property for the first time last night, and came away thinking, 'these are the most believably complex, twisted, adult screen characters I've seen in a long time.' I also felt that I had witnessed some really extraordinary acting,...

This past year, Cinelicious Pics has restored and distributed two unique films tragically underseen or never received U.S. distribution: Eiichi Yamamoto’s 1973 animated masterpiece “Belladonna of Sadness,” and Leslie Stevens’ long-missing 1960’s thriller “Private Property,” about two homicidal Southern California drifters (Warren Oates and Corey Allen) who wander off the beach into the Beverly Hills home of unhappy housewife Anne (Kate Manx) and slowly worm their way into her life.

Read More: Cinelicious Pics to Release 4k Restoration of Lost Noir ‘Private Property’

Cinelicious gave it a brief theatrical distribution this year in New York, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, and other cities, and it will be released on Blu-ray this week. Watch an exclusive clip from the film below featuring Allen’s character finally alone with Anne. The scene was one of the reasons why the film was rejected by the Motion Picture Association for failure to comply with the code,...

Over the course of his career, the notoriously hard-living Warren Oates palled around with Dennis Hopper and served as one of many Sam Peckinpah muses. His relationship with Hollywood bad boys extended to John Milius, who directed him in the memorable title role for the B-grade biopic Dillinger. By the time he passed away in 1982, he had over 120 film and television productions to his name.

But in 1960, Oates was a struggling young actor whose broad, bulldoggish face and crooked-toothed smile didn’t exactly scream movie star. He was, however, perfect as a counterpart to Corey Allen in director Leslie Stevens‘ lost film Private Property.

Nearly six decades after its initial release, the black-and-white gem has re-emerged thanks to efforts of the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Cinelicious Pics, a small company with a reputation for digging up valuable works doomed to obscurity. Their latest find provides a glimpse into a...

In Leslie Stevens‘ 1960 picture “Private Property,” a skin-tightening psychosexual thriller shot on the cheap in just five days, two pervy male gazers named Duke (Corey Allen) and Boots (Warren Oates) have lunch with a beautiful, sexually-frustrated housewife named Ann (Kate Manx, the director’s wife). They have grilled cheese and lemonade, but they really want […]

The post The Sad, Strange Grit Of Warren Oates, Star Of The Newly Restored ‘Private Property’ appeared first on The Playlist.

Piece of the Pie: Stevens’ Psychosexual Drama Gets Revamped

The poster tagline for Leslie Stevens’ 1960 directorial debut Private Property says it all, proclaiming the film to be “the boldest story of a planned seduction ever to scald the screen!” the statement hovering above the strangely positioned, free-floating figure of lead actress Kate Manx (wife of the director), derriere exposed.

Continue reading...

The story of one or more drifters terrorizing any and all that come across their path is a narrative that’s become something of a cliche in the world of thriller/horror cinema. However, something that is entirely and in many ways iconic in its singularity is the on-screen presence of legendary character actor Warren Oates.

The subject of a new retrospective in New York, Oates’ career began in the late 50s doing regional theater in Louisville, after a run in the Us Marines. Moving into TV acting and ultimately the world of TV Westerns, Oates’ career was full of various guest roles on some of TV’s greatest series, only to meet his cinematic soul mate, Sam Peckinpah, while working on one of those very shows, The Rifleman. However, his first big screen starring role came in the intense, creepy and deeply unsettling lo-fi thriller, Private Property.

Itself the subject of reappraisal,...

Cinelicious Pics and actor Elijah Wood’s production company SpectreVision will restore and re-release Toshio Matsumoto’s Japanese queer cinema classic “Funeral Parade of Roses.” A loose adaptation of “Oedipus Rex” set in the gay underground of 1960’s Tokyo, the film follows a group of transgender people as they travel through a largely unseen world of drag bars and nightclubs, fueled by booze, drugs, fuzz guitar, performance art and black mascara.

Long unavailable in the United States, “Funeral Parade of Roses” is an intoxicating masterpiece of subversive imagery, combining elements of documentary and the avant garde. Stanley Kubrick acknowledged that the film was a major influence on “A Clockwork Orange.” Check out some exclusive images from the film below.

Read More: ‘Private Property’ Exclusive Trailer & Poster: Lost 1960s Noir Melodrama Starring Warren Oates

Cinelicious specializes in releasing independent features and docs along with brand-new 4K restorations of under-seen classics. They...

A SoCal Rear Window made at the cusp of the sexual revolution is a peculiar but fascinating look at vicious prurience

Determining where trenchant psycho-sexual commentary ends and voyeuristic sleaze begins can be a dicey business, but if all such cases were as energetic and entertaining as Leslie Stevens’s “lost” 1960 independent picture Private Property we’d be better off.

Set in the sun-bleached Los Angeles hills at the cusp of the sexual revolution (and its bloody Manson family nadir), Private Property seems, at first, mere fodder for raincoat-wearing deviants. But there’s too much negative space in the screenplay to leave it at that. Watching in 2016, thanks to an undertaking by the UCLA Film & Television Archive working with Cinelicious Pics, one feels compelled to hurl problematic yellow cards at the screen. Indeed, appealing to a base crowd of perverts may very well have been an original goal from a marketing point of view.

I live in Los Angeles, and my residency here means that a lot of great film programming-- revival screenings, advance looks at upcoming releases and vital, fascinating glimpses at unheralded, unexpected cinema from around the world—is available to me on a week-by-week basis. But I’ve never been to Cannes. Toronto, Tribeca, New York, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, these festivals are all events that I have yet to be lucky enough to attend, and I can reasonably expect that it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I never attended a film festival of any kind until I made my way to the outskirts of the Mojave Desert for the Lone Pine Film Festival in 2006, which was its own kind of grand adventure, even if it wasn’t exactly one for bumping shoulders with critics, stars and fanatics on the French Riviera.

But since 2010 there...

Plus: Gravitas Ventures acquires My Father’s Vietnam; and more…

Susan Sarandon will receive the Cinema Icon Award at the National Association Of Theatre Owners (Nato) convention on April 14.

Sarandon will next be seen in The Meddler, which opens on April 22 via Spc, and her credits include Thelma And Louise, The Witches Of Eastwick, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Lorenzo’s Oil, and Dead Man Walking, for which she won the lead actress Oscar in 1996. CinemaCon is set to run at Caesars Palace from April 11-14.

Gravitas Ventures has picked up VOD and home video rights from Circus Road Films to Soren Sorensen’s My Father’s Vietnam. The documentary will debut on May 24.Aeg and Regal have partnered with Barco to announce a multi-year, strategic partnership to create Regal L.A. Live: A Barco Innovation Center. The current Regal Cinemas L.A. Live, owned by Aeg, will transform into a creative hub for all of Barco...

Bloody Cuts has terrified thousands of people, and they’re stepping up their game with an HD gloss on their new anthology series, The Outer Darkness. The horror short filmmakers are turning their focus to serialized storytelling. “As Bloody Cuts developed, the one thing we regretted was not really tying up the series with an overarching narrative or at least a consistent world,” director/producer Ben Franklin says. “The great thing with The Outer Darkness is it gives us a chance to basically reset everything, and take all we learned through making our original series and apply it to something entirely new and fresh.” This comes on the heels of fresh success for Black Mirror in the Us, and the new Bloody Cuts project’s title definitely evokes another famous anthology series, but the the flavor is unique to their sensibilities. This isn’t Charlie Brooker’s pitch dark satirical humor or Leslie Stevens’ uncomfortable sci-fi imagination...

In October of 1978, we saw Michael Myers come home. It was the first time he’d stepped on his town’s soil in 15 years, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Over the decades, we’ve seen the serial killing prodigal son of Haddonfield cross back into small town limits to create carnage with everything from a butcher knife to a pitchfork, though we haven’t seen his silent rage at work on the big screen since Rob Zombie’s H2 in 2009.

But we’re now one big step closer to seeing Michael come home again, as the folks at Dimension Films have hired a pair of writers to pen the long-gestating next entry in the Halloween franchise, and many horror hounds are very familiar with the duo tasked with bringing back The Shape.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan have been hired to write...

Battlestar and Knight Rider creator Glen A Larson has sadly passed away, at the age of 77.

Sad news, this. Glen A Larson passed away on Friday night, after a battle with esophageal cancer.

Glen A Larson is credited with creating an array of much-loved TV programmes, including the original Battlestar Galactica, Knight Rider and Magnum P.I., as well as co-developing Buck Rogers In The 25th Century with Leslie Stevens.

A multitalented man, Glen A. Larson also wrote several of his show’s theme-tunes, having previously sang in the band The Four Preps.

Reflecting on his shows a while ago, Glen A Larson told TV Archive they "were enjoyable, they had a pretty decent dose of humor. All struck a chord in the mainstream. What we weren’t going to do was win a shelf full of Emmys. We got plenty of nominations for things, but ours were not the kind...

If you were a kid in Seventies and Eighties America there are two shows you would have been watching ( if your mom let you that is) and they are the original Battlestar and the original Knight Rider well today i come with sad news as the creator of both these shows has indeed passed away. Mr Larson was 77 when he lost his battle with esophageal cancer he was found on Friday at the UCLA Medical Centre in Santa Monica Larson also created shows like Magnum P.i and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century which he co-developed with Leslie Stevens may he rest in piece.

From rock operas to Wes Craven to Dazzler, here's some Marvel movies that never quite made it...

Recently, we looked at the DC movies that never got the greenlight. We saw hordes of Superman movies which didn’t make it to screen, along with Batman film ideas and whole hosts of other DC heroes whose movies plummeted out of production (You can read that piece here).

On the other side of the superhero cinema fence, we have the seemingly all-encompassing, game-changing Marvel Cinematic Universe at the height of its powers, the X-Men franchise in rude health and the still-fresh memory of Spider-Man’s hasty reboot. You could be forgiven for thinking that not as many Marvel movies have struggled to get made as their DC counterparts.

However, having delved once more into the ancient scrolls of cinema history (still better known as extensive Googling), we can confirm there’s plenty...

Do you believe in the afterlife or reincarnation? Lots of folks do, and another movie is on its way that explores these themes. Read on for the first details regarding the indie thriller Threshold right here.

From the Press Release

Lake Forest Entertainment, in association with Busted Buggy Entertainment, announces the new psychological thriller Threshold, starring Randy Wayne, Trilby Glover, Leslie Stevens, Courtney Daniels, Derek Magyar, and Rich Paul.

The film is the feature directorial debut of Jason Eric Perlman and is produced by William Clevinger. The executive producer is Graham Kaye, and co-producers are Elliott Michael Smith and Nick Zuvic.

“We’re thrilled to have assembled an extremely talented cast and crew to bring the impactful tale that is Threshold to audiences around the world,” said Clevinger. “We’re working hard to ensure the film maintains the perfect balance of commercial viability and artistic integrity. Graham and myself spent...

Lake Forest Entertainment in association with Busted Buggy Entertainment have today announced their new psychological thriller, Threshold, starring Randy Wayne, Trilby Glover, Leslie Stevens, Courtney Daniels, Derek Magyar and Rich Paul. The film is the feature directorial debut of Jason Eric Perlman and is produced by William Clevinger. Executive Producer is Graham Kaye and co-producers…

The post Psychological Thriller Threshold Now in Production appeared first on Shock Till You Drop.

The Warner Archive Collection is really starting to put out some great DVDs that feature titles you aren’t going to find anywhere else, and the latest to be made available is Search. A massively fun show from the early 70s, Search starred Hugh O’Brian, Doug McClure, and Tony Franciosa, and was (although I’m testing my memory) a show that pulled great tech ideas into the espionage drama realm, at a point when some of the ideas were practically sci-fi.

The complete series is available now, and it’s a lost classic that deserves a look. Unfortunately, it’s hard to get a taste of it to know if you’re interested in buying, but for those who remember the series, this is a real treat.

Catch the full info below, and don’t let this one escape your notice.

Look no further: You can now find Search...

On this day in 1966 the only horror film shot in a constructed language premiered at the San Francisco Film Festival. Starring William Shatner from the first to last scene the actors in Incubus exclusively speak Esperanto. In Incubus however Producer Leslie Stevens sought to use the language solely for gimmick purposes. Originally aiming to create a featurelength film in the mode of the recently cancelled The Outer Limits TV series Stevens thought the use of Esperanto would give his production a unique twist that would produce buzz.

"The Amazing Spider-Man" has been taking the box office by storm. Since opening on July 3, the film has made $75.5 million domestically, and could eventually compete with the Sam Raimi trilogy for top Spidey franchise. However, while the Tobey Maguire-starring "Spider-Man" films are praised by both critics and audiences, they were not the first attempt to get the friendly neighborhood superhero onto the big screen. Over the last three decades, there have been several versions of "Spider-Man" that almost came to be: from a corny B-movie to an R-rated epic from James Cameron. Moviefone takes a look back at the "Spider-Man" moves that almost happened. A "Spider-Man" Monster Movie, directed by Tobe Hooper ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre") The first studio to acquire the rights to "Spider-Man" was Cannon Films (the people behind '80s fare like "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo," "Masters of the Universe" and "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.

In the fall of 1972, I was 14 and consuming as much science fiction and heroic fantasy as I could mainline. As a result, I was the prime candidate to fall in love with a television series that had great concepts, an appealing cast and plenty of action. None were more disappointed when the series, Search, faded after a single season. Thanks to the Wayback Machine that is Warner Archive, the pilot film, Probe, is currently available with hints that the series itself may follow.

Billed as “science fiction in today’s world”, NBC offered up a series that may be a little creaky upon watching today but the series offered some forward looking thinking that was all too rare during the 1970s. It all began with a two-hour telefilm that served as a pilot from Outer Limits creator Leslie Stevens. Producing the show was Star Trek veteran Robert Justman which may...

Director Arthur Penn.

The Left Handed Gun: Arthur Penn’S Ticket To Hollywood… And His Ticket Back Home As Well

by Jon Zelazny

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on EightMillionStories.com September 29, 2008.

In the 1960’s, Arthur Penn was one of the most acclaimed directors in the world, best known for his smash hits The Mircale Worker (1962) and Bonnie & Clyde (1967), each of which earned him an Oscar nomination.

He spent his early career directing theater and live television in New York, until he and three of his TV colleagues—producer Fred Coe, writer Leslie Stevens, and fledgling star Paul Newman—went to Hollywood to make a western about Billy the Kid.

Paul Newman takes aim as Billy the Kid, in Arthur Penn's The Left Handed Gun.

2008 marked the 50th anniversary of The Left Handed Gun, Penn’s now-celebrated feature film debut. We spoke by phone, ironically the day...