That’s right.  Fill the front of the DVD cover with text in the worst font known to man.  It’s a comicsansapalooza!

(If you want a closer view of the madness, you can use the zoom feature on the Amazon listing here.)

No description at Amazon, but do you really need one?

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Details are so far sketchy, but Synapse Films has acquired the US rights to three long-MIA Hammer films, TWINS OF EVIL, VAMPIRE CIRCUS, and my personal fave, HANDS OF THE RIPPER. The company has also snabbled the 13 episode TV show HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR, which will be issued as a box set. At the moment a September release date looks likely, but there’s no definite word yet. The three feature films may be released in Blu-Ray as well as on DVD, and lots of extras are promised. Stay tuned.

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April looks like being an expensive month.

The next Columbia “Icons” box set that was promised midway through last year – “Icons Of Suspense”, a collection of six thrillers from Hammer -  is now tentatively slated for an April release; more details as they come to hand. This set collects Joseph Losey’s These Are The Damned (finally!), Cash On Demand (Pete! Yes!), Maniac, Never Take Sweets From A Stranger (aka Never Take Candy From A Stranger), The Snorkel and The Full Treatment (aka Stop Me Before I Kill). Once again, there is a chance to vote for your preferred cover art from the three choices shown above; the link is here.

Everyone’s probably heard this, but it’s worth repeating: Shout! Factory and New Horizons Pictures are remastering a range of Roger Corman productions. Those with confirmed release dates are Piranha (Special Edition), Humanoids From The Deep and Up From The Depths/Demon Of Paradise (double-disc) in April, and Piranha (Special Edition) (Blu-Ray), Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (Special Edition) (DVD and Blu-Ray) and Suburbia in May. Other titles listed to follow include Death Race 2000, Deathsport, Forbidden World and Galaxy Of Terror.

And in an astonishing – and astonishingly welcome – piece of news, Shout! Factory will also be remastering and releasing all eight of the “Showa” Gamera films. It is not clear yet whether these releases will include both the Japanese and American versions, but they may, at least by inference: Shout! is still trying to get hold of Gammera The Invincible, to which  Kadokawa Pictures (the licensor) does not own the rights. Stay tuned for more details.

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In the wake of the Warner Bros. Archive Collection, it now seems that Universal are taking a similar tack to get some of their more obscure genre films into the market. First up, available either for individual purchase or as a box set, are House Of Horrors (1946), The Mad Ghoul (1943), The Mad Doctor Of Market Street (1942), The Strange Case Of Dr Rx (1942), and – hallelujah! – Murders In The Zoo (1933). I guess I’ll finally be able to do something about those screenshots.

In related news, Warners have finally opened up their online store to overseas customers, although their shipping costs are essentially prohibitive. However, all of the Warners and Universal discs are available through the Turner Classic Movies store (as are some RKO films; so far no genre entries, though); and they now seem to be available through Amazon, as well. So shop around.

Edited to add:  After an earlier disappointment, we now have a new release date for the long-awaited (well…long-awaited by me) Special Edition of John Bud Cardos’s Kingdom Of The Spiders. Coming from Shout! Factory on 19th January next year, this release will include a new interview with William Shatner, plus a commentary by Cardos and others and a featurette on Jim Brockett, the production’s spider-wrangler.

On 1st December, Shout! Factory will also be releasing Volume XVI of MST3K, containing The Corpse Vanishes, Warrior Of The Lost World, Night Of The Blood Beast and (just in time for Christmas) Santa Claus. The first pressing will also contain a Tom Servo figurine.

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The description for Gravestoned from the official site:

FINALLY. A HORROR FILM FOR STONERS.

Shark and Coltrane, two out-of-work pot farmers really want to break into the movie business. So they chainsaw a cadaver’s arm off and use the severed arm as a prop in a horror film. Now they have to survive a night in the graveyard with a cadaver zombie that wants his arm back! Pot smoking slacker gravediggers, a movie goddess (Lar Park Lincoln, Friday the 13th Part 7), an obsessed movie mogul, a cadaver salesman, hot cheerleaders who may be exotic dancers, a redneck who would love to grill a severed arm and a horny Scottish Terrier – they’re all here in this over-the-top horror film for stoners that has been called the most ominous use of a severed arm in the history of celluloid

Point #1: Wasn’t Charles Band’s Evil Bong (2006) a horror film for stoners?  Evil Bong 2: King Bong (2009)?  Shrooms (2007)?

Point #2:

How stoned do you have to be to think, “That looks like a good movie”?

I’m speaking, of course, of Night of the Creeps, which has heretofore been available only as deteriorating ex-rental tapes or as bootlegs copies from late-nite TV.  And because it’s coming both to DVD and Blu-Ray, you’ve got the choice of TWO suck-ass covers!

Me, I plan to find a good large copy of one of the old posters (maybe from here) and photoshop some custom cover art.

Here’s the description of Grave Danger:

Beautiful and perky Becky is home alone one dark night watching horror movies on TV when she becomes the victim of a madman terrorizing her with frightening phone calls. Soon, Becky is embroiled in a deadly game of one-upmanship as she and the caller trade titillating and terrifying tales of voodoo-possessed housewives, deadly ventriloquist dummies and omni-present watchers.

Cathy St. George (PLAYBOY VIDEO PLAYMATE REVIEW 2), Vic Martino (THE SOPRANOS) and Kaye Bramblett (SQUEEZE PLAY) star in a chilling, sexy and darkly comic anthology from underground horror maven Jim Haggerty (I DREAM OF DRACULA, THE SLASHER)!

And here’s the cover:

Ooh. Goosebumps.

And now, off to do my happy dance…

Update: And while we’re at it: