This edition — four episodes on four discs, per Shout! Factory’s usual — is like a cinematic-crap tour around the globe. We venture south of the border for 1962’s Samson vs. the Vampire Women, a masked-wrestler epic that stars Santo (not Samson, no matter what the title says), the caped superhero of Mexico’s wrasslin’ ring. […]
Archives – Television series
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Dexter: The Sixth Season
As season six opens, he worries whether his dark traits will take root in his toddler, but the arc of these dozen hours is tracking down the so-called “Doomsday Killer” — actually, killers plural: two end-times zealots (Edward James Olmos and a clench-jawed Colin Hanks) who believe God wants them to bring about the end […]
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Eagleheart: Season One
For Chris Elliott fans, the Adult Swim series is worth rejoicing over. Unlike other shows of the late-night Cartoon Network showcase, this one enjoys well-crafted scripts filled with jokes that come from decades of edgy, experimental comedy experience, and not bong hits. Ostensibly a parody of Walker, Texas Ranger and perhaps a bit Justified, the […]
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The Killing: The Complete First Season
That’s the question posed by the first season of AMC’s The Killing, and also one famously answered — and then infamously not — by its finale (an extended cut of which is on the three-disc Blu-ray set) that incited the Internet equivalent of a riot. Whereas so many viewers were angry, I was elated: Seriously, […]
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Dark Shadows: Fan Favorites / The Best of Barnabas
It’s de rigueur for the Collins clan of Dark Shadows, the long-running Gothic soap opera from the late 1960s and early 70s, and a cult sensation ever since. Because the TV show is due for a modern reboot as Tim Burton’s take hits the big screen on May 11, MPI Home Video is naturally mere […]
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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXIII
As for the four films contained within? Well, they’re all horrible, naturally, which means they’re hilarious when pitted against Joel Hodgson or Mike Nelson and their robot friends, who sit in silhouette at the bottom of your screen, mocking all the way. In this set, we’re treated to a true variety of genres that previous […]
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Game of Thrones: The Complete First Season
I saw the Thrones pilot a few weeks before it aired last April, and liked it just enough to want to see if it got any better. Not having the channel at home, I had to wait for the home-video release of the first season, which now is here in HBO’s usual top-notch packaging. The […]
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Doctor Who: The Robots of Death
Then portrayed by Tom Baker and his giant, 1977-friendly ’fro, the good Doctor and his pretty yet primitive companion, Leela (Louise Jameson), are stuck in a “metal world” in outer space until they can find their beloved TARDIS, which has gone missing. (For show virgins — or near-virgins like me — that’s the iconic time-traveling […]
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Archie’s Weird Mysteries: The Complete Series / Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century: The Complete Series
New to DVD from Mill Creek Entertainment’s Cookie Jar line are two DIC series that debuted in the late ’90s, Archie’s Weird Mysteries and Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, both collected in their entirety, at 40 episodes on four discs and 26 on three, respectively. Although not that old, they already look incredibly dated, […]
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Police Woman: Season Two
For that success and a winning performance, she was rewarded with Emmy nominations for three of its four seasons, and a shiny Golden Globe. But let’s not raise the flag for feminism: As good as Dickinson was in it, the show was a hit because of her then-incredible hotness. After all, it was spun off […]