Is there anything more stressful than meeting your girlfriend’s father for the first time? How about doing it at a lavish, Kafkaesque hotel where everyone looks like they walked out of a 1940s noir and a doomsday cult is busy prepping for the arrival of a cosmic god?

The Birthday premiered at Sitges in 2004, blew the minds of everyone who saw it (including Quentin Tarantino, who reportedly loved it), and then… nothing. It vanished into a black hole of distribution hell for nearly twenty years. But thanks to the psychotronic archaeologists at Arrow Video, Eugenio Mira’s nightmare-fueled screwball comedy has been resurrected.

Corey Feldman stars as Norman Forrester. Now, let’s talk about Corey. We grew up with him as Mouth, Edgar Frog, and Vic from Stand By Me, but you have never seen him like this. Norman is a man of pure, jittery anxiety. He’s a high-pitched, stuttering mess who just wants to propose to his girlfriend, Alison (Erica Prior). He’s playing against type so hard he practically invents a new type.

The film takes place in real-time at the Grand Hotel, a sprawling, opulent set that feels like the Overlook’s more claustrophobic cousin. Norman is trying to navigate the social minefield of Alison’s wealthy father, played by the legendary Jack Taylor. If you’re a fan of Eurotrash and cult cinema, you know Taylor. He was in everything from Jess Franco’s Count Dracula to Conan the Barbarian and Pieces. Seeing him go toe-to-toe with a manic Feldman is the cinematic crossover I didn’t know I needed.

As the night progresses, the screwball half of the movie begins to bleed into the cosmic horror half. The hotel staff is a little too polite. The guests are a little too strange. And there’s the matter of the sect that believes tonight is the night their god, Fu-Manchu-style deity or otherwise, is finally going to be born.

Director Eugenio Mira, who would go on to direct Grand Piano, is a technician of the highest order. The camera moves here are insane. We’re talking long, sweeping takes, split-screens, and a sense of geography that makes you feel like you’re trapped in the hotel right along with Norman. It’s a movie that feels like it’s vibrating at a different frequency than anything else released in the early 2000s.

Why did this sit on a shelf for two decades? Maybe it was too weird for the mainstream. Maybe the world wasn’t ready for a prestige Corey Feldman performance in a Spanish-produced English-language occult comedy. But the wait was worth it.

The limited edition Arrow Video 4K UHD and Blu-ray releases include a 4K restoration from the original negative; audio commentary by actor Corey Feldman and co-writer/director Eugenio Mira; a new interview with Mira, shot exclusively for this release; an in-depth breakdown of a scene from the film by Mira, featuring archival behind-the-scenes footage, storyboards and rushes; a 2024 Q&A with Feldman and Mira from the film’s 20th anniversary screening at Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas; the original and 20th anniversary trailers; an image gallery; a reversible sleeve featuring two original artwork options and a collectors’ booklet featuring new writing on the film by Bryan Reesman. You can get this on 4K UHD or Blu-ray from MVD.