Highway to Hell (1990): Mass-murderer Toby Gilmore (Benton Jennings, who also wrote Reanimator Academy) has broken out of prison and is hiding in the desert, where he’s been picking people off. Officer Earl Dent (Richard Harrison) has wanted to kill Gilmore ever since the scumbag assaulted his daughter. As for Fran Thomson (Blue Thompson), she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, constantly chased and taken by the maniac, a pawn in his plans of, well, killing everyone around him.

Directed by Bret McCormick, written by Gary Kennamer (who directed the second movie on this Visual Vengeance release, Redneck County Fever) and shot on 16mm, this and Recneck were made after a conversation with David DeCoteau about making lean movies that could be turned out quickly. Despite the budget, shooting this in rural Texas gives the film a character it wouldn’t have otherwise. 

The film doesn’t just take place in the desert; it feels born from it. The choice of 16mm film is crucial here. Unlike the clean, sterile look of modern digital indies, the grain in this production acts like a layer of silt over the lens. It heightens the isolation of the rural Texas landscape, turning every rusted gas pump and sun-bleached cactus into a potential tombstone. It captures a “weat-and-exhaust aesthetic that makes the viewer feel dehydrated.

Greg Synodis, who also composed the music for Reanimator Academy, is responsible for the score, which ramps up the tension as Fran’s life gets worse by the minute. 

Sure, this feels like a much, much lower budget The Hitcher, but we don’t hold that against Hitcher In the Dark either. It’s a great example of what McCormick learned from his early films and how he took the knowledge of keeping everything lean while never letting up on the intensity. Plus, while some say he was phoning it in, I saw Harrison as having a weary, end-of-the-rope gravity in his role as Officer Dent. This isn’t just a professional manhunt for him. It’s a personal exorcism and provides the moral stakes that anchor the chaotic violence.

Redneck County Fever (1992): Directed and written by Gary Kennamer, this has two stoners whose car dies in the middle of the same rural Texas we just drove through in Highway to Hell. While McCormick’s film treats the Texas landscape like a graveyard, Kennamer treats it like a playground of the absurd. The choice to feature two stoners as our heroes immediately deconstructs the tension established in McCormick’s film.

Imagine Bill and Ted in Texas, having adventures that last sixty minutes but may feel much longer. Such is this film. It’s nice to have it as part of the Visual Vengeance Blu-ray release as a companion piece, and to wonder how many of the same crew worked on this. You can see the same dust, the same grainy 16mm textures, and likely the same craft services table (if there even was one). 

Putting scream queen Michelle Bauer on the cover when she doesn’t appear in a single frame is a hall-of-fame don’t believe it by its VHS cover marketing idea. It captures the desperate, hilarious hustle of independent distribution, one in which selling a goofy SOV stoner comedy means making it seem like something it isn’t.

Shot in rural Texas, Highway to Hell stands as a prime example of the regional, low-budget filmmaking that fueled America’s video boom of the 1980s and ’90s. Originally released on VHS via Rae Don Home Video, the film showcases director Bret McCormick (The Abomination, Repligator), a key figure in the Texas exploitation underground, whose raw energy and ingenuity turn poverty row resources into a fast-paced, sun-baked thriller that captures the true spirit and grit of independent genre cinema. This is released for the first time ever on Blu-ray, just like the bonus SOV feature film, Redneck County Fever. Made from an SD master from original tape elements, this has a commentary and interview with director Bret McCormick; interviews with Blue Thompson, Richard Harrison, Gary Kennamer and Tom Fegan; an image gallery; a commentary track and interviews on Redneck County Fever with Bret McCormick and Gary Kennamer; Visual Vengeance trailers; a “Stick Your Own” VHS sticker set; a reversible sleeve featuring original VHS art; a folded Redneck County Fever mini-poster and a limited edition O-CARD featuring original poster art. You can get this from MVD.

Ashura (Gloria Yip), the Holy Maiden of Hell, could destroy the Earth as easily as I’ll crush my next mixed drink. To keep that from going down. Some Buddhist monks trap her in a cave. She’s placed under the watchful (and often overwhelmed) eyes of Peacock (the legendary Yuen Biao), Lucky Fruit (Hiroshi Abe) and a trio of female abbesses. What follows is a surreal blend of fish-out-of-water comedy and high-octane supernatural warfare. Ashura attempts to navigate girlhood alongside her bizarre companion, Genie, while being hunted by the Hell Concubine, villains whose name and design scream 1980s dark fantasy manga (fitting, as this is the sequel to The Peacock King, based on the Kujako O series).

Directed by Ngai Choi Lam and Sze-Yu Lau, this feels like a movie kids would love, what with the cute monster, but the monster is threatened so many times in this film that I started to worry about it. Sure, this is kind of all over the place and has way too many comedic asides that derail the film, but it looks gorgeous, like Dario Argento was the substitute director for one day of Big Trouble In Little China, as neon colors and fog swirl around steel-clawed evil and giant monsters. 

The 88 Films Blu-ray release of Saga of the Phoenix has a new 2K scan, commentary by Frank Djang and F.J. DeSanto, alternate Japanese footage, a reversible sleeve with two sets of art, a 40-page book, a poster, and it all comes inside a gorgeous rigid clipcase. You can get this from MVD.

This historical sit-down, originally titled The First Family of Satanism, serves as a fascinating time capsule of the Satanic Panic era, capturing the sharp ideological divide between Bob Larson’s evangelical world and the Schrecks’ elitist Social Darwinist philosophy.

Recorded in 1990 and later released in 2002, the program features Bob Larson, a well-known Christian evangelist, engaging in a direct conversation with two prominent figures in the Satanic and occult communities: Zeena Schreck, the daughter of Anton LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, and Nikolas Schreck, leader of the Werewolf Coven, a modern pagan and occult group with ties to the Church of Satan. 

The conversation begins with Larson questioning the Church of Satan’s sincerity in its founding in 1966. Zeena defends her father, Anton LaVey, stating that the showmanship and gimmicks (like using nude women as altars) were necessary to pave the way for Satanism to be a recognized religion. She also confirms several Satanic legends, including her father’s alleged affairs with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, as well as Mansfield’s devout membership in the Church.

Nikolas Schreck presents a bold, apocalyptic view of the 1990s, predicting it would be the Satanic Century and describing Christianity as being in its last extravagant death throes. He argues that religious media’s growth is actually a sign of its end, as it has turned to entertainment, something he claims Jesus would never have condoned.

Zeena was raised within the Church of Satan and during the 80s was the organization’s first spokesperson, as her father was in exile. How did she end up speaking for the Church? She told Obsküre Magazine, “In 1985, a U.S. news show called 20/20 accused The Satanic Bible of being responsible for child daycare Satanic ritual abuse, new allegations then. … I called my father and asked him what his media strategy would be to deal with this catastrophe. Nothing. He didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t concern him. It wasn’t anything he needed to worry about. He certainly wasn’t going to do anything about it in public. He admitted that many media outlets had already contacted him and that he was just going to ignore it until it went away. I tried to convince him that this would only get worse if he didn’t respond and that he really needed to get someone to answer calls quickly, or it would be taken as an admission of guilt or suspicion. Finally, he admitted he had no one to deal with interviews or media. I offered to help temporarily until he found someone. This was not what I’d intended to do with my life; I had other plans.”

She was also a major part of working with police departments to defuse the Satanic Panic. In 1990, she resigned her position, severed ties with her father and renounced LaVeyan-based Satanism before embracing Tibetan Tantric Buddhism and forming the Sethian Liberation Movement in 2002. She said, “In the process of defending the Church of Satan from these unfounded claims in the U.S. mass media, Zeena’s media appearances attracted a new upsurge of membership to the formerly moribund organization even as she began to question and ultimately reject the self-centered philosophy she promoted. As she toured the United States on behalf of the Church of Satan, Zeena’s crisis of faith reached its highpoint when she learned that most of her father’s self-created legend was based on lies and that many of his works were plagiarized. When jealousy and spite motivated Anton LaVey and his administrator, Densley-Barton, to endanger Zeena’s life, she could no longer continue to cover up her progenitor’s true character in good conscience. This behind-the-scenes tension should be kept in mind when viewing or hearing Zeena’s interviews from that time.”

As for Schreck, he founded the music and performance collective Radio Werewolf and was affiliated with the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set, but later disavowed both and became a Buddhist. Schreck was part of the Abraxas Foundation, an occult-fascist think tank that included Boyd Rice, Adam Parfrey and Michael J. Moynihan. At one point, as he padded out pro-AIDS brochures, his ear was cut off. 

Bob Larson? I listened to him every day as a child. The pastor of Spiritual Freedom Church in Phoenix, Arizona, hosted Talk Back and went after, well, everything I loved from heavy metal to role-playing games. He went from doing exorcisms on the radio to charging people nearly $300 to do them over Skype.

This is a sit-down among all three, and it’s no different from a bunch of people high at a party talking psychology. Yet it’s a wonderful relic of a time I lived through, one that never went away.

You can watch this on YouTube.

At the end of the 1970s, a new generation of martial arts stars — three adopted brothers — rose to the top of Hong Kong cinema: Yuen Biao, Jackie Chan and Sammo Hung, who found fame as the director and star of The Iron Fisted Monk, The Magnificent Butcher and Encounter of the Spooky Kind.

Eureak’s latest set has three films spanning Hung’s career, from a supporting role in The Manchu Boxer to stardom in Paper Marriage and Shanghai, Shanghai.

The Manchu Boxer (1974): Ku Ru-Zhang (Tony Liu) has left his hometown in shame. He’s killing a rich man’s son (director Wu Ma) in self-defense, and even his father wants him gone. He promises never to fight again and quickly becomes a husband and father to a widower and his child. But then, when a martial arts master (Kim Ki-Joo) and his two henchmen (Sammo Hung, who was also the fight coordinator and Wilson Tong) decide to win a tournament at any cost, our hero must enter and fight again.

Ku Ru-Zhang is a good enough fighter that he can win a battle against multiple fighters without taking his hands out of his pockets, like some kind of martial world Orange Cassidy. Ah, but how will he fare against a femme fatale who can throw knives?

This Golden Harvest film came to the U.S. thanks to Independent-International Pictures as Masters of Martial Arts.

Paper Marriage (1988): Directed and co-written by Alfred Cheung, this finds boxer Bo Chin (Sammo Hung) in America. He agrees to marry Jade Lee (Maggie Cheung) so that he can stay in the country. After he goes the distance in a kickboxing fight, criminals steal his money. Man, Bo was poor to start with, thanks to his ex-wife (Joyce Godenzi, Sammo’s real partner)!

Also: That isn’t Los Angeles in this movie. It’s Edmonton, Alberta.

If you ever wondered where Shinya Hashimoto got his look from (or maybe Sammo is taking after him) or want to see Maggie Cheung mud wrestle, this is the movie for you! It’s a cute film and one that takes full advantage of its stars.

Shanghai, Shanghai (1990): This time around, Sammo Hung is the villain, Chin Hung-yun, facing off with Yuen Biao as Little Tiger and George Lam as police officer Big Tiger. Well, at first, Little Tiger is friends with Chin Hung-yun, but he must quickly choose between family and friendship.

This has a unique 1930s Singapore setting and Anita Mui as the love interest, but the whole reason to stick around is the movie’s ending battle between Sammo and Yuen Biao. You know how great it is when brothers fight, right?

I kind of love Hong Kong period films set at the start of the last century. This looks great, and while it takes a bit to get going, it all ends well enough.

This set has 1080p HD presentations from brand new 2K restorations of the original Hong Kong theatrical cuts of all three films; new audio commentary on The Manchu Boxer with East Asian cinema expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist and filmmaker Michael Worth; new audio commentary on Paper Marriage with genre cinema experts Stefan Hammond and Arne Venema; new audio commentary on Shanghai, Shanghai with Frank Djeng and producer/writer F.J. DeSanto; a new interview with Paper Marriage director Alfred Cheung; trailers; a limited edition exclusive bonus disc; a limited edition O-card slipcase featuring new artwork by Sam Gilbey and a limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing on Sammo Hung. You can get this from MVD.