News

In honor of Women's History Month, this March, Syfy Fangrrls is launching a new limited podcast dedicated to women in genre films whose accomplishments have gone unrecognized or have been forgotten. In today's Highlights, we also have details on the California run of Evil Dead The Musical and Popcornflix's first wave of streaming movies with Terror Films.

Syfy Fangrrls Presents Limited Podcast Series Forgotten Women of Genre: "Syfy Wire Fangrrls present: Forgotten Women of Genre.

March is Women's History Month and while Syfy Fangrrls celebrates women's achievements throughout the year, they’re going above and beyond for the upcoming month with a limited podcast series called Forgotten Women of Genre.

Science fiction, fantasy, and all associated genres have finally evolved from a niche interest into a mainstream staple. But the women who have been instrumental in creating and shaping the nerdverse have largely gone unrecognized. Until today. Forgotten Women...

Robert Bloch and Milton Subotsky may have helped to codify the Giallo in this murder thriller but the results are not up to even the shaky standards of Amicus. That said, horror fans are going to flock to get their hands on a big color & ‘scope release that’s gone missing for decades. It’s a significant ‘save’ by Kino Lorber.

The Psychopath

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen Techniscope / 82 min. / Street Date April 10, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Patrick Wymark, Margaret Johnston, John Standing, Alexander Knox, Judy Huxtable, Don Borisenko, Thorley Walters, Robert Crewdson, Harold Lang, Gina Gianelli, Greta Farrer, John Harvey.

Cinematography: John Wilcox

Film Editor: Oswald Hafenrichter

Art Direction: Bill Constable

Original Music: Elisabeth Lutyens

Written by Robert Bloch

Produced by Max Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky

Directed by Freddie Francis

A look at the cast and crew of The Psychopath raises one’s hopes. Good actors Patrick...

Peter Cushing! Christopher Lee! Each is at the top of his game, playing competing collectors of occult incunabula — the kind that comes with a satanic curse, when the purloined item in question is the Skull Of The infamous, despicable and sharp-toothed Marquis De Sade! Freddie Francis directs up a storm in this amicable Amicus chiller: the mysterious skull-duggery is beautifully shot and edited, giving the horror scenes real Bite.

The Skull

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 83 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Peter Cushing, Patrick Wymark, Nigel Green, Jill Bennett, Michael Gough, Ceorge Couloris, Christopher Lee.

Cinematography: John Wilcox

Art Direction: Bill Constable

Film Editor: Oswald Hafenrichter

Original Music: Elisabeth Lutyens

Written by Milton Subotsky from a story by Robert Bloch

Produced by Milton Subotsky, Max J. Rosenberg

Directed by Freddie Francis

Nine years ago Legend Films brought us a DVD of this 1965 horror item,...

It's a minor -- very minor -- Terence Fisher Sci-Fi suspenser that reaches the bare genre minimum and nothing more. Love the title and love those great stills, but when it's finished you're going to be saying, 'Now all I need is a good alien invasion movie!' The Earth Dies Screaming Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 62 excruciating minutes of horror / Street Date October 4, 2016 / available through Kl Studio Classics / 29.95 Starring Willard Parker, Virginia Field, Dennis Price, Thorley Walters, Vanda Godsell, David Spenser, Anna Palk. Cinematography Arthur Lavis Film Editor Robert Winter Makeup Harold Fletcher Original Music Elisabeth Lutyens Written by Henry Cross (Harry Spalding) Produced by Robert L. Lippert, Jack Parsons Directed by Terence Fisher

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

So I guess we have to add a third choice for the end of the world: a Bang, a Whimper... and now a Scream. Low-budget science fiction didn't...

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing costar in a worthwhile horror attraction -- and for once even share some scenes. Amicus gives us five tales of the uncanny, each with a clever twist or sting in its tail. Creepy mountebank Cushing deals the Tarot cards that spell out the grim fates in store; Chris Lee is a pompous art critic wih a handy problem. Also with Michael Gough and introducing a young Donald Sutherland. Dr. Terror's House of Horrors Blu-ray Olive Films 1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date October 27, 2015 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 <Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Michael Gough, Donald Sutherland, Alan Freeman, Max Adrian, Roy Castle, Ursula Howells, Neil McCallum, Bernard Lee, Jennifer Jayne, Jeremy Kemp, Harold Lang, Katy Wild, Isla Blair, Al Mulock. Cinematography Alan Hume Film Editor Thelma Cornell Original Music Elizabeth Lutyens Written by Milton Subotsky Produced by Max Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky Directed by...

Composer and pianist whose work included film scores, opera and jazz cabaret

The composer Richard Rodney Bennett, who has died in New York aged 76, pursued multiple musical lives with extraordinary success. He was one of the more distinguished soundtrack composers of his era, having contributed to some 50 films and winning Oscar nominations for his work on Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Nicholas and Alexandra (1971) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

But it scarcely seemed credible that this knack for writing for a mainstream audience in a melodic, romantic style co-existed with his mastery of serialism and 12-tone techniques. From 1957 to 1959, Bennett was a scholarship student with Pierre Boulez in Paris and soaked up the latter's total serialism techniques as well as his infatuation with the German avant garde. He also attended the summer schools at Darmstadt, the mecca for diehard atonalists.

His tremendous facility as a pianist would prompt the...