May 22 Digital, Blu-ray and DVD Releases

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May 22 Digital, Blu-ray and DVD Releases

Welcome to ComingSoon.net’s May 22 Digital HD, Blu-ray and DVD column! As you can see, we’ve added a video player at the top highlighting this week’s releases, and you can find more detailed write-ups of different titles below! Click each highlighted title to purchase through Amazon!

New Movies on Blu-ray/DVD

Red Sparrow
Jennifer Lawrence shines as a Russian ballerina forced by circumstance to go to a secret training program known as “Sparrow School” that teaches her to use her seductive nature to be a spy for the government. Click here to read our exclusive interview with director Francis Lawrence from earlier this year!

Game Night
Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams co-star in this outrageous comedy about a couple who thinks they are participating in a couples game night that turns into a very real nightmare.

Early Man
The stop-motion geniuses at Aardman (creators of Wallace & Gromit) bring their anachronistic stone-age meets bronze age comedy to Blu-ray, and it’s a lot of fun for the whole family. Click here to read our interview with the film’s director Nick Park from earlier this year!

The 15:17 to Paris
Real-life heroes Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos and Spencer Stone play themselves in director Clint Eastwood’s dramatic interpretation of their heroic prevention of a terrorist attack onboard a train.

I Kill Giants
Based on the graphic novel, this fantasy follows a teenage girl who escapes the realities of school and a troubled family life by retreating into her magical world of fighting evil giants. Zoe Saldana co-stars.

Daphne & Velma
This original live-action movie stars Sarah Jeffrey and Sarah Gillman as the title Scooby-Doo duo as they meet each other for the first time in high school.

A Fantastic Woman
This Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Film involves a Chilean trans woman who has to deal with the fallout of her husband’s death. She is treated with suspicion by police and disdain by his family, who bar her from his funeral.

Criterion Corner

Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters
The Criterion Collection issues their deluxe Blu-ray of director Paul Schrader’s 1985 masterpiece about acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (Ken Ogata), which utilizes different filmmaking styles for different aspects of the man’s life and death. Contains an all-new 4K digital transfer of the director’s cut, as well as an alternate narration track by Roy Scheider and other fascinating extras.

SALES!

The fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome, one of our favorite labels restoring and reissuing quality vintage grindhouse fare, are having a Halfway to Black Friday Sale this week from May 25 through May 28 in which nearly their entire catalogue will be available at 50% off! To honor the occasion, they sent me one of their recent releases: British director Norman J. Warren’s 1978 cult classic Terror. Featuring well above average performances and an intriguing story about a centuries-old witch extracting vengeance on her killer’s modern-day descendant, this is the kind of genre hybrid horror flick that isn’t exactly a slasher or a supernatural ghost story or an erotic thriller, but rather is all of those things. It also features an end gag involving a levitating car that has to be seen to be believed. If you’re a fan of films like Black Sunday or Suspiria then this is right up your alley, and it features a rare non-Chewbacca appearance by Peter Mayhew as well as a leading performance by John Nolan, the uncle of Christopher Nolan!

Here are some more Vinegar Syndrome titles we recommend picking up during the big sale: The Hearse, Count Dracula’s Great Love, Witchtrap, Crypt of the Living Dead, House of the Living Dead, Dolemite, Penitentiary, Snapshot and the trash classic Night Train to Terror!

Reissues

The Bloodthirsty Trilogy
Arrow Video issues our favorite discovery of the week with this Japanese trilogy of vampire films made in the early 70’s that have the same gothic horror feel of the Hammer Studios Dracula movies or the Roger Corman Poe films. These are exactly the kind of eerie little gems true gothic horror fans dream of: Thunderstorms, secluded mansions, creaking doors, pale vampire girls & huge sideburns. Cannot recommend enough!

A Fistful of Dollars
The movie that kicked off the Italian spaghetti western phenomenon comes to Blu-ray in a new, fully-loaded edition from Kino Lorber. The film itself, Sergio Leone’s pseudo remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo, is just as startling and gorgeous as ever, and contains a literal career-making performance from Clint Eastwood as the iconic Man With No Name.

Of Unknown Origin
Scream Factory reissues this brilliant, overlooked 1983 Canadian horror film directed by George P. Cosmatos (Tombstone) starring RoboCop‘s Peter Weller as a yuppie executive whose life unravels during two weeks alone in his New York brownstone trying to kill a giant rat. His “Moby Dick”-esque pursuit of this viscious rodent leaves his home (and sanity) in shambles.

Death Smiles on a Murderer
Klaus Kinski stars in this 1973 Italian horror film set in the early 1900s, about a dead woman brought back to life who reaps terrible vengeance upon her family.

Savannah Smiles
This 1982 family film centers on a politician’s six-year-old daughter who causes a stir when she runs away from home with a pair of wanted fugitives.

Black Venus
Abdellatif Kechiche of Blue is the Warmest Color made this 2010 film about Saartjie Baartman, who was taken from her South African home and displayed in 19th century London.

New on Digital HD

Annihilation (exclusive clip)
Our favorite movie of the year so far is Alex Garland’s sci-fi thriller that takes a deep dive into Lovecraftian cosmic dread. Natalie Portman plays a scientist (and ex military) who ventures into a zone affected by an alien energy known as The Shimmer, where the longer plants and animals stay the more their DNA gets rearranged. Check out an exclusive behind-the-scenes clip below that comes with both the digital release and eventually the Blu-ray as well.

Death Wish
Bruce Willis steps into Charles Bronson’s shoes as a mild mannered doctor who takes the law into his own hands after his family is attacked. The vigilante classic is remade by Hostel director Eli Roth.

The Strangers: Prey at Night
The sequel to the 2008 hit stars Christina Hendricks as a woman who has to contend with three masked maniacs.

Lost in London (exclusive clip)
Directed by and starring Woody Harrelson, this is he first film ever broadcast live to theaters in January of 2017, and finally comes to Digital HD on May 25. Harrelson and co-stars Owen Wilson and Willie Nelson all play themselves in a comedic version of a real life event in which Harrelson was arrested in Soho in 2002. Check out an exclusive clip from the release below!

Beauty Mark
Inspired by true events, a poverty-stricken young mother is forced to move when her house is condemned. With no money and no options, she must confront her abusive past in order to save her family.

TV on Blu-ray and DVD

Gunsmoke: The Thirteenth Season Volumes 1 & 2
The 13th season of the James Arness TV classic western comes home to DVD from CBS in a two-disc set, with Volume 1 containing 15 episodes and Volume 2 containing 10 episodes.