Tales of Terror

As well as directing many feature length movies based on the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Roger Corman also created several shorts based on the stories of the gothic author too. Collected here are three of those shorts, all starring Corman collaborator Vincent Price. In The Black Cat Price stars with Peter Lorre in a tale of murderous revenge, Morella tells the tale of a man being forced to face a dark family secret, and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar in which Price stars alongside Basil Rathbone is a tale of a man who is hypnotised only to find himself hovering between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Why we’re looking forward to this: Anyone who has bought one of Arrow Videos’ previous DVD or Blu-Ray releases will know that pretty much everything that they have put their name to so far has been an absolute winner for horror and cult movie fans, and this upcoming Blu-Ray collection of three Roger Corman directed Edgar Allan Poe shorts looks to be no exception to the rule. Having all three shorts presented via a HD transfer from the original MGM elements along with their original uncompressed mono soundtracks sounds like more than enough to whet the appetite, but as is the norm with Arrow there is set to be a slew of extras included too, amongst which an hour long documentary on Corman and a Kim Newman presented documentary on Poe sound like they could prove particularly interesting.

Three fun and macabre Poe tales, directed by Corman and starring the great Vincent Price – all in glorious HD. Why would you not want it?!

Tales of Terror is out on Blu-Ray 9 March 2015.

Krampus

The goat horn brandishing, cloven hoofed demon of ancient pagan folklore seeks out those that have been naughty at Christmas time so that they can be suitably punished.

Why we’re looking forward to this: Although there are little to no details to have surfaced about Krampus as of yet, beyond the fact that it is based on folklore tales of a demonic monster that appears at Christmas time to punished the children who have been bad all year (an anti-Saint Nicholas if you will), the fact that it is being written and directed by the man who brought us the fantastic 2007 Halloween portmanteau flick Trick ‘r Treat is more than enough on its own to get excited about it. With its promise of twisted horror and comedy, if Michael Dougherty can repeat what he did for Halloween with Trick ‘r Treat, we may just have a new classic festive horror film on our hands.

Krampus is set to hit cinemas in December 2015

JASON HICKS