Arrow Video’s February Line-Up Has Masked Maniacs, Killer Chimps!

February is seen as the month of love, whilst some of might get flowers or chocolates, Arrow Video is sharing a different type of love. A line up of releases that will make genre fans weak at the knees with a superb uncut release of a disturbing shocker. A beautifully restored rare 1980s slasher gem, Claude Chabrol a box set , and a dazzling presentation of a Dario Argento classic.

The month kicks off with a legendary title from the Video Nasties era, Joseph Ellison’s relentlessly bleak and disturbing Don’t Go In The House, starring The Sopranos’ Dan Grimaldi in a gripping central performance. The film has lost none of its power to shock in the decades since it was first censored by the BBFC and seized by UK authorities. Now fully uncut and making its UK high definition premiere in a brand new 2K restoration, the film that dares to ask “What if Norman Bates had a flamethrower?” is back in a definitive collectors’ edition with both original and extended versions. There is also an exclusive Arrow Store 3-disc Video Nasty Edition, that includes a Limited edition O-card featuring original “video nasty” VHS artwork, and Cinema and VHS-mode viewing options. This release marks the first Arrow Video (of hopefully many more to come) to include audio descriptions for the visually impaired.

Steve Railsback (famed for his unhinged performance as Charles Manson in 1976’s TV mini-series Helter Skelter) is at his sinister best as a troubled Vietnam Vet in 1982’s Deadly Games – a tale of madness, murder and adultery from writer/director Scott Mansfied. Originally entitled Who Fell Asleep, Deadly Games is an intriguing early ’80s slasher oddity which benefits from focusing as much on the development of its female-led cast as it does on its scenes of stalking and slashing.

The rest of the month includes , Lies and Deceit – Five Films by Claude Chabrol on Limited Edition Blu-ray. Too often overlooked and undervalued, Claude Chabrol was the sneaky anarchist of the French New Wave, who embraced genre as a means of lifting the lid on human nature. Nothing is sacred and nothing is certain in the films of Claude Chabrol: anything can be corrupted, and usually will be. With brand new digital restorations, this inaugural Arrow Video collection of Claude Chabrol – including Cop Au Vin (Poulet au vinaigre), Inspector Lavardin, Madame Bovary, Betty, Torment (L’enfer) – brings together a wealth of ionate contributors and archival extras to shed fresh light on the films and the filmmaker. Dark, witty, ruthless, mischievous: if you’ve never seen Chabrol before, you’re in for a treat. If you have, they’ve never looked better.

Finally in February, from master of horror Dario Argento comes Phenomena – one of his most eccentric and unique thrillers, featuring telepathic insects, maggots galore, and even a razor-wielding chimp! Released in 1985, towards the end of Argento’s decade-long golden age as a director, Phenomena sees Jennifer Connelly (Labyrinth) in the lead role,  and a pounding prog rock score by Goblin (Deep Red, Suspiria). Presenting all three versions of the film – including the radically different “Creepers” cut released in the US – in a sumptuous new 4K restoration, this is the definitive release of Argento’s creepy classic. The film will also be available in a Limited Edition Arte Original release, and an Arrow Store Exclusive ‘Creepers’ UHD Blu-ray Limited Edition.

Don’t Go In The House On Blu-ray / Video Nasty Edition [Arrow Store Exclusive] 7th February 

Donny Kohler (The Sopranos’ Dan Grimaldi in a gripping central performance), a disturbed loner unhealthily obsessed with fire, comes home from his factory job one day to find his abusive mother has died. Now all alone in the large Gothic mansion he calls home and consumed in an inferno of insanity, he is finally able to fulfil his violent revenge fantasies against her. Soon, any woman unlucky enough to enter is forced to come face to face with the worst fate imaginable in the secret steel-clad chamber of death he has built in the house’s depths…

Deadly Games Blu-ray 21st February

A masked maniac with a penchant for a horror-themed board game is playing his own twisted game with the women of a small American town. Each time the dice is rolled, another victim meets a grisly end. Returning home to mourn the death of her murdered sister, Keegan (Jo Ann Harris) befriends local cop Roger and oddball cinema projectionist Billy (Steve Railsback) – but soon finds herself in the killer’s sights.

Lies and Deceit – Five Films by Claude Chabrol Limited Edition Blu-ray 21st February

The hidden meanness of provincial life is at the heart of Cop Au Vin (Poulet au vinaigre), as deaths and disappearances intersect around the attempt by a corrupt syndicate of property developers to force a disabled woman and her son from their home. Actor Jean Poiret would prove so compelling as the laconic Detective Inspector Lavardin – good cop/bad cop all in one – that the sequel would be titled after him. Inspector Lavardin sees the titular detective investigating the murder of a wealthy and respected catholic author, renowned for his outspoken views against indecency, whose body is found naked and dead on the beach. In Madame Bovary, Chabrol directs one of his greatest collaborators, actress Isabelle Huppert, in perhaps the definitive depiction of Flaubert’s classic heroine. Meanwhile Betty, adapted from the novel of the same name by Maigret author Georges Simenon, is a scathing attack on the upper-middle classes, featuring an extraordinary performance by Marie Trintignant as a woman spiraling into alcoholism, but fighting to redefine herself. Finally, in Torment (L’enfer) Chabrol picks up a project abandoned by Henri Georges Clouzot, in which a husband’s jealousy and suspicion of his wife drive him to appalling extremes. Francois Cluzet and Emmanuelle Beart give career best performances as the husband and wife tearing each other apart.

Phenomena Limited Edition / Arte Originale / Creepers Edition UHD Blu-Ray 28th February

Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly, Labyrinth), daughter of a world-renowned movie star, arrives in the so-called “Swiss Transylvania” to attend an exclusive girls’ school. However, a vicious killer is targeting the pupils, and sleepwalker Jennifer finds herself in the assassin’s headlights when her nocturnal wanderings cause her to witness the death of a fellow pupil. Aided by paraplegic entomologist John McGregor (Donald Pleasence, Halloween) and her own uncanny ability to communicate telepathically with insects, Jennifer sets out to track down the killer before she herself becomes the latest victim…