Welcome to Mandatory and ComingSoon’s weekly Binge & Buy, a digital HD, Blu-ray, and DVD column for the week of Feb. 19! Here, you’ll find detailed write-ups of different titles released this week, including a number of new movies, reissues, combo packs, and TV seasons, none of which you can live without in 2019. Click each highlighted title to purchase through Amazon!
Photo: Warner Bros.
New Movies on Blu-ray/DVD
A Star is Born
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper lead this blockbuster remake about a songwriter on the rise falling for a pop star on the wane. It was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture!
Overlord
Mega-producer J.J. Abrams creates an insanely twisted thrill ride about a team of American troops who come face-to-face with Nazi super-soldiers unlike the world has ever seen.
Robin Hood
An action-packed retelling of the classic legend, filled with thrilling battle sequences, mind-blowing fight choreography, and epic adventure.
Backtrace
A surviving thief of a violent armored car robbery is administered an experimental drug after being sprung from a high-security facility.
Iceman: The Time Traveler
In the action-packed second chapter of the Iceman saga, Ying’s (Donnie Yen) heroic fight to rewrite history and reclaim his honor continues but those he trusts most may be leading him into a deadly trap.
Ranked: The 7 Most Fervent Fan Bases In Music
Photo: Severin Films
Reissues
The Return of the Vampire
In 1918, Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), a 200-year-old Hungarian Vampire, prowls the English countryside, feeding from the jugulars of the villagers. But Tesla’s reign of terror is interrupted when a pair of scientists, Lady Jane (Frieda Inescort) and Sir John Ainsley (Roland Varno), drive a railroad spike through his heart.
Backbeat
An energetic, musical drama chronicling the pre-fame Beatles as they head to Hamburg in search of success. As they gain popularity, the “fifth Beatle,” bass guitarist Stuart Sutcliffe (Stephen Dorff), falls in love and ultimately must choose between his best friend John Lennon (Ian Hart), his new love Astrid (Sheryl Lee), and the greatest rock ’n’ roll band in the world.
Skinner
Ted Raimi delivers an unnerving performance as psycho drifter Dennis Skinner who wears flesh-suits he slices from doomed prostitutes, falls for a lonely young housewife (Ricki Lake), and is himself hunted by a horribly scarred survivor (an equally unhinged performance by Traci Lords).
Mondo Freudo/Mondo Bizarro
In 1966, the notorious producer/director/distributor team of Lee Frost and Bob Cresse combined the extremes of the Mondo genre with their own depraved aesthetic to create two shockumentaries that put Olympic International on the map and changed the face of exploitation forever.
All The Colors of the Dark
Even by extreme ’70s standards, it remains among the more notorious — and disturbing — thrillers in genre history. The luscious Edwige Fenech gives the performance of her career as a woman tormented by visions of satanic violence, hallucinatory horror, and psychosexual insanity.
Jack the Ripper
In 1959, legendary showman Joseph E. Levine unleashed this grisly U.K. thriller on American moviegoers. But when audiences were horrified by the film’s startling violence, graphic nudity, and bloody Technicolor climax, it became one of Levine’s most notorious failures. Today, in its notorious U.K. cut and the American version with a brassy new score, it remains among the most underappreciated and provocative shockers of its time.
Ecco/The Forbidden
Ecco explores a world of sadism, delinquency, roller derby, extreme piercing, appalling stereotypes, and the infamous Lapland-women-castrating-reindeer-with-their-teeth sequence, now scanned in 4k from the original inter-negative.
Early birds: 10 Celebrities Who Rise Before The Sun To Be More Successful
Photo: Paramount Pictures
New on Digital HD
Instant Family
Pete (Mark Wahlberg) and Ellie (Rose Byrne) must learn the ropes of instant parenthood when they bring in three foster children. Inspired by a true story, this is a must-see family comedy.
Captain Morten and the Spider Queen
Ten-year-old Morten learns to take control of his life after he is magically shrunk down to the size of an insect and must find a way to sail his toy boat across a flooded café.
