Blu-ray & DVD: The Digital Dread Report for 1/5

December ended with a bit of a whimper on the Blu-ray & DVD release front, but it looks like January is going to make up for that in its first week alone, as there are no less that 8 titles seeing release this week that fall into (or very close to) Must Own territory. 

For us, it's Deathgasm, Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse, and Sicario that we'll be grabbing asap, but they aren't the only titles worth looking at this week...

*As always, be sure to click the pics to order yourself some flicks, or watch their trailers.

"High School is Hell! Metal-thrashing Brodie is an outcast in a sea of jocks and cheerleaders until he meets a kindred spirit in fellow metalhead Zakk. After starting their own band, Brodie and Zakk s resentment of the suburban wasteland leads them to a mysterious piece of sheet music said to grant Ultimate Power to whoever plays it. But the music also summons an ancient evil entity known as Aeloth The Blind One, who threatens to tear apart existence itself. Their classmates and family become inhabited by demonic forces, tearing out their own eyes and turning into psychotic murderers... and this is only the beginning! It s up to Brodie, Zakk and their group of friends to stop a force of pure evil from devouring all of mankind.

A blood-soaked and hilarious horror comedy, DEATHGASM features an amazing original soundtrack of fistbanging metal and practical effects to satisfy metalheads and splatter fans alike. DEATHGASM will gush bodily fluids, rain limbs and tickle your funny bone, before tearing it out and giving you a stiff beating with it."

One of our absolute favorite movies of 2015, Deathgasm is the one movie release this month that we have to own above all others. It doesn't look like it's going to be packed with that many Special Features, but this disc is a Must Own because the movie is so awesome, so we can live with that.

Special Features:

• Commentary with Writer-Director Jason Lei Howden.
• Music Video: Bulletbelt Deathgasm.
• Featurettes.

New York college student Justine (Lorenza Izzo), a lawyer's daughter, meets a student activist named Alejandro (Ariel Levy) when he goes on a hunger strike on behalf of underpaid janitors. Smitten, Justine agrees to help Alejandro undertake his next project: to save the Amazon. She soon learns to regret her decision when their plane crashes in the Peruvian jungle and she and the rest of their group are taken captive by a tribe of hungry cannibals.

It's disappointing that this disc only comes with two Special Features (a photo gallery and a commentary track), because the making of this movie was such a harrowing experience for cast and crew, that it would have been great to see a slew of BTS featurettes dedicated to that subject alone.

Still, The Green Inferno is a solid flick that we'll be happy to re-visit on Blu-ray. 

A young woman (Meiko Kaji), trained from childhood as an assassin and hell-bent on revenge for the murders of her father and brother and the rape of her mother, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction in turn-of-the-twentieth-century Japan. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, Toshiya Fujita’s pair of influential cult classics Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance are bloody, beautiful extravaganzas composed of one elegant widescreen composition after another. 

The first Lady Snowblood was a major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga, and both of Fujita’s films remain cornerstones of Asian action cinema. To finally have them both on Blu-ray, and given the Criterion Collection treatment, should make plenty of Cinema lovers reason to celebrate.

• New 2K digital restorations of both films, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks on the Blu-rays.
• New interviews with Kazuo Koike, the writer of the manga that inspired the films, and screenwriter Norio Osada.
• Trailers.
• New English subtitle translations.
• PLUS: An essay by critic Howard Hampton.
  

Three scouts and lifelong friends join forces with one badass cocktail waitress to become the world's most unlikely team of heroes. When their peaceful town is ravaged by a zombie invasion, they'll fight for the badge of a lifetime and put their scouting skills to the test to save mankind from the undead.

Another fun movie from 2015, we feel that Scouts Guide was unfairly bashed by critics, which honestly leads us to believe that most critics don't really watch movies to have fun. They can go ahead and stick to their French Arthouse films that provide them with some sort of existential experience, and we'll keep watching movies that make us laugh and entertain us, even if it's on some baser level.

Anywho...

This is a funny flick, and it will be going in our collection, post haste.

• Scouts Guide to Filmmaking (1080p, 29:34): A look at the movie's origins, core story details, casting and performances, the film's tone, deciding against a Nickelodeon-style for a more grisly R-rated movie, shooting locations, technical details of the shoot, Cloris Leachman's work in the movie, practical effects and zombie makeup, and more.
• The Zombie Makeup FX Handbook (1080p, 5:37): A closer look at the medically-correct zombie makeup and gore.
• Undead Movement Guidelines: Zombie Choreography (1080p, 5:12): Choreographer Mark Steger's work in bringing the zombies to life.
• Uniforms and You: Costume Design (1080p, 5:11): Costume Designer Marylou Lim discusses the film's attire.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p): Extended Scouting Video (1:08) and Pharmacy (1:28).

There are more than a few Must Own titles down here in the bottom half of the order this week, so let's get to it...

• The House Where Evil Dwells/Ghost Warrior 2-pack might be a fun buy for anyone who likes cheesy, 80's B-grade flicks, especially when they involve the exploits of supernatural Samurai.
• Over Your Dead Body is the new Takashi Miike film, and so we're definitely interested in checking it out.
• Sicario was one of the best movies that we saw in 2015, and one that we'll happily revisit again on Blu-ray, more than once.
• Spellbinder is a typically B-grade 80's Horror flick about a witch and some sap that falls for her. Could be fun to re-visit on Blu-ray.
• The Visit may be one that fans (and plenty of other critics) seemed to like way more than we did, so for most people, this will be a Blu-ray to own.
• While the second season of HBO's True Detective didn't wow us the way that the first season did, it had some great moments and solid performances by its lead actors. Would we buy it? Not so sure about that.

On the DVD Front this week...

• Luther Season 4 was only 2 episodes long, but it was fantastic.
• Indigenous looks like it might be a solid flick
• We want to check out Condemned, Robert, and Wrecker, despite our better instincts.
• Everything else, as always, is a crap-shoot.