Island Claws Comes to Blu-ray

With all of the new titles either returning on Blu-ray or debuting on DVD in the next few months, does it reflect poorly on me that the one I'm most excited about is a limited pressing of the loopy giant crab flick Island Claws?

According to the Scorpion Releasing Facebook page, 1,000 copies of the film will be released on the Code Red catalog site later in August.

You can see the cover here. The only extra on the disc will be an on-camera interview with Ricou Browning, the Creature From the Black Lagoon stuntman who worked on the film. As we previously posted, Island Claws may have been an elaborate money laundering project for associates of the Medellin drug cartel. It was once a staple on cable TV, but has been unavailable on legit home media since it was released on VHS in the 1980s.

Scorpion and Kino Lorber also re-released the Georgia-lensed William Girdler film Grizzly, which is now on sale at Amazon (it's cheap, too).

Trailer of the Week: Beyond Dream's Door (1989)

I'll be interviewing director Jay Woelfel for an upcoming article on Ohio horror films (scheduled to appear in the October issue of Country Living magazine), so this week's selection is the trailer for his Columbus-lensed mini-classic Beyond Dream's Door.

Although he's lived in California for decades now, he periodically returns to his home state to shoot new movies, including Closed for the Season (2010) and Season of Darkness (2012).

Trailer of the Week: Carnival Magic (1981)

Although primarily based in California, Al Adamson ventured into North Carolina to collaborate with Teen-Age Strangler (1964) producer Elvin Feltner for this weird fantasy film, which was partly shot at Earl Owensby's EO Studios.

Trailer of the Week: The Slayer (1982)

Shot on Tybee Island in Georgia, J.S. Cardone's The Slayer was available on a double feature video tape with Fred Olen Ray's Scalps