In addition, the restored film will have a limited theatrical run in select cities also commencing on October 31st through Kino Lorber.
The restoration was overseen by the Murnau Foundation and is a co-production of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and ZDF in collaboration with ARTE., with mastering by Limmagine Ritrovata, Cineteca di Bologna in Italy.
To celebrate this restoration and in honor of the season, Fandor is also highlighting a series of genre classics featuring zombies, vampires, psychopaths, murderers, bloodthirsty cults, and even a parasite named Aylmer! The collections of truly shriek-worthy films are divided into two segments:
THE SIN WITHIN: featuring films focused on internal threats, compulsive behaviors, dangerous impulses, and possession (of course!). The full line-up of films available in this collection is available to view here.
STRANGER DANGER: featuring mysterious killers, stalkers, starved zombies, and a variety of other unidentified terrifying entities will become available on October 16th.The collection of films feature filmmakers as diverse as Claire Denis, William Lustig, Dario Argento, Mario Bava , Lucio Fulci and Kim Jee-Woon, and of course George Romero.
Highlights of the Halloween offerings include:
- Trouble Every Day (2001) 101 min Directed by Claire Denis World renowned filmmaker Claire Denis’ most controversial divisive and under appreciated films to date. With its gory, outré film style, Trouble Every Day shocked audiences at it’s 2001 Cannes Film Festival debut for its graphic depictions of carnal lust as a cannibalistic disease. Named after a Frank Zappa song, the film follows American newlyweds Shane and June Brown to Paris on their honeymoon. Once there, Shane begins a search for his former colleague Leo, who might be in possession of a cure to a tropical virus that has transformed both Shane and Leo’s wife into a ravenous sexual cannibals.
- Night of the Living Dead (1968) 96 min Directed by George Romero One of the most influential horror movies ever made, Night Of The Living Dead trail-blazed zombie lore along with its choice of an African-American hero, its unprecedented gore and the magnitude of its success, making tens-of-millions on a minuscule budget. This tightly-focused story of strangers barricading themselves in a farmhouse to escape cannibalistic ghouls raised from the dead was the first feature for George Romero.
- Maniac (1980) 88 min Directed by William Lustig Frank Zito (a career performance by co-writer/co-executive producer Joe Spinell of Rocky and The Godfather fame) is a deeply disturbed man, haunted by the traumas of unspeakable childhood abuse. And when these horrific memories begin to scream inside his mind, Frank prowls the seedy streets of New York City to stalk and slaughter innocent young women. Now Frank has begun a relationship with a beautiful photographer (Caroline Munro of The Spy Who Loved Me), yet his vile compulsions remain. These are the atrocities of a human monster. This is the story of a Maniac.
- Devil Doll (1964) 81 min Directed by Richard Gordon Grab a good seat and don’t look away from the stage, for the Great Vorelli (Bryant Haliday) is about to dazzle London with his eerie mixture of hypnotism and ventriloquism. However, there may be something a little too lifelike about his dummy, Hugo, who has the ability to walk across the stage all by himself. Now Vorelli has become obsessed with Marianne (Yvonne Romain), an heiress who proves to be the key to the powerful mesmerist’s insidious plans. Marianne’s boyfriend, reporter Mark English (William Sylvester), suspects evil at work and becomes determined to uncover the secret between Vorelli and the wooden Hugo, a creature born from your darkest nightmares!
- Female Vampire (1973) 101 min Directed by Jess Franco Channeling his deepest libidinal desires and darkest fears into films, with no apparent concern for narrative convention or the boundaries of mainstream taste, Jess Franco is a cinematic iconoclast. And Franco was never better than when working with his wife, Lina Romay, a haunted waif who would go to any extreme to assure that the director’s wildest imaginings were brought to the screen without compromise. Their most highly regarded collaboration, Female Vampire stars Romay as the mysterious Countess Irina Karlstein, a beautiful vampiress who feeds on victims at their moments of sexual climax. Because she destroys those whose essence she consumes, Irina is doomed to a life of solitude, wandering through the Western Coast of Europe in a dreamlike state, shrouded in a lush musical score by Daniel White.
- Ganja and Hess (1973) 110 min Directed by Bill Gunn Flirting with the conventions of blaxploitation and the horror genre, Bill Gunns revolutionary independent film Ganja & Hess is a highly stylized and utterly original treatise on sex, religion and African American identity. Duane Jones stars as anthropologist Hess Green. When he is stabbed with an ancient ceremonial dagger by his unstable assistant (director Bill?Gunn), Hess becomes endowed with the blessing of immortality and the curse of an unquenchable thirst for blood. When the assistants beautiful and outspoken wife Ganja (Marlene Clark) comes searching for her vanished husband, she and Hess form an unexpected partnership. Together, they explore just how much power there is in the blood.
- Zombie (1979) 91 min Directed by Lucio Fulci In Italy, it was considered the ‘unofficial sequel’ to Dawn Of The Dead. In England, it was known as Zombie Flesh Eaters and banned as obscene. In America, it was called Zombie and advertised with the depraved tag line “WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU!” Tisa Farrow (The Grim Reaper), Ian McCulloch (Contamination), Al Cliver (Cannibals), and Richard Johnson (The Haunting) star in this worldwide splatter sensation directed by ‘Maestro of Gore’ Lucio Fulci (City Of The Living Dead, The House By The Cemetery) that remains one of the most eye-skewering, skin-ripping, gore-gushingly graphic horror hits of all time.
- The Crazies (1973) 103 min Directed by George RomeroIts code name is ‘Trixie’, an experimental government germ weapon that leaves its victims either dead or irreversibly insane. When the virus is accidentally unleashed in Evans City, Pennsylvania, the small community becomes a war zone of panicked military, desperate scientists and gentle neighbors turned homicidal maniacs. Now a small group of citizens has fled to the town’s outskirts where they must hide from trigger-happy soldiers while battling their own depraved urges. But even if they can escape the madness of this plague, can they survive the unstoppable violence of The Crazies?
- A Bay of Blood (1971) 84 min Directed by Mario BavaOne of the most influential horror films of all time, Mario Bava’s A Bay Of Blood (aka Twitch Of The Death Nerve) is the spurting artery from which all future slasher films would flow. When crippled Countess Federica is murdered at her isolated mansion, a gruesome battle ensues to secure the rights to her valuable property around the bay. Everyone, from illegitimate children to shady real estate agents, stakes a claim, only to be killed in increasingly bizarre ways, from simple shootings to impalement by fishing spear. The makeup effects are by Carlo Rambaldi (who would later earn Oscars for his work on Alien). Initially scorned upon its original release because of its graphic violence, A Bay Of Blood eventually became a trendsetter, the model slasher film that Friday The 13th would emulate nearly a decade later.
- Inferno (1980) 106 min Directed by Dario Argento A young woman stumbles upon a mysterious diary that reveals the secrets of the “Three Mothers” and unleashes a nightmare world of demonic evil. As the unstoppable horror spreads from Rome to New York City, this unholy trinity must be stopped before the world is submerged in the blood of the innocent. Written and directed by Dario Argento, Inferno is the visually stunning second chapter of the “Three Mothers” trilogy begun with the classic Suspiria. This surreal shocker stars Irene Miracle (Night Train Murders), Daria Nicolodi (Deep Red) and Leigh McCloskey (Dallas), and features a pulse-pounding original score by Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.
