The Criterion Collection, Inc. is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than 1,000 special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via The Criterion Channel, an online streaming service that the company operates.
Two-Lane Blacktop is a 1971 American road movie directed by Monte Hellman, written by Rudy Wurlitzer and starring songwriter James Taylor, the Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, and Laurie Bird.
Ghosts of the Abyss is a 2003 American documentary film produced by Walden Media and released in most countries by Walt Disney Pictures. It was directed by James Cameron after his 1997 film Titanic. During August and September 2001, Cameron and a group of scientists staged an expedition to the wreck of the RMS Titanic and dived in Russian deep-submersibles to obtain more detailed images than anyone had before. Using two small, purpose-built remotely operated vehicles, nicknamed "Jake" and "Elwood", the documentary offers glimpses into the Titanic wreck and, with CGI, superimposes the ship's original appearance on the deep-dive images.
Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence is a 1992 American action slasher film written by Larry Cohen and directed by William Lustig. It is the third and final installment in the Maniac Cop film series.
Maniac is a 1980 American psychological slasher film directed by William Lustig and written by C. A. Rosenberg. It stars Joe Spinell as Frank Zito, an Italian-American serial killer residing in New York City who murders and scalps young women. Spinell was also co-writer of the film.
Mark of the Devil is a 1970 West German horror film. It is most remembered for US marketing slogans devised by Hallmark Releasing Corp. that included "Positively the most horrifying film ever made" and "Rated V for Violence", while sick bags were given free to the audience upon admission.
Synapse Films is an American DVD and Blu-ray label, founded in 1997 and specializing in cult horror, science fiction and exploitation films.
Night of the Seagulls is a 1975 Spanish horror film written and directed by Amando de Ossorio. The film is the fourth and final in the Blind Dead series, being the sequel to The Ghost Galleon (1974).
Bob Murawski is an American film editor. He was awarded the 2010 Academy Award for Best Film Editing for his work on The Hurt Locker, which he shared with his wife, fellow editor Chris Innis. He often works with film director Sam Raimi, having edited the Spider-Man trilogy, Oz the Great and Powerful, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Murawski is an elected member of the American Cinema Editors, and is the co-founder of Grindhouse Releasing, an acclaimed film distribution company specializing in re-releases of cult films.
Grindhouse Releasing is a Hollywood-based independent cult film distribution company led by film editor Bob Murawski and co-founded by Sage Stallone. Grindhouse digitally remasters, restores, and produces bonus materials and video documentaries for cult film DVDs and Blu-rays which it distributes on the CAV label.
William "Bill" Lustig is an American film director and producer who has worked primarily in the horror film genre. He is the nephew of former middleweight champion Jake LaMotta.
Blu-ray is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006. It was designed to supersede the DVD format, capable of storing several hours of high-definition video. The main application of Blu-ray is as a medium for video material such as feature films and for the physical distribution of video games for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. The name "Blu-ray" refers to the blue laser used to read the disc, which allows information to be stored at a greater density than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs.
HD DVD is an obsolete high-density optical disc format for storing data and playback of high-definition video. Supported principally by Toshiba, HD DVD was envisioned to be the successor to the standard DVD format.
S&Man is a 2006 American pseudo-documentary film that examines the underground subculture of horror films. It contains interviews with indie horror filmmakers and other horror experts, including Erik Marcisak, Bill Zebub, Fred Vogel, Carol J. Clover, and Debbie D., as well as a scripted plot that comes into focus in the film's second half.
David Del Valle is a journalist, columnist, film historian, and radio and television commentator on horror, science-fiction, cult and fantasy films. Described by Entertainment Weekly as "Something of a cult celebrity himself," he was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards' Monster Kid Hall of Fame in 2016.
Vigilante, later released on video as Street Gang, is a 1982 American vigilante film directed by William Lustig and starring Robert Forster and Fred Williamson. Lustig came upon the idea for the film through a news article about "a group of blue collar workers in southern New Jersey who had organized to fight crime in their neighborhood".
Twilight Time is a boutique home media label specializing in releasing limited edition DVD and Blu-ray discs of classic films, founded in 2011. All titles were sold online exclusively through Screen Archives Entertainment until July 1, 2015, when the company launched their own online store.
MVD Entertainment Group, is an American production company and film distributor based in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, consisting of three main departments MVD Visual, MVD Audio, and MVD Distribution.
Nucleus Films is a UK-based independent DVD and Blu-Ray distribution label and private limited company, founded in 2003 by researcher and writer Marc Morris and film director Jake West. The label distributes rare cult films in the horror and erotica genres. They have also produced a range of documentaries and featurettes about the making of films, noted film directors and the fight against censorship.
The Beyond the Door Trilogy is an Italian horror series of three originally unconnected films that were retitled to be part of a supernatural franchise for the American market. The series started in 1974 with Beyond the Door before ending with Beyond the Door III in 1988. The only loose connections between the films are that all three were Italian productions, Ovidio G. Assonitis produced parts I and III, child actor David Colin Jr. starred in Parts I and II and the supernatural theme of spirit possession.
