Screen Anarchy Last Minute Gift Guide 2025 Episode 1: Kino

I like to think that the difference between this and other gift guides is I try to keep it affordable and only put things in it that personally interest me. I’m recommending what I love from the last year in home entertainment. 

 

First up this year is Kino. They sent a bunch of titles. Some I’ve always wanted to see and some 4K upgrades and special editions. Honestly, I’m not even sure exactly how to cover it all. Best watch the video.

 

Let’s go chronologically. First an American 4K release of The Cat and the Canary (1927) directed by Paul Leni (Waxworks [1924], The Man Who Laughs [1928]. This is one of the most neglected and influential horror films of the period. The BFI released a beautiful special edition packed edition of this earlier this year. The Kino version doesn’t port of any extras but comes in 4K and includes 2 brand new audio commentaries. One with film historian David Del Valle and silent film expert Randy Haberkamp and another with film historian Anthony Slide. My advice is to buy both versions if you can. Eureka’s Blu-ray looks great and you’ll find yourself reaching for both these discs whenever you are in the mood to revisit the film.

 

Other early cinema Kino sent includes two German sci-fi films high on my viewing bucket list. Gold (1934), and F.P.1 Doesn’t Answer (1932). F.P.1 is especially notable in that it was co-penned by Kurt Siodmak, who would later write The Wolfman, (1941), Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (1943), I Walked with A Zombie (1943) and many other beloved genre films. You get two versions of F.P.1 and an audio commentary by film historian Eddie Mueller. 

 

Next is a quartet of releases features the work of writer, producer, director Dan Curtis. Curtis is one of the most important figures in 20th century genre TV. He created Dark Shadows (1966-1971) and with it the concept of the sympathetic vampire. His TV movie The Night Stalker (1972) was instrumental in the explosion of interest in supernatural based made for TV movies in the 1970’s and led to a TV series of the same name that highly influenced the creation and development of The X-Files (1993-2002).

 

One of his TV films, Trilogy of Terror (1975) is known for having what many believed was single most terrifying horror segment in TV history. These four releases showcase how he re-popularized the gothic aesthetic for the small screen. 

 

Dan Curtis' Classic Monsters and Dan Curtis' Gothic Tales cover  a period of 1968-1974 with presentations of five made for TV adaptations of Frankenstein, Dracula, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey and contain audio commentaries and interviews. Dan Curtis' Late Night Mysteries is a collection of made for TV thrillers that Aired as part of ABCs Wide World of Mystery. Titles include Shadow of Fear, The Invasion of Carol Enders, Come Die with Me and Nightmare at 43 Hillcrest.

 

All these films were produced in 1973. When taken together with Curtis’ other output at this time a picture emerges of a prolific and highly gifted artist. His horror TV output married technical prowess, high production values and stellar writing with some of the TV medium’s great talents including writers, Richard Matheson and William F. Nolan, actors such as Lynn Redgrave, Jack Palance, Nigel Daveport, Susan Strasberg, Denholm Elliot, Anjanette Comer, Eileen Brennan, Ed Begley Jr., and Horst Buchholz. 

 

I was born in 1965, so Curtis’ stuff formed the background of my developing interest horror at a key time for me. But he wasn’t the only thing. Disaster movies, which have always been horror adjacent, did to. Movies like The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974), Earthquake (1974), and Hurricane (1974).

 

But of all the disaster movies of this period only one spawned a truly successful multi-film franchise. Kino has collected all four of the Airport films together in a beautiful box set containing 4K Ultra HD discs of Airport (1970), Airport 1975 (1975), Airport ’77 (1977) and The Concorde; Airport 1979 (1979). Watch through your fingers as blizzards, bomb-toting madmen, mid-air collision, the Bermuda Triangle, and arms smugglers threaten the loss of real movie stars!

 

The casts in these were truly jaw-dropping; Dean Martin, Burt Lancaster, Jean Seberg, Jacqueline Bisset, Helen Hayes, Maureen Stapleton, Karen Black, Linda Blair Myrna Loy, Helen Reddy, Jospeh Cotton, Olivia de Havilland, Christopher Lee, Jimmy Stewart, Alain Delon, Charo, Cicely Tyson, the list could go on twice as long. You were nobody if you’re agent couldn’t book you for a disaster movie in the 1970s.

 

One last thing, if you are a fan of the comedy Airplane (1980) you’ll know that the plot andf even some of the dialogue was borrowed by the Zucker brothers from Zero Hour! (1957). But if you watch the airport films, you’ll recognize characters, whole scenes and even shots were lifted directly from the franchise. The packaging on this set is gorgeous, there’s a commentary on every film and it comes with a booklet featuring a new essay by film historian Julie Kirgo. 

 

If all this talk of horror and disaster is a little much for the holidays, I got you covered with some comedy. Kino sent their new box set, the Alec Guinness Masterpiece Collection containing 4K upgrades of 4 of the greatest British comedies of all time. You get Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951), The Man in the White Suit (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955). The films come slip-cased as a set in two Amaray cases although each film does get its own disc. There are audio commentaries on each film along with various featurettes and interviews.

 

Airplane 2: The Sequel (1982) also arrived on 4K. This is from the period when the Zucker brothers could do no wrong, and no joke was too silly. If you are a fan of Airplane (1980) and haven’t seen this the surely, you’ll take this chance to rectify that. And yes, I’m calling you surely. You get two audio commentaries. One with Mike White from The Projection Booth podcast and one from TV writer and showrunner Patrick Walsh. The history of how Airplanes joke a minute brand of comedy became a genre all its own is fascinating. It involves burlesque and vaudeville, stand-up and storytelling and TV variety shows like Laugh-In (1968-1973). And yes, it even involves movies. Mel Brooks anyone?

 

Still, it didn’t come into full flower until films like The Groove Tube (1974), Kentucky Fried Movie (1977) and Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video (1979) set the stage. So, I was thrilled to get a copy of Kino’s Amazon Women on the Moon (1987). This spoof of genre entertainment and TV can sit proudly on the shelf with those others and features segments directed by John Landis, Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton and Robert J. Weiss. Besides the film you get an audio commentary featuring Kat Ellinger and the late-great hugely missed Mike McPadden, outtakes from Dante’s personal vault, more bloopers and a documentary on the film’s origins and history.

 

Lastly on the comedy front is a movie I’ve never seen but am thrilled to finally get to. Big Man on Campus: The Hunchback of UCLA (1989) this cult campus comedy is a thinly disguised spoof of The Hunchback of Notre Dame featuring a Bob, the titular “Big Man” who lives in the UCLA campus clock tower only to be handed over to the psychology department for study. His assigned roommate isn’t sure how this will work but sets about the task of trying to socialize the hopelessly strange Bob. The trailer made me laugh out loud though I am expecting some decidedly un-PC humor. The disc includes an interview with Bob himself Alan Katz who also wrote the screenplay, an audio commentary with director Jeremy Kagan and film historian Andrew Bentler, and an alternate ending with optional commentary by Kagan. Thanks much Kino!

 

Rounding out the Kino section of the gift guide are a miscellany of titles. Body Puzzle (1992) is a Lamberto Bava later entry giallo. Bava does figure rather heavily in our gift guide this year with the release of two box sets we’ll be covering in the collector’s episode. How would you feel if someone broke into your house and kept leaving severed body parts around? Watch this movie and find out. The disc also contains an audio commentary featuring the hosts of Wild, Wild Podcast Adrian Smith and Rod Barnett.

 

I’m also happily in possession of a beautifully slip-cased version of Miracle Mile Special Edition. If you’ve never seen this film just know it is one of the great apocalyptic thrillers. Made in 1988, it concerns a young man who answers a late-night payphone only to discover that missiles will obliterate the city of Los Angeles within the hour. Enough said.

 

This is an amazing cast led a young Anthony Edwards, but the real star of the film is the tension Steve De Jarnatt (Cherry 2000 (1988) creates using the eccentric landscape and characters of L.A. This disc features 3 separate audio commentaries. One with De Jarnatt and critic Walter Chaw, one with Jarnatt, and cinematographer Theo Van De Sande and production designer Chris Horner and a last commentary featuring Los Angeles literary mavens Janet Fitch and Matthew Spector. The disc also contains interviews with stars and the composer and a short film noir by De Jarnatt. But to my mind the best extra here is a two-part reunion of the cast at the diner location where the film starts. 

 

The last thing Kino sent is a mini-series that’s almost complete mystery to me, P'tit QuinQuin (2014). It’s a French murder mystery comedy by Bruno Dumont, has been compared to True Detective and Twin Peaks, and starts with the discovery of human body parts stuffed into a cow. Did I mention the prankster kids with the weird face-paint and the fact that many of the participants are acting here for the first time? Go watch the trailer for this film on YouTube and then tell me it doesn’t look enchanting, hilarious etc. There are no extras, but you do get all 206 glorious minutes. 

 

Well, that is it for Kino. I’d like to thank them for participating this year. Next episode will include Shout Factory box sets, Warner Brothers on 4K and a few releases from Cauldron Films and Neon Eagle.