by Matt Marshall
You don’t have be completely glued into Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the online social platforms 24/7 to know that Sharknado fever exploded on social media this past summer. The cult B-movie depicting the over-the-top disastrous events of sharks dropping out of the sky on a California beach town arrives on Blu-ray less than two months after its Syfy Channel debut. Sharknado headlines this week’s new releases which also include: Now You See Me, The Iceman, From Up on Poppy Hill and The Lords of Salem.
Sharknado comes from The Asylum, a studio known for its series of low-budget direct-to-video releases, which Sharknado completely fits the bill for. This disaster film arrives on Blu-ray as a single-disc set, though it has not been confirmed whether the Blu-ray version will be the Syfy Channel cut or the Fathom Events cut released in theaters for one night last month. Sharknado stars Tara Reid, Ian Ziering and John Heard and is directed by Anthony C. Ferrante (Boo).
From Summit Entertainment comes Louis Leterrier’s early summer shocker, Now You See Me st
arring Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson. In Now You See Me, a quartet of illusionists known as “The Four Horsemen” band together to pull off a string of heists for a reason greater than any individual gain. Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine and Dave Franco round out the cast of Now You See Me. The Blu-ray is packaged as a two-disc Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy, UltraViolet combo pack with one hour of bonus material. The set also features an extended version of the film, adding 10 extra minutes of footage.
Independent films, The Iceman, From Up on Poppy Hill and The Lords of Salem round out this week’s latest releases. The Iceman starring Michael Shannon and Winona Ryder arrives on Blu-ray from Millennium Media as a Blu-ray, DVD combo pack. Directed by Ariel Vromen, The Iceman is a biopic about a contract killer (Shannon) caught between his family life and his loyalty to a local mobster.
Originally released in 2011, Studio Ghibli’s From Up on Poppy Hill enjoyed a limited release this past spring in theaters. For fans of the anime studio who missed the film during its minimal run, this Goro Miyazaki film set during Korean War arrives as a Blu-ray, DVD combo pack from Cinedigm. In From Up on Poppy Hill, a young girl becomes involved in a movement to stop the demolition a club house while awaiting her father’s return from war. The English-dubbed voice cast stars Gillian Anderson, Ron Howard and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Starz/Anchor Bay is releasing Rob Zombie’s The Lords of Salem as a Blu-ray, DVD, UltraViolet combo pack this week. In The Lord of Salem, a female DJ from Boston resurrects a coven of 300-year-old witches after playing a cursed record. Rob Zombie wrote, directed and produced The Lords of Salem.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Matt Marshall is a YouTube movie reviewer who hosts MNMreviews. He has a B.A. in Communications/Journalism from St. John Fisher College and resides in Rochester, NY.
