Cinefantastique Online

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From time to time you find us complaining about the dearth of science fiction, fantasy, and horror film titles released on DVD and/or Blu-ray during a particularly week, but this is one of the low-points of the year, with no new theatrical films available on home video, just some direct-to-video titles, TV shows, and oldies.

Anime fans can take some solace in the Blu-ray release of FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN COMPLETE, which includes a handful of bonus elements: a featurette; two “story digests;” a short film; a sneak peak at FINAL FANTASY XIII; and a BD-Live feature exclusive to the Blu-ray disc.

Other than that, there is little to recommend. Fans of vintage television may be interested in Season Two of THE JETSONS. If you’re into more recent TV, of a horror variety, there’s THE HUNGER: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON. And if you’re into animation there’s HIGHLANDER: THE COMPLETE ANIMATED SERIES.

DTV titles for the week include ANACONDAS: TRAIL OF BLOOD, SILENT VENOM, RAZORTOOTH, and ELSWHERE. There latter, available on DVD and Blu-ray, claims to have been released theatrically in January, but if so, we missed and so did everyone else (there are no external reviews linked from IMDB – which is the whole point of a limited platform release: to get the reviews and attention that DTV titles don’t get).

And for those really scraping the bottom of the barrell, Image Entertainment offers a four-disc set of “Drive-In Classics,” which promises “7 Features to Drive You Out of Your Mind!” Among exploitation titles like SPEED LOVERS and SWAMP GIRL, is Herschell Gordon Lewis’s infamous gore-fest TWO THOUSAND MANIACS. Enjoy!