This Week On DVD and Blu-Ray – January 26th, 2010

Good releases this week – some new and some old. First up is the sixth entry in the Saw series:

Saw VI

Special Agent Strahm is dead, and Detective Hoffman has emerged as the unchallenged successor to Jigsaw’s legacy. However, when the FBI draws closer to Hoffman, he is forced to set a game into motion, and Jigsaw’s grand scheme is finally understood. Saw VI did not perform as well financially at the box office as the previous sequels; however, most who saw the film gave it positive reviews. It is almost universally considered a significant improvement on Saw V.

Pandorum

Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster join Cam Gigandet, Cung Le, newcomer Antje Traue, and director Christian Alvart (Antibodies) to tell the terrifying story of two crew members stranded on a spacecraft who quickly realize they are not alone. Two astronauts awaken in a hyper-sleep chamber aboard a seemingly abandoned spacecraft. It’s pitch black, they are disoriented, and the only sound is a low rumble and creak from the belly of the ship. They can’t remember anything: Who are they? What is their mission? With Lt. Payton (Quaid) staying behind to guide him via radio transmitter, Cpl. Bower (Foster) ventures deep into the ship and begins to uncover a terrifying reality. Slowly the spacecraft’s shocking, deadly secrets are revealed and the astronauts find their own survival is more important than they could ever have imagined.

Whiteout

On the verge of shipping out of Antarctica before the really bad weather hits, U.S. Marshal Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale) is confronted with a mysterious murder that sounds like a riddle: how’d a lone corpse find its way to the middle of an ice field, as though dropped from a great height? And what’s this have to do with the prologue about a Soviet fighter jet crashing some decades earlier? Whiteout, based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka, solves these questions in a brisk if mostly preposterous manner, and it moves swiftly enough so you don’t have to spend too much time on the plausibility of it all. Among the other snowbound stragglers are a U.N. investigator (Gabriel Macht), some cocky pilots (Alex O’Laughlin, Columbus Short), and a grizzled doctor (Tom Skerritt). If the presence of Skerritt conjures up memories of Alien, with its ten-little-Indians structure and female warrior, hold on–Whiteout doesn’t actually have a supernatural twist to it, and Beckinsale is no Sigourney Weaver. But director Dominic Sena puts the screws to the material in a relentless way, and the vast exteriors (shot in Canada) are impressive. And when it comes to one particular wow-you’re-really-going-there instance of potential amputation for a main character, the film doesn’t back down. In fact it sort of revels in the moment. –Robert Horton

Kingdom of the Spiders

Shout! Factory re-releases 1977′s Kingdom of the Spiders in a special edition DVD. It’s directed by John ‘Bud’ Cardos (The Dark), and stars William Shatner as veterinarian Rack Hansen, who is stuck in an Arizona town infested with a horde of arachnids. Our review here.

Bonus Features

• New Wide-Screen Transfer
• All-New Interview With William Shatner
• Jim Brockett: Spider Wrangler Featurette
• Audio Commentary By Director John Bud Cardos, Producer Igo Kantor, Spider Wrangler Jim Brockett And Cinematographer John Morrill; Moderated By Hostel Producer Scott Spiegel And Lee Christian
• Rare Behind-The-Scenes Footage
• Interview With Writer Stephen Lodge
• Poster Gallery
• Original Theatrical Trailer

Bad Biology

Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case, Brain Damage, Frankenhooker) is back with a twisted tale of love and weirdness. Driven by biological excess, a young man and woman search for sexual fulfillment, unaware of each other’s existence. Unfortunately, they eventually meet, and the bonding of these two very unusual human beings ends in an explosive and ultimately over-the-top sexual experience, resulting in a truly god-awful love story…. With bizarre special effects by Gabe Bartalos, a hip-hop soundtrack from Prince Paul, and shot in glorious 35mm, Bad Biology is guaranteed to shock even the most desensitized of audiences, and sure to become a modern cult classic. DVD is the unrated edition of the film. Released through Shriek Show.

Pontypool

This independent film is set in a radio station in Pontypool (Ontario) where one day the morning team starts taking reports of extreme, bloody incidents of violence occurring in town. As the story unfolds, the radio staff soon realizes the violence that is ripping society apart is due to a virus being spread through the English language. That in turn poses a problem for a yappy radio jock and his staff holed up in the broadcast booth housed in the basement of the town’s abandoned church as a slaughter rages beyond its walls. Pontypool has garnered lots of fans and praise.