Here's a clip from a film I re-watch every holiday season, Christmas Evil(1980), a perverse tale of a Santa-obsessed man (Brandon Maggart) who works in a toy factory and makes lists of the good boys and girls in the neighborhood. The sensational movie by Lewis Jackson is deranged and beautiful. Here's a scene in which Maggart's character is running amok on Christmas Eve and is dragged into a holiday party where he freaks out the children and parents with his intensity. Ho ho ho!

One of my picks for top ten films of 2008 is Savage Grace, out on DVD this week. Talk about a great twisted stocking stuffer! Tom Kalin’s (Swoon) taste for transgresive tales continues with this perverse true crime saga of Barbara Baekland (Julianne Moore), the wealthy, beautiful and troubled wife of Brooks Baekland (Stephen Dillane), the heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune. When Brooks left his wife for another woman, mother and son traveled around Europe and entered into an incestuous relationship which ended in murder. Julianne Moore gives a brave, fierce performance to the defiantly disturbed Barbara -- the scenes in which she flares up at a dinner party and at the airport are frighteningly revealing and exquisitely acted. A sequence where she wakes up in bed with her gay walker (Hugh Dancy) and son and start merrily laughing is funny and deranged at the same time. Stephen Dillane gives a cold aristocratic fervor to Brooks and Eddie Redmayne is quite wonderful as the poor doomed Tony. He has the right prissy, privileged attitude with that slight hint of decadence that makes the movie so sublimely twisted it should be retitled Mommie Fearest.

Waltz With Bashir, opening this week, is an extraordinary “animated” documentary by Ari Folman. The film follows Folman as he tracks down fellow soldiers from the Lebanon War of the early 1980s, in an attempt to document their experiences -- because he himself can recall very little of the war. The recounting is often surreal and horrific. One dreams nightly of being pursued by 26 snarling dogs; another soldier, whose regiment was wiped out, escapes into the ocean and swims alone one terrifying night; and one soldier, fond of patchouli, recklessly runs into the middle of a street during an ambush and spins and dances with his gun blazing. The memories creep closer to a nightmarish massacre that Folman has conveniently buried and hidden in his brain. The animation gives levels of strange beauty to this harrowing tale.

The dazzling, hypnotic, 1991 Lars Von Trier film Europa is now out on DVD via Criterion. Opening with the velvety sound of Max Von Sydow’s voice telling the audience to count to ten as he puts them under his trancelike spell, Von Trier creates a wonderfully weird film noir out of an American (Jean-Marc Barr) returning to post World War II Germany taking a job as a sleeping-car conductor. He meets and falls in love with a beautiful mysterious woman (Barbara Sukowa) and slowly finds himself roped into a terrorist plot to blow up trains. The cinematography -- in black and white with flashes of color and inventive sequences using back projection -- makes this thrilling to the eye and ear. As the last part of Von Trier’s “Europa Trilogy” it really stands alone as an enthralling, thrilling ride.

I was saddened to hear of the passing of actress Beverly Garland, who died at age 82. She was an actress that worked her way up from one of Roger Corman's players in such memorable films as Swamp Women (1955), Gunslinger (1954), to battling with the giant cucumber from another planet in It Conquered the World (1956), to Not of the Earth (1957), to starring on TV in Decoy and My Three Sons. I thought she was one of the best screamers in the business in such films as Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956) and the fabulous The Alligator People (1959). But I have great memories of her husky tough demeanor as Tuesday Weld's mom in the brilliant Pretty Poison (1968), as Cookie LaRue in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman and when Lou Grant dumped a sundae on her head in a great episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. She was the kind of actress I always loved in movies -- when she popped up on the screen she always made the movies better.

Out this week is must-see DVD: White Dog (Criterion). This legendary lost film by director Sam Fuller (Pickup on South Street, Shock Corridor) based on a non-fiction Romain Gary story was shelved by Paramount Studios in 1981 because of its inflammatory content. Kristy McNichol plays an actress who rescues a white German Shepherd only to discover it’s been trained to attack blacks. Paul Winfield plays the trainer to whom she brings the dog in order to “deprogram” it in this incendiary metaphor for racism in America. What’s surprising is that the years have not diminished its power to inflame the brain and disturb. The disc comes with a glorious transfer and interview with co-writer Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential) plus a discussion with dog trainer Karl Lewis Miller and two beautifully written essays on the film -- one by J. Hoberman and the other by Armond White.

Out this week on DVD is Perry Mason Season 3 (Volume 2), the second half of the terrific third season of this acclaimed mystery series starring Raymond Burr as the wily lawyer Perry Mason. Generally saddled with clients who seem very very guilty, Perry investigates the clues with his trusty secretary Della Street (Barbara Hale) and private investigator Paul Drake (William Hopper) and usually in the final minutes Mason unmasks the real killer. There’s always that famous scene where someone jumps up in the courtroom and tearfully confesses to the murder -- which is priceless.

In this 14 episode, digitally remastered set there are tons of fun cameos. D.A. Hamilton Burger (William Tallman) even teams up with Perry Mason to free a client in The Case Of The Prudent Prosecutor. A very young Louise Fletcher (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) plays the secretary to a bitchy female novelist with ties to the mob (played delightfully to the hilt by Beverly Garland) in The Case Of The Mythical Monkeys. Hugh Marlowe (It Came from Outer Space) plays a naval captain who gets stabbed with an 11-inch screwdriver in The Case of the Slandered Submarine. And Marie Windsor (Narrow Margin) plays a temperamental dress designer named "Flavia" who gets mysteriously poisoned before her big spring fashion show in The Case Of The Madcap Modiste. It’s disorder in the court!

Happy Thanksgiving from Joan Crawford, Trog, Pepsi, and me!

See you on Monday!

Two twisted DVD treats to have alongside your pumpkin pie are out this week from Dark Sky Films: Madhouse and Psychic Killer.

Madhouse is a deranged 1981 slasher film about crazy, disfigured Mary (Allison Biggers) who escapes from an asylum with her killer rottweiler and heads to her twin sister Julia’s (Trish Everly) house to give her sibling a gory surprise birthday party. This “video nasty” , originally titled There Was a Little Girl, was banned in the UK and was directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis (Beyond The Door), with a score by Riz Ortolani (Cannibal Holocaust). The Grand Guignol finale is helped immeasurably by an unhinged performance from Dennis Robertson as the Catholic priest from hell, Father James.

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Finally got around to seeing four of the Ghost House Underground DVDs (Lionsgate), and from what I've seen so far, it's a nice batch of chillers from around the globe. The Last House In The Woods is a grisly shocker from Italy with a '70s splatter slant about a couple of lovers attacked by goons in the country who are rescued by a "kindly" couple with ulterior motives, who bring them back to their place in the woods where their sharp-tooth child awaits. Pretty outlandish and gruesome. The Substitute is an enjoyable sci-fi film from Denmark by the director of Nightwatch, Ole Bornedal. The kids' new substitute teacher is not of this world but they can't get their stupid parents to believe them. The female teacher/alien is hilariously fiendish and the kids are terrific. Trackman is a Russian entry about a bank heist, wherein the hostages escape into the underground tunnels only to confront a monstrous killer who prowls the dark with a pickax. Finally, the American zombie flick Dance of the Dead is about a group of prom-goers who are forced to battle the living dead. It's jokey and gory and actually funny -- as opposed to the tiresome familiar junk. You couldn't find more diversion from Thanksgiving hell than to check out any of these terror treats.

Out this week on DVD is the crackpot film by Harmony Korine (Gummo, screenplay for Kids), Mister Lonely. It's about a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) moonwalking on the streets of Paris for spare change who meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton) who convinces him to go with her to a commune in Scotland. This castle-like enclave houses other imitators (Madonna, The Pope, Abe Lincoln, Sammy Davis Jr., The Three Stooges, etc.). Meanwhile there's an unrelated story set in a Latin American jungle about skydiving nuns who leap without parachutes from planes (driven by a Priest played by Werner Herzog) and miraculously land unharmed. Yes, it’s that weird. But there are parts that are just wonderful -- a musical show the commune puts on is particularly sublime. But, unfortunately, it’s way too long and eventually runs of of steam. Nonetheless, seeing Anita Pallenberg (as a Queen Elizabeth impersonator) reunited with her Performance costar James Fox (as The Pope) is quite heavenly.

Those with acute Ophidiophobia beware! Snakes abound in the special edition DVD release of the 1972 cult classic Stanley. When the movie Willard (about a disturbed young man and his army of rats) was a surprise box office hit, director William Grefe decided to give snakes try. Chris Robinson (who went on to star in the TV soap opera General Hospital) plays a Vietnam vet and Seminole Indian named Tim, who lives in a shack deep in the Everglades consumed with hate for his fellow man with a lot of pet snakes. His favorite -- a rattlesnake named Stanley. A greedy crook (Alex Rocco) and his henchman Crail (Steve Alaimo) want Tim to help them trap snakes to make belts out of them. “Some fag fashion designer from Paris publicly says animal fashions are in!” he cries, and then adds: “I should be praised not condemned for making worthless animals into something worthwhile.” But Tim won’t harm snakes, and decides to send in his army of slithery friends to attack those who do harm to his cold-blooded friends -- like a stripper who bites the heads off of snakes in her act. Director Grefe (Death Curse Of Tartu), who I had the good fortune to meet at a Chiller Convention years ago and was a delight, filmed this horror film in several weeks on a tiny budget and it looks great on this DVD, which features many documentaries charting the making of the film and revisiting the everglades locations years later with Grefe.

Slumdog Millionaire is Danny Boyle’s winning new film about 18-year-old Jamal (Dev Patel), an orphan who grew up in the slums of Mumbai, who goes on India’s version of “Who Wants To be A Millionaire” and surprisingly answers all the right answers racking up $10 million. But he is accused of cheating, and arrested between shows and tortured and interrogated by police. The story of his hard-scrabble life emerges as do the reasons for his answering each question correctly. Director Boyle (Trainspotting) makes this harrowing journey incredibly cinematic (thank God), especially the romance between Jamal and fellow orphan Latika (Frieda Pinto) who he was separated from in his youth but tirelessly searched for, considering this his “destiny”. The movie works on every level -- it’s tender, funny and emotionally satisfying without being cloying. And whatever you do, stay for the final credits which are quite fabulous.

Love Songs, one of the 10 best films I saw in 2008, is out this week on DVD. A bittersweet romantic tale by one of my fave French directors, Christophe Honore (Ma Mere, Dans Paris), Love Songs stars his usual muse Louis Garrel (The Dreamers) as Ismael, in the middle of a prickly menage-a-trois with Julie (Ludivine Sagnier) and Alice (Clotilde Hesme) when tragedy intercedes. Love, loss, grief and the surprising way Ismael works through his pain is told by the actors who periodically break into song. Honore creates such an acid flashback to the 1960s new wave French movies, in this instance particularly Jacques Demy’s unconventional musicals (The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg), but it still feels new and vibrant and works thrillingly. The whole film is as wildly romantic as it is inventive.

Boys In The Band (CBS/Paramount) is finally out on DVD. Director William Friedkin's excellent 1970 film version, which was based on the groundbreaking, controversial-at-the-time play by Mart Crowley, is about a group of Manhattan gay friends celebrating a birthday party. Kenneth Nelson plays Michael, the host, who gets a tearful call from a college friend (Peter White) -- an unexpected arrival that sets into motion a drunken game of truth or dare.

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In the Folds of the Flesh (Severin), now out on DVD, is one of the most cockamamie Italian “giallo” mysteries I’ve ever seen. This 1970, almost psychedelic oddity, directed by Sergio Bergonzelli even costars the doomed starlet (and ex-girlfriend of James Dean) Pier Angeli a year before she died of a barbiturate overdose at age 39. The film is set in a fortress-like villa by the sea where lives a whacked-out family: a mother in dark widow weeds, a daughter with a blonde wig (Angeli) and a crazy painter son. They seem to be set on by criminals at various times, who usually meet their end by being stabbed by Angeli or beheaded or killed by cyanide poisoning and buried out back. There’s a convoluted Freudian reason for all of this which is revealed in a jaw-dropping finale which I dare you to explain to me. With Nazi concentration camp flashbacks, eye-gouging pop fashions, and a fractured narrative that would confuse Jorge Luis Borges, it’s one of the most wildest, weirdest of psychological thrillers.

Out now on DVD is the beautiful, operatic, loony, Ludwig (KochlorberFilms.com). Luchino Visconti's 1972 lavishly filmed version of the life of Ludwig II (Helmut Berger) the mad king of Bavaria. Ludwig, was obsessed with Richard Wagner, and even became his patron for a while. He also built elaborate fairy tale castles for himself (at the country's expense), where Visconti actually filmed. There are astounding scenes at the end with Ludwig and his beautiful boy toys in swan boats floating in an underground moat that are fabulously decadent. The ravishing Romy Schneider plays his cousin, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who can't control Ludwig's escalating madness and manias. This is perfect material for the aristocratic visionary director Visconti (The Leopard, Death In Venice) who leisurely films this doomed king. At a running time of 237 minutes this is an artistic epic. Sweeping and strange and utterly fascinating; the disc quality is superb, and it's thrilling to finally own this rarely seen masterful film.

One has to tip one’s hat to the great guys at Grindhouse Releasing/ for this impressive two-disc special edition of the 1982 splatter classic Pieces, whose ad campaign featured the tag-lines “You don’t have to go to Texas for a chainsaw massacre” and “it’s exactly what you think it is!”. The film begins in Boston in the 1940s where a young, puzzle-loving boy hacks up his mom with an axe and hides in the closet pretending to be a victim of a maniac’s attack. Cut to 40 years later and a series of chainsaw murders at a college campus has a cigar-smoking detective (Christopher George) at his wits end over the gruesome crimes. Is it the creepy anatomy professor or the weird dean (played by famed actor Edmund Purdom)?

Oh, who cares when there are lines from one of the students like: “The most beautiful thing in the world is smoking pot and fucking on a water bed”. Plus lots of male and female nudity. And chunk-blowing scenes of violence. It’s no wonder director Eli Roth (Hostel) considers this one “a masterpiece of early 80s sleaze”, with “the greatest ending in horror history”. The extras include an extensive interview with Spanish director Juan Piquer and fabulous character actor Paul Smith (who played Bluto in Popeye and the warden in Midnight Express not to mention David Carradine's husband in the cult classic Sonny Boy). The movie will leave you in stitches!

Director Ken Russell will appear at the Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Ave.) on Halloween at midnight for a special screening of his outrageous 1971 film The Devils. This brilliant shocker starring Vanessa Redgrave and Oliver Reed was based on the book by Aldous Huxley. This tale about an exorcism at a devil-possessed nunnery (actually an excuse for Cardinal Richelieu to take down Father Grandier (Oliver Reed) and his fortified town scandalized audiences at the time. Vanessa Redgrave's love-starved hunchback nun is burned into my brain. Don't miss your chance to see this deranged classic and the great director too!

Here's something to get before you buy that candy corn: The Halloween 30th Anniversary Commemorative Set. This elaborate box set comes with a mask (for those still undecided about what to wear on Halloween). John Carpenter’s 1978 horror masterpiece still thrills with its simplicity and fear factors. Set during final days of October, former child-killer Michael Meyers has escaped from an asylum and heads home to Haddonfield to wreak havoc on the town, particularly Jamie Lee Curtis who plays a teenage girl babysitting that night. Carpenter’s chilling relentless soundtrack underscores the terrors and the beautifully composed widescreen images are artful as they are insanely scary. This incredible box-set comes with the Anamorphic Widescreen version of the film, plus a Blu-ray version, and a great disc called Halloween 25 Years Of Terror and two later sequels Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Meyers and Halloween 5: The Revenge Of Michael Meyers. Talk about trick or treat.