Companion 4K (2025/Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)/Dinner With Leatherface (2023/Anchor Bay*)/Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970/Severin Blu-ray)/Magnificent Chang Cheh (Magnificent Trio (1966) + Magnificent Wanderers (1977)/Eureka!/*both MVD Blu-ray)

4K Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: X/B-/B/B- Sound: A/B-/C+/B- Extras: B/B/B-/B- Films: B/B/B-/B- & C+

Relationships permeate these next releases, drenched in genres...

Up and coming stars Jack Quaid (The Boys, Scream) and Sophie Turner (Heretic, Book of Boba Fett) star in Companion 4K (2025), a new horror film from the creators of the recent hit Barbarian - Drew Hancock and Zach Creeger. The film also stars Rupert Friend, Lukas Gage, and Harvey Guillen.

Companion imagines a not too distant future where we have self driving cars and fully synthetic humanoid 'Companions' that live amongst us. Basically, a person can imagine their ideal partner and custom order them. While in theory it sounds like a easy button on the whole 'romance' conundrum, it also comes with it a lot of negatives. Regardless, a group of mischief makers decide to use the companion to stage an elaborate murder / get rich quick scheme that goes south pretty fast. The humans clearly underestimate the Companion's growing intellect and all of the paths to instant fulfillment become a living nightmare. The moral of the story is: the easy road isn't always the right one.

The film is cleverly shot and directed which falls in line with Hancock's previous efforts. I am definitely curious to see what other films this team has up their sleeves because they clearly are making offbeat projects with a fusion of cinematic passion and strong stars.

Special Features:

I Feel, Therefore I Am featurette

Love, Eli featurette

and an AI Horror featurette.

Companion is a fun and original angle on the artificial intelligence genre that does something a bit different than the norm of what say. It has some great performances and memorable scenes that make it a recommendable film for fans who like similar films.

While he may have played onscreen one of the most vicious serial killers the world has ever known, Leatherface from the 1974 classic The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the late offscreen actor Gunnar Hansen was a soft spoken teddy bear off-screen. I n the 2024 documentary, Dinner With Leatherface (2023,) friends and colleagues set the record straight about Gunnar Hansen and give some insight into this personal life and career.

The documentary also shows some of Gunnar's other film roles like the cult hit Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers and his appearances at comic cons and how he connected with fans later in life. The film features interviews with horror icons Barbara Crampton, Bruce Campbell, Michelle Bauer, Betsy Baker, John Dugan, Bob Elmore and many other actors, friends, and film historians.

Special Features:

Commentary by director Michael Kallio and editor Josh Wagner

Interview with film historian Michael Felsher

Extended Interview with Jeff Burr

Comedian chat with actress Danielle Harris

Southern Hospitality Trailer

and Tales of Gunnar Hansen.

Dinner With Leatherface is a love letter to Texas Chainsaw Massacre fans that are interested by the man who played the iconic character.

Douglas Hickox's Entertaining Mr. Sloane (1970) is an eccentric adaption of the Joe Orton play about the title character (Peter McEnery) who is hanging around in a graveyard on a nice summer day, when he is spotted by an older woman (the hilarious Beryl Reid) who desires to take him home! This leads to conflict with her brother (Harry Andrews) and eventually leads to murder.

Sloane is bi-sexual, the film is not a character study necessarily, not a murder mystery and focuses on the wants and needs of all involved, most of whom are much older than the title character. It is a study of various kinds of sexuality and various kinds of oppression, made more complicated by British norms of the time and the arrival of the counterculture that we get parts of in this film. It keeps the tone it starts with, talky and sometimes ironic, throughout and is consistent enough. It is also smart. This might not be for everyone, but it is worth a look for what it does achieve and the cast is a plus. Compare to Sunday Bloody Sunday (reviewed in its Criterion edition elsewhere on this site.) Alan Webb also stars.

Extras in a solid slipcase packaging includes a Feature Length Audio Commentary With Film Historian Nathaniel Thompson and Orton Scholar Dr. Emma Parker

• Archival Interview with Actor Peter McEnery

• All My Sloanes - 60 Years Of Joe Orton's Mr. Sloane, Featuring Malcolm McDowell And Maxwell Caulfield

• Archival Interview With John Lahr, Author Of Prick Up Your Ears: The Biography Of Joe Orton

• Archival Interview With Leonie Orton Remembering Her Brother Joe

• Ortonesque - Screenwriter David McGillivray On The Lasting Influence Of Joe Orton

• Act Of Character - Rosie White On The Inimitable Identities Of Beryl Reid

• Archival Locations Featurette With Richard Dacre

• Threads Of Desire: Costuming And Sexuality In ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE - Video Essay By Costume Historian Elissa Rose

• and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

The Magnificent Chang Cheh features two films by the celebrated director/filmmaker whose films have been getting issued (ans reissued) often lately. Here, we get The Magnificent Trio (1966) with an early Jimmy Wang Yu film before he became a big star, as part of a trio (Cheng Li and Lo Lieh) who have to fix a situation where angry farmers kidnap the daughter of a magistrate to get justice. A little odd at times, it does take the materials mostly seriously and has its moments. The Magnificent Wanderers (1977) starts to add more comedy to the genre, something that started to happen around this time before it got ridiculous in the 1980s and 1990s, as a trio of nomads try to join Chinese Nationalists to stop wealth-backed Mongols from invading the country. It has some good action, but gets undermined too often by the comedy. Now you can see for yourself and compare the two in the process.

Extras include:

• A Limited Edition O-Card slipcase featuring new artwork by Gregory Sacre (Gokaiju)

• 1080p HD presentations on Blu-ray from masters supplied by Celestial Pictures

• Original mono audio tracks

• Optional English subtitles, newly translated for this release

• New audio commentary on The Magnificent Trio by East Asian film expert Frank Djeng (NY Asian Film Festival) and martial artist and filmmaker Michael Worth

• New audio commentary on Magnificent Wanderers by action cinema experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema

• Chang Cheh Style - new video essay by Gary Bettinson, editor-in-chief of Asian Cinema journal

• PLUS: A limited edition collector's booklet featuring new writing on Chang Cheh by writer and critic James Olive.

Now for playback performance. The 2160p HEVC/H.265, 2.40 X 1, HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image on Companion 4K and audio mixes in lossless, English Dolby Atmos (English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 for older systems; 48kHz, 24-bit), which replicates the theater experience at home if you have the correct equipment. As with all newer Warner Bros. titles on the 4K format, the film has a clean transfer with nothing distracting in terms of presentation and is of a high quality for the format.

Dinner With Leatherface is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and a standard, lossy 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo mix that's standard for documentaries.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image on Sloane is the second-best presentation of all the releases here, originally issued in 35mm dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor prints and captured very well throughout with nice color range to go with the detail and depth throughout. The PCM 2.0 Mono has been restored as well, but it is a little weaker than expected due to the age of the source, how it was recorded, how it was stored and/or how it was processed. It is good for what it is, but be careful of high volume playback and volume switching just to be on the safe side.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on both Cheh films can show the age of the materials used, along with the older anamorphic lenses with their flaws and limits. Oddly, the newer film has just as many issues and limits as the older one, though some smearing and minor issues might be storage or age-related. Color is at least decent and consistent throughout, but only expect so much. Both offer lossless Mandarin PCM 2.0 Mono sound that also shows its age, but both sound as good as they ever will.

- Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (4K, Dinner)

https://letterboxd.com/jhl5films/