WILD EYE UNLEASHES VISUAL VENGEANCE WITH HARDCORE '90s HORROR DOUBLE

Wild Eye Releasing, one of the leading U.S. distributors of genre works since 2008, will launch the sister sub-label Visual Vengeance in July. A collector’s Blu-ray label dedicated to vintage, often overlooked micro-budget genre independents from the 1980s through to the 2000s, Visual Vengeance reinforces Wild Eye’s commitment to curating works from deep within the world of horror.

The upcoming slate of releases will span underground genre history, including films shot on SOV, Super 8, 16mm and 35mm lensed movies. However, the primary source of titles for Visual Vengeance will be the shot-on-video movies of the VHS and early DVD era, when filmmaking technology became digital and independent film output flourished.

The first two titles under the Visual Vengeance label indicate just how far the Wild Eye team are willing to go in the name of cult cinema curation. The first title is Shinichi Fukazawa’s 1995 Super-8 splatterfest, Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell (pictured, above), a legendary cult item often referred to as ‘The Japanese Evil Dead’. It tells the story of a muscleman who, while trapped in a possessed house, must survive a blood soaked night of insanity to save himself and his friends from a vengeful demonic ghost. 

Also in the July release is Matt Jaissle’s The Necro Files (pictured, right), the notorious 1997 underground epic that became known as ‘America’s Video Nasty’ upon release. The corpse of a cannibal rapist rises from the grave as a flesh-eating zombie, and it will take two Seattle cops, a satanic cult and a flying demon baby to stop the lust-crazed ghoul before he can kill again.

Both titles are Blu-ray premieres; it will be the first official North American release for Bloody Muscle Body Builder in Hell, a title that was a hot bootleg title in the late ‘90s. Both releases will include participation on new bonus features with the original creators and stars of the movies, and be released in deluxe collector’s editions with limited edition ‘Slipcase packaging’ – as well as being loaded with special features.   

While future releases remain a closely-guarded secret, the label has confirmed that restored works from enduring fan-favourite directors such as Todd Sheets, Bret McCormick, Mark Polonia, Brad Sykes, Kevin Lindenmuth and Donald Farmer are scheduled, with many of the featured movies feared ‘lost’ or out-of-print for decades.

No Australian distributor or release date has been confirmed for the Visual Vengeance catalogue.