“Solo: A Star Wars Story” and Other Out of This World New Releases

This week’s new releases fly into Hyperspace with the eagerly awaited DVD and Blu-ray release of the latest entry in the Star Wars saga, but there’s plenty of other offerings that are a bit more grounded as well. From engaging basketball comedies to gritty biopics to sleazy and sensational horror flicks from the past, we think you’ll find these new releases to be a viewing force to be reckoned with!

Solo: A Star Wars Story

The early days of pilot and scoundrel Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) are chronicled in this thrilling “Star Wars” adventure. After Han meets the Wookiee, Chewbacca (Joonas Suatamo), they fall in with professional thief Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson). The three are joined by Solo’s ex-girlfriend Qi’ra (Emilia Clark), and suave smuggler, gambler, and Millennium Falcon owner Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) as they try to boost a supply of starship fuel for a sinister crime boss (Paul Bettany). Thandie Newton co-stars.

Uncle Drew

As the Rucker Classic basketball tournament fast approaches, Harlem coach Dax (Lil Rel Howery) has his entire team poached by longtime rival Mookie (Nick Kroll). Now, Dax must recruit aged streetball luminary Uncle Drew (NBA star Kyrie Irving in “old man” makeup) and the rest of his former teammates to play in the classic and beat Mookie once and for all. Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Webber, Reggie Miller, Tiffany Haddish co-star in this hilarious sports comedy.

Gotti

John Travolta’s performance as mob boss John Gotti fuels this troubled biopic based on the life of the so-called “Teflon Don.” Set over three decades, the film traces Gotti’s ascent to the head of New York’s Gambino crime family, chronicles his legal and health issues, and explores his relationships with wife Victoria (Kelly Preston) and son John, Jr. (Spencer Lofranco), who considers betraying his father by taking a plea deal. Stacy Keach, Pruitt Taylor Vince also star.

The Seagull

An aging actress, desperate to hold on to her fame, visits her elderly brother’s country resort for a visit with friends and family, including her son. She brings her younger lover, who’s a successful writer. A flurry of tangled relationships take over the focus of the weekend. Based on the play by Anton Chekhov. Saoirse Ronan, Annette Bening, Corey Stoll star; directed by Michael Mayer.

The House on Tombstone Hill

The film follows a group of teenagers who travel up to a dilapidated house for some fixing up. Unbeknownst to them, the house is occupied by a murderous old woman and her sultry daughter, who proceed to pick the teens off one by one. Mark Zobian, Sarah Newhouse star. AKA: “Dead Dudes in the House,” “Dead Come Home.”

Body Melt

Residents of the placid suburban cul-de-sac of Pebbles Court have started receiving unexpected samples of a new and experimental vitamin, manufactured by a strange health spa named Vimuville. However, shortly after adding the mysterious green powder to their diets, users begin to experience strange and increasingly macabre visions, and worse, their bodies start to mutate, ooze, and eventually melt! As visits from the coroner to the sleepy street become a nearly daily experience, Detective Sam Phillips becomes increasingly suspicious of the goings on at Vimuville, but will he be able to uncover its diabolical motives before the whole of Australia is subjected to body melt? Andrew Daddo stars.

Anthropophagous

It was seized by UK authorities as a ‘Video Nasty’ and accused of being an actual snuff film. Yet even by ’80s Italian gore-spewing standards, this grueling shocker from sex & sleaze maestro Joe D’Amato still stands as perhaps the most controversial – and extreme – spaghetti splatter epic of them all. Tisa Farrow, Zora Kerova, and co-writer/producer George Eastman star in this depraved daddy of cannibal carnage.

Absurd

Joe D’Amato’s unleashes gut-spewing Greek boogeyman (screenwriter George Eastman) into suburban America for a saga of doomed nurses, butchered babysitters, bio-chemical clergy and some of the most insane splatter scenes in Italian gorehound history. Edmund Purdom and Annie Belle co-star.

Psycho Biddy Double Feature: Strait Jacket/Berserk!

First, in Strait-Jacket (1964), after 20 years in the booby hatch, Lucy Harbin (Joan Crawford), convicted for the axe murders of her husband (an uncredited Lee Majors) and his lover, finds peace at her daughter Carol’s (Diane Baker) home. But once heads start to roll again, it looks like Lucy’s given decapitation another crack. Classic William Castle shocker, written by Robert Bloch (“Psycho”), reassures “It’s only a movie…It’s only a movie.” With Leif Erickson, George Kennedy, Howard St. John. Then, the offbeat shocker Beserk! (1967) stars Crawford as Monica Rivers, a circus owner whose big top is beset by the sadistic murders of several of her performers. But receipts soar thanks to the grisly deaths which include a tightrope walker falling onto a bed of bayonets, Monica’s partner getting a spike through his head, and a gruesome “accident” while a woman is being sawed in half! Ty Hardin, Diana Dors, Michael Gough, Judy Geeson also star.