The Substance

A Giant Octopus, whose feeding habits have been affected by radiation from H-Bomb tests, rises from the Mindanao Deep to terrorize the California Coast.

The sequel to The Visitors reunites us with those lovable ruffians from the French Medieval ages who - through magic - are transported into the present, with often drastic consequences. Godefroy de Montmirail travels to today to recover the missing family jewels and a sacred relic, guarantor of his wife-to-be's fertility. The confrontation between Godefroy's repellent servant Jack the Crack and his descendent, the effete Jacquart, present-day owner of the chateau, further complicates the matter.

Terry Malloy dreams about being a prize fighter, while tending his pigeons and running errands at the docks for Johnny Friendly, the corrupt boss of the dockers union. Terry witnesses a murder by two of Johnny's thugs, and later meets the dead man's sister and feels responsible for his death. She introduces him to Father Barry, who tries to force him to provide information for the courts that will smash the dock racketeers.

Dr. Caligari's somnambulist, Cesare, and his deadly predictions.

As a hovering spacecraft departs an Earth-like world, a humanoid alien drinks a dark bubbling liquid, then starts to disintegrate. The alien's remains cascade into a waterfall. His DNA triggers a biogenetic reaction.

Two school teachers and the man they both love face ruin when a malicious student cooks up a lie.

A scathing indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, Antonio Morabito’s powerful drama depicts a stressed-out salesman using increasingly scurrilous means to sell his company’s product. At the start, Bruno (Claudio Santamaria) is the Zafer corporation’s golden boy, wheedling doctors and administrators to select his firm’s treatments through various perks and his own charms. When he’s told to push a controversial new medicine, he meets with resistance and is given an ultimatum—get a notoriously difficult hospital administrator to prescribe the drug or lose his job. Compounding the problem is his girlfriend’s desire to have a child and his own increasing substance abuse. The Medicine Seller fearlessly indicts the whole pharmaceutical chain from the companies pushing the pills to the medical establishment’s capitulation toward an increasingly narcotized society to suffering consumers who are ill-informed and often ill-advised about the potentially harmful drugs they are being prescribed.

As the film opens, a doped-up Lea (Maria Bonnevie) makes an extremely bad impression on her baby daughter's foster parents; later, flashbacks reveal her disturbing youth and young adulthood. From the wrong side of the tracks, Lea grows up in a small house on the edge of the forest. When her father dies, her fragile mother Madelene takes up with the jealous alcoholic Ole. Unable to prevent Madelene from being beaten, Lea winds up as a substance abuser.

Andy Warhol collaborator Paul Morrissey followed up on the international success of FLESH FOR FRANKENSTEIN with his unique interpretation of another classic movie monster. In this version, Dracula travels to Italy in search of a virgin bride. The great Udo Kier (Blade) plays the count as a sickly and hypersensitive shut-in who stumbles across the supposedly virginal DiFiore family with the help of his domineering assistant, Anton. Unfortunately, the DiFiore daughters are less than virginal thanks to the determined efforts of servant Mario Balato (Joe Dallesandro).

A twentysomething bisexual takes many wrong turns down blind alleys in his search for affection and understanding in this drama from France. Antonin is a young man who is desperate for love and thinks he's found it with Alex, a handsome and talented musician. However, Alex is also a heroin addict, and when he succumbs to an overdose, Antonin is crushed and begins drowning his sorrows in anonymous and often degrading sex. Antonin becomes a prostitute and frequently finds himself infatuated with his clients, but most treat him with contempt except for Baptiste, who shows some compassion for the troubled young man. Sadly, history repeats itself and Antonin once again falls for a dope addict, a beautiful but damaged woman named Juliette.