We are officially immersed in fall and the releases have ramped up and are filling the shelves! Tons of stuff for everybody this week. These are your new releases for September 23, 2014.

First up this week is Neighbors, the new comedy starring Seth Rogen, Zac Efron and Rose Byrne. Rogen and Byrne play a couple with a new baby that start a rivalry with a fraternity that moves in next door to them. At first they are friendly but soon realize in order to get some peace and quiet they will have to start playing dirty to get rid of the house full of frat boys. Being a parent myself I totally identified with the couple in this movie much in the same way the jokes in This is 40 were relatable and the results are hilarious. Efron continues to prove he is more than a pretty face but in fact a great actor with excellent comedic talent as well. Dave Franco backs him up for some pretty damn funny back and forth with their ‘old neighbors’ as they try to out prank each other in an escalating battle for supremacy. The scenes of Byrne and Rogen trying to be cool around the 20 something’s is just priceless and have to be seen. I was very surprised just how much I loved Neighbors, check it out!

As we get closer to October you will probably notice more and more horror titles in this column, but it will be hard to top this week with the release of not only the complete collection of the Saw movie franchise, but also complete collections for both Halloween and The Exorcist series.

Halloween: The Complete Collection is collaboration between top genre distributors Anchor Bay Entertainment and Shout Factory. Both companies are fan favorites for horror lovers and their pairing for this set is a match made in heaven. Included in the set is every single Halloween film since John Carpenter’s classic started it all in 1978. You get the theatrical and TV edits of the original as well as the sequel, Halloween II, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, which comes in its original version as well as the highly sought after Producers Cut for the first time ever, Halloween: H2O, Halloween: Resurrection, and lastly both of Rob Zombie’s Halloween films in their unrated versions. In addition to all this Halloween goodness you get loads of brand new special features in addition to all the extras that were featured previously. This is the horror fans #1 pick for 2014 and is not to be missed.

While not as extensive as Halloween: The Complete Collection, The Exorcist Anthology is also a fantastic box set featuring all but the original film available for the first time on Blu-ray. You get the original theatrical and ‘Version You’ve Never Seen” of the original film, the magnificent disaster that is Exorcist II: Heretic, the underrated and awesomely brilliant Exorcist III and both director’s versions of the Exorcist prequel, Exorcist: The Beginning and Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist. In addition you get lots of great special features including an excellent and exhaustive documentary on the making of the original film. For my money, the crown jewel in this set is having William Peter Blatty’s Exorcist III on Blu-ray for the first time. In many ways I actually prefer this film to the brilliant original but that really is a difficult contest. Scene for scene though it is just as terrifying and features one of the best George C. Scott performances ever. And for fans of Blatty, this is step one in their desire to have all of Blatty’s directorial efforts on Blu-ray as his only other film, The Ninth Configuration, is coming out on the format in November. Either way, having all of these films together on Blu-ray is a revelation.

Until next week movie lovers.

 

DVD and Blu-ray Releases for Tuesday September 23, 2014

Bold Eagles

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Season One

Come Morning

Defiance: Season Two

Delivery: The Beast Within

Disaster L.A.

Drones

Found

Game of Assassins

Ghost in the Shell: 25^th Anniversary

Grave Halloween

Halloween: The Complete Collection*

Key & Peele: Season 3

L.A. Law: Season Three

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit - The Fifteenth Year

Littlest Pet Shop: Passport to Fashion

Macbeth – Criterion Collection*

Modern Family: Season Five

Mr. Peabody & Sherman

Mummy, I’m a Zombie

Nashville: Season 2

Necessary Roughness: Season Three

Neighbors

Postman Pat: The Movie

Roger Corman’s Operation Rogue

Royal Pains: Season Five

Saw: The Complete Movie Collection

Scandal: Season Three

State Trooper: The Complete Series

The Big Sleep

The Exorcist Anthology*

The Innocents – Criterion Collection*

The Rover

The Signal

Very Good Girls

We Are the Best

WER

Wonderland

*Catalog Blu-ray debut