Streaming Channel Now Offers Ad-Free Service For The First Time
New York, NY — December 9, 2021 — Kino Lorber and Giant Pictures are excited to announce close to 20 new films available to stream today on Kino Cult, the new free ad-supported streaming destination for genre lovers of horror and cult films. These films join a growing list of hundreds of new and rare theatrically released cult hits, all presented in beautiful High Definition. Additionally, Kino Cult is now offering an ad-free subscription plan for $4.99 per month for the first time.
This December, Kino Cult has added a holiday sidebar featuring new mind-melting titles like Happy Times,Red Christmas, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, alongside Chowboys and Patch Town. Two more films – Lips of Blood and The Living Dead Girl – have been added to the ever-growing collection of erotic fantasy horror cinema from Jean Rollin. Kino Cult expands its library of shameless seventies shockers with Pete Walker’s House of Mortal Sin and House of Whipcord.
Other highlights include Losing Ground, a restored underground indie film from director Kathleen Collins, who just received the inaugural “Gotham Icon Award” at the Gotham Awards. Fans of Pablo Larraín’s psychodrama Spencer can check out Post Mortem, an early film from the auteur. And exclusive to Kino Cult, Luis Buñuel’s classic Un Chien Andalou, co-written with Salvador Dalí, is available to stream in HD for the first time.
Full list of newly arrived titles below.
BABYLON (director Franco Rosso) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/babylon Young reggae DJ Blue (legendary singer Brinsley Allan Forde) is trying to make a name for himself in the 1980s London music scene. He has a steep uphill battle: not only is he a total unknown, but he has to fight against Thatcher-era politics both artistically and personally. BABYLON is an intimate and raw look at the racism, xenophobia, and police brutality of the 1980s.
BLACK GRAVEL (director Helmut Kautner) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/black-gravel Helmed by Helmut Käutner (Port of Freedom), BLACK GRAVEL is hard-boiled cinema at its most cynical. In this gripping Cold War noir, tensions simmer between residents of a small German village and the soldiers of a U.S. military base. Postwar economic hardship has turned the town of Sohnen into a vice district. The women serve as entertainment for the GIs, while the men struggle for survival in the black market. BLACK GRAVEL continues the gritty tradition of “Trucker Noir” begun by They Drive by Night, The Wages of Fear and Thieves’ Highway.
THE DEVIL LIVES HERE (director Rodrigo Gasparini, Dante Vescio) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/devil-lives-here Three teenagers go on a trip to visit their friend Apolo at his family’s farm for a weekend of fun. At the same time, Sebastião and his younger brother Luciano are getting ready to perform the spiritual ritual their family has been tasked with every nine months, for centuries. On the night the two groups meet, they find out that what they thought were scary tales becomes more than real. It is now up to them to prevent evil from being born and taking over the world.
THE FRONTIER (NOIR) (director Oren Shai) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/frontier A neo-noir neo-Western in the spirit of the Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino, THE FRONTIER follows a female drifter (The House of the Devil’s Jocelin Donahue) as she steps into desert motel run by a mysterious woman (Kelly Lynch), inhabited by a violent gang of thieves vying for control of a stash of cash. An official selection of SXSW 2015.
GERMAN ANGST (director Jorg Buttgereit, Michal Kosakowski, Andreas Marschall) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/german-angst GERMAN ANGST consists of three short tales, each more depraved than the last. Final Girl details the exploits of a lonely girl, her guinea pig, and a secret in the basement. Make a Wish is a supernatural entry about a deaf couple and their magical talisman. Finally, Alraune follows a man whose hedonism takes him on a horrific journey. It’s a horror anthology that’s not for the faint of heart.
GRACE JONES: BLOODLIGHT AND BAMI (director Sophie Fiennes) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/grace-jones-bloodlight-and-bami The life and career of Grace Jones—prolific musical artist, androgynous icon, and glam pop staple—documented in a film just as bold, unpredictable, and dedicated as she is. The film follows Jones everywhere, onstage and off, revealing a determined artist navigating the pitfalls of a professional music career, a woman returning to visit her family and cultural homeland, as well as the massive on-stage legend she’s become.
HAPPY TIMES (director Michael Mayer) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/happy-times A boorish Israeli-American couple plan a Sabbath dinner party for a group of fellow ex-pat friends and family in their Hollywood Hills mansion. What could possibly go wrong? Well, start with a deadly mix of alcohol, add inflated egos, some inappropriate lust and top with raging jealousy and the result is of cauldron of murderous mayhem. A shotgun, garden shears, kitchen knives and even a garbage disposal are used as weapons of choice as these deranged guests turn on each other in director Michael (Out in the Dark) Mayer’s outrageous and bloody comedy.
THE HITCH-HIKER (director Ida Lupino) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/hitch-hiker Beyond its obvious cultural significance as the only classic film noir directed by a woman (actress Ida Lupino), THE HITCH-HIKER is perhaps better remembered as simply one of the most nightmarish motion pictures of the 1950s. Inspired by the true-life murder spree of Billy Cook, THE HITCH-HIKER is the tension-laden saga of two men on a camping trip (Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy) who are held captive by a homicidal drifter (William Talman). He forces them, at gunpoint, to embark on a grim joyride across the Mexican desert. 2K Restoration from 35mm elements preserved by the Library of Congress.
HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN (director Pete Walker) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/house-mortal-sin Pete Walker continued his series of religious-themed exploitation films with the scathing HOUSE OF MORTAL SIN. Father Meldrum (Anthony Sharp) is a Catholic priest more dedicated to the word than most. His strict belief in “divine justice” influences him to take rather extreme measures to redeem the lost and punish iniquity.
HOUSE OF WHIPCORD (director Pete Walker) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/house-whipcord HOUSE OF WHIPCORD follows fashion model Ann-Marie (Penny Irving) as she is lured into a private reform school to be punished for her sexual liberation. Disciplined by a zealous warden (Barbara Markham) Ann-Marie must rely on her will and the help of her roommate (Ann Michelle) to escape this school of horrors. An undeniable influence on Edgar Wright’s Last Night in Soho, Pete Walker’s film was at the time a reaction to the rising conservatism in British media.
LIPS OF BLOOD (director Jean Rollin) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/lips-blood Jean-Loup Philippe stars as Frederic, a maternally-dominated young man who by chance is awakened to a dormant childhood memory by attending a launch party for a new perfume. A chateau pictured in the poster reminds him of a night, long ago, when he was lost and a beautiful young woman (Jennifer, played by Forever Emanuelle‘s Annie Belle) came out of nowhere to protect him through the night. Later, the woman—unaged—magically appears and beckons to him, and Frederic finds his way back to the chateau and to her, uncovering some dark secrets about his family’s past along the way.
THE LIVING DEAD GIRL (director Jean Rollin) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/living-dead-girl Catherine Valmont (Françoise Blanchard), a wealthy heiress dead before her time, is accidentally reanimated when some unfortunate movers attempt to store drums of chemical waste in the neglected burial vaults below her uninhabited chateau. Bloodier and more violent than his own tastes preferred, THE LIVING DEAD GIRL forced Rollin to work against the grain in his own preferred genre—and he transformed himself in the process.
LOSING GROUND (director Kathleen Collins) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/losing-ground The first feature film directed by an African American woman, LOSING GROUND follows a black professor of philosophy as she embarks on an intellectual quest just as her painter husband, sets off on an exploration of joy. Victor decides to rent a country house away from the city, but the couple’s summer idyll becomes complicated by their extramarital explorations. The film is notable to genre fans as the second pairing of actors Duane Jones (Night of the Living Dead) and actor/filmmaker Bill Gunn, after their 1973 cult classic Ganja and Hess.
MISS ZOMBIE (director SABU) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/miss-zombie In a not-so-distant future, zombies have been partially domesticated by scientists and sold to rich families in Japan as slaves. Oone of these undead indentured servants—lucid enough to vaguely remember her past—becomes the pet of an influential Japanese family. Disrespected by her owners and abused by citizens, Miss Zombie’s animalistic instincts kick in, leading her to rise up against her oppressors.
NIGHT TIDE (director Curtis Harrington) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/night-tide Prepare for Guillermo Del Toro’s’ Nightmare Alley with this carnival-themed psychological mystery. Dennis Hopper (Blue Velvet) plays a young sailor on leave who meets a woman working as a sideshow mermaid, who is rumored to have caused the deaths of her previous two lovers. The sailor must balance his growing affection for the siren and the increasing number of warning signs. Featuring occultist Marjorie Cameron as the Sea Witch.
POST MORTEM (director Pablo Larrain) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/post-mortem Mario (Alfredo Castro) is an unassuming state employee who transcribes notes during autopsies. Furtive and lonely, he becomes obsessed with his neighbor, the dancehall girl Nancy (Antonia Zegers), who is involved with a group of left-wing activists. With the coup, and the death of President Salvador Allende, Nancy’s friends are hunted down, and Mario’s hospital becomes clogged with the bodies of dissenters. Soon the violence filters into Mario’s psyche, and he begins to break down, much like his country.
RED CHRISTMAS (director Craig Anderson) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/red-christmas Horror legend Dee Wallace (The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling, E.T., Cujo, Critters) stars as the stressed-out mother of a squabbling family, gathered together in a remote Outback estate on Christmas Eve. When a misshapen young man named Cletus appears at their door, things soon change from petty insults to bloody, imaginatively orchestrated violence as Wallace attempts to protect her family from the vengeful intruder. The film deliriously infuses comedy, dark family secrets with outlandish gore and adds the always controversial subject of abortion in its blood-stained mix.
SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS (director Nicholas Webster) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/santa-claus-conquers-martians Renowned as a holiday cult classic, SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS is one of the most amusing films ever made. It tells the story of the depressed children of Mars, who can only be brought out of their funk through the jolly cheer of Old St. Nick. So the Martian leaders travel to Earth and kidnap two local kids (one played by an 8-year-old Pia Zadora) and Kris Kringle himself. Brought back to the Red Planet, they are forcibly installed in a factory to make toys. But you can’t manufacture happiness, with Santa having to teach his alien overseers the true meaning of Christmas.
UN CHIEN ANDALOU (director Luis Buñuel) https://www.kinocult.com/feature/un-chien-andalou With its closeup shot of the slicing of an eyeball, UN CHIEN ANDALOU is a cinematic gauntlet thrown down by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali. Almost a century old, the surrealist short masterpiece has lost none of its power to confound and shock an audience.
Featuring hundreds of hours of curated, theatrically released films all in High Definition, with new titles added monthly, Kino Cult is available widely in the U.S. and Canada across web, mobile devices and connected TVs, with VOD apps on all major devices such as Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Google TV, iOS, Android, and more. From the art house to the haunted house, the channel dives deep into unapologetically weird genre cinema, blending recent art house discoveries fresh from cinemas with high quality restorations of notorious grindhouse gems.
Giant Pictures, a leader in the Free Ad-Supported (FAST) channels space, is the technology partner for Kino Cult, responsible for the device apps, channel distribution and ad-tech in the new venture. Kino Cult will also launch as a linear channel experience, with its free ad-supported programming running 24/7 across multiple streaming devices. An expansion to the library is also planned, to include more genre greatness from other venerated cult labels like American Genre Film Archive, Code Red, Scorpion Releasing, Severin Films, Something Weird, and Vinegar Syndrome, in addition to the current offerings from Kino Lorber partners Artsploitation Films, Palisades Tartan, Raro Video, and Redemption Films.
Download the Kino Cult app in the U.S. and Canada and watch free on Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Google TV, iOS, Android and at http://www.kinocult.com.
