Ghouls Gone Wild (Region B) Blu-ray ***Preorder*** 10/19

Following the breakout success of pioneering genre films Encounter of the Spooky Kind, The Dead and the Deadly and Mr Vampire, horror movies became a mainstay of film production in Hong Kong and Taiwan throughout the 1980s. Collected here are three of the standout titles from that horror boom, starring the likes of Chow Yun-fat (The Seventh Curse), Wu Ma (A Chinese Ghost Story) and Ricky Hui (Mr Vampire): Scared Stiff, The Haunted Cop Shop and Magic of Spell.

Lau Kar-wing (Crouching Tiger, Fatty Dragon) directs Scared Stiff, in which a young everyman develops the ability to enter other people’s dreams following an accident – and then finds himself using his gift to bring a sadistic murderer to justice. Co-written by Wong Kar-wai (Ashes of Time) and indebted in equal measure to Mr Vampire and Fright Night, The Haunted Cop Shop sees cops and crooks alike forced to confront vengeful beings from beyond the grave in a police station built on a site of violence. Finally, in a supernatural wuxia fantasy on par with The Miracle Fighters and Shaolin Drunkard, Magic of Spell follows a kung fu master who must defeat the infernal demon responsible for his mother’s death.

Ranging in tone from laugh-out-loud comedy to straight-faced terror (sometimes in the same film) and featuring a litany of ruthless killers, restless spirits, vengeful jiangshi and infernal devils, Scared Stiff, The Haunted Cop Shop and Magic of Spell encapsulate the incredible range of Chinese-language horror filmmaking in the 1980s. Eureka Classics is thrilled to present all three films for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK.