New DVD and Blu-Ray Releases to Crave: Take Shelter with Rum Diary & The Human Centipede II

By Chris Kavan - 02/14/12 at 02:46 PM CT

The release dates are a little scary this week. Tuesday Feb. 14th, 2012 brings us a collection of horrors - mostly intentional.

1) Johnny Depp proved he's not 100% infallible after the quirky nature of The Rum Diary failed to capture much interest at the box office. Still, like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, this film caters to a much more limited audience than, say, Pirates of the Caribbean.

2) Another film that caters to a limited audience is the depraved Human Centipede II: Full Sequence. The original brought a whole new level of perversion to cinema as Tom Six managed to find a way to create something both revolting and yet oddly compelling. The sequel sounds like it goes too far into the bizarre side of things as Full Sequence goes for full-on grotesque. I might watch this out of sheer curiosity, but I'm not expecting too much.

3) Finally Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain deliver a one-two punch of apocalyptic proportions in Take Shelter. Shannon plays a family man plagued by visions of an impending disaster that drives him to build a storm shelter - but is he saving his family or simply going mad? The premise sounds fascinating and I'm willing to take a chance on this simply to see how things turn out.

On the Blu-Ray front, war films don't get much more classic than the WWI tale All Quiet on the Western Front. Based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque that, far from portraying war as patriotic or heroic, paints a much more sobering reality of death and disillusionment. A must for any fan of war films. Criterion continues to update their library with the release of Three Outlaw Samurai in high definition. Hideo Gosha crafts a tale that fits right in with Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Yojimbo films as a trio of men (a wandering ronin and two renegade guards) find themselves helping out a group of peasants against an overwhelming force. If you're a fan of these kind of classic samurai films, it sounds like a worthy addition.

You can check out these new 2012 DVD releases and more on the FilmCrave New DVD Releases and FilmCrave New Blu-Ray Releases pages today.