What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – April 28, 2026 – 28 Years Later, Doctor Who, Box Sets, & More!

By Mike Spring

 on April 28, 2026

What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – April 28, 2026

Zombies! The Doctor! Adventure! Sleaze! Slime People! We’ve got it all! Dive in and see what’s new in home entertainment offerings this week!

In This Week’s Column:

• 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (4K Ultra HD + Digital Steelbook)
• Adventure Calls! Karl May at CCC (Blu-ray Box Set)
• Doctor Who: 1,001 Nights in Time and Space – Folktales Rescued from Around the Whoniverse (Book)
• Gutter Auteur: The Lost Legacy of Andy Milligan (Blu-ray Box Set)
• Confessions of a Police Captain (Blu-ray)
• Creepy-Creature Double-feature (The Slime People + The Crawling Hand)

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (4K Ultra HD + Digital Steelbook)

Official Synopsis:

Expanding upon the world created by Danny Boyle and Alex Garland in 28 Years Later – but turning that world on its head – Nia DaCosta directs 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. In a continuation of the epic story, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) finds himself in a shocking new relationship – with consequences that could change the world as they know it – and Spike’s (Alfie Williams) encounter with Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) becomes a nightmare he can’t escape. In the world of The Bone Temple, the infected are no longer the greatest threat to survival – the inhumanity of the survivors can be stranger and more terrifying.

The Movie: 

When I saw 28 Years Later, I really enjoyed it but I was incredibly confused by the ending, wherein (minor spoilers ahead!) a group of blonde jogging-suit wearing young adults saved protagonist Spike from a group of infected. It was such an odd non-sequitur that came out of nowhere, and then the film just ended. And I was really like, “What the hell just happened?”

At the time, I didn’t realize there was another movie already in the works, which makes the ending of that film make a whole lot more sense. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple picks up literally where 28 Years Later ends, with said jogging-suit wearing weirdos initiating young Spike (against his will) into their cult, who do some pretty awful things under the name of pseudo religious conversion. 

There are kind of two halves to The Bone Temple, and I had wildly different reactions to both of them. The first half of the movie is grisly and nasty, with a heavy emphasis on some pretty horrible torture, and frankly, it really turned me off. The second half of the film, which focuses more on Ralph Fiennes’ returning Doctor Kelson character and his efforts to find a cure for the infection, are fascinating, funny, and engaging. When the two halves come together, the film shines, and in the end I really enjoyed the movie, but I wish that first half hadn’t been so incredibly ugly. 

This week not only does 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple hit home video in 4K Ultra HD as well as Blu-ray and DVD, but the 4K comes in a super-snazzy Steelbook case! Awesome!

The 4K Video/Audio:

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is a highly stylized film, so this isn’t your usual candy-coated film experience. It’s gritty and textural, with cool color tones throughout. That’s not to say it looks bad, just very stylized. I suspect this 4K UHD transfer is exactly how the filmmakers wanted the movie to look. The surround soundtrack offers up an incredible experience, with immersive soundfield, nuanced directionality, and some pounding music, especially in one memorable scene that I won’t spoil here. All in all, this is a very strong A/V presentation. 

The Bonus Features: 

• Audio Commentary with Director Nia DaCosta 
• The Doctor and the Devil 
• New Blood 
• Beneath the Rage 
• Infected Takes: Bloopers 
• 1 Deleted Scene

Digital Copy Included: Yes

Adventure Calls! Karl May at CCC (Blu-ray Box Set)

Official Synopsis:

Writer Karl May is a household name in his native Germany, where he is associated with thrilling Western tales and sweeping adventure stories. Following earlier attempts to bring his novels to the screen, films adapted from May’s work found their greatest success in the 1960s. Seven of them were produced by Artur Brauner at CCC Film, all starring Lex Barker and directed by veteran filmmakers Robert Siodmak, Hugo Fregonese, Franz Josef Gottlieb and Harald Reinl.

Old Shatterhand and Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of Death both feature May’s most beloved characters: the frontiersman Old Shatterhand and the Apache chief Winnetou, who find themselves first caught up in a plot to start a war between Native Americans and white settlers and then a scheme to steal a gold shipment from the US Army. The Shoot, Through Wild Kurdistan and In the Kingdom of the Silver Lion all follow adventurer Kara Ben Nemsi as he travels through the Balkans and the Middle East, while The Treasure of the Aztecs and The Pyramid of the Sun God chart the exploits of Dr. Karl Sternau as he seeks vast riches to fund political action in Mexico.

Wildly entertaining, shot in beautifully cinematic European locations and helmed by some of the most talented filmmakers working in Germany during the 1960s, these popular Karl May adaptations paved the way for the many Italian Westerns that would soon follow. The Masters of Cinema Series is honored to present all seven of Artur Brauner’s Karl May adaptations for the first time ever on home video in North America from brand new 4K restorations by CCC Film.

The Movie: 

Sometimes a box set comes out of nowhere and really blows you away, and this week’s Adventure Calls! Karl May at CCC from Eureka Entertainment is one of those releases. 

I had heard of Karl May before, as a student of cinema, but my familiarity with him or his works was almost non-existent. A German novelist of some acclaim in his native country, May was like the European counterpart of Louis L’Amour, writing sweeping tales of cowboy frontier adventures and other, broader adventure tales, some set in America, some in Asia, and some in South America. 

In the 1960s, seven of his novels were adapted into movies in Germany by CCC Films; if Italy gave us spaghetti westerns, think of these as… ‘bratwurst westerns.’ The films included are: Old Shatterhand and Winnetou, Shatterhand in the Valley of Death, The Shoot, Through Wild Kurdistan, In the Kingdom of the Silver Lion, The Treasure of the Aztecs, and The Pyramid of the Sun God. You probably won’t recognize too many of the actors, save perhaps Lex Barker, who starred as Tarzan in five feature films before parlaying that minor success into an acting career in Europe. He stars in a good number of these films, and he’s a steady presence. 

Not surprisingly, I was unfamiliar with May’s signature character, Shatterhand, but the two Shatterhand movies are a fascinating mash-up of American ‘Cowboys & Indians’ storytelling with the sensibilities of German filmmakers at the time. Of course, not all of the seven movies are masterpieces, but I enjoyed most of them as good old-fashioned adventure movies. 

This box set includes all seven movies on Blu-ray, copious new extra features, and a collector’s booklet with new writings on the films and Karl May. It’s an outstanding package and the kind of thing I love to see in the home video realm!

The Bonus Features: 

• New introductions to each film by Sir Christopher Frayling, author of Spaghetti Westerns: Cowboys and Europeans from Karl May to Sergio Leone
• New audio commentaries on Old Shatterhand and The Treasure of the Aztecs by film historian David Kalat
• Karl May at CCC – new interview with producer Alice Brauner, managing director of CCC Film and daughter of CCC founder Artur Brauner
• Prodigal Son – new interview with film historian Sheldon Hall on the late career of Robert Siodmak
• Archival making of documentary on Old Shatterhand and Winnetou and Shatterhand in the Valley of Death
• Archival featurette on Daliah Lavi, star of Old Shatterhand
• Archival interview with Bernhard Schmid, co-editor and contributor to Karl May Verlag
• Archival featurette on the restoration of The Shoot, Through Wild Kurdistan and In the Kingdom of the Silver Lion
• Archival news footage on The Shoot
• Original theatrical trailers
• Limited Edition 60-page collector’s book featuring new writing on Karl May on page and screen by German popular cinema experts Tim Bergfelder and Holger Haase, a profile of Lex Barker by Boris Brosowski and an essay on Old Shatterhand and Winnetou

Digital Copy Included: No

Doctor Who: 1,001 Nights in Time and Space – Folktales Rescued from Around the Whoniverse (Book)

Official Synopsis:

Experience Doctor Who’s adventures across time and space like never before with this beautifully illustrated collection of folk tales from around the Whoniverse. At the end of the universe, a mysterious storyteller builds a campfire to draw his audience. He has gathered tales like any minstrel of old—and his specialty is tales of the Doctor.

In this book of stories both long and short, you can journey alongside the Doctor and his Companions through 24 folk tales and fables. Retold from unusual perspectives, 1001 Nights in Time and Space is a bubbling mix of heroes and villains, soldiers and monsters, princesses, goblins, demons, tricksters, computers, ghosts and gods from all across the universe… taking inspiration from the entire 60-plus years lifespan of Doctor Who.

The Book: 

If you’re waiting tirelessly for new Doctor Who adventures, Ten Speed Press has an elixir of sorts for you: Doctor Who: 1,001 Nights in Time and Space, a new Hardcover book aimed somewhat at younger readers, but also perfectly appropriate for fully grown readers. 

The book takes its inspiration from 1001 Arabian Nights, wherein the 15^th Doctor meets a wizened old traveler of space and time, who recounts stories of beings he’s encountered in his travels. Each of these short stories tells its own tale, but the whole book together makes a kind of longer novel all together. The short stories are effectively retellings of Doctor Who television adventures, however this time they’re told from the perspective of various robots, aliens, and creatures that were involved in each story. 

The overall effect is a fun one, if not a deep one. Most Doctor Who fans will know the stories already, even if the new perspective does give some added flair to the proceedings. There are also some illustrations throughout the book, always a welcome addition. But, as always with anthologies, even though the short storis aren’t by a collection of different authors – each story is written by Steve Cole – some of them really work, while others are less compelling. Overall, I still found it enjoyable, and I’m only a casual Doctor Who fan, so I suspect die-hard Whovians might get more enjoyment out of it. 

The Specs: 

• Publisher: Ten Speed Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Page Count: 320 pages
• Cover Price: $19.99

Gutter Auteur: The Lost Legacy of Andy Milligan (Blu-ray Box Set)

Official Synopsis:

Andy Milligan clawed his way from the depths of ’60s independent cinema straight to the abyss of grindhouse infamy like no other filmmaker in history.

3-disc collection includes 2 thought-lost films plus the acclaimed documentary The Degenerate: The Life and Films of Andy Milligan with 2 rarely seen movie projects and 5+ combined hours of special features. 

Gutter Auteur: The Lost Legacy of Andy Milligan is a definitive 3-disc tribute to one of cinema’s most transgressive, misunderstood, and obsessively fascinating filmmakers. A pioneering outsider who clawed his way from the depths of 1960s underground filmmaking to the grindhouse gutters of 42nd Street, Andy Milligan remains, as Artforum called him, “The Fassbinder of 42nd Street” — a volatile, visionary auteur whose work defied convention and decency alike.

This landmark collection from Severin Films assembles an astonishing array of newly unearthed and restored material, including two features long thought lost: The Degenerates (1967), a post-nuclear nightmare rediscovered in a Brussels vault, and Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me! (1968), a searing psychodrama recovered from an Amsterdam archive. Both have been meticulously restored from their only surviving film elements, resurrecting Milligan’s raw, handmade cinema for the first time in decades.

Also included is the acclaimed 2025 documentary The Degenerate: The Life and Films of Andy Milligan, hailed by RogerEbert.com as “an eye-opening look into one of the weirder and darker corners of cinema history.” Directed by Josh Johnson and Grayson Tyler Johnson, it captures the chaos, creativity, and pain of a filmmaker whose work was as personal as it was perverse. The set goes even deeper with two rarely seen projects — the early short Compass Rose and 1979’s gothic curio House of Seven Belles — alongside more than five hours of special features that peel back the myth and madness surrounding Milligan’s legacy.

A delirious collision of archival discovery, academic depth, and grindhouse sleaze, Gutter Auteur is essential viewing for fans of Andy Warhol’s Bad, John Waters, and the darkest reaches of American exploitation cinema. Raw, angry, and unrepentant, Andy Milligan’s legacy has finally been given the restoration and respect it deserves.

The Movies: 

I love any home video release that aims to preserve cinema history and expand our knowledge of films. Box sets like Gutter Auteur: The Lost Legacy of Andy Milligan are unabashedly a good thing for both the preservation of cinema and the market of physical home media, two things I’m passionate about. 

That said, sometimes you can appreciate a home video offering much more than you might actually like it, and such is the case here. Andy Milligan was a filmmaker with a very deliberate sense of style; that sense being sleaze, gore, and exploitation. And I’ll be honest, that’s never really been my thing. His output is both limited and fascinating, but I can’t say I found any of it particularly enjoyable. 

What I did enjoy, however, was The Degenerate: The Life and Films of Andy Milligan, the 2025 documentary about Milligan and his films that is included as one of the full-length features in this set. It’s a terrific look at Milligan and his output as well as his life and his untimely death in 1991 from AIDS. I may not like his films, but I loved learning about them. There’s a ton of other extra features included as well as lost films and rare footage; it’s effectively the most complete Andy Milligan box set you could hope to find anywhere!

The Bonus Features: 

• Team Degenerate – Q&A With Directors Josh Johnson and Grayson Tyler Johnson, The Ghastly One Author Jimmy McDonough and Milligan Collaborators Hope Stansbury, Natalie Rogers, Ken Lane and John Borske at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival World Premiere
• The Degenerate: The Life and Films of Andy Milligan Deleted Scenes
• The Degenerate: The Life and Films of Andy Milligan Trailer
• Audio Commentary for The Degenerates with Milligan Expert Alex DiSanto
• Two Weeks in Woodstock – Interview with Actress Laura Cunningham
• Trauma At Tribeca – 2025 Tribeca Film Festival Introduction to The Degenerates / Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me! Re-Premiere by Jimmy McDonough, Author of The Ghastly One
• Sin Sisters ’66 – Stephen Thrower, Author of Nightmare USA, on The Degenerates
• The Degenerates Lobby Card Gallery
• Auricon Ego Death – Stephen Thrower, Author of Nightmare USA, on COMPASS ROSE
• Audio Interview with Andy Milligan by Author Stéphane Bourgoin, October 10, 1975 (Played in conjunction with Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me!)
• Magic Time! – Interview with Actor Peter Ratray
• Dove And Divine – Interview with Actress Natalie Rogers
• Milligan Illustrated – Stephen Thrower, Author of Nightmare USA, on Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me!
• Licentious Lunacy – Milligan Expert Alex DiSanto on Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me!
• Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me! Trailer
• All About the Frocks – Stephen Thrower, Author of Nightmare USA, on House of Seven Belles

Digital Copy Included: No

Confessions of a Police Captain (Blu-ray)

Official Synopsis:

Palermo, Sicily, seasoned police captain Bonavia (Martin Balsam, 12 Angry Men) orders the release of a criminally insane inmate – then watches him set out to assassinate a local construction magnate. When the plan backfires, Bonavia faces the scrutiny of young and idealistic district attorney Traini (Franco Nero, Django, The Day of the Owl). Neat conceptions of justice, corruption and madness shatter in this hard-hitting investigative thriller from Damiano Damiani (The Day of the Owl, How to Kill a Judge). Balsam and Nero’s face-off is complemented by a striking supporting cast and an innovative jazz, pop, and electric guitar score by Riz Ortolani (Cannibal Holocaust).

The Movie: 

I don’t know if there are many movies that feel as “1970s Italy” as Confessions of a Police Captain. The combination of Franco Nero (expected) and Martin Balsam of Psycho fame (unexpected) blended with the film’s story of police corruption in Sicily and a soundtrack that’s firmly mired in the era all make a very memorable time capsule. 

The film is a mixture of melodrama, thriller, and mystery, anchored in my opinion by the always-terrific Martin Balsam. Franco Nero is a screen presence for sure, but I don’t know if I would consider him a great actor per se. But the movie, helmed by acclaimed Italian director Damiano Damiani, feels like a gritty urban snapshot of the early 1970s in Italy, and that’s not a bad thing by any measure. 

It’s raw and real, and even if it’s not quite a masterpiece, Confessions of a Police Captain is both fascinating and memorable. 

The Bonus Features: 

• Franco Nero Interview
• Michele Gammino Interview
• Antonio Siciliano Interview
• Score Analysis
• 24-page booklet 
• Image Gallery

Digital Copy Included: No

Creepy-Creature Double-Feature (The Slime People + The Crawling Hand)

Official Synopsis:

Slime People: “Golden Turkey” fans, attention! It’s a veritable voyage

to the bottom of the sci-fi barrel as prehistoric “Slime People” emerge from the sewers of Los Angeles! The atom-age U.S. army is no match for this small band of spear-toting boogeymen and the city is evacuated. Left behind and forced to fight for survival are a TV sportscaster, a science professor, his two glamorpuss daughters, a bashful Marine and a nutty author in love with a sheep.

The Crawling Hand: A manned rocket returning from the Moon is invaded by an alien life force that possesses the astronaut, maintains control of his disembodied hand after a California beach crash-landing, and then imposes its will on a local medical student (Rod Lauren). Veteran players Kent Taylor, Richard Arlen, Alan Hale and Arline Judge struggle to retain their dignity in this five-fingered sci-fiasco!

The Movies: 

Honestly, I don’t how else you would package 1960s sci-fi/horror B-movies rather than as a double feature. The films themselves aren’t strong enough to likely warrant individual releases, and the double feature format is reminiscent of the double feature shows at the drive-in theaters that were a staple in the 1960s, when both of these movies were produced. 

The Slime People sees a rag-tag group of survivors in an evacuated city fighting against literal slime people who have come up from the depths of the earth. Meanwhile, The Crawling Hand has a fun premise: an astronaut’s severed hand is controlled by aliens after his spaceship crash lands. Neither film is cinematic genius, nor were they trying to be. These are B-movies through and through, made in a time when they were produced fast and cheap on purpose. 

I will give credit to VCI Entertainment for this release, however. Not only do you get two movies for the price of one, but usually these types of releases are bare bones only, with no extra features anywhere to be found. This disc, however, includes two audio commentaries, a featurette, and a poster gallery. Very cool!

The Bonus Features: 

• The Slime People – Commentary track by Tom Weaver, OG Monster Kid!, film historian
• The Crawling Hand – Commentary by Rob Kelly, artist, reviewer, podcaster, and film buff extraordinaire!
• Video Featurette: Exploring 1950’s and 60’s Sci-Fi, Creature-Features
• Classic Drive-In Sci-fi Movies poster gallery

Digital Copy Included: No