Cyclops Gets Its First-Ever North American Blu-ray Release from Visual Vengeance

There are obscure Japanese horror movies, and then there are obscure Japanese horror movies that somehow spend nearly four decades hiding in the shadows before somebody finally decides that, yes, people probably do need a Blu-ray of this thing.

Cyclops, the 1987 Japanese V-Cinema body horror oddity from director Jōji “George” Iida, falls firmly into the second category, and this underground splatter film is finally getting the deluxe treatment from Visual Vengeance, with the Cyclops Collector’s Edition arrived on Blu-ray on August 11, 2026 – more importantly for fans of strange, nasty and generally ill-advised Japanese horror, this marks the film’s first-ever North American home-video release in any format.

So, What Exactly Is Cyclops?

If you’ve never heard of Cyclops, don’t worry, you’re probably not alone – the film comes from the Japanese V-Cinema boom of the 1980s, when the direct-to-video market became a wonderfully weird playground for filmmakers who didn’t necessarily need to worry about convincing cinema chains that their movie was a sensible investment.

It runs for only around 52 minutes, but has absolutely no intention of wasting those minutes, where the movie throws together mad science, human experimentation, mutants, body horror and plenty of practical gore into one gloriously grubby little package – it’s also an early film from Iida, who would later direct Spiral (1998) and Another Heaven (2000).

And Visual Vengeance Has Loaded It With Extras

Naturally, this isn’t just a bare-bones disc thrown into a case and sent into the world, because the Collector’s Edition comes with a fairly ridiculous amount of bonus material, including a commentary from Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club and Patrick Macias, author of Tokyoscope: The Japanese Cult Film Companion, and there’s also a new interview with director Jōji “George” Iida.

Then things get even more appropriately niche.

The disc includes a video essay looking at Iida’s films, another covering the Japanese direct-to-video market of the mid-1980s, an image gallery, Koji Yamamura sketch gallery and Visual Vengeance trailers, and the physical package gets the boutique-label treatment too, with a folded mini-poster featuring original pressbook artwork and a reversible sleeve using the original Japanese VHS art.

First pressings also come with The Creation of Cyclops, a 16-page liner-notes booklet, A (Short) Horror Trip, an eight-page booklet, “Stick Your Own” VHS stickers and limited-edition slipcase artwork from The Dude.

You can order this new release here.

Trailer

More Asian horror movie news.

• Kathmandu Horror Film Fest Returns to Kathmandu for Three Days of Horror, Fantasy and Folklore
  
  
• Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan Is Coming Back to Cinemas in Gorgeous New 4K Restoration
  
  
• The Haunted Cop Shop Gets a 2K Blu-ray Restoration From 88 Films This September
  
  
• Ta Khon: The Cursed Mask Makes Its Latin American Premiere in São Paulo
  
  
• Confessions Of A Shaman Becomes Thailand’s Second Biggest Film of 2026 to Date