Category Archives: 70’s-groove!

Creating the Perfect EVIL Race Takes Needless Amounts of Surgery and a Good Pair of Balls! “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” reviewed! (88 Films / 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“S.S. Experiment Love Camp” 4K and Blu-ray is Ripe for the Taking!

Nazi officer Colonel von Kleiben heads a concentration camp where he experiments of young Jewish and Russian female prisoners.  His experiments bore through the encampment lot with unconventional reproductive system surgery for the good of and in the name of purifying the Aryan race, experimentations that also including nonconsensual sexual activities between the women captives and the top physical specimens of the Nazi ranks.  Kleiben’s masked, real intentions are to practice for his own sake in a testicle transplant after a Russian woman castrates him during his attempted raping of her during conflict.  Woman after woman is sacrificed for the surgeon’s rigorous rehearsal by having their uteruses removed and replaced by another and when they expire on the table, their corpses are discarded into the camp’s incinerating ovens.  One Nazi solider is earmarked to be Kleiben’s hope to be whole again and uses the soldier’s affections toward a female prisoner to gain power and control in coercing him blindly into the experiment. 

If pleasure seeking banned films from certain sovereign states, then perhaps “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” should be on your short list.  The 1976 Nazisploitation film from Italy depicts a semblance of torture simulations used from Hitler’s Reich and lays the groundwork for total absurdity with a plot coursed with nonsense motivation at the disadvantage of a minority group under the threat of torture and death.  Also known as “Captive Women II:  Orgies of the Damned,” as more of a sequel in the collective Naziploitation subgenre popular in the 70’s, or most widely known as simply “S.S. Experiment,” the film is from the “Django the Bastard” and “Kill Django… Kill First” director Sergio Garrone, who co-wrote the script alongside “The Weapon, the Hour, & the Motive” co-screenwriter Vinicio Marinuci.  The Società Europea Films Internazionali Cinematografica produced the video nasty venture and expressed no regret the depictions of Nazi terror with the continuation of the subgenre by producing “S.S. Camp 5:  Women’s Hell” as well as other rape-inclined exploitation, such as “Mandinga” between master and plantation slaves and the caged women narrative of “Barbed Wire Dolls.”  

Sifting through the atrocious Nazi experiments, the unabashed sum of nudity, and the ridiculously selfish plot of one Colonel’s lengths to restore his manhood, “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” has a handful of mainstay principals key to the premise’s perpetuation encircled around Colonel Kleiben’s clandestine reasons to willingly and uncompassionately order a new type of surgical procedure on innocent civilian women prisoners.  Played by the square jawed, blonde haired Italian Giorgio Cerioni, who after “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” went on a string of playing a woman abusing Nazi in nazisploitation films between ’76 and ’77 with “Deported Women of the SS Special Section,” “SS Camp:  Women’s Hell,”  “The Red Nights of the Gestapo,” Kleiben’s a stoic, behind-the-scenes force and Cerioni dons the decadence evil well behind German medals and sense of false soldier duty as he works both the known to Kleinben Jewish world class surgeon Dr. Steiner (Attilio Dottesio, “The Sinful Nuns of Saint Valentine”) pretending to be German and Kleiben’s targeted German solider Helmet (Mircha Carven, “Death Will Have Your Eyes”) sought for his textbook testicles.  Dottesio’s Dr. Steiner is a conflicted man brought to do surgery on his fellow Jews that will result in their certain death and while he knows this, and it weighs on his conscious, the stuck doctor keeps himself from being exposed from other than the Colonel who knows and exploits his little secret for advantage; Dottesio wears a burden upon the surgeon’s face but doesn’t do enough to provide the body language of resistance in being doctor death against his will.  Yet, Carven wholly depicts an outlier amongst the typical German national who rather read books than shoot the sexual gab of his countrymen, which is in itself a nice slice of visual irony with the Nazi being known for burning literature.  Carven keeps Helmut relatively quiet, reserved, and a watcher from afar, noticing blonde prisoner Mirelle as the two fall for each other at the moment of locking eyes.  Carven and Paolo Corazzi (“SS Camp:  Women’s Hell”) sizzle with chemistry that’s left pieced too far apart and with not enough relationship context toward their insta-love connection.  There are other peripheral dialogue characters that keep the story spicy in their debauchery with Serafino Profumo (“Escape from Hell”) who had that perfect thin mustache and bald and stout look that makes him a formidable slimeball as the Nazi Seargent, Patrizia Melega (“SS Camp:  Women’s Hell”) as Dr. Steiner’s sadistic lesbian colleague Dr. Renke, and a handful of German soldiers to be the plug to the female prisoner outlet, such as with Matilda Dall’Agilio, Agnes Kalpagos, and Almina De Sanzio.  One of the more details to gripe about the cast is that they’re all Italian bronze that dilutes the allusion of the nationalities their portraying. 

“S.S. Experiment Love Camp” comes with a smidgen of notoriety having been banned in select western European countries over its depiction of violence, especially at the hands of Nazis, and its controversial poster of a naked woman crucified upside.  To this day,  Garrone’s film is still shocking and abhorrent with the aforesaid but also the emotion confliction etched into characters like Dr. Steiner or Helmut who must make a choice, weighing the balance of self-preservation over the salvation and safety of others, and that’s what really drives this nazisploitation to have tremendous impact in an absurdist plot of colonel cajones.  Garrone favors a more realistic approach to the tortures and horrors of a Nazi concentration camp by including close reenactments to their torture methods and Garrone also lingers ever so uncomfortably on the complete discard of corpses into the oven without any dialogue, expression on any faces, and even adds a surrealist glance into the oven of the bodies moving, in an artful dance way, when the flames are ignited.  There’s also the given, often gratuitous nudity that accompanies most nazisploitation films and while nudity usually arouses, stimulation stalls under the barbarism that’s present in the air, the context of which the sex acts are being conducted for, and the outcome of ghastly blood and sinew that follows to the end of the mortal coil.  There’s sensuality between lovers and transactions between prostitution and paying customers but even those innocuous instances rapid degrade into unnerving anticipation. 

88 Films’ new 2-disc, dual format 4K UHD Blu-ray and Standard Blu-ray set is a marvel of physical media engineering.  The 4K UHD is HVEC encoded and presented in Dolby Vision HDR10, 2160p ultra high-definition, and stored on a BD100 while the Standard Blu-ray is AVC encoded with a 1080p resolution on a BD50, both brand new 4K remastered transfers stem from the original negatives and displayed in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  Between the two formats, there’s identical visuals to the naked eye but the 4K UHD does provide a slightly sharper image that has more an immersive pop when comparing the two formats side-by-side.  Colors are rich with a complete hue saturation that isn’t present in previous, more muted DVD or other Blu-ray editions.  Darker scenes have an intention rough quality about them as well as the concrete and unpigmented concentration camp as intended by director Sergio Carrone to put forth as much realism as possible.  No identifiable issues with compression as the picture quality looks clean through-and-through with blacks retaining an inky bide, grading remains consistent and stable, and the minutiae of fabric and skin color doesn’t contest with any ambiguity as Nazi uniforms distill a gray cotton-wool blend, you can also touch the little fuzzies on their garb, and the stubble and sweat greatly show the length of detail on strained and tense faces during torture or combat scenes.  The formats both have the same audio mixes:  an ADR English 2.0 LPCM and an ADR Italian 2.0 LPCM.  The uncompressed audio brings an unfiltered and considerate quality to the front channels with clean and clear dialogue under a diminutive amount of interference and an ambience track that puts its best foot forward, or rather the front, with distinct, sundry range of electronic voltage, machine gun fire, and the surgical slippery stickiness of organs being handled.  The new translated English subtitles are paced well and have no grammatical or misspelling issues.  Special features include a feature tandem audio commentary with Italian film experts Eugenio Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti.  Plus, Italian audio only interviews subtitled in English, including an interview with the late director Sergio Garrone Sadistically Yours, Sergio G., an interview with music historian Pierpaolo de Sanctis SSadist Sound, an interview with editor Eugenio Alabiso The Alibiso Dynasty (a back cover misspelling error perhaps?), an interview with cinematographer Maurizio Centini Framing Exploitation.  The special features conclude with the Italian title credits for the opening and closing of the film and the original Italian trailer.  88 Films and Joel Robison bring a newly illustrated, censored and uncensored cover art with the censored version on the rigid dual-sided slipcover that’s crazily detailed in all its tempestuous glory with the backside depicting the original poster art of a reverse crucified naked woman, both images are impressed with a pop-pulp coloring and chrome effect. The uncensored version lies within the plastic slip of the black 4K Amaray with a reverse side depicting also the original cover in its more traditional coloring of the horrendous and country-banning portrayal.  Inserted on the left interior is an uncensored illustrative cover, of the original poster art, atop of a 11-page English essay from Tim Murray entitled “Nazisploitation, Punks, and The Nasties…”  The Not rated, 95-minute film is region free for global player use. 

Last Rites: If nazisploitation or Eurosleaze just isn’t what tickles your movie mania, any cinephile can appreciate the pristine transfer, the raw and uncompressed audio, and its physical accoutrements that rise “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” into a must-have release.

“S.S. Experiment Love Camp” 4K and Blu-ray is Ripe for the Taking!

The Shaw Brothers Deliver the EVIL Lovers! “Shaw Brothers Horror Collection Volume 2” reviewed! (Imprint Asia / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Shaw-Shock Horror Collection Volume 2 is Now Avilable for Purchase!

The Qing Dynasty of Imperial China is full of spiritual folklore, mysticisms, and romance.  Three tales of supernatural passion arouse not only enduring amorousness and longing desire but also strikes fear of apparitional ghosts and grudges into naive and honest souls from beyond the grave, crossing existential planes to be with intended suitors no matter the cost.  These stories will send a pining chill down your spine:  a traveling scholar bunks at an abandoned temple to find he’s enchanted by a young woman not of life and protected by a blood thirsty lady-in-waiting, a provincial governor crosses paths with a beautiful virgin while taking shelter at her home.  When he catches her nude, he’s willing to marry her to avoid her shame but little does he know she’s a lonely ghost searching for love and revenge against those who raped and killed her, and, lastly, an arranged marriage is foiled by the sudden death of a young mistress and the late arrival of the master because he was being robbed of a debt he owned the mistress’s family.  Unfulfilled in love and life, the young woman returns to court the young master with the help of her elderly servant who took her own life to make the love between them possible.  Not believing the rumors of her death and discounting the spirit warnings from those close around him, the young master falls in love with his intended bride despite the obstacles put in between them by the master’s servants, Taoist priests, and even a band of bodyguards. 

Australian distributor Imprint, under their sublabel Imprint Asia, has released the second volume of the Shaw-Shock:  Show Brothers Horror Collection with three more titles that fall within the release window of 1960 to 1973.  These adapted stories stem from and inspired by Songling Pu’s Liaozhai Zhiyi, aka Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, which is a collection of classical Chinese ghost narratives, and they include the 1960 “The Enchanting Shadow,” directed by Han Hsiang Li (“The Ghost Story,” “Return of the Dead”) and written by Yue-Ting Wang and Wong Yuet-Ting, the 1972 “The Bride from Hell,” directed Hsu-Chiang Chou (director of “The Enchanting Ghost,” not to be confused “The Enchanting Shadow”) and penned by Tien-Yung Hsu, and 1973’s “The Ghost Lovers,” the only film of the three from Korean-born filmmakers, director Shin Sang-ok (“3 Ninjas Knuckle Up”) and writer Il-ro Kwak (“Ghosts of Chosun”).  Runme Shaw produces all three films in the Shaw Brothers production studio. 

Other than being a Shaw production, each of the three stories are also connected by common elements – travelling male scholars or those high in station, a dead or recently deceased high-born woman in phantomic form, and the two intertwine romantically under false pretenses all the while Taoist priest, servants, or family of the living beg, plead, and even self-interject themselves in between the unnatural love affair to save the man from a wraith’s haunt, whether the affectionate intent by the ghost is malicious or benign, but each also differ in style and substance.  Lei Zhao (“Succubare”) plays a servant-less travelling scholar, Ning Tsai-Chen, unphased by the foreboding warning of ghosts and death of a dilapidated temple where those who stay the night don’t live the next morning.  Ning falls for adjacent neighbor maiden in Nie Xiaoqian (Betty Loh Ti) and between the actors there is a show of palpable and touching natural coquet that’s honorable to their period and to their characters’ hearts but their being from two different worlds puts up a marital blockade unlike in  “The Bride of Hell” that has generally has the same amorous bond between Yang Fang (Nie Yun Peng) and Anu (Margaret Hsing Hui) that eventually leads to marriage, but the Anu guileful portraying of a living is more deceitful to use Yang Fang despite also actually loving him in this more revenge based spookery involving Fang’s unscrupulous family members.  “The Ghost Lovers” also uses ghostly deceit to trick the master into a coitus cemented bond revolving and complicated around Han His-lung’s (Wei-Tu Lin, “Corpse Mania”) honor and shame and the affluent Sung Lien-hua’s (Ching Lee, “Sexy Girls of Denmark”) unfulfilled life and love before an untimely death.  There are of course the conflicts that get in the middle – the blood thirsty Lao Lao (Rhoqing Tang, “Brutal Sorcery”) aims to kill temple trespassers and Nie Xiaoqian suitors no matter how much a gentlemen they are, there’s the rape-revenge aspect in “The Bride of Hell,” and the sundry hindrances that try to keep the undead Sung and the alive Han from being unionized.  There’s quite a bit of hammy performances to digest in what’s relatively near being the same story said over thrice,  The three films fill out the cast with Chih-Ching Yang and Ho Li-Jen in “The Enchanting Shadow,” Carrie Ku Mei, Hsia Chiang, Chi Hu, Feng Chang, and Yi-Fei Chang in “The Bride from Hell,” and Shao-Hung Chan, Feng-Chen Chen, Ki-joo Kim, Ling Han, Han Chiang, and Mei Hua Chen in “The Ghost Lovers” as the belabor the melodramatics of ghostly fervor. 

From a bird’s eye view, the Shaw Brothers productions appears virtually unoffensive and harmless period pieces set in the Imperial China with romanticized slices of fantasy in love after death, unstoppable passion, and an adherence to honor, principles, and duty to others, but a closer look reveals a darker sliver coursing through the supernatural palaver with it’s unnatural fascination of hooking up dead beautiful women with eligible scholarly men.  The most outlying and blatant example would be the rape-revenge narrative of “The Bride form Hell,” a coarse title that’s been spun into various renditions over the decades – take Quentin Tarantino’s The Bride from “Kill Bill” for example – by a woman embarking on path of retribution after being wronged in a maliciously despicable way and she uses everything to her advantage, even if that means marrying a relative, while a spirit I might remind you, of the men who raped and murdered her during their plundering of riches.  The film also doesn’t mind it’s hands a little dirtier with some nudity unlike the other two films of the set.  “The Ghost Lovers” isn’t as deeply disturbing with more of an untimely and unfortunate situation robbing mistress Sung of life and love and master Han of time and wealth that would have solidified a bond if the elements were not stolen from them.  There’s also a misunderstanding with fear of the unknown and a twisted sense of intent by humble servants and priests who distress of anything not of this plane of existence.  Much can be said the same about “The Enchanging Shadow” but that also deploys a countermeasure to the good heart nature of spirit Nie Xiaoqian as she’s balanced by her pure evil and bloodthirsty caretaker Lao Lao who between love and represents unholy demise.  Han Hsiang Li, Hsu-Chiang Chou, and Shin Sang-ok don’t stray too far away from each other when it comes to production set and scene compositions by keeping much of the storylines set during the mischief of the night when folkloric ghosts are more awake and present and keep the coloring cold contoured under grays, blues, and only hints of muted vibrancy outside the monochrome.  Special effects are kept close to the chest with fleeting rudimentary prosthetic and makeup, superimpositions to liven the ghost effect, and lay a dense fog in certain moments of atmospherics.  Combine all the elements infused with Chinese culture and superstitions and you get three stories that shutter with phantasmic passion. 

The Shaw-Shock:  Shaw Brothers Horror Collection Vol. 2 from the Imprint Asia line under parent company Via Vision is another awesome Shawtastic boxset that takes obscurity into the light.  The three disc Blu-ray set is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, encoded onto BD50 is limited to 1500 copes.  Each included film is catalogue as numbers 31 to 33 in the Imprint Asia sublabel.  “The Enchanting Shadow” is the only one of the three presented in a 1.66:1 aspect ratio, transferred from a rougher print that has patches of cell damage and varied grading as if a couple of prints were spliced together.  There is a prelude title card warning of the quality so there should be no surprise when it does come up.  “The Bride from Hell” and “The Ghost Lovers” are presented a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio and have used a cleaner print for the hi-def transfer with no notice of damage issues.  All carrier a softer, airy image from the film stock and film processing scans and combine with sharp key lighting, there is a glow effect around objects but not enough radiance to affect the diffusion of colors and smooth out details.  Skin tones often fluctuate between an organic and an orange tinge that can sway the perceived quality.   The much older “The Enchanting Shadow” from 1960 definitely shows its age with more muted earthly tones within its darker scaling.  Each film uses a compressed, spherical lens as the curvature is more severe than you notice in more modern productions, hallmarking Hong Kong’s utilized lenses during the decades.  All three films are in Mandarin with no other language option within a LCPM 2.0 audio format that adequate fills the front channels of dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack.  Dialogue and ambience is not immersive with the stereo mix but the ADR track is present and discernible with some noticeable sparse hissing in the dialogue and low level gurgling interference amongst more docile moments.  Along with the image damage, “The Enchanting Shadow” has counterpart audio damage with tears in the audio layer that pop and crackle during the damage breaks. English subtitles are available on all three titles and are paced well but the subtitles on the “The Ghost Lovers” come with a few grammatical and misspelling errors. New special features encoded on the releases include an audio commentary by author Stafan Hammond and Asian film expert Arne Venema, film historian analysis by Paul Fonoroff, an archival interview with director Hun Hsiang Li, and the original and DVD trailer for “The Enchanting Shadow,” the “The Bride from Hell” has a new audio commentary also by Arne Venema with the DVD trailer, and “The Ghost Lovers, too, has a new audio commentary from critic and filmmaker Justin Decloux with film scholar Wayne Wong discussing the film. The new encoded special features compliment the tremendous and substantial Imprint Asia rigid box set with a removable jagged tooth locked top that includes compositional artwork and permeated with the Shaw Brothers insignia. Inside, the three Blu-rays sit snug in individual clear Amaray cases, each with their own original cover art reflecting the original posters with the reverse side pulling a still from the film. The total runtime of all three films is 4 hours and 14 minutes in its region free, unrated capacity.

Last Rites: A triple threat of Shaw Brothers’ classics resurrected from the dead to haunt your collection! Imprint Asia’s boxset continues to recover unearthed Hong Kong and Chinese culture, folklore, and fantasy for new enthusiasts of the far East and avid collectors of physical media!

Shaw-Shock Horror Collection Volume 2 is Now Avilable for Purchase!

Caught in the Act, Evil Must Do Evil’s Bidding. “The Killer Must Kill Again” reviewed! (Rustblade / 50th Anniversary Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Killer Must Kill Again” on a restored, 50th Anniversary Blu-ray!

Giorgio and Norma’s hot-and-cold marriage takes a turn for the worse when Giorgio’s greed convinces him to plot her murder after she threatens to cut him off from her family’s money.  When Giorgio catches a sexually perversive killer in the act of dumping a young girl’s body in an isolated canal, he devises a blackmail agreement with the killer to murder his wife and falsely claim a ransom from her father to satisfy Giorgio’s gluttony.  Killing Norma was easy enough but after the killer brings the car around to put her body in the trunk, a young couple steal the car for an all-night joyride to the beaches of Seagull Rock, unbeknownst to them a dead body stowed in the trunk.  With the killer in pursuit of the couple and the police suspicious of Giorgio’s involvement of his wife’s disappearance, it’s only a matter of time before the killer must kill again.

“L’assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora,” aka “The Killer Must Kill Again,” is a straying kind of Italian psychotronic film from the typical giallo overload being produced out the country between the 1960s and up to the early 1990s.  Released right in the middle in 1975, the film never enshrouds viewers in mystery with a blunt, clearcut case of who and who is not the villains, the victims, and the heroes.  “The Naked Doorwoman” and “Contamination” director Luigi Cozzi helms the script he cowrites with Daniele Del Giudice (“The Story of a Poor Young Man’) with an inclination of slipping darkly dry comedy into the fold of a cold and callous killer’s purview of an extorting mastermind’s bidding and the uncomfortable self-serving sexualized force thrust upon women, the dead and the living.  Sergio Gobbi (“Vortex”) and Umberto Linzi coproduce the GIT International Film, Paris-Cannes, and Albione Cinematografica coproduction. 

The cast is comprised of an ensemble lot and for an Italian production, there are hardly any Italian actors leading the charge.  Most of the principal cast hails from Europe, mostly Spain, and with a few outliers from France and even one from Uruguay in South America.  Each actor and actress have a rough fair share of screen time, preluded with the titular killer, played by Frenchman Antoine Saint-John.  Saint-John has a face for television, villainy television that is, with high cheekbones that create deep contoured shadows, a danger stare, and a round head with cranium hugging, short dark hair that make him distinct amongst his fellow castmates.  “The Beyond” actor’s heart put effort into a heartless role of the unnamed perverted murderer of young, beautiful women for unknown reasons and motivations.  That’s not the case for the opposite transgressor, the killer’s blackmailer Giorgio Mainardi who’s a scheming businessman and money leech off his wealthy wife (Tere Velázquez, “Night of 1000 Cast”), two reasons and motivations to put a kill contract on his wife.  “The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh’s” George Hilton dons the dapper swindler with trim suits, neat hair, and a handsome façade underneath his ugly intentions as he tries to fraud his wife’s ransom for himself.  Caught in the middle of this plot are two young lovers, who in themselves are not so innocent by stealing the killer’s car with a dead woman in the trunk.  Cristina Galbó (“The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue”) and Alessio Orano (“Lisa and the Devil”) are the couple Laura and Luca, two teens on a stolen car joyride to a distant beach front in order Luca to try and convince Laura to take her virginity.  While there’s ransom fraud, murderous plots, murdering, corpse disposal, and other heinous crimes, the most disturbing in the story is Luca’s pressuring to get into Laura’s pants and his means of satisfying his lust by picking up car stranded blonde (Femi Benussi, “Bloody Pit of Horror”) and cheating on Laura while she is raped when confronted by the pursuing killer.  The sleaze and skeeze level on Luca is beyond reproach and it really makes him more the villain than the actual killer who’s up two bodies by this point.  The principal cast can’t be complete without police presence and that is where Eduardo Fajardo (“The Murder Mansion”) steps in as the cool, suave, know-it-all-and-see-how-it-all-plays-out inspector, a cliched role of the time and even in today’s whodunit ventures.   

This crime giallo lacks mystery but makes up for it with rich characters, a sleaze-bag crime, and a little style from director Luigi Cozzi and cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini in their choice to visual effects to insulate the moment within a scene by matte narrowing the focus and using a sharp spherical lens to heighten the tension around the center focus with a semi-fishbowl effect.  Coupled with solid editing and great lighting for the night drive sequences between the two cars and it’s reflexive, subsequent chase, the story’s pace doesn’t rush into the more gushing violence and sexual subversion, effectively building up a pressure cooker of a confrontation between the killer and the kids that’s brilliantly edited in a taut juxtaposition that flips back and forth between the killer’s virtually explicit raping of Laura and Luca’s wanton encounter with a stranded licentious blonde motorist; both elicit wrongdoings, rendered around the crave of naked flesh, but they are from different perspectives with one being a clean cheat of carnality with another person and the other being a malicious rape of innocence yet both leave that sour taste of discomfort in the mouth but the edited design is about as sweet as it gets. 

The Italian distributor Rustblade Records, under the movie release sublabel of simply Rustblade, release L’assassino è costretto ad uccidere ancora,” aka “The Killer Must Kill Again,” onto a new Blu-ray in its complete Cozzi’s original vision and is a restored transfer for worldwide audiences in association. The 50th anniversary Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, on a surprising BD25. The BD25 is surprising because the restored picture quality looks phenomenal considering the capacity, retaining deep shadows, vibrant color palette, and no incongruous signs of compression artefacts. There is however some detail smoothing fragmented throughout depending on the interior or exterior scene. More of the opening moments between Giorgio and Norma look quite polished and intricate regarding textural skin and fabrics but a good number of moments appear to smear portions of the face, especially in Antoine Saint-John’s more distinct facial characteristics. Depth and range favor the bold with Cozzi able to obtain decent amount of space between objects within his stylized choices and the color spectrum, like many giallo films, is saturated with intensity. An Italian and an English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio are the reigning encoded audio choices, both of which are post-production ADR and both of which show the obvious synchronization discord. The English translation, as well as the English subtitles, contain generalizations of a perhaps more complex scripted dialogue intent. With ADR, dialogue clean and clear with present, defined space right in the front two channels but lacks milieu acoustics, depth, and little range with the action added with Foley. Nando De Luca’s lingering avant score blend single low-note guitar chords, resonating piano keys, and Theremin wooing lift up the story with ominous tension. The English subtitles appear accurate without any grammatical errors. Special features include an interview with director Luigi Cozzi, a film analysis by Federico Frusciante, a horror enthusiastic musician from Rustblade Records, film locations toured by Giallo Italiano, and the feature trailer. The 50th Anniversary Edition comes with two versions: a limited-edition DVD/Blu-ray Deluxe mediabook with postcards and a single disc Blu-ray. For this review, the single disc was provided in a clear Amaray case with double sided art sleeve of a giallo yellow and contrast shadowed illustrated composition of characters and the reverse side depicting two moments from the movie drenched with giallo yellow. Presented in widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the not rated, region free film has a runtime of 90 minutes.

Last Rites: A giallo unlike the rest, “The Killer Must Kill Again” is a perversion of greed, lust, and murder without virtuous players in a plot gone awry. Luigi Cozzi’s 1975 classic is a genre staple for fans old and young in this Italian murder shocker and Rustblade offers a new and improved, director approved vision that collectors will see to acquiring immediately.

“The Killer Must Kill Again” on a restored, 50th Anniversary Blu-ray!

EVIL is the Will of the Gods. “Malpertuis” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Malpertuis” Now Available at Amazon!

Jan, a young sailor returns home from a voyage to find his family home gone.  After getting into a scuffle with pimp at a night club, he’s knocked unconscious by a blackjack and wakes up to his sister Nancy taking care of him and in the bed inside the Malpertuis home of his draconian uncle, Cassavius, a wealthy, stern, and impatient man on the verge of death with terminal illness.  The sailor finds they’re not alone in the large labyrinth estate with peculiar relatives, nearby acquaintances, and longtime servants.  Before his death, Cassavius has his will read with everyone present bedside, announcing the distribution of the immense inheritance amongst the close assembly who’ve either worked and slaved hand and foot for Cassavius or have been on the outside clawing up into his good graces for their greed.  Yet, to receive their portion, they must abide by one stipulation:  they can never leave the Malpertuis.  Jan plunges himself into Cassavius’s unfathomable parting will and design, seeking to unearth Malpertuis’s warren secrets, but all a while, a killer begins to pluck away potential beneficiaries.

The 1943 gothic novel of the title by Belgium author Jean Ray serves as the film adaptation source for Harry Kümel’s 1971 gialli-like and surreal maddening “Malpertuis.”  Released in the U.S. as “The Legend of Doom House,” the Belgium and Dutch co-production creates phantasmic journey down the rabbit hole that unravels a mystery of pantheon proportions.  The “Daughters of Darkness” directing Belgium filmmaker helms the faultlessly fantastical adaptation and script by Jean Ferry, who would also collaborate with Kümel on “Daughters of Darkness” as well as pen original and adaptations of Franco-Italiano melodramas from “The Wayward Wife” to “The Foxiest Girl in Paris.”  Pierre Levie (1969 “The Witness”); and Paul and Ritta Laffargue (“The Mushroom”) produce the gothic and Greek movie under Artemis Film and Les Productions Artistes Associés.

“Malpertius” houses an international cast that ranges from the native English-speaking countries of Britain and America to the European republics of France, Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands.  The biggest headliner out of the bunch, and perhaps the biggest drunk at the time too, is none other than “Citizen Kane’s” Orson Welles in the boisterous patriarchal role, Cassasvius, on the brink of death.  Welles commands the screen in his short lived but striking hard every note performance that simply overpowers an otherwise Eurocentric cast fashioned with off the wall characters.  The narrative circles around the ingenuous Jan freshly off the boat for a little R&R.  Played by Mathieu Carrière in one of his earliest performances of his copiously filled career that includes horror-based credits like “Born for Hell,” “Nurse Massacre” and “The Murdered Young Girl,” Jan refrains from mostly having a voice but rather actions his will to discover Cassavius’s secrets within Malpertius’s walls as well as extract his fellow beneficiaries aenigmas, such as why the lovely Euryale won’t ever look him in the eye though she’s destined to be his wife per Cassasvius’ will, his sister Nancy’s inexplicable need to leave Malpertuis with her lover, and Alice, one of three intrusive and gossipy sisters, with her cozy up urge to bed Jan while also sating the sexual desires of his greedy cousin and sneaky creep Charles Dideloo (Michael Bouquet, “The Bride Wore Black”).  All three women are played by a single actress.  Hailing from the UK, “The Violent Enemy” actress Susan Hampshire goes into complete incognito mode that disguises her physical attributes and character personalities with mere makeup and temperament tonal shifts too genuine to easily notice Hampshire being all three women.  Hampshire deserves much of the credit and earns a trifecta win by facing down the challenge without compromising character.  Perhaps a little unfair to single out Hampshire as such but the entire “Malpertius” cast deserves recognition for their titan acts, representing humanity-cladded divinity in the most simplistic of human limitation that none of them, apart from one being more recognizable against the others, can be pinpointed definitively who they’re roleplaying.  Charles Janssens, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Walter Rilla, Dora van der Groen, Daniel Piol, Sylvie Vartan, Jenny Van Santvoort, Jet Naessens, Cara Van Wersch, Fanny Winkler, and Bob Storm fill out the cast.

There’s nothing quite like a good film adaptation of a novel.  Author Jean Ray’s four-part narrative isolates characters more exclusively that delineates the individual storylines of the whole gothic affair inside , and outside in parts, of the crumbling Malpertuis estate.  The Harry Kümel and Jean Ferry vision set out to make “Malpertuis” cinematic by collapsing the subset storylines into a single perspective narrative bestowed upon Jan, who is also the main protagonist in Ray’s novel under Jean-Jacques Grandsire, but less involved in comparison to the film version.  This forces audiences to see through Jan’s eyes, a curious, naïve and perhaps good nature fellow, a nationalized sailor of sorts who cares more about his home and sister than the depravity of sailors on shore leave, and what Jan experiences is nothing short of exploitation, sexualization, and torment amongst Cassasvius’s most prized collection of heirs.  Which brings me to uncle Cassavius who is set up, through the remarks of his nephew Jan, as nothing more than a gruff and stern, ill-tempered man living in the gloomy prison-like structure that is Malpertuis, but Cassavius transforms in a postmortal light as no longer a wealthy grouch but as an omnipotent collector that instills a great power upon him albeit his once feeble condition that took his life.  His house is very much like himself, confounding, mysterious, and surreal now pact with peculiar beings that look, sound, and feel human, or at least to Jan, and in appearances to the audiences too.  There’s a theme of limitless power over power itself but with the caveat that everything must come to an end and “Malpertuis” has one Mount Olympus-sized end. 

What’s also definitive is the limited-edition Blu-ray set from Radiance Films.  A beautifully curated boxset encasing a dedication to the undervalued “Malpertuis” with a AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD50 set that’s presented in a 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio.  In the midst of Malpertuis’s dark corridors and staircases, its classically drab common rooms, and a bleakly deserted grayness to the seaport town that exemplifies the intentionally restored stark and severe grading overseen by director Harry Kümel, the 4K scan, compiled by the shorten Cannes cut and Kümel’s directors cut, depicts quite a bit of localized saturation that pops into play that creates stand out characters in tandem with their eccentric personalities.  There’s a meticulousness in the details that greatly heighten Malpertuis into a prison-like character, one that is personified holding the living, breathing characters into a stasis though they’re freedom to leave is unobstructed, the Lamplighter is a good example of this by appearing to be a near skin and bones, unkempt in appearances, and wailing in disquietude about Cassavius putting out the light, as if Cassavius himself was some sort of jailor and, in a way, he is.  No compression issue within the dim-lit black areas, the ruckus of various action, or any macroblocking during the decoding.  Though there is a language version somewhere in the world, Radiance Films supplies only the original Dutch ADR mono.  The post-production dialogue does have an asynchronous measure between picture and sound, especially between the non-native Dutch speakers, but the track is clear and prominent overtop a mysterious and unobtrusive Georges Delerue (“Platoon”) soundtrack, letting the actors and the action take the helm of the narrative with a low-toned menacing as well as hopeful score pieces that drive their curiosity and individual pecularities.  The diegetic dynamism denotes a defined design to be character driven rather than creating the immense suspense built by an edge of your score and omnipresent nondiegetic sounds.  The faultless and well-paced UK English subtitles are available and can be toggled.  Encoded special features include a 2006 audio commentary from director Harry Kümel and assistant director Françoise Levie, new interviews with Kümel and gothic horror writer Jonathan Rigby, an archival and behind-the scenes documentary on the making of the film with interviews Kümel, lead actor Mathieu Carriere, and director of photography Gerry Fisher, archival interviews with Kümel, Michael Bouquet, and Jean Ray with an archival featurette on Orson Wells and actress Susan Hampshire, Malpertuis Revisted takes audiences on location where the movie was shot with Kümel’s descriptions, the Cannes cut of the film, which is approx. 20 minute short than Kümel’s director’s cut and is viewable in the English and French language for selection, Kümel’s short film “The Warden of the Tomb,” and the trailer. Limited to 3000 copies, “Malpertuis’s” physical presence is palpable with a hard cardboard slipbox with Greek themed compositional artwork with a wraparound Obi strip denoting synopsis, bonus features, and technical aspects. Inside, a clear Blu-ray Amary comes primarily with a front and back still image cover given the artistic liberty treatment. The cover can be flipped from more traditional cover artwork, and all artwork provided is by Time Tomorrow. Heavier than the slipbox and the Amaray is the accompanying 78-page booklet with cast and crew acknowledgements, transfer notes and special thanks credits, and 2025 produced essays by Jonathan Owen, Willow Catelyn Maclay, Lucas Balbo, Maria J. Perez Cuervo, and David Flint. The region free release is region free and houses two runtimes with the main feature being the 125-minute producer cut and the Cannes cut, domiciling in the special features, clocking in at 100-minutes.

Last Rites: No one can top Radiance Films’ “Malpertuis” limited-edition Blu-ray set with its comprehensive insight into one of the more original adaptations surrounding Greek mythology, the harnessing and control of great, immense power, and the how that power is transposed and shaped into the human context where greed, sex, and love are the core contentions.

“Malpertuis” Now Available at Amazon!

EVIL Minds the Door! “Raw Meat” reviewed! (Blue Underground /2-Disc 4K UHD Blu-ray and Standard Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Raw Meat” Its What’s for 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray Dinner!

Young lovers Alex Campbell, an American studying abroad, and Patricia Wilson discover an unconscious man on the steps of a London metro subway station.  When they alert a beat cop and make their way back to the spot, the man had vanished.  Assuming the well-dressed man an alcoholic sleeping off a bender, David and Patricia move on with their lives while the police report comes across the desk of Inspector Calhoun, an eccentric investigator who recalls a recent string of disappearances surrounding the same London station.  Over the next few days, several more station related disappearances occur, forcing Inspector Calhoun to dig deeper into the mysterious circumstances involving a missing Mi-5 agent and three subway employees with David and Patricia his only witness to at least one of them.  When Patricia suddenly goes missing with her last known siting at the subway station, a concerned David explores the train tunnels that connect the last known whereabouts of all whom have vanished, leading him to a tragic history of collateral damage survival, long forgotten generational lineage, and cannibalism. 

London, England was the first to introduce the metro subway station to the world in 1863 with the Metropolitan Railway.  It seems only fitting that London be the setting for “Raw Meat,” a subterrain horror that integrates London’s metro history with the consequential hazards of an early underground railway, the insufficient costs that prove to be costly, and the pitied blamelessness of unthinkable survival from neglectful businesses.  Originally entitled “Death Line,” rebranded to “Raw Meat” for American audiences, the 1972 film is actually directed by an American, Chicagoan Gary Sherman, in his debut and would go on to helm “Dead & Buried” and “Poltergeist III.”  Based off an original concept form Sherman, one that takes the plausibility and some fact of workers being buried under a collapsed railway project and survive generationally living off the nourishment of each other in more ways than one, the script is penned by Ceri Jones and is a production of Harbor Ventures and Kanter-Ladd Productions with the late “Police Academy” franchise’s Paul Maslansky producing

I’m going to preface this character introduction with “Raw Meat” would not have been as entertaining if it wasn’t for the peak performance by a more eccentric Donald Pleasance in a pre-“Halloween” performance.  As Inspector Calhoun, Pleasence is fully in charge as an intimidating case investigator with a snarky wit, or as Christopher Lee’s MI-5 character put it, what a droll fellow you are in a stiff yet jab remark exchange interaction between the two British icons of a bygone cinema industry.  Lee’s role is only a fraction in comparison to Pleasance and would have been two big personalties too big for the meager production to contain.  Another staggeringly highlighted performance comes from an unknown in Hugh Armstrong’s portrayal of the subhuman cannibal whose fellow inbred family members have all left by deceased means, leaving him alone and the last of his kind with mumbling tunnel vernacular and unkempt open sores all over his body and face in a state of unhealthy living conditions.  Armstrong’s acted ungainliness renders the man a monster amongst society standards but also sheds a softer, compassionate light upon reflection of his forced position into a world he knowns no better about having grown up completely in the railway tunnels all his life, living off what he can scramble up which included human flesh and organs.  In contrast to Pleasance and Armstrong, David Ladd (“The Klansman”) and Sharon Gurney (“Crucible of Horror”) impress as middle ground, plain as can be, characters being two lovers in the midst of mystery, almost becoming history themselves when the man targets her to amend his loneliness in a gibberish mind the door effort to show her affection.  Normal Rossington (“House of the Long Shadows”) and Heather Stoney are the only two understated completely overstated in the film as Inspector Calhoun’s constant whips demands for bolos and tea.  James Cossins, Hugh Dickson, Jack Woolgar, Clive Swift, Gerry Crampton, Terence Plummer, and Gordon Petrie pull into the station as the remaining cast.

Hovering between the horrifying truth of early construction, underground railway accidents and the urban legend of trapped workers under tunnel collapses, Gary Sherman unearths middle ground terror somewhere in between the two with a plausible terror line narrative that not only instills recognition of the past and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice but also invites the nonfictional hunting-cannibal rising to the surface in search for food and, to an extent, companionship.  The cast elevates “Raw Meat’s” character efflorescence but there’s also other areas to illuminate its noteworthiness that take the film from out of the tunnel shadows as cinematographer Alex Thomson’s bleak tunnel aesthetic rouses filth and a sense of hardcore survival over a century.  The 7-minute tracking shot near the beginning, at the introduction of the cannibal’s tunnel home depicted with a decorum of decaying and freshly strewn corpses salvaged for their organic parts, is an astonishing backwards tracking shot without a blip of hesitation and lingering just enough to seed an unsettling undergrowth of grisly ghastliness.  The only drawback from “Raw Meat,” if looking for one or perhaps it’s not even a big deal, lies with the young couple Alex and Patricia.  It’s possible to stumble into a situation, as they did after coming off the last train for the night and crossing paths with an unconscious man on the staircase up to the surface; however, Alex and Patricia were not exactly looking for trouble or pursuing a follow up on the man’s health-and-wellbeing, God knows they argued over about their stance on helping ailed strangers in public, but they wind up having this off topic tangent about said contentious topic and rebuild the tumbled down building blocks of their relationship for a stronger bond.  Yet, lightning strikes twice in the subway tunnel and Patricia is whisked away by the tunnel ghoul in a second pure coincidental interaction that ignites Alex to make good on that stronger bond with Patrica by investigating her last known whereabouts.

Be a cannibal and consume “Raw Meat” on a new 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray 2-Dsic combo set from Blue Underground. Restored and scanned in 4K 16-bit from the original uncensored camera negative with Dolby Vision HDR and presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, “Raw Meat” comes from out of the near total blackout of tunnelling darkness of standard definition and poorly contrasted previous Blu-ray editions with a precision of delineating crafting brilliance, adding depth of separation between object and background.  The HVC encoded,2160p ultra high-definition resolution, BD66 was well aimed to squash any compression issues, leaving blacks black and textures coarse that nearly lift off the screen.  You can actually try and count the whiskers on Christopher Lee’s caterpillar mustache.  Colors have also improved and enhanced in saturation without being overly intensifying; “Raw Meat” thrives on the dank, dark world of not only the abandoned tunnel line but also the cold and sleazed London streets.  Alex Thomson’s tunnel life aesthetic musters an earthy and dingy frontage and coupled with some hard glowing red, yellows, and the subsequently mix orange, there’s a real harrowing subterranean tone in the man’s macabre ossuary home.  The 2nd disc standard Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD50.  Blue Underground’s release offers multiple audio options, including a new Dolby Atmos mix alongside the already established DTS-HD 5.1, both rendered in English.  Toggling between both surround sound mixes, there’s little-to-no difference in the immersive experience.  Atmos provides an echoier shaft experience that can be heard as directionless whereas the DTS specifies the reverberating soundwave direction based on channel markers.  Mind the Door is certainly more accentuated as it lingers through the chambers just a little more ubiquitous and chillingly underscored.  With no crackling or hissing, dialogue is clean, clear, and robust that solidifies Donald Pleasance as a master of quick wit and blunt investigation tactics as well as the track cherishing the quality of all other players involved.  Some instances of dialogue are ADR, likely due to poor record quality, resulting in an artificial separation between the action frame and the post-production recording.  Train sounds play a supporting factor and are acutely integrated into the design of a makeshift substation construction from an abandoned platform.  The other audio options include an English 1.0 DTS-HD and a dubbed French 1.0 DTS-HD.  English SDH are available.  Disc 1 – the 4K UHD Blu-ray – contains two commentaries a 1) archived writer-director Gary Sherman, producer Paul Maslansky, and assistant director Lewis More O’Farrell and 2) a new critique and analyst commentary discussion from film historians Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth.  Bringing up the UHD rear are radio/TV spots and various trailer cuts.  Disc 2 – standard Blu-ray – has all of the above on disc one plus an interview with writer-director Gary Sherman and executive producers Jay Kanter and Alan Ladd Jr. Tales from the Tube, an interview with star David Ladd, producer Paul Maslansky, and assistant director Lewis More O’Ferrall From the Depths, and an interview with the now late Hugh Armstrong, the cannibal tunnel man, Mind the Doors.  An extended poster and still gallery flesh out the standard Blu-ray’s supplemental content.  The classic poster art has been upgraded to a textile vision of blood red and half-naked men and women with blank chromium eyes within the embossed image on the slipcover and that extends to the sides and back of the O-slip.  The same illustration also graces the black 4K UHD Amaray as primary cover art, but this different variation has more natural coloring on the hair, tattered clothes, and skin tones on the white-eyed ghoulish faces.  The reverse side of the cover is the original “Death Line” titled cover art as seen on the old MGM DVD with the bearded man walking on the railway with a lit-up train to his back and a woman lying seemingly dead on the rails in front of him.  The Blue Underground release is Not rated, clocks in at 87-minutes, and is encoded to play in all regions.

Last Rites: A classic of subterranean horror, “Raw Meat” is much more than a broad line of cannibalistic terror. The new Blue Underground Ultra Hi-Def release illuminates the wretched state of being and the ugly truth of generational survival that provides a strange brew of compassion for the forced feral human who feeds on human flesh.

“Raw Meat” Its What’s for 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray Dinner!