Tag Archives: The Beyond

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!

A Parents’ Love Never Dies. It Just Becomes EVIL Against Threats! “The Sweet House of Horrors” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Sweet House of Horrors” on Blu-ray by Cauldron Films!

A house robbery gone wrong results in the brutal murder of twin siblings’, Marco and Sarah’s, parents Roberto and Mary Valdi when they stumble upon the masked thief, catching him in the act in their beautiful villa home.  The twins bawling at the funeral gives way to impish innocence as the children cope in jokes amongst each other and to their now legal guardians, Uncle Carlo and Aunt Marcia.  Looking to sell the now sullied house, Carlo and Marcia invite a pompous realtor to examine and price the home only to have strange occurrences begin a series of unexplained phenomena the children are certain to be their parent’s lingering and love presence to keep the house within the family.  The parental entities also seek revenge on their attacker whose has been close to the family for years.  As the spirits continue their course of playful and perturbed poltergeist toward their children and unwanted visitors, an unaware Carlo and Marcia hire an exorcist to rid the house of what they suspect to be an evil spirit. 

The third made-for-TV film in the Massimo Manasse and Marco Grillo Spina doomed The Houses of Doom series, in which none of the films aired due to their too gruesome violence, “The Sweet House of Horrors” is the second Lucio Fulci production under the defunct 1989 series, coinciding with “The House of Clocks.”  Just like that film, Fulci also invented the concept of murdered parents being guardian angels over their children while thwarting murderers, realtors, and exorcists from taking what they hold most precious, their children and their home.  The shooting script comes from “Devil Fish” and “Phantom of Death” duo Vincenzo Mannino and Gigliola Battaglini.  The fantasy-ghost house horror is another production of Reteitalia and Dania Film and filmed in peaceful Italian municipal of Ponte Pattoli.

“The Sweet House of Horrors” has an alternating appointed cast of main characters that turns focus between the children, Marco (Giuliano Gensini, “The Fishmen and Their Queen”) and Sarah (Ilary Blasi), the inheriting guardians of Carlo (Jean-Christophe Brétignière, “Rats:  Night of Terror”) and Marcia (Cinzia Monreale, “The Beyond”), and the dead parents turned ambivalent malicious poltergeists with Mary (Lubka Lenzi, “Massacre”) and Roberto (Pascal Persiano “Demons 2”) Valdi.  Giuliano Gensini and Ilary Blasi are well matched bratty children with mischievous dispositions who let their parents setoff hurricane force winds in the house and unleash topsy-turvy fog to combat the selling of the house and the unwanted removal of the children by the new guardians.   The children are also the only ones who know what’s actually going on while Carlo and Marcia chalk it up to either Marcia overactive imagination or, eventually, boiling the explanation down to malevolent ghosts unaware that it’s actually the deceased Mary and Roberto being impish apparitions.  This allows to comical characters to enter the fold in an overweight and pompous realtor lovingly nicknamed Sausage (Franco Diogene, “A Policewoman on a Porno Squad”) and gravely natured exorcist (Vernon Dobtcheff, “Horsehead”) to give levity and breeziness for a television market to a point where it feels almost a like a kids movie, but then we get to Guido (Lino Salemme, “Demons”) whose a guilt-ridden soul is splashed with past transgressions and the blood of his victims that haunt him from beyond the grave, literally, and in these flashes of Lucio Fulci’s ferocity for a visceral showing of range that definitely turns what could very well be a family friendly film into a smaller scale fright and violent feature.  Dante Fioretti (“The Wild Team”) rounds out the cast as the graveside servicing Father O’Toole who is the butt of the joke from not only the children but also the audience as a priest overbooked in his ceremonial duties. 

Finally – we’ve always suspected in The Houses of Doom installments a good old fashion haunting would make an inevitable appearance, but this particular Godfather of Gore entry is no ordinary ghost house narrative.  As read above, “The Sweet House of Horrors” has plenty of light-hearted comedy and fantastical elements to make a great televised production with dancing and floating candle flames, slapstick punching bags with the Sausage character, and two children who laugh and belittle at those in the path of the spirit-induced misfortune, spirits who are just loving parents taken too soon from their children and want to protect them at all cost.  As these scenes playout, feeling breezy, light, and full of supernatural fantasy, one hardcore horror fan could potentially forget their tuned into a Lucio Fulci film if it wasn’t for the opening double murder of the parents, the subsequent revenge killing of the murderer, and the shocking last frames of a hand melting away to the bone.  Granulized bits of body injury and stark severity and gruesomeness slingshot audiences out of the kiddie dreamland into the grisly nightmare of Fulci’s eye for details.  Hair and blood matted together, run over and eviscerated by a large truck, and, of course, “The Sweet House of Horrors” wouldn’t be a Fulci film without a gruesome dislodged eyeball from the socket.  There’s nothing quite like this House of Doom picture, or even in the generalization of haunted house tropes, as “The Sweet House of Horrors” splinters a fractured tale of holding onto dear life a happy nuclear family with the external forces that try to violently rip them apart.  

Cauldron Films proudly presents an uncut and restored Blu-ray release, scanned in 2K from the film negative and encoded onto AVC BD50 with 1080p, high-definition resolution.  The 1989 Fulci film now looks remarkably crisp in its European widescreen 1.66:1 aspect ratio.  A counterargument against the defined image could be the color timing that does have a bit of a wash layer overtop, reducing hues down to a pause in the image pop.  The reserved grading primarily hits the internal scenes, perhaps a result of the transparent animation layer for dancing candle flames, the ethereally delineated parents, or the blue orb/blob that circles the kids, but there are live shot instances that too are stifled to radiate better.  Textures are definitely not washed away as we receive an in-depth look at the wardrobe design that distinctly set characters apart, such as Sausage’s prim-and-proper suit, Guido’s paint-speckled denim overalls, and the Exorcist’s dark cloak getup, courtesy competent compression.  The ADR English and Italian 2.0 mono tracks offer a more than adequate A-to-Z dialogue with instances of crackling, more so the beginning.  The hit tracks and other targeted ambient sounds land with depth and range incorporated into the action with the character.  As with a mono track, distinction can be lost but with many Cauldron releases, there’s a pseudo-tier balancing of separating sounds through the 2.0 channels.  English subtitles are available on both releases and are well transcribed with excellent pacing.  Special features includes new Cauldron Films’ produced content, such as interviews with actress Cinzia Monreale Sweet Muse of Horrors in Italian with Englis subtitles, production designer Massimo Antonello Fulci House of Horrors in Italian with English subtitles, editor Alberto Moriani Editing for the Masters in Italian with English subtitles, and an audio commentary track with film historian regulars Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth.  The release also includes archival interviews previously seen on Mediablasters DVD release with interviews from actors Cinzia Monreale, Jean-Christophe Brétigniere, Pascal Persiano, Lino Salemme, and screenplay writer Gigliola Battaglini, all of which are either in Italian or English with English subtitles on the Italian interviews.  Matthew Therrien and Eric Lee provide, yet again, another compositional illustration of the more harrowing sides of “The Sweet House of Horrors” and its logo design inside a clear Scanova Blu-ray case.  The reverse cover also pulls a fiery still from the story.  There are no additional supplements inside or out with a cropped pressed image of the front cover on the disc that has a runtime 83-minutes and has region free playback.

Last Rites: “The Sweet House of Horrors” is a paradoxical made-for-TV special that never saw the light of public broadcast day but lands safely in the distributive hands of Cauldron Films with a new Blu-ray, Hi-Def release too good to pass up.

“The Sweet House of Horrors” on Blu-ray by Cauldron Films!

Fulci Turns Back Time to Bring EVIL Back from the Dead! “The House of Clocks” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The House of Clocks” Delivers Time as an Illusion. Blu-ray now available!

An isolated Italian villa becomes the looting target for three thieves looking for an easy score.  Villa residents, an elderly couple, are tricked into letting them into their estate adorned with elegant clocks of all shapes and sizes but as the plane unfolds it goes awry when the imposing grounds man arrives and both homeowners are killed.  Yet, the villa owners were no saints and no ordinary couple as soon as the husband’s heart stops, the clocks begin to move counterclockwise and that’s when the peaceful villa turns into a strange nightmare where time goes in reverse and those short and long dead come back to life with wounds miraculously healed as if it never happened.  As time continues to reverse, the thieves find themselves trapped inside the house and on estate grounds being hunted down by the merciless grounds man, but the skeletons in the elderly couple’s closet will soon resurrect and be thirsty for vengeance.

“The House of Clocks” is the Lucio Fulci made-for-TV movie that never saw the light of television programing.  Deemed too gory and violent for public broadcast, Fulci’s 1989 Italian film, to which he created the concept for and the screenplay treated by the duo team of Gianfranco Clerici  of “Cannibal Holocaust” and Daniele Stroppa of “Delirium,” was shelved for many years until it’s eventual home video release because, as you can tell just from the high-powered Italian horror names attached to the project, the finished film would certainly frighten those general audiences with easy turn-of-the-knob and bunny ear-antenna access.  Also known natively as “La casa nel Tempo,” was a part of a four-film horror special surrounding a theme of the houses of doom and was a production of Dania Film and Reteitalia production companies with “You’ll Die at Midnight” and “Delirium” producers Massimo Manasse and Marco Grillo Spina serving as executive producers.

The film initially opens with Maria, the nosy for her own good housemaid, discovering two rotting corpses ostentatiously displayed in the villa’s chapel.  Why Maria (Carla Cassola, “Demonia” and “The Sect”) decides to snoop around is not explained but the act does start a chain events, leading up to elder Villa owners in Sara Corsini and her clock obsessed husband Vittorio, played by the role age appropriate Bettine Milne (“The King’s Whore”) and Paolo Paoloni (“Cannibal Holocaust”) in a lot more makeup and prosthetics to make him appear as an older man.  As mysterious senior citizens go, Milne and Paoloni are the malevolently cryptic under a façade of geniality, possessing and maintaining the corpses of their niece and nephew they’ve murdered in order to keep their wealth.  The backstory between the two pairs has vague clarity but there’s enough to keep the pistons pumping toward the crux of why the uncanny time about-face.  While, again, no sense of explanation on why time reverses, we’re under the assumption Paolo is essentially Father Time, a personification of the time concept represented as an old, bearded man with an hour glass and a scythe to represent a span from life to death.  When thieves Paul (Peter Hintz, “Zone Troopers”), Tony (Keith Van Hoven, “Black Demons”), and Sandra (Karina Huff, “Voices from Beyond”) put an end to the Corsinis, that is when time stops and reverses itself, affecting the once dead to return back to life, and creating a nightmare scenario for now three trapped thieves under the chase of not only the Corsinis but those also killed by the Corsinis as their deteriorating bodies rejuvenate into active flesh and bone as well as flesh and blood.  “The Beyond” and “Zombie’s” Al Cliver rounds out the principal cast and the overall cast with his menacingly evil, Corsini’s jack-of-all-trades grounds man with a scarred over eye and a double barrel shotgun to hunt down the thieves.

“The House of Clock’s” is quite an interesting concept without a durably designed reason for all the madnesses.  At its core, three thieves home invade an older couple for their valuable objects and accidently kill them in the process when the standoff goes bad.  With that oversimplified version of events, a hellish cog in the pocket watch gearbox links the old man’s ticker with the tons of tickers that adorn his villa home, causing a chain reaction of turn back the clock proportions to which audiences never receive a proper understanding and while this may bother a sample size few, most will find the story too weird, gory, and trepidatious tense to care in what becomes a fair-game free-for-all against all characters who don’t have an ounce of virtue.  The lot of thieves, schemers, and murders are all trapped inside time’s ill-reverse affect without a sign of slowing down and while it might seem advantageous at first for some, as time continues to revert, the worse the situation becomes as old adversaries emerge from their graves and tombs.  Fulci’s visualized gore also emerges through with the fantastic effects by Guiseppe Ferranti, including a high right through the crotch impalement.  Ferranti would also be behind the effects for two other the house of doom television movies.

“The House of Clocks” may not have been safe for television but for a new Cauldron Films Blu-ray, the Lucio Fulci film fits right in and comes in the nick of time!  Restored from a 2K scan of the 35mm film negative, the AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 offers a visually invigorated, audibly astounding, and special features saturated release that presents Fulci’s lesser known and once previously shelved work!  Presented in a European widescreen 1.66:1, color saturation is beyond reproach with a beautifully natural grading that pops textures and objects right off the screen, adding density and tangibility to each.  Disc capacity affords the codec compression with no artefact issues in the reproducing of the encoded image that nearly replicates an ideal exhibition and appearance of a made-for-TV movie, especially in the macabre moment where extra slimy ooziness of the decaying corpses or the perforation of the servant’s crotch area is as clear as clear can get without misinterpretation.  Skin tones aren’t flared and are naturally set within a healthy, though smoother, grain layer.  The release comes with two audio mixes – a PCM English 2.0 mono and a PCM Italian 2.0 mono.  Both tracks are produced from ADR and have been scrubbed with no issues of hissing or crackling.  There’s a brilliant touch of echoing within the estate to create reverberations and a range, open quality to the exterior dialogue.  Vince Tempera’s synth piano is a ticking measure of modified vocals and integrated milieu elements with a organ tone like quality that’s ghoulishly soft.  English subtitles are optional on both mixes.  Special features include a handful of new interviews from behind-the-camera with cinematographer Nino Celeste Lighting the House of Time, composer Vince Tempera Time and Music, first assistant director Michele De Angelis Working with a Master, FX artist Elio Terribili Time with Fulci, as well as unmentioned archival interviews with actors Paolo Paoloni, Al Cliver, and Carla Cassola.  There’s a parallel audio commentary with film historians and critics Eugenio Ercolani, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth who regularly step in to commentate on Italian horror.  Graphic artist Matthew Therrien designs an illustrative composition artwork, pulling inspiration from the film’s most iconic and chaotic moments, while Eric Lee designs the titular logo sitting pretty dead center.  The reverse side of the cover art displays a rotting hand still from the movie.  The 19th title has a clear Amaray that houses a cropped version of the front cover image pressed onto the disc, which is region free, uncut, and has an 83-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Most people wish they could turn back time. For Lucio Fulci and his penchant for beyond death, going counterclockwise in “The House of Clocks” is more frightening and deadly as time can’t be owned and controlled. Simply put, there’s just no stopping the sands of time, forwards or backwards, for the past will catch up to you and the future is mercilessly uncertain.

“The House of Clocks” Delivers Time as an Illusion. Blu-ray now available!

Cheese Isn’t the Only Snack on this EVIL Rodent’s Diet! “Rat Man” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

See Nelson de la Rosa as the “Rat Man” on Blu-ray!

On the Caribbean Island of Santo Domingo, a genetic fiend scampers on the streets.  By injecting the sperm of a rat into a Monkey embryo, one fervent geneticist’s desires to be globally renowned creates a small yet deadly human rat.  Intelligent, agile, and with a lethal poison under its fingernails that could kill a normal size human in a matter of seconds, the creature escapes confines and roams the streets looking for fresh meat to eat.  One of the victims is a photoshoot supermodel from New York City that prompts an unofficial investigation of the mistaken sister to the supermodel and a mystery writer who are now on the hunt for the whereabouts of the others from the photoshoot group.  As the bodies pile up, the rat man wreaks havoc on the small island villages where the survivors and investigators must fight for their life to avoid being gnawed upon.

“Rat Man,” aka “Quella villa in fondo al parco,” translated to “That Villa at the End of the Park,” is the 1988 the Italian-made, creature feature of predominant spaghetti western and poliziotteschi director Giuliano Carnimeo in what would become one of his last feature films  Credited as Anthony Ascot, the western “Sartana” franchise and “The Exterminators of the Year 3000” director tackles the horrors of genetic manipulation with survivalist rodent given primate intelligence, a far cry from Carnimeo’s usual genres.  The screenplay comes from “Demons” and “The Ogre” writer Dandano Sacchetti under the penname David Parker Jr.  Carnimeo and Sacchetti Americanize their credits to appeal more to western audiences who, in the late 80’s, were lapping up Italian horror and creature features starring known international actors in tropical republics and “Rat Man” falls perfectly into that category.  “Zombie” and “The Beyond” producer Fabrizio De Angelis produces the film from production companies Surf Film and Fulvia Film.

While usually Italian productions go after American names, like John Saxon, Christopher George, or Robert Vaughn, “Rat Man” looked elsewhere amongst the surrounding Anglo-Saxon countries and plucked a few names that lead the charge in what would become a cluster of principals to become ensnared by tropical bred, genetically tainted vermin standing just over 2-feet tall, with elongated sharp teeth, and poisonous fingernails.  Without a defined lead, the script swirls through possible hero and heroine tropes, such as the investigating team-up between New Zealand actor David Warbeck (“The Beyond”) and Swedish actress Janet Agren (“Eaten Alive”) who are no strangers starring Italian productions.  Agren plays Terry who flies into Santo Domingo under the impression her supermodel sister was brutally murdered, and she happenstance meets at the same hailed cab Warbeck’s character, work vacationing mystery writer Fred Williams, who for some reason, some how becomes involved in helping Terry without significant cause or benefit other than possibly the mysterious case being a good plot for his next book.  There’s also the case of the false hero and final girl with the pursuit of photoshop photographer Mark, played by Austrian actor Werner Pochath (“Devil in the Flesh”) and his hot model Marilyn, by Italian actress Eva Grimaldi (“Covent of Sinners”).  These intended, or perhaps not intended, red herrings do make “Rat Man” favorably unpredictable as well as grim in regard to centric characters.  Grimaldi becomes the object of obsession with gratuitous nudity and a showcase of her other assets.  In more forgiving times when the diverging physical differences subjected actors into selective roles, the film employed one of the shortest men in our lifetime with Nelson de la Rosa.  Standing all of 2’ 4 ¼” because of Seckel Syndrome, the Dominican Republic born actor donned the makeup, false teeth, glued-on nails, and the ratty clothes to be transformed into the titular villain.  Limited movements and with no dialogue, de la Rosa’s underrated, give-it-his-best performance reveals to be a bright spot in story about a rat spliced with a monkey with the assistance of some movie magic; that one scene where he climbs up the window drapes and looks over his shoulder at Eva Grimaldi as she sleeps in a dark room and he’s slipping into the shadows gives proper chills.  Cast rounds out with Anna Silvia Grullon, Luisa Menon, Pepito Guerra, and Franklin Dominguez. 

Out in the cinema land, there have been worse genetical abomination movies through the decades.  “Rat Man,” surprisingly enough, champions for the middle ground as a solid, campy, man-made creature-on-the-loose feature with, dare I say it, okay performances, competent camerawork, and a villain unlike any other scampering around.  Sure, there are cheesy moments, but rats do like cheese, or so the stereotype goes, and that adds a layer of relaxation and ease knowing Giuliano Carnimeo had a sense of acceptability rather than trying to make a absolute, serious horror movie.  The one aspect I will mention where there was difficulty in swallowing was the scattered story flow.  “Rat Man” seemed to be everywhere all at once from beaches to the jungle to the vacant streets of Santo Domingo without rhyme or reason.  For a while I ran with the theory the Rat Man followed the photoshoot group, targeting the eye candy for its own perverse desires, but that promising concept was blown to smithereens when the little village of St. Martin had been terrorized and abandoned in a moment of exposition awareness.  Carnimeo’s jump from out of the western pot and into the horror fire translates his eye for the lingering and peripheral dread, much like a showdown of glares that has revolutionized to the lie and wait of the rat man cometh but if only the director could yoke the loose story for a straighter edge, “Rat Man” would have been acute as pestilence in the Italian horror mercati.

The “Rat Man” chews its way onto a brand-new Blu-ray release from Cauldron Films.  The restored in 4K transfer is pulled from the 35mm original negative and presented on an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, dual-layered BD50, exhibited in the original European widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66:1.  Primarily in low key, shadows run the range of a creature lurking in every nook and cranny, turning “The Naked Doorwoman’s” Roberto Girometti’s, credited as Robert Gardner, cinematography from darkened eyesore to a penetrating thriller of what’s scuttering beneath the shadows.  Emerging from the color is the perfect diffusion of color and texture underneath the natural looking stock grain.  There also isn’t a compression blemish insight or any kind of unnecessary enhancements from this good-looking print.  The only audio optional available is an English dub 2.0 mono track.  Despite an assortment of nationalities, the English dub does make the distinct accents go away with language uniformity.  Foley strength lies principally in the forefront but does champion the beast with a low growl always at your feet, or face depending on the camera angle.   English subtitles are optionally available and synch well with no errors in spelling or in grammar. Cauldron Films exclusive bonus features include an audio commentary, also available on the audio setup portion of the fluid menu, with film historians Eugenio Ercolani, Troy Howarth, and Nathaniel Thompson, and three Italian language with English subtitles interviews with cinematographer Robert Girometti, camera operator Federico Del Zoppo, and post-production consultant Alberto De Martino. “Rat Man’s” trailer rounds out the special features encoded content. The standard release comes in a clear Amaray Blu-ray case with new illustrated artwork that gives a real sense of what to expect by Justin Coffee. The reverse has the original, and if I might add beautiful, poster art that’s less surmising but more intriguing. Authored for region free playback, Cauldron Films’ “Rat Man” scurries with an 82-minute runtime and is not rated.

Last Rites: Forget setting out the poison, “Rat Man” can’t be exterminated with a phenomenally invincible release from Cauldron Films. In the slim pickings of the killer rat subgenre, “Rat Man” leads the pack rats as one of the more bizarre, degrading, and omnipotent villains ever to be on prowl.

See Nelson de la Rosa as the “Rat Man” on Blu-ray!

The Gates Are Opening and The EVIL Wants to Squish Your Brains! “City of the Living Dead” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / 4K UHD – Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Cauldron Films’ “City of the Living Dead” on 4K and Blu-ray 3-disc Release!

In the Dunwich, a priest commits suicide by hanging himself in the Church’s graveyard.  In the same instance, a psychic based in New York City holds a séance where she witnesses the beginning of the gates of hell opening.  The order sends the psychic into sheer fright that nearly kills her.  A reporter digging deep into the near death of the young woman also buried alive and befriends the psychic, following his nose for a good lead despite its absurd sounding hoodooism of death apocalypse in less than 72 hours.  The psychic and reporter travel to the hard-to-find Dunwich town where the residents have been mysteriously vanishing or discovered dead of curious causes.   Baffled by all the strange occurrences is the town psychiatrist who witnesses first hand the troubles that stir fear into those close to him.  When the psychiatrist teams up with psychic and reporter, they must venture to the very depths of crypt Hell to close the gates and stop the dead for rising before All Saints Day.

The Godfather of Gore Lucio Fulci undoubtedly lives up to his title, establishing himself as one of Italy’s more profound and substantial horror filmmakers before his death in 1996.  “City of the Living Dead” came at the height of Fulci’s success after his breakout into the American market with “Zombie” or “Zombi 2,” an unofficial sequel to George A. Romero’s superb “Dawn of the Dead.”  Yet, Fulci didn’t follow suit with “Dawn’s” social commentary and pale-faced flesh eaters; instead, the writer-director stemmed his undead creatures from black magic hoodooism set in the sunny and sandy Caribbean islands with just as much visceral violence as his inspiring mostly Pittsburgh-based counterpart.  Alternatively known as “The Gates of Hell,” the Italian production of “City of the Living Dead” remains set in the U.S., filmed in New York and the surrounding metropolitan northeast, as the first part of the Gates of Hell trilogy that coincided with “The Beyond” and “The House by the Cemetery,” both of which were released approx. a year later.  “City of the Living Dead” is a Dania Film, Medusa Distribuzione, and National Cinematografica production with Fulci producing as well as the American Robert E. Warner (“Return of the Swamp Thing”) as executive producer.

A medley of nationalities make up “City of the Living Dead’s” who either are or are playing American characters.  Comprised mostly of Italian actors Antonella Interlenghi (“Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century”) as one of the first doomed Dunwich victims, Michele Soavi (director of “The Church”) as a canoodler with his brains being squished, Daniela Doria (“New York Riper”) as the other canoodler having her innards become outers, Fabrizio Jovine (“The Psychic”) as the hung priest who started all this mess and as the harbinger of the living dead, and Carlo de Mejo (“Women’s Prison Massacre”) in the psychiatric lead.  There’s an abundancy of diverse Italian flavor that definitely grounds “City of the Living Dead” as an Italian production, but a minor chunk of the cast are Americans with co-principal Christopher George (“Graduation Day,” “Pieces”) as a rakish NYC reporter forcing his way into a minor lead turned major forthcoming day of reckoning and Robert Sampson (“Re-Animator”) in a minor law enforcement role that bears little significance.  Sprinkled in the cast is also the Swedish-born-turned-Italian actress Janet Argen (“Eaten Alive”) as the psychiatrist patient and UK actress Catriona MacColl rounding out the principal cohort as the psychic.  MacColl is the only actress to have a role in all three of Fulci’s Beyond the Gates films, playing different characters in each.  Between Christopher George’s skeptic playfulness, Janet Argen’s uncontrollable hysterics, and in the unmalleable wrought shock of fear, the sundry cast doesn’t hinder the performances that mesh well under the greater air of portent and the hours leading up to end of days.  Giovanni Lombardo Radice (“Cannibal Ferox”), Luca Venantini (“The Exterminators of the Year 3000”), Adelaide Aste, Venantino Venantini (“Cannibal Ferox”), Robert Spafford, James Edward Sampson (“StageFright”), Perry Pirkanen (“Cannibal Holocaust”), Michael Gaunt (“Forced Entry 2”), and filmmakers Robert E. Warner and Lucio Fulci costar.

Through an unexplained mysticism and preformed stipulations on why the priest was the be all end all gatekeeper to the dead’s awakening on Earth other than Dunwich was original built upon the ruins of a witch-burning Salem, Massachusetts or why the day after the unmentioned Halloween season (likely because Italians do not celebrate Halloween with an abundance of candy and custome), All Saints Day, becomes the zero hour date when clearly the dead are already fatally impacting lives in the corporeal realm, Lucio Fulci masterful magician qualities diverts attention away from seemingly crucial elements of the plot toward a complete and total elemental atmosphere of fear, using eerie fog, whipping wind, and phantasmagoria imagery of the macabre to implant chthonic horror slowly rising above ground.  Makeup artist Franco Rufini recesses the sight sockets with deep, infraorbital darkening under the eyes in stark contrast with the pale shade skin, creating that classic yet effective zombified corpse casing in conjunction with special effects artists Gino de Rossi (“Burial Ground:  The Nights of Terror,” “Cannibal Ferox”) use of ground raw meat or whatever the gushy material used to construct the cerebrum contents that just squishes to a pulp between the fingers of the undead when they grab a fist full of hair, skin, and brains from behind an unlucky left living.  There’s quite nothing like a Lucio Fulci film where the ghouls knock on the door from the other side, threatening the land of the living, the world even, with a sound and steady ghoulish malevolence and death in a well-lit and framed Fulci-scope to hammer down defined purpose that drives a penetrating stake through the chest bone and into a chilled soul.

“City of the Living Dead” goes beyond the format gates and arrives onto a 3-disc 4K/Blu-ray release from Cauldron Films.  2160p Dolby Vision 4K and a 1080p AVC encoded high-definition options really put this Fulci classic back on the map, unlike the small, forsaken city of Dunwich. The 4K UHD is an HEVC encoded, 2160p Dolby Vision ultra high-definition resolution while the AVC encoded Blu-ray sports 1080p high-definition, presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Through the translucent mist of natural, good-looking grain, Cauldron Films have hyper-accentuated the atmospherics with a clean rendering of the innate cooler-to-warner photography grades of blue-to-yellow with creating a harsh contrast transition. The encoding never shows an ounce of detail distress to keep textured and palpable image of the darkened crypt or the thick fog exteriors that often would degrade decoding with omitted data. The Cauldron Films release retains and sustains bitrate that fastens the dark levels to a robust and effective pitch black. What’s neat about this release is the ability to toggle between the English DTS-HD 2.0 Mono and the Italian DTS-HD 2.0 mono, both post-recorded in standard with Italian productions. Both tracks are comprehensibly sound with a clear and clean dubbing with the only detailed differences being one in English language and the other in Italian and the title card switched out for the each. Between the two, range is exact on both with not a lot of superfluous ambient sound and both tracks offer a near blemish free experience in a robust context of atmosphere. Disc 1 and 2, 4K UHD and Blu-ray respectively, come with new audio commentaries, including with cult film critic Samm Deighan, author of Italian horror cinema Troy Howarth and film critic Nathaniel Thompson, as well as individual archival commentaries with actors Catriona MacColl and Giovanni Lombardo Radice. Disc 3 includes an interview with production Massimo Antonello Geleng, actor Giovanni Lombardo Radice, and on-stage Q&A with Venantino Venantini and Ruggero Deodata (“Cannibal Holocaust”), a Q&A with Catriona MacColl, a Q&A with composer Fabio Frizzi, interviews with special effects artist Gino de Rossi and principal actor Carlo de Mejo, A Trip Through Bonaventure Cemetary – an explorational and historical account on the main cemetery where the priest in the film hangs himself, trailers, an image gallery, and other archival interviews in a near feature-length collection of conversations with cast and crew reminiscing about Lucio Fulci during filming. The 4K UHD and third disc packed with special features are region free while the Blu-ray remains region A locked in licensed playback on the format. Both features have a runtime of 93 minutes and the release is unrated. Emerging from the gates of standard definition hell, Cauldron Films tempers Lucio Fulci’s “City of the Living Dead” to a foreboding crust, burgeoning with ominous clout the undead’s underscoring resurrection.

Cauldron Films’ “City of the Living Dead” on 4K and Blu-ray 3-disc Release!