THE EUROCINE COLLECTION VOL. 1
ANGEL OF DEATH (1985)
NIGHT OF THE EAGLES (1989)
MANIA KILLER (1987)
PANTHER SQUAD (1984)
DOWNTOWN HEAT (1994)
COUNTDOWN TO ESMERALDA BAY (1990)
In the early days of VHS, Charles Band's Wizard Video blazed trails, importing strange, unusual, and exciting international horror, action, and exploitation for the rental market, some for the very first time in North America. Many of these weird and wonderful titles were licensed from iconic French genre film studio Eurocine, including key pictures from directors like Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, Jose Luis Merino and more. To honor our long, storied history with Eurocine, Full Moon has resurrected Wizard Video and collected six stunning films together on six Blu-rays, packed into one deluxe Wizard "Big Box"!
DISC 1:
ANGEL OF DEATH (1987)
aka COMMANDO MENGELE
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 97 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Jess Franco, Andrea Bianchi
Cast: Jack Taylor, Christopher Mitchum, Fernando Rey, Howard Vernon, Dora Doll
Written and co-directed by Jess Franco (Barbed Wire Dolls) Angel of Death (1987) (aka Commando Mengele) is a slightly daft nazisploitaion entry that riffs on The Boys From Brazil (1978) with Nazis hiding in South America plotting their return while indulging in some horrific science experiments. In it Nazi hunters Aaron Horner (Jack Taylor, Pieces) and Marc Logan (Antonio Mayans, Night of Open Sex) are in Uruguay on the hunt for the escaped Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele (Howard Vernon, The Sinister Dr. Orloff) who has set-up shop down in sunny South America.
Since the fall of The Third Reich Mengele has kept himself busy, continuing his horrific human experimentation with the help of his Arian-bitch assistant Gertrud (Shirley Knight, White Cannibal Queen), working on the next step in human evolution... a human-chimp hybrid with a unibrow? Anyway, he has also been rebranding the Nazi party as The Fourth Reich (there are 4R logos all over the place) - very clever - and building an army of mercenaries trained by a fascist-loving crippled American Vietnam vet named Wolfgang von Backey (Christopher Mitchum, Murder in a Blue World) the son of Hollywood icon Robert Mitchum). The Nazi hunters are aided by Eva (Suzanne Andrews, Maniac Killer) who is a mole working inside Mengele's base of operation, but when she is discovered to be a traitor she is beaten and thrown into his experiment Hell hole by Mengele who subjects her to... well, I am not too sure to be honest, but she has a band aid on her cheek so it must have been awful. The final leg of the film features the Nazi hunters storming the lair of Mengele.
The demented action flick doesn't quite feel like a true Jess Franco production, his heart doesn't seem in it, especially for something he wrote. The sleaze-factor is non-existent with no nudity and we don't get the usual wild lensing either. While Franco wrote the screenplay under the name D. Khunn and directed some of the film, at some point Italian trash legend Andrea Bianchi (Naughty Teen) was brought in to snazz things up, with the directing credit being credited to "Frank Drew White". Legend tells that the notorious directors were apparently too nervous to take credit for making it because of the subject matter, mmm hmm. I think the truth is probably that they were both embarrassed by it, as it didn't live up to either of their reputations as far as WTF-ery, for better or worse.
It's very a very low-stakes watch but not without it's share of demented fun with Nazi hunters storming the Fourth Reich's castle lair with lots of explosion, gunshots and crossbow bolts flying, plus some silly kung-fu shenanigans. It's got a deep cast of euro-cult stars and never-weres, including Fernando Rey (Companeros) who literally phones in a cameo as an off-site Nazi hunter. I'll tell you, it's be a deadly drinking game if you took a shot every time you saw someone on a phone in this flick, you'd be dead forty-minutes into it. While we don't get the wild Franco cinematography what we do get is a painful amount of slow-motion action, especially during the finale.
Angel of Death is a cheaply made straight-to-video bit of Nazisploitation with a terrible synth score, shit acting and even shittier action, alongside plaintive cinematography that is credited to Roger Fellous (White Fire) and Juan Soler (Cries of Pleasure), but somehow it all comes together in a euro-cult mélange of mayhem and destruction that is sure to please fans of trash cinema and glorious VHS-era crap-ola.
Audio/Video: Angel of Death (`1987) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Full Moon Features as part of The Eurocine Collection in 1080p HD and framed in 1.66:1 widescreen with a "Commando Mengele "Angel of death" title card. This is advertised as "a beautiful, uncut master culled from the original 35mm camera negative" and the flick actually looks quite good in HD. Grain levels are solid, colors are vibrant and there's a nice depth and clarity to the image throughout with some occasional softness, but overall this is a quite pleasing Blu-ray image. See screenshots from the Blu-ray HERE.
Audio comes by way of lossy (c'mon Full Moon!) English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround without subtitles of any kind. I preferred the stereo, but both are clean and free of distortion, and English seems to be the original language spoken during the film. The score is a half-hearted series of repeating synth-blurbs credited to Norbert Verrone, it's pretty awful and doesn't sound great but somehow it perfectly suits the cheesy action flick.
The only extras on the disc is the same set of euro-cult trailers that have accompanied most of The Eurocine Collection releases from Full Moon.
Special Features:
- Euro-Cult Trailers: Naked Girl Murdered in the Park (2 min), Barbed Wire Dolls (1 min), Love Letters To A Portuguese Nun (3 min), Satanic Sisters (1 min), Voodoo Passion (1 min), Women In Cell Block 9 (1 min)
Angel of Death (1987) is a mindboggling daft slice of Nazisploitation with an array of euro-cult talent both behind and in front of the camera. If you're already a fan of Jess Franco and Andrea Bianchi, or just a fan of cheaply made but action-packed exploitation, it's worth a watch. Kudos to Full Moon for the pleasing HD image, now if they could just commit to compressed audio and some extras I think we'd all be even more grateful.
DISC 2:
NIGHT OF THE EAGLES (1989)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration:
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen
Director: Rich Ragsdale
Cast: Christopher Lee, Mark Hamill, Alexandra Ehrlich, Ramon Estevez
This was a first-time watch for me, when I read Jess Franco and Nazis in the same synopsis I knew jumped on Night of the Eagles (1989), but it's definitely not what I expected, especially coming from a euro-sleaze purveyor like Jess Franco teamed-up with the infamous Eurocine
studio with whom he produced loads of titillating art-filth. What we have here is perhaps the most un-Franco of all his films, at least the ones that I have seen. For starters there's no nudity, which means we don't get even a single vagina zoom-in hahaha. That said, it's a well-shot WWII melodrama from the German perspective, which I thought was a pretty novel way to go. It stars Christopher Lee (City of the Dead) and Mark Hamill (Body Bags) wherein Lee plays Strauss, a wealthy German banker whose attractive daughter Lillian (Alexandra Ehrlich) is torn between two lovers, Peter (Hamill) and Karl (Ramon Estevez, Alligator II: The Mutation, the sort of forgotten brother of Charlie Sheen). When both her beaus are shipped off to fight on the frontlines in WWII she starts performing at dancehall for the troops, much to the chagrin of her father. The film is handsomely shot and far less exploitative than I would have preferred, the violence is toned down, and most of the film takes place away from the front lines, and what war shot we do get seem to be recycled footage from other films (Oasis of the Zombies) - which if you're not familiar with Eurocone productions is a typical budgetary shortcut. The story is fairly bland to be honest, there's a brief bit about a gay Nazi Captain Anton (Daniel Grimm, Faceless) that doesn't go anywhere, but the love triangle is the main focus, and even that didn't do much for me. I didn't love it but I was still intrigued by this Franco film that doesn't seem to fit the mold. I would have liked it a bit more if it was sleazed up Salon Kitty style, but that's not the film Franco chose to make I guess. It's an interesting footnote in the Franco filmography, I'd never seen it before and am pleased to add it to the collection, but it won't be in regular rotation like Franco's more seedy 70's offering with Lina Romay and Soledad Miranda. The biggest take away for me was how the fuck did Mark Hamill go from Star Wars to Franco in six short years?
DISC 3:
MANIA KILLER (1987)
aka MANIAC KILLER
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 84 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Andrea Bianchi
Cast: Bo Svenson, Robert Ginty, Suzanne Andrews, Chuck Connors
Andrea Bianchi directed a couple of sleazy euro-cult classics, Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror, Cry of the Prostitute and Strip Nude for You're Killer immediately come to mind, but I am not too familiar with most of his later stuff, except for Eurocine produced Angel of Death (1987) which he co-directed with Spanish sleaze-master Jess Franco... and sadly that was not all that impressive. Made during the same straight-to-video period we have Maniac Killer (1987), which was also produced for the notorious French distributor Eurocine.
The flick is a labyrinthine mess that has a lot of moving gears that never seem mesh teeth, for starters we have a religious cult that stalks and kidnaps French prostitutes and slut-shames them while forcing them to admit they are under the influence of Satan, before killing them. The cult is lead by a guy named Gondrand (Robert Ginty, The Exterminator) who is aided and abetted by Lysia (Suzanne Andrews, Angel of Death) and a bald-headed tormenter (Stanley Kapoul, Gwendoline) who does most of the tormenting. They don cult-ish looking robes and tie the girls up inquisition-style and torment them with a cheap-looking scepter with a gold snake wrapped around it occasionally clamping their whores nipples with a pair of skinning pliers. I'm guessing this torture is meant to purify the soul before they kill them, but nothing is ever really explained in this flick.
Then we have Professor Roger Osborne (Chuck Connors, Tourist Trap) performing strange experiments on animals in his mansion outside of town. I was never quite sure what the doc was up to in his lab, and his later diatribes about science didn't shed much light on it either, and it doesn't matter in the scheme of things anyway. He sources his animals from the non-verbal village idiot Matthieu (François Greze), who at some point the doc starts to teach basic language skills by using an ancient 80's PC to visualize words.
Sort of tying the two storylines together we have Count Silvano (Bo Svenson, Curse II: The Bite) who hates Gondrand because the cult leader is always chasing after his wife, the Countess Silvano (Paulina Adrián). We also keep peeking in on a trio of villagers at a local bar who gossip about the missing prostitutes, the leader of the group is a trouble-making mailman, not unlike Charles Durning in Dark Night of the Scarecrow, who thinks that Doc Osbourne might be conducting human experiments up at his mansion. These guys end up teaming with Count Silvano and the local cops to do some reconnaissance on the doc's house and later storm it.
It's a pretty silly film all around, but unlike Angel of Death at least this one has some titty-pinching sleaze and a tiny but of gore, but don't get too excited, there's not that much of either, but it's there. It's also got some decent looking French locations and a weird and wonderful cast of people who had real Hollywood careers. I kept thinking to myself 'how did they get Ginty, Svenson and Connors in this, who did they owe money to?' The best of the bunch though are not any of the dimming Hollywood actors, but unknown François Greze who went onto do nothing that I can find. Greze plays the half-wit Matthieu who proves to be the most entertaining part of the film, his amateur acting is hilariously overwrought with goofy, contorted faces and a bunch of idiot-boy non-verbal grunting, I was cracking up whenever he showed up onscreen. Ginty looks really bored, but I give props to Connors who is such a professional he just goes for it his character. The flick was shot by cinematographer Henry Froges (Women's Prison Massacre) and has a score by Luis Bacalov (Django) , which also help make this a more interesting film than Angel of Death, but still nota good film, just more interesting and not as cheap looking and sounding.
I'm curious to know why Full Moon are releasing this is Mania Killer - the original title is Maniac Killer and I could not find an alternate title of Mania Killer while doing my research. Either title is lazy as fuck and not at all appropriate, but there must be a legal reason why it's been retitled, and now I am curious. If you know please clue me in!.
Audio/Video: ManiaKiller (1987) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Full Moon Features as part of The Eurocine Collection, presented in 1080p HD and framed in 1.66:1 widescreen with the "Maniac Killer" title card. Not sure what the source for this is but we do get a decent looking layer of grain, it fluctuates a bit but is more or less consistent. The image doesn't have a lot of depth, and clarity and contrast wane from time to time, but I was pleased with it. There are also some vertical scratches that pop up frequently, and while It doesn't offer the best the format has to offer it's acceptable. See screenshots from the Blu-ray HERE. Audio comes by way of lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround with optional English subtitles.
The only extras on the disc is the same set of euro-cult trailers that have accompanied most of The Eurocine Collection releases from Full Moon.
Special Features:
- Euro-Cult Trailers: Naked Girl Murdered in the Park (2 min), Barbed Wire Dolls (1 min), Love Letters To A Portuguese Nun (3 min), Satanic Sisters (1 min), Voodoo Passion (1 min), Women In Cell Block 9 (1 min)
Full Moon continue to plunder the Eurocine vaults offering cheap action and demented horror flicks, and I hope there's much more to come. You have to come into some of these with tempered expectations, they're a mixed bag of euro-cult oddities, and while I had pretty low expectation coming into this and I was still a bit disappointed when the credits started rolling to be hones. It's the sort of movie that has four writers but somehow never comes together to make much of any sense, which us usually how it goes, the more writers the less cohesive a movie you get, and this one is a wild hodgepodge of divergent storylines. There's MST3K fun to be had here though, just know what you're getting yourself, this is some serious some z-grade straight-to-VHS euro-trash.
DISC 4:
PANTHER SQUAD (1984)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 77 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Pierre Chevalier
Cast: Sybil Danning, Jack Taylor, Karin Schubert, Jean-René Gossart, Analía Ivars, Franícoise Bocci, Donald O'Brien
80's trash-action fever dream Panther Squad (1984) is directed by the French exploitation bottom-feeder Pierre Chevalier (House of Cruel Dolls) under his pseudonym Peter Knight. It was produced for the legendary z-grade-galore studio Eurociné and stars Sybil Danning (The Howling II: You're Sister Is A Werewolf) as Ilona aka The Panther, leader of an all-female squad of anti-terrorist bad-asses called Panther Squad; who sort of look like an alternate reality version of Charlie's Angels if the Angels were actually members of 80's metallers Girlschool lead by Wendy O Williams.
At the start of the film we get a super-80's opening credit sequence with the catchy tune "She's Tough and Tender" by someone named Steve Stone, then we dive headlong into a very 80's notion, the race to dominate space. Enter the New Organization Of Nations (N.O.O.N.) who have just launched a new space defense spacecraft, but their nemesis the eco-terrorist organization Clean Space believe N.O.O.N. will pollute outer space the same way industry has polluted Earth, so they decide they have to put an end to that. To that end Clean Space somehow manage to jam the signal to the spacecraft and over take it, then they kidnap a high-ranking female astronaut who somehow connected to the N.O.O.N. space program.
That's when N.O.O.N. head honchos call in a guy named Mr. Frank Bramble (Jack Taylor, Pieces) to put Clean Space out of commission permanently. Bramble seems to be to Panther Squad what Bosley was to Charlie's Angels, rendezvousing with the Panther Squad at an undisclosed location with tons of trashy cut-rate action ensues with Sybil leading the way in a just-barely-there leather outfit and rocking some bad-ass oversized 80's sunglasses. Jack Taylor is a hoot in this, sort of coolly sleepwalking through the film looking like he's just trying to get to the next bottle of booze, which I am not sure if that is scripted or just reality bleeding into the fiction of the film, but he's a fun presence and he steals the show several times.
The flick has some super cheesy 80's action set pieces, we get loads of training montages, a hairdryer flamethrower, Danning (and her stunt double) on a dirt bike, and a top-secret laser pistol - its fun stuff. We also see what looks to be the same castle location later used in Jess Franco's Angel of Death (1987) AKA Commando Mengele. As it's a Eurocine production there a high probably there's a lot of borrowed footage happening her, and I'm pretty sure the opening shots of the spacecraft orbiting Earth were not shot for this low-rent actioner, but that's the both the charm and yoke of these cheapie Eurocine productions. Aside from Taylor and the seam-bursting Danning keep an eye out for Karin Schubert (Christina), Analía Ivarsand (Golden Temple Amazons), Donald O'Brien (Ghosthouse), Shirley Knight (Angel of Death) and Jess Franco regular Antonio Mayans (Night of Open Sex) as a General.
Audio/Video: This Eurocine gem arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Full Moon in 1080p HD framed in 1.78:1 widescreen with a fairly crisp looking transfer. The source is in good shape with only a few vertical lines marring it, and a few iffy looking insert shots, but otherwise this had solid color an appreciable bed of grain. See screenshots from the Blu-ray HERE. Audio comes by way of English Dolby Digital 2.0 with no subtitles options.
While it's not listed on the sleeve there is an Audio Commentary here from Actor/Co-Producer Sybil Danning moderated by Chris Alexander. Sybil was not only an actor but also a co-producer on the flick, and she has a great memory as she discusses the score of the film, the Mediterranean locations, her co-stars, and most importantly, that awesome wardrobe, which she says she still has in her possession. She also gets into why she never worked with Jess Franco, the casting, and the archiving of her wardrobe from different films. It's a solid commentary recorder via telephone, Alexander's half sounds iffy at times but Sybil comes through clear as a bell. We also get a collection of Full Moon Trailers.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Actor/Co-Producer Sybil Danning moderated by Chris Alexander
- Full Moon Trailers: Weedjies: Halloweed Night, Necropolis: Legion, Panther Squad, Trancers 2, Robot Wars, Puppet Master III, Specters
This trashy actioner is pretty poorly executed, there's no T&A, and it's a sloppy and slapdash production, but the eurocult stars seems to have aligned here and what we get, shitty as it is, is a pretty entertaining flick for lovers of z-grade Eurocine-cheese, it's top-notch trash even if there's no top-shelf assets on display. .
DISC 5:
DOWNTOWN HEAT (1994)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 98 Minutes 22 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 (No Subtitles)
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Jess Franco
Cast: Lina Romay, Philippe Lemaire, Craig Hill, Oscar Ladoire, Josephine Chaplin, Mike Connors
Downtown Heat (1994) is another late-era actioner from Jess Franco made for French exploitation film studio Eurocine, strangely enough starring Mike Connors, the star of the popular 70's TV show Mannix). At the start of the film a paisley-shirted cop named Alberto (Óscar Ladoire, The Age of Lulu) and his partner witness two thugs throw a woman inside a van, douse it in gas, and push it with their Jaguar over the edge of a cliff. The cops attempt to intervene but are a bit too late to save her, and Alberto's partner is killed in the process. It's a pretty efficient and high-energy start to the flick. We then meet a female cop named Maria (Josephine Chaplin, Jess Franco's Jack the Ripper) and a jazz saxophonist Tony (Steve Parkman) who are investigating the deaths of the their loved ones, which leads them to Barcelona crime lord Don Miguel (Craig Hill, Night of the Eagles), who is also connected the the murder at the start of the film, which connects to Barcelona cop Alberto, as well a rogue American cop named Steve (Mike Connors, TV's Mannix), all of whom are dead-set on bringing down Don Miguel and his drug cartel, eventually resorting to operating at the drug lord's level by kidnapping his sexy daughter, ending with an assault on his compound. We also get an appearance from Franco's beloved muse Lina Romay (The Hot Nights of Linda) as the lesbian leader of a gang of junkyard punk rockers, with Romay is a short cropped hairdo and some dramatic egyptian eye make-up - she's quite a sight, and this movie needed more of her and her junkyard gang!
This is an anti-drug action-thriller with some decent set-pieces, it's well shot, and I sort of love the bongo-heavy jazz-soundtrack by Daniel J. White (Shining Sex). The biggest drawback here is that there are a few too many muddled detours along the way that drag it down, it should have been kept a bit tighter and gotten wilder, but there's a lot of time dedicated to crooked and craggy-faced cop Baldar (Philippe Lemaire, Spirits of the Dead) and his turn of conscious and other stuff that sidetracks the core story, but this is still one of Franco's most interesting late-period ventures in my estimation. I like this quite a bit more than I did both like Angel of Death or Night of the Eagles which were filmed during this era. I probably would have liked it a bit more if there were more Franco-isms on display. While the lensing is solid with some nice movement, it lacks Franco's wilder cinematic proclivities, and the sleaze-factor is near zero, though we do get a bit of cheesecake nudity but not much else. Sadly, the jazz saxophonist angle does not lead to any shenanigans close to Lucio Fulci's The Devil's Honey.
I still think there's plenty to enjoy for deep-dive euro-cult enthusiasts and Franco-philes though, we get Lina Romay and a bunch of other Franco regulars, including Antonio Mayans (Night of Open Sex), plus Victor Israel (The Witches Mountain, Horror Express) shows up in a small cameo, but it just feels a bit flat and lacks the delirious Franco passion and fevered pitch that I love so much about his earlier works. What it does have is a helicopter assault filmed with a cheapo R/C helicopter that made me laugh,
a butch-looking Romay driving around what looks like a George Barris reject from The Munsters, and a finale chock full of bullets, explosions, goofy knife throwing, and white mice crawling over a corpse in the trunk of a car. Not great cinema by any means but still entertaining, if a bit neutered by regular Franco standards.
Audio/Video: Downtown Heat (1994) makes it's North American disc debut on Blu-ray from Full Moon Features, presented in 1080p HD framed in 1.66:1 widescreen, advertised as being sourced from a new HD transfer remastered from the original negative. The source is in terrific shape, the image looks fairly healthy, it's not overly compressed, colors are strong and black levels are pleasing. See screenshots from the Blu-ray HERE. There;s some decent detail in the close-ups as well, and the skin tones look natural. Audio comes by way of English 2.0 or 5.1 Dolby Digital with no subtitle options. The 5.1 does not impress but it does open up the score a bit. The only extras are a selection of Eurocine Trailers.
Special Features:
- Euro-Cult Trailers: Naked Girl Murdered in the Park (2 min), Barbed Wire Dolls (1 min), Love Letters To A Portuguese Nun (3 min), Satanic Sisters (1 min), Voodoo Passion (1 min), Women In Cell Block 9 (1 min)
DISC 6:
COUNTDOWN TO ESMERALDA BAY (1990)
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 95 Minutes 1 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Jess Franco
Cast: George Kennedy, Robert Forster, Lina Romay, Ramon Estevez, Fernando Rey, Silvia Tortosa
Jess Franco's Countdown to Esmerelda Bay (1990) is set in the fictional war-riddled Central American country of Puerto Santo, where figurehead President Ramos (Fernando Rey, Cold Eyes of Fear) runs things finds himself under the thumb of militaristic Col. Madero (Robert Forster, Alligator). There's a band of rebels lead by Andres (Ramon Estevez, Night of the Eagles) who fight against the ruthless and corrupt military dictatorship, buying arms from a businessman named Wilson (George Kennedy, Cool Hand Luke). A bit like Downtown Heat this 90's Franco production for Eurocine is both Franco-neutered and oddly star-studded; another gun-for-hire gig for Franco who clearly is not passionate about the material or was not give much of a leash, but he does good work bringing it together well enough. The downfall is how uninspired the action is executed and how muddled the the story gets. That said, there are plenty of Franco regulars and familiar faces that pop-up including Lina Romay (Marquise de Sade) as a horny hotelier, Silvia Tortosa (The Loreley's Grasp) as Wilson's wife and Madero's lover (uh-oh), plus Craig Hill (Anguish), Brett Halsey (The Devil's Honey), and Antonio Mayans (Cecilia) as a rebel priest. It's pretty shallow stuff but it's an attractively shot political action-drama flick, though like a lot of the Eurocine stuff it lack the Franco-isms I was craving, though there plenty of zoom-ins and slow-motion footage. There's also a ton of stock-footage inserted into this one that sticks out like a sore thumb, and I mean a lot. Not great, pretty mediocre to be honest, but an interesting relic from Franco's Eurocine years just the same, and both Kennedy and Forster do good work with what they're given.
Audio/Video: Countdown to Esmerelda Bay (1990) arrives on Blu-ray from Full Moon Features, presented in 1080p HD framed in 1.78:1 widescreen. Like most of the flicks on this set the source is in solid shape, with strong colors are strong, pleasing black levels and nice depth and clarity without any compression issues. There's also some healthy fine detail in the close-ups, and the skin tones look accurate. Audio comes by way of English 2.0 or 5.1 Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles, making this the only film on the set with subtitles. The English-dubbed dialogue acoustics are atrocious but sound like they're probably inherent to the source, but at least the the Luis Bacalov (The Designated Victim) score sounds decent. The only extras are a selection of Euro-cult Trailers.
- Euro-Cult Trailers: Naked Girl Murdered in the Park (2 min), Barbed Wire Dolls (1 min), Love Letters To A Portuguese Nun (3 min), Satanic Sisters (1 min), Voodoo Passion (1 min), Women In Cell Block 9 (1 min)
The 6-disc set is housed inside an oversized keepcase with two flipper trays holding the six discs. This comes housed inside a Wizard Video VHS Big Box, which I thought was a nice touch, though I do wish that the keepcase wrap had a letter spine, as it is it features a cool wraparound illustration with characters from all sic films. Tucked away inside are Six Art Cards featuring the artworks from the individual Blu-ray releases. A word of caution, be gentle opening the box, its a bit flimsy and is more a display item more so than something you want to be taking off the shelf and opening a bunch. I also would have appreciated some new extras or even more archival interviews, this is a pretty bare set, even a booklet with some Eurocine-centric essays would have been cool. Note that these six films are also available as standalone Blu-ray releases with identical disc extras for each release.
