SCALA!!! (Severin Films Blu-ray Review)

SCALA!!! (2024) 

OR, THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE RISE AND FALL OF THE WORLD'S WILDEST CINEMA AND HOW IT INFLUENCED A MIXED-UP GENERATION OF WEIRDOS ANS MISFTAS

3-Disc Blu-ray Collector's Set 

Label: Severin Films 

Region Code: A (Disc 1-2), Region-Free (Disc 3)

Rating: Unrated 

Duration: 96 Minutes 19 Seconds 

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround with Optional English 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 

Director: Jane Giles and Ali Catterall 

Cast: John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Jah Wobble, Cathi Unsworth, Mary Harron, Kim Newman, Nick Kent, Isaac Julien, Matt Johnson

Jane Giles and Ali Catterall's documentary Scala!!!, which is based on the 2018 book Scala Cinema 1978-1993 by Jane Giles, tells the wild tale of London's long-running cult-cinema  repertory movie palace the Scala, which was located in the seedy environs of King's Cross neighborhood which sort of comes across as a 42nd St. adjacent sort of area. Notorious for it's cult films and wild programming the celebrated outsider cinema, horror, porn, arthouse, and queer cinema, as well as an array of eclectic short subject films, and of it's dilapidated condition, and unique acoustic features, like the rumble when the Underground  ran beneath it.    

We are told through interviews with Jane Giles who was the film programmer at the Scala between 1988 and 1992, as well as John Waters, Ben Wheatley, Jah Wobble, Cathi Unsworth, Mary Harron, Kim Newman, Nick Kent, Isaac Julien, Matt Johnson and other patrons of the cinematic pleasure dome just how amazing the programming was, how it skirted the strict BBFC censorship by being a membership driven club and the ingenious way it did that, and of OD's and suicides inside the theater, people sleeping in the isles and having sex in the bathrooms, and how a screening of Stanley Kubrick's banned A Clockwork Orange lead to it's eventual demise after a lawsuit was brought on by Warner Bros..

It's a dense presentation as patrons and employees talk of discovering films at he Scala is pure cinema catnip, wonderful wide-eyed tales of seeing flicks you just could not see anywhere else in London at that time, stuff like Cafe Flesh, Eraserhead, The Films of Russ Meyers and John Waters, and Herschel Gordon Lewis, and the old dark house eroticism of Thundercrack! It's a place that bred cinematic passions, as witnessed by the sheer amount of writers, artists, filmmakers and musicians who frequented the place. It reminded me of the saying about The Velvet Underground, that while their records sold for shit it seemed everyone who saw them or listened to them went on to form a band of their own, and those freaks and misfits frequented the Scala became die-hard cult film fans of filmmakers themselves, and this doc is a wonderfully entertaining tribute the the Scala's long-lasting legacy of cult-cinema passion. 

Audio/Video: Scala!!! (2023) arrives on 3-disc Blu-ray from Severin Films in 1080p HD framed in 1.78:1 widescreen. It's a doc and their mixed footage of talking head interviews, movie clips from various sources, and archival video footage so it's a  nixed bad by design, and I imagine this is quite accurate to the theatrical screening. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1 with optional English subtitles. The interviews sound great, acoustics change based on the space, always clean and intelligible, while movie clips are vary in quality they are always enjoyable. 

This 3-disc set is hella-loaded with extras, beginning on 

Disc 1 we get an Audio Commentary With Co-Directors Jane Giles And Ali Catterall; a 12-min Introduction From The UK Premiere At The 2023 BFI London Film Festival; and another 4-min Introduction To Scala By Director Michael Clifford. Among the extras are a pair of archival short subject films also focusing on the cult-film venue, we have the 37-min  Scala (1990) directed by Michael Clifford, and the 4-min Scala Cinema (1992), directed by Ali Peck/Victor de Jesus, 1992), including an optional Director Commentary For Scala Cinema. A terrific extras in the 12-min Scala Programs 1978–1993, featuring Jane Giles pouring through old programs for showing at the cinema, plus an 18-min Cabinet Of Curiosities – Inside The Scala Archive with Giles showing off archival materials from the cinema. 

We also get copious amounts of extended interviews and outtakes from the talking heads that appear in the doc, these include 60-min of Extended Interviews featuring loads of additional fascinations, plus Outtakes with director Mary Harron (14 min), film critic Nick Kent (30 min), director John Waters (16 min), and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. 

Also included are some cool looks at the animation seen in the doc, by way of a 3-min Cartoons By Davey Jones that features the artist behind animation seen in the doc, plus the brief 40-sec Osbert Parker's SCALA!!! Animation Experiments And Outtakes; and the 54-sec Primatarium Animation; 2-min Scala Programs Animation; and 1-min Tentacles Animation. Extras on disc one are finished-up with a 2-min Trailer for the doc. 

Disc two is dedicated to Short Films and extras related to the short films; that were often screened at the Scala, these include the 41-min Divide and Rule - Never! (Newsreel Collective, 1978); the 20-min Dead Cat (David Lewis, 1989); the 15-min David Lewis Remembers Dead Cat; the 33-min The Mark of Lilith (Bruna Fionda/Polly Gladwin/Zachary Nataf, 1986); the 23-min Relax (Chris Newby, 1991); the 3-min Boobs A Lot (Aggy Read, 1968) which is aptly titled; the 9-min Kama Sutra Rides Again (Bob Godfrey, 1971); the 20-min Coping with Cupid (Viv Albertine, 1991); and the 51-min feminist lesbian crime caper On Guard (Susan Lambert, 1984). My favorites here are the bi-sexual vampire take The Mark of Lilith and the ribald animation of Kama Sutra Rides Again, featuring an middle-aged couples showing a variety of sexual position to keep your sex life active. Dead Cat is interesting in that it stars Genesis P-Orridge and a soundtrack by Psychic TV, and then we have  Coping with Cupid directed by Viv Albertine who was once a member of the post-punk icons The Slits, telling the tale of three lovely alien ladies who visit Earth to explore this thing called love. 

Disc three is packed with more Short Films and Documentaries. Starting off with the docs we have the Scala-jacent 46-min The Art of the Calendar (2024) directed by Kier-La Janisse, which is a fascinating look at calendars used by repertoire and arthouse theaters, some of those examined include The Nuart, The Fox Venice, and of course The Scala. This one is chock full of interesting talking heads and examples of the two-color calendars that were inspired by underground zine art.  The next doc is the 80-min Splatterfest Exhumed  (2024) directed by Jasper Sharp, that takes a look at one of the Scala most infamous all-niter horror-thons Splatterfest, which was organized by a teenager with no previous experience, managing to round up the likes of John McNaughton (Henry: Portrait of Serial Killer), Buddy Giovinazzo (Combat Shock), Scott Spiegel (Within the Woods), Roy Frumkies (Document of the Dead), Brian Yuzna (Bride of Re-Animator), S.P. Somtow (The Laughing Dead), somehow managing to pull it off even with myriad problems and set backs and poor planning. A fascinating documents with input from all of the directors mentioned previously, plus attendees Jasper Sharp, artist Graham Humphreys, Severin's own David Gregory, and loads

Disc 3 also offers more Short Films, starting off with Buddy Giovinazzo's Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie (1986) wherein Joe Spinell plays a deranged clown who exacts revenge on a young girl's parents who mistreat her, this is a gem of a short, shot by director Buddy Giovinazzo who directed Combat Shock (1984). This was shot as a short to help finance a full-length sequel to the first film, but Spinell passed away before it happened. We also get an Audio Commentary For Maniac 2: Mr. Robbie with Buddy Giovinazzo. Up next the 5-min 

Horrorshow (1990), a tale of demonic possession, directed Paul Hart-Wilden, with optional Audio Commentary with  Director Paul Hart-Wilden. One of my favorite inclusions is Josh Becker's Cleveland Smith: Bounty Hunter (1982), starring Bruce Campbell as the titular Indiana Jones knock-off. A Black and white serial send-up, featuring Sam Raimi as the Nazi baddie, which is awesome. We get both the 9-min Original Cut plus the longer 11-min Producer's Cut, with  

an optional Audio Commentary for the Producer's Cut with Producer Scott Spiegel. Disc 3 is buttoned-up with the 7-min Mongolitos (1988), a wild 10-min toilet tale documenting the scatological life of a commode, directed by Stéphane Ambiel, presented here from a 4K restoration, with an optional Audio Commentary with Director Stéphane Ambiel, plus a 16-min The Legendary H.G. Lewis Speaks: 1989 Scala Appearance By The Godfather Of Gore who was invited to present two of his films at the Scala.

The 3-disc Blu-ray set arrives in a black keepcase with a flipper tray housing two of the three discs. We get a single-sided sleeve of artwork featuring a two-color image from inside the Scala in the same style as the two-color (pink and pistachio green) Scala program calendars. This motif is carried over on the design for the Rigid Slipbox featuring a gorgeous image of the Scala cinema, the slipbox has a cool die cut notch to make it easier to extract the keepcase. 

Inside the keepcase there's a 2-Sided Fold-Out Poster featuring a mock-up of the Scala Calendar on one side advertising the shorts and docs on this set, and on the reverse side is a program for the shorts and docs with a brief synopsis for each. Also inside if a cool keepsake, a replica of a Scala Cinema ticket stub/membership

Special Features:

Disc 1
- Audio Commentary With Co-Directors Jane Giles And Ali Catterall
- Introduction From The UK Premiere At The 2023 BFI London Film Festival (12:29) 

- Introduction To SCALA By Director Michael Clifford (3:53) 
- Scala (Michael Clifford, 1990) (36:40) 
- Scala Cinema (Ali Peck/Victor de Jesus, 1992) (3:46) 
- Director Audio Commentary For Scala Cinema
- Scala Programs 1978–1993 (12:07) 
- Cabinet Of Curiosities – Inside The Scala Archive (18:03).
- Extended Interviews (59:55) 
- Mary Harron Outtakes (14:28) 
- Nick Kent Outtakes (29:29) 
- Thurston Moore Outtakes (11:39) 
- John Waters Outtakes (15:30) 
- Cartoons By Davey Jones (3:13) 
- Osbert Parker's SCALA!!! Animation Experiments And Outtakes (0:40).
- Primatarium Animation (0:54) 
- Scala Programs Animation (1:37) 
- Tentacles Animation (1:19) 
- Trailer (1:44) 

Disc 2:
Short Films
- DIVIDE AND RULE – NEVER! (Newsreel Collective, 1978) (40:42
- DEAD CAT (David Lewis, 1989) (19:57) 
David Lewis Remembers DEAD CAT (15:15) 
- THE MARK OF LILITH (Bruna Fionda/Polly Gladwin/Zachary Nataf, 1986)  (33:28) 
- RELAX (Chris Newby, 1991) (23:22) 
- BOOBS A LOT (Aggy Read, 1968) (2:38) 
- KAMA SUTRA RIDES AGAIN (Bob Godfrey, 1971) (9:03) 
- COPING WITH CUPID (Viv Albertine, 1991) (19:02)
- ON GUARD (Susan Lambert, 1984) (51:27)
Disc 3:
Documentaries
- THE ART OF THE CALENDAR (Kier-La Janisse, 2024) (46:00) 
- SPLATTERFEST EXHUMED (Jasper Sharp, 2024) (80:01) 
Short Films
- MANIAC 2: MR. ROBBIE (Buddy Giovinazzo, 1986) (7:25) 
- Audio Commentary For MANIAC 2: MR. ROBBIE With Buddy Giovinazzo
- HORRORSHOW (Paul Hart-Wilden, 1990) (4:42) 
- Audio Commentary For HORRORSHOW With Director Paul Hart-Wilden
- CLEVELAND SMITH: BOUNTY HUNTER (Josh Becker, 1982) – Original Cut (9:11) 
- CLEVELAND SMITH: BOUNTY HUNTER (Josh Becker, 1982) – Producer's Cut (10:39) 
- Audio Commentary For The Producer's Cut Of CLEVELAND SMITH:
- BOUNTY HUNTER With Producer Scott Spiegel
- MONGOLITOS (Stéphane Ambiel, 1988) (7:17) 

- Audio Commentary For MONGOLITOS With Director Stéphane Ambiel
- The Legendary H.G. Lewis Speaks: 1989 Scala Appearance By The Godfather Of Gore (15:44) 

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