THE HOUSES OF DOOM (1989)
Cauldron Films Standalone Blu-ray Releases
THE HOUSE OF CLOCKS (1989)
THE SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS (1989)
THE HOUSE OF WITCHCRAFT (1989)
THE HOUSE OF LOST SOULS (1989)
With Italian cinema in a state of rapid decline in the ate-80's as attention turned towards television these four films were designed as made-for-TV terrors, two film each directed by titans of Italian genre-cinema. The House of Clocks and The Sweet House of Horror were directed by splatter-king Lucio Fulci (The Beyond) while The House of Witchcraft and The House of Lost Souls were directed by Umberto Lenzi (Almost Human) who made a name for himself with stylish gialli and violent Poliziotteschi films. Perhaps not surprisingly the four films were deemed a tad to gory, violent and risqué for TV audiences of the era, and went largely unseen for many years before creeping out on DVD from Media Blasters imprint Shriek Show in the early '00s, looking pretty ugly to be honest, until now, saved from unsightly SD purgatory with fresh 2K scans in HD!
Label: Cauldron Films
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 83 Minutes 36 Seconds
Audio: English or Italian Mono 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Lucio Fulci
Cast: Al Cliver, Keith Van Hoven, Karina Huff
In Lucio Fulci's The House of Clocks three young weed-smoking hoodlums, Sandra (Karina Huff, The Black Cat), Tony (Keith Van Hoven, Black Demons) and Paul (Peter Hint, Zone Troopers), who are on A Clockwork Orange-esque countryside crime-bender when they stop off at a manor owned by elderly couple, Victor (Paolo Paoloni, Cannibal Holocaust) and Sarah (Bettine Milne, Tea with Mussolini), feigning car troubles. They off them alongside their hired-hand Peter (Al Cliver, Zombie) with the intention of robbing the place and moving on. However, once they kill them the elderly couple's guard dogs precent the killers from leaving, and all the clocks in the all start moving backward, and the dead return to life! It turns out the old couple were a couple of sadistic freaks, and already had three corpses lying around the house when the trio of hoodlums arrived, including their maid Maria (Carla Cassola, The Sect), and their greedy nephew (Paolo Bernardi) and his wife (Francesca DeRose). Even by the usual Fulci dream-logic standard this one is chockful of WTF-ery, and pretty gory as well with a crotch=impaling, stabbed hands, bloody shotgun blasts, grotesque corpse make-ups, and even a tiny little bit of nudity, plus a tasty synth soundtrack by Vince Tempera (The Psychic). Top-tier Fulci it is not, but it's got plenty of atmosphere, some nice countryside scenery, and plenty of gore, plus a ridiculous 'was it all just a dream' sequence finale is rather stupid, wrenching in a black cat angle that we did not need.
Special Features:
Disc 1: (Blu-ray - Features + Extras)
- Audio Commentary by Eugenio Ercolani, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth
- Lighting the House of Time: An interview with cinematographer Nino Celeste (24:45)
- Time and Music: An interview with composer Vince Tempera (28:27)
- Working with a Master: An interview with 1st AD Michele De Angelis (23:57)
- Time with Fulci: An interview with FX artist Elio Terribili (19:19)
- Archival interview with Paolo Paoloni (5:28)
- Archival interview with Carla Cassola (9:32)
- Archival interview with Al Cliver (1:33)
- Promo (4:42)
Label: Cauldron Films
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 82 Minutes 48 Seconds
Audio: English or Italian Mono 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Lucio Fulci
Cast: Jean-Christophe Brétignière, Cinzia Monreale, Lubka Lenzi
Also directed by Lucio Fulci is The Sweet House of Horrors, opening with a patented Fulci bit of ultra violence as wealthy couple Mary (Lubka Lenzi, Massacre) and Roberto (Pascal Persiano, Paganini Horror) return to their countryside mansion after attending a party. They interrupt a burglary in process and are brutally murdered, both have their brains smashed in by the masked intruder. Upon their death their two young children Sarah (Ilary Blasi) and Marco (Giuliano Gensini) are left in the care of their mother's sister Marcia (Cinzia Monreale, The Beyond) and her husband Carloaunt (Jean-Christophe Brétignière, Rats: Night of Terror), living on the family estate of ther parents
After the gory initial opening the film sort of settles into a kid-friendly ghost story with the grief-stricken kids looking to communicate with their dead parents. Fulci was no stranger to haunted kids, having made The House by the Cemetery and Manhattan Baby. The kids are hanted by their own parents, represented by floating candleflames, which is a nice old school haunting touch.
The distraught kids seek to communicate with the ghosts of their parents, the spirits causing injury to real estate agent Mr. Coby (Franco Diogene, Strip Nude for Your Killer) and the secretive gardener Guido (Lino Salemme, Demons), causing the increasingly frustrated aunt and uncle to call in an exorcist (Vernon Dobtcheff, The Spy Who Loved Me) to rid the home of the restless spirits. I thought this as fairly entertaining ghost tale we get the Fulci violence the start before settles into nearly kiddie friendly territory, only for the kid's parent's true killer to get what's coming to him. This one is lensed by cinematographer Sebastiano Celeste (The Spider Labyrinth) who also shot The House of Clocks, it has the same sort of soft, somewhat hazy lensing that a lot of these late-80s Italian horror flicks seemed to peddle in, plus another tasty synth score by Vince Tempera (The Paganini Horror). If memory serves me well, past watches of this and The House of Clocks had me favoring this over Clocks, but this time around, seeing them both in HD and looking better than ever, I have to say I preferred Clocks, I found the tone of this one off-putting, not to mention the atrocious dubbing for the kids, which is on the level of "Bob" from House by the the Cemetery.
Special Features:
Disc 1: (Blu-ray - Features + Extras)
- Audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
- Fulci House of Horrors: Interview with set designer Massimo Antonello Geleng (16:43)
- Sweet Muse of Horrors: Interview with actress Cinzia Monreale (28:55)
- Editing for the masters: Interview with editor Alberto Moriani (18:06)
- Archival interview with Gigliola Battaglini (3:05)
- Archival Intro with Cinzia Monreale (0:48)
- Archival interview with Cinzia Monreale (6:49)
- Archival interview with Jean-Christophe Brétigniere (3:49)
- Archival interview with Lino Salemme (10:56)
- Archival interview with Pascal Persiano (3:46)
- Promo (4:40)
- Cast Audition Tapes (1:11:26)
Label: Cauldron Films
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 89 Minutes
Audio: English or Italian Mono 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Umberto Lenzi
Cast: Andy J. Forest, Sonia Petrovna, Susanna Martinková
The first of the Umberto Lenzi (Nightmare City) directed flicks is The House of Witchcraft, wherein journalist Luke Palmer (Andy J. Forest, Bridge to Hell) who has been recovering from a nervous breakdown at a mental health facility under the care of his physician sister Elsa (Susana Martinkova, Frivolous Lola), has been suffering from nightmares of a witch cutting off his head and throwing into a boiling cauldron. To help ease his mind his wife occult-obsessed Martha (Sonia Petrovna, TV's The Edge of Night) whisks him away to an idyllic country home for a weekend getaway at a cottage is owned by the blind Andrew Mason (Paul Muller, She Killed in Ecstasy). The cottage-getaway seems like a great idea, but it turns out it's the same cottage from his nightmares, which does not bode well. Things get off to a rough start when he and his wife are involved in a fatal accident and she decides to flee the scene, furthermore, he witness's the hag witch (Maria Clementina Cumani Quasimodo, Five Women of the Killer) from his dreams axe a priest to death, only for the body to disappear. Luke's wife continues to act very strange, walking around in her sleep, and more victims fall prey to the witch, but again the bodies disappear, leaving the distraught journalist thinking that maybe he's imaging all of it, or maybe he's about to lose his head for real.
The film is well shot by Giancarlo Ferrando (Troll 2), with an effective score by Claudio Simonetti (Opera), and features some, haunting imagery and effective bits of violence, most notably the decapitation sequences showing Luke losing his head, and the surreal moment that it starts snowing inthe basement of the rental coverage, and some not unappreciated nudity from the lovely Petrovna. I thought that Andy J. Forest was pretty wooden in the lead role, and he dubbing certainly didn;t help but I quite enjoyed the surreal occult vibes and the few visceral moments of violence, and it has strong vibes of Lenzi's spooktacular Ghosthouse (1988) which was made the previously year, and if you dig that one you will probably dig this made-for-TV witch tale.
Special Features:
- Audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth
- Artisan of Mayhem: Interview with FX artist Elio Terribili
- The House of Professionals: Interview with cinematographer Nino Celeste
- Audio commentary by Eugenio Ercolani, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth
Label: Cauldron Films
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 87 Minutes 27 Seconds
Audio: English or Italian Mono 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Director: Umberto Lenzi
Cast: Joseph Alan Johnson, Stefania Orsola Garello, Hal Yamanouchi
The second of the Umberto Lenzi flicks is The House of Lost Souls, which has a strong The Shining vibe, wherein a group of young geologists, including Kevin (Joseph Alan Johnson, The Slumber Party Massacre), his girlfriend Carla (Stefania Orsola Garello, The Flesh and the Devil), goofball Guido (Gianluigi Fogacci) and his girlfriend Mary (Laurentina Guidotti, Spectres), and Massimo (Matteo Gazzolo, Body Puzzle) and the youngest of the group Gianluca (Costantino Meloni, Who Killed Pasolini?), find themselves stranded on the road in Italy because of a landslide, causing them to refuge in a dilapidated Hotel dell’Eremita where the sinister-looking proprietor (Charles Borromel, Absurd) rents them rooms. However after they have checked in and settled in for the night the hotel comes alive with the vengeful spirits of the undead who haunt the place. As with The House of Witchcraft we have a character with dream premonitions by way of Carla who experiences visons of tarantulas, a skeleton in a wheelchair, murderous monk (Hal Yamanouchi, Off Balance) and creepy crawlies. The flick has some solid ghostly atmosphere and creepiness, with some nice bits of violence by way of decapitation by dumb waiter, decapitation by washing machine, and visions of an old man axe murdering a woman and a child, plus an amped-up ghostly finale that is all sort of awesome, all of it enhanced by a soundtrack from Claudio Simonetti of Goblin, which sounds like it's recycling some of the music cues from Demons. Again, the dub on this one is pretty suspect, especially the kid, but it's also quite entertaining at the same time, so I will allow it.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Samm Deighan
- Audio Commentary by Rod Barnett and Adrian Smith
- Working with Umberto: Interview with FX artist Elio Terribili (18.37)
- The House of Rock: Interview with composer Claudio Simonetti 14:22
- The Criminal Cinema of Umberto Lenzi: Career spanning interview from 2001 (52:14)
Audio/Video: All four films are making their worldwide Blu-ray debuts on region-free discs from Cauldron films, presented in 1080p HD framed in 1.66:1 widescreen, advertised as sourced from 2K restorations of the original film negatives. These were all previously issued on DVD from Media Basters imprint Shriek Show back in 2002, and those releases while appreciated at the time looked like crud - murky, ill-defined and ugly-as-sin, but these new HD presentations look phenomenal. Grain is preserved and looks authentic to a shot-on-16mm film, colors look natural, and black levels are solid. The Fulci flicks have that soft-focus look to them that he was known for, but the HD presentation is much sharper and tighter looking than the old DVDs, it's quite remarkable looking actually. The Lenzi flicks are less hazy looking and look sharper and crisper with well-saturated colors and deep shadows.. Audio on all four includes choice of English or Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with option English subtitles. Both are dubbed as Italian cinema at this time shot without sync-sound, and while the English dubs are a bit dopey and corny at times, they sound fine, but the Italian tracks are the more nuanced and pleasing to the ears.
These discs are stacked with extras, including new audio commentaries for the four films, we get Eugenio Ercolani, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth tackling House of Clocks and The House of Witchcraft, Ercolani and Howarth for Sweet House of Horrors, with The House of Lost Souls getting two new audio commentaries, the first with film historian Samm Deighan, plus another with Rod Barnett and Adrian Smith of the Wild, Wild Podcast.
We also get hours of interviews, including new interviews produced by Eugenio Ercolani, these include cinematographer Nino Celeste, composer Vince Tempera, 1st AD Michele De Angelis for The House of Clocks, FX artist Elio Terribili; set designer Massimo Antonello Geleng, actress Cinzia Monreale and editor Alberto Moriani for The Sweet House of Horrors; FX artist Elio Terribili and cinematographer Nino Celeste for The House of Witchcaft; plus FX artist Elio Terribili and composer Claudio Simonetti for The House of Lost Souls.
Archival interviews carried over from the previous Shriek Show DVDs include Paolo Paoloni, Carla Cassola and Al Cliver for House of Clocks, Gigliola Battaglini, Cinzia Monreale, Jean-Christophe Brétigniere Lino Salemme, and Pascal Persiano for Sweet House of Horrors.
Other goodies spread across the discs include a 52-min career spanning interview with Lenzi from 2001 on The House of Lost Souls, promos for both ofthe Fulci flicks, and 71-min of Production Footage and Audition Tapes for Sweet House of Horrors, plus an brief archival intro for The Sweet House of Horrors by actress Cinzia Monreale.
These standalone single-disc releases each arrive in an oversize clear Scanavo keepcases with 2-sided non-reversible sleeves of artwork featuring tasty front cover artwork by Matthew Therrien with title treatments by Eric Lee on the front and a scene from each of the films on the reverse, the disc themselves also featuring excerpts of the same artwork.
If you missed out on the Limited Edition set what you're missing are the Rigid Slipcase that houses the four keepcases, the 2xCDs featuring The Sweet House of Horrors and The House of Clocks scores by soundtrack by Vince Tempera, but you get the same terrific A/V presentation and Blu-ray disc extras, and the very cool artwork.
If you're an Italian horror fan these made-for-TV flicks from the iconic Fulci and Lenzi are must-haves, sure they seem slightly budget-anemic, and the stories themselves are not exactly original or gut-spewing gory, but they are each entertaining tales of old dark houses chock full of weirdness and atmosphere, plus they are surprisingly bloody for what were intended as made-for-TV, which is sort of shocking that they thought these were gonna be suitable for prime time family viewing!
This is a terrific set, and it has me primed for Cauldron's next box set, that being the 4xBlu-ray 1xCD release of Brivido Giallo, celebrating the made-for-TV films of Lamberto Bava (Demons, A Blade in the Dark), marking the HD debuts of the flicks Graveyard Disturbance, Until Death, The Ogre, Dinner with a Vampire with new 2K scans, loads of extras, and a CD soundtrack compilation by Simon Boswell (Santa Sangre) - which can be purchased from Cauldron films HERE, and ships this month, so get on it!
Screenshots from the Cauldron Films Blu-ray:
Buy Them!
The House of Clocks (1989)
The Sweet House of Horrors (1989)
The House of Witchcraft (1989)
The House of Lost Souls (1989)
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