UP! (1976) (Severin Films Blu-ray Review + Screenshots)

UP! (1976) 

Label: Severin Films

Region Code: Region-Free 

Rating: Unrated 

Duration: 80 Minutes 17 Seconds 

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.851) 

Director: Russ Meyer

Cast: Raven De La Croix, Kitten Natividad 

What have we here? Could it be a murder mystery wherein kinky Adolph Hitler, who did not really die at the end of WWII, is hiding out in a castle in Northern California? Well, sort of! Russ Meyer's bonkers sex-comedy Up! (1976), which was co-written by screenwriter cum film critic Roger Ebert, starts off with a sex-filled opening credit sequence, before settling on castle location somewhere in mountainous NoCal location, where the genocidal mass-murderer, under the assumed name Adolph Schwartz (Edward Schaaf, The Desert Raven), is being treated to an S&M orgy involving The Headsperson (Candy Samples, Flesh Gordon), The Ethiopian Chef (Elaine Collins, Fantasm Comes Again), Limehouse (Su Ling, Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks), and curiously or not,  also with a dude named Paul (Robert McLane, A Very Natural Thing) who sodomizes der führer at his request, while dressed-up like a Pilgrim. After the sex and humiliation marathon Adolph settles in for a bath when a black-gloved stranger enters the bathroom and murders him by throwing a flesh-eating piranha into his bathwater. We then get a nude Kitten Natividad (Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens) as The Greek Chorus perched high atop a tree laying out story and plot elements. She continually pops-up throughout the film, usually nude in a tree just to remind us that we are watching a murder mystery, which is sort of helpful as the plot gets lost a few different times here, not that you will notice because of all the beavers, busts and energetic sex on display, this thing is absolutely dripping with softcore scintillation.  

We're then introduced to the very busty Margo Winchester (Raven De La Croix, The Happy Hooker Goes To Washington) who is jogging into the mountain town of Miranda, her revealing outfit, overly ample bosom, and cute looks catch the attention of horny Sheriff Homer Johnson (Monte Bane, Sleepwalkers) makes a pass at her, but Margo rejects him, She is then picked up by the more insistent Leonard Box (Larry Dean) who turns out to be a rapist brute, chasing her into the wilderness and knocking her unconscious and raping her while she's conked out. When she comes to she pretty pissed off by all this, and kills him by breaking his neck. Somehow Sheriff Johnson just happens to show up just after she's killed Leonard, but he lets her off the hook, realizing that Box was a no-good piece of shit, and that his father who draws a lot of water in this town would most likely have her put away for a good long time, even if it was self defense. The cop and Margo turn out to have terrific sexual chemistry, and we are then treated to a long montage of them fucking in the woods. Meyers was always the king of filming sex in rugged outdoor spaces, and this flick has that in abundance. 

Homer helps her get a job at the local greasy spoon Alice's Cafe, run by Alice (Janet Wood, The Centerfold Girls) and her husband Paul, who was the guy sexually servicing Schwartz at the start of the film. Her chesty presence causes business at the diner to surge, and needless to say neither Homer nor Miranda are faithful to each other. The cop is busting women and letting them off with warnings and a blow-job in his patrol care, while Miranda goes skinny-dipping with Paul and doing more fucking out in the woods. 

The bonkers violence and sex stuff found in this 80-minute film is jaw-dropping, and the humor and sight-gags are out of Looney Tunes cartoon - so pretty typical Russ Meyers stuff. The non-sequiturs come fast a furious, while Homer is fucking a girl dressed up as Pocahontas (Foxy Lae, indeed) he kicks her out of bed when he hears Miranda returning home, jumping in the shower to clean himself off he scalds his cock on the hot water, with Miranda noting that his pecker is red and it looks like he's been fucking an Indian - that's about par for the course when it comes to the sort of humor found here. The violence is pretty bananas, too. Miranda is raped early on, and then again at the diner after she does a sexy dance on the table, overly-exciting dim-witted logger Rafe (The Norliss Tapes, Head of the Family), loses control and rapes her once more, which kicks off the feverish finale that features homer getting a doubled-bitted axe tot he chest, somehow surviving long enough to chase after Rafe with a chainsaw and bloodily dispatching him. This might be the nastiest bit of business in a Meyer's flick since that bathtub stomping that Charles Napier delivered in SuperVixens, it's actually quite a mean-spirited flick, but with that heightened Russ Meyer's cartoonish-ness about it all, also. 

Like Meyer's last film Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens this is a hyperactive, sex-crazed bit of exploitation with a dizzying, often incomprehensible storyline, but with Meyer's eye for gorgeous busty women, eye for attractive rugged scenery, and rapid-fire editing, combined with the x-rated Looney Tunes humor, this is just an ace watch. Oh, and the murder mystery? It is resolved, and it's just as, if not more, batshit insane as you might have anticipated. 

Audio/Video: now scanned in 4K from the original negative by Severin Films with new and archival Special Features curated in association with The Russ Meyer Trust. Like the other Meyer's films from Severin recently the restoration looks gorgeous with vivid colors, excellent depth and clarity, and looking spotless with well-managed film grain. Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono with optional English subtitles, and it sounds terrific, zero complaints about the A/V.

As with all the recent Meyer's releases from Severin I found the lack of new extras a bit disappointing, and without having any inside information I feel this has to be a stipulation of the contract they signed, because Severin usually stack their discs with bonus junk. What we do get is a Audio Commentary With Film Historian Elizabeth Purchell; the 18-min archival No Fairy Tale... This! – Interview With Actress Raven De La Croix; plus a 31-sec Radio Spot. The single-disc release arrives in a black keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork, which emulate the vintage Russ Meyers Merchandising Corp. VHS tapes, which is cool. 

Special Features: 
- Audio Commentary With Film Historian Elizabeth Purchell
- No Fairy Tale... This! – Interview With Actress Raven De La Croix (18:06) 
- Radio Spot (00:31) 

Screenshots from the Severin Films Blu-ray: 

Extras: 

Buy it!

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