HAIL SATAN! Drive-in shocker THE DEVIL'S RAIN (1975) arrives on Blu-ray from SEVERIN FILMS!

THE DEVIL'S RAIN (1975) 

1500 Strictly Limited Numbered Slipcase Available

First HD Release Oozing With New Extras!

One Of The Most Notorious Drive-In Shockers Of The ‘70s

Now Restored In HD For The First Time Ever!

Severin Films invites you to spend your Halloween chanting “Hail Satan!” as they bring THE DEVIL’S RAIN pouring down onto home theater screens across North America, soaking horror fans in the wet, heavy bile excreted by the Devil himself! Each copy of the movie comes with reversible cover art and limited, numbered edition slipcase (only 1500 units) with alternate artwork are be available exclusively from the Severin webstore.

Take an all-star cast – including William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert, Keenan Wynn, Tom Skerritt, Ida Lupino and even John Travolta in his movie debut – at their most hellishly over-the- top. Add one of the most visually inventive filmmakers of the era – director Robert Fuest, of THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES fame – and thrust them into an insane tale of rural occult carnage, featuring Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey as Technical Advisor. Watch in infernal awe as it all hurtles towards the most eye-popping, flesh-melting finale in grindhouse history. Now experience this devilishly infamous classic as you’ve never seen or heard it before, restored in HD for the first time ever and oozing with all-new Extras approved by Lucifer himself!

In addition to this devilish release of the film, Severin has also collaborated with the Church of Satan and it’s merchandising operation iSatanist to produce a stylish pendant necklace recreating the stained glass window from the church seen in the film, available at the Severin Films store or as part of the Prince Of The Abyss bundle.

Pre-Order Available Now!

Prince of the Abyss Bundle Blu With Limited Slip Case & Pendant - $33.00
Devil's Rain Blu with Limited Slip Case - $23.99
Devil's Rain Blu + Pendant - $31.00
Devil's Rain Blu only - $19.99
Devil's Rain DVD - $17.99
Devil's Rain Corbus Pendant - $13.00

*Limited Edition (1,500) slipcase available only through www.Severin-Films.com

Special Features:
- Audio Commentary With Director Robert Fuest
- Confessions Of Tom - Interview With Actor Tom Skerritt
- The Devil's Makeup - Interview With Special FX Artist Tom Burman
- 1975 Archive Interview With Actor William Shatner
- First Stop Durango - Interview With Script Supervisor Ana Maria Quintana
- Consulting with the Devil - A Conversation with the High Priest & High Priestess of the Church of Satan
- Hail Satan! - Interview With Anton LaVey Biographer Blanche Barton
- Filmmaker / Horror Collector Daniel Roebuck On The Devil's Rain
- On Set Polaroid Gallery Of Script Supervisor Ana Maria Quintana Accompanied By Radio Spots
- Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spots
- Poster/Still Gallery

Corbis Pendant (Front)

Corbis Pendant (Back)

Blu-ray Review: MR. SARDONICUS /THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN

MR. SARDONICUS / THE BROTHERHOOD OF SATAN 

Blu-ray Double Feature 

Label: Mill Creek Entertainment
Region Code: A
Duration: 69/92 Minutes 
Rating: Unrated / PG
Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 with Optional SDH French and English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p Widescreen (1.85:1) (2.35:1) 
Director: William Castle, Bernard McEveety
Cast: Ronald Lewis, Audrey Dalton, Guy Rolfe, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Oscar Homolka, Ahna Capri

Synopsis: This creepy horror classic is based on a novella by screenwriter Ray Russell (X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes), and is brought to life by William Castle (13 Ghosts), master of terror! Desperate to retrieve a winning lottery ticket, a greedy baron unearths his father s corpse. An enormous jackpot is his reward, but not without a price his face is frozen permanently into a hideous grin. He enlists his fiendish one-eyed servant to help him lift this horrible curse, but their schemes fail. Finally, he turns to a noted neurosurgeon and his wife s former lover to cure him.

There's never a bad time to watch a William Castle production and tonight was definitely the time to watch Mr. Sardonicus (1961), it was hitting almost all of the right notes for me.  There's a great foggy London-set intro from William Castle himself, ever the showman he comes off as the schlocky Hitchcock, which is very appropriate. We're introduced to a London doctor named Sir Robert Cargrave (Ronald Lewis, Scream of Fear) whom receives a letter from an old flame, Maude (Audrey Dalton, The Monster That Challenged the World) imploring him to visit her, apparently it's a matter of life and death. Once he arrives it's quickly revealed she was coerced into summoning him by her husband Baron Sardonicus, a real bastard played to perfection by Puppet Master 3's Guy Rolfe. The Baron wishes for Cargrave to cure him of a horrible affliction  the Baron  after unearthing his own father's corpse from the grave to obtain a winning lottery ticket he was stricken with a permanently grotesque smile across his face, this aspect reminded me of The Man Who Smiles (1939), if the doctor should refuse or fail to succeed in devising a treatment Maude's life hangs in the balance.

It was a blast to see Guy Rolfe as a younger man, loved him from the few Puppet Master entries from Full Moon. Early on in the film the Baron's face is hidden, shrouded in mystery beneath as mask, which was pretty great. Once the hideous affliction is revealed it's a whole new level of weird, he's a creepy villain and he comes with a one-eyed man servant named Krull (Oskar Homolka, The Seven Year Itch) who threatens to steal most of the scenes he appears in, it's great stuff. As great as Homolka is it's Guy Rolfe who definitely steals the show with his maniacal charisma, not to diminish a strong performance from Ronald Lewis as our hero and Audrey Dalton who turns in a smaller performance but as a sympathetic heroin she's quite fine.  

A fun watch, it drags from time to time, your mileage may vary depending on your temperance for black and white, it's a William Castle production so you just know that there's a gimmick, this time out it's a choose-your-own-ending feature, sorta. Unfortunately we don't get zapped in our asses with an electric shock but this is still an entertaining watch in the tradition of a twisty Twilight Zone episode. 

Synopsis: Children are mysteriously disappearing, their parents are being violently murdered and strangely enough, no one has been able to leave! When their car stalls, Ben and his family are stranded and are forced to join the sheriff, a priest and the prominent Doc Duncan in trying to unravel this frightening web of events. Suddenly, KT disappears, triggering a frantic search that results in the startling discovery of a deadly coven, led by Doc Duncan himself! Ben and the others must make a desperate attempt to stop these witches from performing a satanic ritual that transports their malevolent spirits into the innocent children thus creating yet another generation of satanic worshipers!

While not a William Castle production Bernard McEveety's The Brotherhood of Satan (1971) certainly owes a debt to the William Castle produced and Roman Polanski directed Rosemary's Baby (1968), a sweet slice of Satanic paranoia from producer L.Q. Jones who acted in many films including Martin Scorsese's Casino (1995) as well as producing and directing a few of his own, most notable the post-apocalyptic A Boy and His Dog (1975) featuring a very young Don Johnson (Django) and his telepathic dog, which I highly recommend!

The film begins with a great scene which sorta blurs the lines of reality and fiction as a bratty kid playing with a toy tank crushes and entire family in a station wagon, it's pretty bloody, too. Next scene were onto a family outing in the desert with, there's the father Ben Holden (TV's Charles Bateman) and his annoying daughter K.T. (Geri Reisch, I Dismember Mama), also along for the ride is Ben's girlfriend Nicky (Ahna Capri, Enter the Dragon). They're on the road when they come across the bloody and twisted wreckage from the start of the film, they do what pretty much anyone would and drive into the nearest village to alert the authorities. However, when they arrive the entire town is in a state of pure panic and paranoia, even the town Sheriff (L.Q. Jones) treats the family pretty hostile, a man attacks Ben with an ax screaming "You took them from me!" and the trio jump back in the car just barely escape the mob with their skulls intact. Driving down the road a ways Ben swerves to avoid striking the apparition of a young girl and the car is kaput, stranded on the side of the road as the noon day sun beats down they have few choices other than to head back to the strange village. 

Once there things are a bit less hostile but just as weird and only get weirder, the Sheriff and his Deputy (Alvy Moore, A Boy and His Dog) along with the priest (Charles Robinson, The Cable Guy) and the town doc Mr. Duncan (Strother Martin, The Wild Bunch) set about sleuthing the heinous murders of adult-population and the mysterious disappearance of the town's children. The townsfolk are stressed, sleep deprived, paranoid and at their wits end. It turns out a Satanic Cult is committing the ritualistic murders and turning the town's tots into Satanic occultists in an attempt to gain unholy immortality, and guess what, it's the grandfatherly doc that's the cult leader! 

This is such a great watch, Martin is amazing as the feisty cult leader, maniacal and just chewing up the scenery while leading a group of satanic seniors bent on immortality in services the the Dark Lord. It's drenched in great 70's atmosphere and there's a ton of blood and dismemberment for a PG film, one victim is clawed to death like skinned rabbit tossed into a chicken pen, it's pretty grotesque for PG rating! This schlocky Satanic nightmare is peppered with murderous children, creepy killer dolls, and spooky woods oozing with fog, this was quite the ocult production with some great set pieces.

The finale is superb and unhinged in all the right ways as the cult gather in an underground tomb to perform their unholy ritual with diabolically over-the top incantations "Greetings Dear One, 'Tis We!", only Burgess Meredith could have outdone Martin's elderly satanic MC, this is a fantastic watch and the only thing that irked me was Geri Reisch, who was quite an annoying child actor!

Blu-ray: Over the years Mill Creek has acquired a decent reputation for some very nice public domain budget collections if not for exactly known for stunning transfers but lately we've seen some rather nice 1080p presentations from 'em and I am impressed with what we get here. Both films licensed from the Sony/Columbia Pictures catalog receive pleasing AVC encodes in their original aspect ratios. Mr. Sardonicus' black and white cinematography is crisp and finely detailed with a nice grayscale and decent contrast levels, the print is not pristine and we do get the occasional white speckle but overall this is a fantastic presentation. The Brotherhood of Satan is presented in wonderful color, it's not exactly stunning but there's some nice film grain intact and along with it a pleasing amount of fine detail, it's a very attractive presentation. 

The double feature disc sports English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 with Optional SDH French and English Subtitles for both films and while it's free of annoying hiss, crackle and pops it's flat and pretty narrow in it's range, it's  acceptable and Von Dexter's eerie score for Mr. Sardonicus comes through quite nicely. The disc is bare-bones affair and there are no special features included but a very nice transfer and acceptable audio are much appreciated. 

Verdict: After the fantastic Happy Birthday to Me/When a Stranger Calls double feature Blu-ray this is my favorite Mill Creek title to date, a great 1080p transfer for two fantastic tales of terror! The Brotherhood of Satan is the highlight here, a colorfully creepy slice of satanic cinema that would make a great double-feature with Race with the Devil (1975). This budget-minded release gets a high recommend, so dig in! 4 Outta 5 

'3 SLICES OF LIFE' creators stir-up a Satanic Panic with 'LEWIS'

I had the opportunity to checkout a sneak peek of the short film LEWIS this weekend, it's a fun throwback to the Satanic Panic films of the 1970's and should appeal to fans of 70's occult cinema and Ti West's THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL. The film comes from the filmmakers behind 3 SLICES OF LIFE and will be part of the PSYCHO STREET horror anthology. The short is a co-production between TinyCore Pictures and Musclewolf Productions and is directed by Anthony G. Sumner (SLICES OF LIFE, GALLERY OF FEAR) and stars Deneen Melody (SONG OF THE SHATTERED), Jerry Murdock (I'LL BURY YOU TOMORROW) and Susan Adriensen (UNDER THE RAVEN'S WING). 

When Amanda (Deneen Melody) and her young daughter Aubrey (Taylor Metzger) return to the site of a traumatic childhood event, the small village of Kronanburg, things start off odd and quickly descend into an unimaginable nightmare. Between Aubrey's imaginary friend, Amanda's frightening visions and the peculiar small town folk something is definitely rotten in Kronanburg, but will Amanda discover the terrible truth before it's too late for her daughter and her? That's the premise, it's succinctly simple and pretty awesome.

LEWIS is an artful throwback to the Satanic Panic drive-in flicks of the 70's and really captures the period aesthetic, throws in some disturbing erotica, occult and Cthulu elements, and by the end of the film I was left wanting more but in a good way. The film looks great, and the cinematography really evokes the period, the tone is perfect and the effects are of the gloriously old school practical variety, good bloody stuff. There's nothing I did not love about this flick, right down to that fantastically retro-styled poster.

Not sure when the film will be coming to DVD but it's gonna be travelling the film festival circuit this fall so grab a viewing if you can. There's been a few awesome indie-anthologies in recent years, 3 SLICES OF LIFE and DRIVE-IN HORROSHOW come immediately to mind, and if LEWIS is an indication of what to expect from the remainder of PSYCHO STREET you're not gonna want to miss this one. Check out the trailer and go to the site for more information.

http://www.myfriendlewis.com/

The PSYCHO STREET horror anthology consists of four frightening tales that feature the talents of actors Raine Brown (PSYCHO HOLOCAUST), Tiffany Shepis (THE FRANKENSTEIN SYNDROME ) and Deneen Melody (3 SLICES OF LIFE) among others. The film will premiere this week at Fright Night Film fest in Louisville KY on July 22nd. No DVD release date is available at this time.

COME ON DOWN
Directors: Arthur Cullipher, Patrick Desmond
Cast: Tiffany Shepis (FRANKENSTEIN SYNDROME), Raine Brown, Jared Degado, Austin Dossey.

HYPOCHONDRIAC

Director: Pete Jacelone

Cast: Marv Blauvelt, Raine Brown, Alan Rowe Kelly, Carl Burrows.


NO REST FOR THE WICKED 
Directors: Raine Brown and Jeremiah Kipp
Cast: Raine Brown, Matthew Bonacci, Joe Zasoand Harry Dugan.

LEWIS
Directors: Anthony G. Sumner
Cast: Deneen Melody, Jerry Murdock, Susan Adriensen, Nick Morano.