MY NIGHTS WITH SUSAN, SANDRA, OLGA & JULIE (1975) (Cult Epics Blu-ray Review)

MY NIGHTS WITH SUSAN, SANDRA, OLGA & JULIE (1975)

Label: Cult Epics
Duration: 85 Minutes
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Audio: Dutch DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Director: Pim de la Parra
Cast: Willeke Van Ammelrooy, Nelly Frijda, Hans van der Gragt, Marja de Heer, Franulka Heyermans, Serge-Henri Valcke

Erotic-thriller/black comedy My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie (1975) was the last of Scorpio’s “Dutch Sex Wave” exploitation films, directed by Pim de la Parra (Obsession) with cinematography by Marc Felperlaan (The Lift), featuring the last ever score by composer Elisabeth Lutyens (Never Take Sweets from a Stranger).

The film opens in the rural Dutch countryside where the sexy and promiscuous young women Sandra (Marja de Heer) and Olga (Franulka Heyermans) are picked-up by an American tourist driving through the area. Along the way the trio crack open and bottle of bourbon and before you know it they're pulled over on the side of the road getting to know each other intimately. While he's giving it to one of the ladies the other one for reasons not quite clear picks up the bourbon bottle and whacks him over the head with it, killing him instantly. The girls drive the corpse to a nearby pond and dump his corpse in the water attempting to cover-up their crime, unaware they are being spied upon while doing so. 

They abandon the car and return home, a sort of communal living arrangement where they share a house with a former model named Susan (Willeke Van Ammelrooy, Frank & Eva), the very-sleepy looker Julie (Marieke van Leeuwen) and an anti-social weirdo named Albert (Serge-Henri Valcke, The Lift) who keeps hidden away in a windowless room. Unbeknownst to nympho-killers Sandra and Olga Albert has a peep hole looking right into their bedroom, with him becoming privy to their murderous ways and erotic activities. 

The living arrangement at the house begins to sour with the arrival of new guy Anton (Hans van der Gragt), a young man who seems to be trying to recruit Susan back into modeling world. He ends up staying for a few days and becomes infatuated with all the young women at the house, bedding several of them, as you did in the 70's, I guess. During his stay he becomes increasingly alarmed by the activities in and around the house, including the presence of an dim-witted female weirdo named Piet (Nelly Frijda) who lives in a shack near the property, and who has gone and picked-up the water-logged corpse of the American tourist for her own amusements.

The film is a solid little thriller with plenty of skin, though it's no mere skin show, there are some rather interesting and notable moments of suspense and tension throughout, along with a strange sense of humor that I found very pleasing. 

Audio/Video: My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie (1975) arrives on region-free Blu-ray+DVD combo from Cult Epics with a new HD restoration & transfer sourced from a 35mm print of the film. The 2.35:1 framed image looks solid for a print, colors are nicely saturated, and blacks are decent looking. While there's a bit of white speckling throughout there's not as much as I anticipated, and the grain is well-managed if a bit course, but overall this is a pleasing HD image.   

The disc includes a par of audio options, both the original Dutch and an English-dub via DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono. The Dutch is more natural sounding with better fluidity and nuance. I found the boxy English-dub a bit distracting, probably adding a bit more humor to the film that was originally intended. The atmospheric score from Hammer/Amicus regular Elisabeth Lutyens sounds great. Notably the English dub is sourced from an eighties VHS cassette, so the fidelity of it is of much lower quality, and is also a different translation that the original Dutch audio dialogue, but I commend Cult Epics for the completest inclusion.

Extras on this release include an 11-min introduction from the director who speaks about the troubled production history of the film, as well as his intention to cast of Rutger Hauer  (The Hitcher) in the lead male role! We also get a trio of short films spanning from '66-'70, plus an image gallery and trailers for all four of the Scorpio films currently available from Cult Epics. 

The 2-disc DVD/Blu-ray combo arrives in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork, the same artwork featured on the wrap also appears on the DVD disc, the Blu-ray disc features a tantalizing illustration of a threesome from the Italian poster artwork  which is available as a limited edition of 500 slipcover when ordered directly through the Cult Epics website. The DVD mirrors the exact same content as the Blu-ray, in standard-definition. 

Special Features:
- New HD Restoration & Transfer from 35mm original print
- Introduction by director Pim de la Parra (2019) (11 min) HD
- Scorpio Short Films: Heart Beat Fresco (1966)(10 min) HD, Joop (1969) (11 min) HD, Joop Strikes Again (1970) (11 min) HD
- Original Scorpio Films Trailers (HD)
- Poster & Photo gallery

My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie (1975) is a quirky Dutch thriller with ample amounts of naughty eroticism and weird little touches that keep it plenty entertaining. It never wears out it's welcome and ending with an odd bit of macabre strangeness that really put a smile on my face. Of the three that I've seen this is my favorite of the four Scorpio films released by Cult Epics, though I have yet to catch up with Blue Movie (1971). With it's broader appeal this ones comes highly recommended for fans of erotic thrillers with an offbeat slant. 

AMSTERDAMNED (1988) (Blue Underground Blu-ray Review)

AMSTERDAMNED (1988) 

LIMITED EDITION (3000) 2-DISC DVD/BD 

Label: Blue Underground 
Release Date: August 29th 2017 
Rating:  R
Duration: 113 Minutes 
Region Code: Region-FREE
Video: 1080P HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 
Audio: Blu-ray: Dutch DTS-HD 5.1; Dutch, English: DTS-HD MA 2.0; French: Dolby Digital Stereo / DVD: Dutch Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX; Dutch, English, French Dolby Digital Stereo with Optional English, English SDH, Español Subtitles 
Director: Dick Maas
Cast: Huub Stapel, Monique van de Ven, Serge-Henri Valcke

Dutch slasher Amsterdamned (1988) comes to us from the director of the Christmas crime-slasher Sint (Saint) from 2001, but this action-slasher is maybe even more odd than that weird genre mash-up. Here we have a scuba-diving slasher stalking the canals of Amsterdam, and that's pretty weird, but also a rather good slasher film with strong police procedural elements and some keen action set-pieces. 

The film opens with a POV shot of our scuba-slasher stalking the canals of Amsterdam, his POV rising out of the water like the shark in Jaws, eventually coming across prostitute who's already had a shitty night, but it's about to get even worse. The black dive-suited attacker leaps from the canal and plunges a diver's knife into her flesh before dragging her into the murky depth of the canal. The next day her mangled corpse is hung from a bridge where it is struck by a passing tourist boat, her bloody body is dragged along the entire length of the glass-roofed boat to the scream-filled horror of boy scouts and nuns! The whole set-up of the first kill and it's aftermath is a real showstopper, this movie wastes no time getting it's hooks right into you! 

As more bodies emerge from the canals over the next few days it becomes clear that a serial killer is on the loose, and hard boiled detective Eric Visser (Huub Stapel, The Lift) is brought in on the case and the film plays out more or less like an Italian style Giallo crime thriller with some cat and mouse games between the cop and the killer with some stylish kills and a surprising amount of well-executed action scenes, including a thrilling speedboat chase through the narrow canals, which crosses over into the surface streets, it really puts to shame the boat chase in The World is Not Enough (1999), this is high-octane stuff, and not something you would normally find in a slasher movie. 

Detective Visser is a divorcee, and has custody of a young daughter named Anneke (Tatum Dagelet), we get a bit with her and a friend looking into the murders themselves, narrowly missing him, but at one point she walks into the bathroom and aims a gun at her father while he's bathing in the tub, and then.... nothing, no follow-up! WTF! This is a Dick Maas film, so I've come to expect some weird humor from him, and this movie does not disappoint, aside from the odd gun-incident Anneke answers the phone only to tell her dad's boss that he's in the bathroom, probably masturbating! There's also a strange pursuit of a youthful offender by Visser that ends in a bakery with the perpetrator face down in a cake, eating frosting with a fun exchange between the baker and cop, I really like director Dick Maas's strange sense of humor here. 

The kills in the flick are pretty great, we get stabbings, decapitations and even a suicide by harpoon gun, there's no shortage of creative kills. The killer in a decked-out in a black wetsuit and comes across like an aquatic version of the miner from My Bloody Valentine (1981) with the heavy breathing through a mask... and flippers, a very cool killer indeed and quite unique. The best kill scene for me was a young women on an inflatable raft that brought to mind Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984) and the infamous trampoline scene from Eli Roth's fake-trailer for Thanksgiving (2007), great stuff.

On the downside there are some stretches of film that put the sleepiness right into me, there's a love story I didn't care for, but just as I feared I might be overcome by the sandman we get another great kill or some god awful 80's fashion or a quirky 80's synth music cue that brought me back from the edge of boredom, it's not a perfect film, but it's  an odd 80's Dutch slasher with Giallo-esque tendencies that's certainly entertaining, loaded with action and with a decent body count and a very peculiar sense of humor.

Audio/Video: Amsterdamned (1988) arrives on 2-disc Blu-ray/DVD from Blue Underground, framed in 1080p HD widescreen (1.85:1), benefitting from a 2K restoration from the original camera negative. The movie looks great, the 1.85 framing shows more information than my Shameless Screen Entertainment. Film grain is nicely managed, colors are robust, fine detail is abundant. Audio options include Dutch DTS-HD 5.1; Dutch and English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with optional English subtitles, the Dutch 5.1 wins the day with the most dynamic presentation, but if you;re the kind of person that might prefer the English dubbed track, good news, it's solid, one of the better English dubs in recent memory.
  

Onto the special features, we begin with a brand new audio commentary with Writer/Director Dick Maas and Editor Hans van Dongen moderated by David Gregory of Severin Films which covers all the facets of making the film. There's also the vintage making of doc which runs 36-minutes, and a new interview with actor Huub Stapel who speaks for nine minutes while on a boat touring the canals of Amsterdam, the very same canal where the speedboat chase happens. He talks favorably talking about director Dick Maas, calling him the only Dutch peer of Paul Verhoeven, speaking about a accident during the speedboat chase scene in which he was injured and laid up for a few days. 

Stunt Coordinator Dickey Beer shows up for an 18-minute interview, he speaks about his start as a stuntman on A Bridge Too Far, before moving to England and working a Return of the Jedi and Indiana Jones, and coming back to Holland to work on Amsterdamned. He goes into some great detail about filming the harrowing speedboat scenes and some mishaps along the way.The disc is finished up with a music video for "Amsterdamned" by group Loïs Lane, a song featured during the film;s end credit, directed by Maas, with a serial killer theme. There's also the Dutch and English trailers for the film. There's also an Easter Egg tucked away, more of the interview from Dickey Beer discussing his work on An American werewolf in London. 

This release comes housed in a Criterion-style thick clear Blu-ray keepcase, with a sleeve of reversible artwork, though I am not such a fan of the reverse option, it looks a bit too photoshop-style layout for my tastes. The Blu-ray and DVD discs mirror the artwork options on the sleeve. This release comes with a 20-page collector's booklet with cast and crew info, chapter selection and a new essay by former Fangoria editor Michael Gingold, plus images from the film, behind-the-scenes pics, and poster artwork.

Reversible Artwork Option 

Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Dick Maas and Editor Hans van Dongen moderated by David Gregory of Severin Films
- The Making of AMSTERDAMNED (36 min) HD
- Tales From The Canal - Interview with Star Huub Stapel (9 min) HD
- Damned Stuntwork – Interview with Stunt Coordinator Dickey Beer (1 min) HD
- Dutch Trailer (3 min) HD
- U.S. Trailer (2 min) HD
- Loïs Lane Music Video – “Amsterdamned” (Directed by Dick Maas)(4 min) HD
- Poster and Still Gallery (85 Images) HD
- BONUS Collectible Booklet with new essay by author Michael Gingold
- Easter Egg: Stunt Coordinator Dickey Beer speaking of his time filming An American Werewolf in London. (2 min) HD 

Amsterdamned (1988) is a fun action-slasher with strong police procedural elements, it's a bit long in the tooth at times but the general weirdness and brutality  of it kept me rapt, and the speedboat chase is damn epic. The new 2K restoration from Blue Underground looks and sounds fantastic and we get some nifty extras, this amphibious Dutch slasher classic has never looked better.


ATTENTION: From the Blue Underground Facebook page on September 5th 2017: 

AMSTERDAMNED BLU-RAY ANNOUNCEMENT:
After the AMSTERDAMNED Blu-ray was shipped to customers, we were made aware of some minor compression issues. Therefore, we corrected and will be offering a replacement V2 Blu-ray disc.

If you purchased AMSTERDAMNED and the Blu-ray Disc Art does not have Item# “BLU-BD-7072-V2” on it, you may request a replacement Blu-ray Disc by sending an email to AmsterdamnedBDreplacement@yahoo.com. You MUST include the following information in your email to qualify for a replacement disc:
· Your Name
· Complete Mailing Address (including country if outside the U.S.)
· Copy of sales receipt showing purchase of the AMSTERDAMNED Collector’s Edition
The V2 Blu-ray Discs will be available to mail out in approximately 4 weeks. We thank you for your continued support and patience!
THE LIFT and DOWN Blu-ray releases have been slightly delayed to ensure they don’t have the same issue.