MORITURIS: LEGIONS OF THE DEAD (2011)

MORITURIS: LEGIONS OF THE DEAD (2011)

Label: Synapse Films 

Region Code: Region-FREE

Duration: 86 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Audio: Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo, Italian DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles:
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 

Director: Raffaele Picchio
Cast: Valentina D'Andrea, Andrea De Bruyn, Desiree Giorgetti, Francesco Malcom

This Italian throwback begins with a head scratcher of an opening, a sepia tone 8mm film documenting a day in the country of a family from what appears to be the early '70s. The scene is framed in a way that seems to scream found-footage, but it soon becomes apparent that no one is actually filming this, stranger still is that one of the adults seems to be trying to coerce his young niece into something sexual... then they are killed by someone only glimpsed very briefly by the viewer before the found-footage camerawork lingers over each of the corpses, but who the fuck is supposed to be filming it?

Flash forward a few decades and we have three young Italian men in a car, joined by two young Romanian women they've picked-up at the local disco, they're all crammed into a car on their way to a rave rumored to be happening deep in the forest. En route they kid around and joke about each other's tastes in music and flirt a bit, the usual sort of stuff. Arriving at the rumored location it seems they might not have had the right coordinates, there's no music and no gathering of ravers to indicate otherwise, but they are right next to some ancient ruins. The young men assure the women they're probably in the right spot, just a little early, and decide they should start up a bonfire and polish off a bottle of vodka until the music starts. They're having fun, flirting with each other, joking around and then things take a preposterous turn as the men turn violent and rapey, a turn that happens on a dime, what started as a nice gathering of youth turns into a super sleazy variation of The Last House on the Left. The extended rape scene are brutal but maybe not on the level of I Spit on Your Grave, but it is repugnant just the same, I don't really want to get into scoring rape scenes for authenticity in movies, that would just be weird. 

At the same time there's parallel story line playing out concurrently back in Rome with the trio's friend who is also entertaining a woman at his home, in brief clips we see what he has been up too, and trust me, it is more of the same. That scenario borrow a rather infamous bit from the Bret Easton Ellis novel 'American Psycho', a misogynist scenario involving a bound woman, a hungry rat and a short length of plastic tubing, if you've read the book you will know where I am going with that.

Nothing that's happened thus far would have indicated this is the direction things were headed, it happened too fast and with no foreshadowing or fleeting moments menace, and that took me straight out of the film. The women are brutalized by the sadistic trio of men, beaten and sexually assaulted repeatedly, that is until a legion of ancient undead gladiators arrive and unleash their own brand of brutal Hell upon all five. The violence against the women by the men is cruel and misogynist in nature, the violence unleashed by the gladiators against all five is just brutal, aided by some very nice gore effects from Italian special effects artist Sergio Stivaletti (Demons, Demons 2) who brings and old school artistry to the scenes of gore inflicted by the ancient warriors. 

The highlight of the film for me were the undead gladiators, the hulking figures cloaked in bronze-age battle armor and carrying ancient weapons, every one of these scenes were a mighty awesome sight to behold. I don't think this is something we've seen a lot of in horror movies before hand, it certainly was new to me, and brought to mind Lucio Fulci's sword and sorcery epic Conquest, but in a contemporary setting, I really enjoyed that aspect of it. 

Once the ancient  destroyers arrive on scene things picks up considerably, but they are kept hidden away in the shadows, when they are seen they are presented in a very atmospheric and intimidating sort of way, and maybe that's why I found them so effective. When they do mead out some punishment it is severe, faces are pulped, heads roll, some are torn from the neck, they're staked, Crucified and impaled, on just a pure-gore appreciation scale Stivaletti is doing fine work here and I would love to see him doing more practical effects work these days, as horror fans we are missing out. 

The young cast are very good, these are decent actors but the subject matter is straight-up vile and the depths of the depravity is not earned in my opinion, this is just being ugly for the sake of making an ugly and brutal movie. You feel for the young women as the awful things are happening to them, not because you care for them or have come to know and love their characters, no, you just feel for them because what's happening is awful and you wouldn't wish it on anyone, and for a film that had some really decent gore, production value and a somewhat unique ancient evil it feels like they took the easy way around and shorted the movie a bit.

The disc from Synapse Films looks damn good, this is a low-budget movie but it has good production value and a decent cinematographer who knows a thing or two about how to light a film, which adds a lot to visuals of the movie. we have a choice of  Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo or 5.1 Surround with optional English subtitles, the Italian audio is clear and crisp, the surround sound is maybe not the most robust sounding but we do get some decent use of the surrounds. 

Extras are limited to a theatrical trailer and a sleeve of reversible artwork, pretty slim pickings by Synapse standards, not even a commentary, and considering this movie is banned in Italy I think there might be some interesting insights into the making of the film and how it was received in his home country. 

Special Features
- Newly Translated Removable English Subtitles
- Original Theatrical Trailer (3 Mins) HD
- Reversible Cover Art

I don't hate the movie, I enjoyed it, but I certainly think this was a missed opportunity to explore the characters a tiny bit more, things needn't have escalated so damn quickly, one minute everything is copacetic the next everything is wrong and awful. Which is a shame, the undead gladiators were a nice touch, something new, and I didn't even care that their not explained, it's as simple as these awful guys took these sweet young girls out to a remote location to assault them, unfortunately for them they chose a spot right near an ancient ruin and somehow awoke an ancient evil, I am happy with that, it reminded me a bit of the Blind Dead movies in that respect. If you don't mind some old fashioned Italian misogyny the ancient evil and graphic gore are pretty decent, and there's some quality atmosphere about it, but this could have been more, it didn't have to be a shocker just for the sake of being so. 2.5/5

THE SENTINEL (1977)

THE SENTINEL (1977) 

Label: Scream Factory

Release Date: September 22nd 2015 

Rating: R

Region Code: A

Duration: 92 Minutes 

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with optional English SDH Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 

Director: Michael Winner

Cast: Deborah Raffin, Beverly D'Angelo, Christopher Walken, Cristina Raines, Burgess Meredith, Chris Sarandon, José Ferrer, Jerry Orbach, Eli Wallach. John Carradine, Ava Gardner, Martin Balsam, Arthur Kennedy, William Hickey, Tom Berenger

Young fashion model Alison Parker (Cristina Raines, Nashville) is the mistress of a shady lawyer named Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon, Fright Night) whose wife just jumped from the fifty-ninth story of her apartment building under mysterious circumstances. He seems ready to settle in with Alison but she's looking for her own apartment, you get the feeling that maybe she might be having doubts about her taste in men, but he seems supportive of the idea. Realtor Miss Logan (legend Eva Gardner) shows her a gloomy Manhattan brownstone with a magnificent view of the ocean, the only other tenant seems to be a reclusive blind priest who lives on the third floor, the blind Father Holleran played by b-movie legend John Carradine (Seven Doors of Death). 

The ridiculously low rent-controlled price seems a bit too good to be true, but you have to strike while the iron is hot, so Alsion  moves in right away where she quickly encounters an eccentric old man named Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith, Burn Offerings) and his pet companions, a cat named Jezebel and a yellow canary named Mortimer. Later he introduces her to a few of the other eccentric neighbors, notably a pair of sinister lesbians played by Sylvia Miles (Midnight Cowboy) and Beverly D'Angelo (the National Lampoon Vacation movies). In a very strange scene D'Angelo's character who furiously double-clicks her mouse, eyes rolling back in her head with delight, while Alison looks on in quiet horror, before dismissing herself. Now I cannot watch any of the Vacation movies with the thought of D'Angelo I think of her rubbing one out, she's also seen nude in several more disturbing sequences. 

Shortly after arriving at the brownstone Alison's father passes away, which causes her a great amount of psychic pain, including memories of walking in on her father in the act of a perverse threesome with a pair of whores when she was a teenager, the surreal scene ends with the young Alison opening up her wrists in the bathroom at the horror of the sinful sight. She now finds herself haunted by the apparition of her father who shows up inside her apartment one night, she attacks him with a kitchen knife slicing off his nose and stabbing his eye, with some gruesome special effects gore from legend Dick Smith (The Exorcist). This encounter ends with her  fleeing the apartment in only a night slip, screaming in the street, which lands her at the hospital under a suicide watch.  

Alison speaks with Miss Logan (Gardner) about her inability to sleep at nigh because of the noisy neighbors, particularly one who paces back and forth in the apartment above her own, causing the light fixtures to eerily swing back and forth. Miss Logan, to her surprise, kindly informs her that no one else lives in the apartment except for the priest, she even goes so far as to come back to the brownstone with Alison and show her the vacant apartments. Confused and shaken by the strange events Alison begins to deteriorate mentally, on a shoot for  new commercial she's off her game and faints, crashing through a pane of glass nearly ruining the shoot. 

In the background we have a few other stories happening, Alison's boyfriend Michael is being investigated by Det. Gatz (Eli Wallach, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ) and Det. Rizzo (Christopher Walken, The Prophecy)  whom suspect his wife's suicide may have been staged, they hassle Michael and also draw parallels to the mental state of his current girlfriend Alison. To his credit Michael is not all bad, he seems to be the only one who believes that something is happening to Alison aside from a nervous breakdown, and he is the one who uncovers the conspiracy of the Catholic Church, though his fate does reveal a darker side to his nature, he is a lawyer after all. 

There's also a priest who seems to guide Alison back to the Church, her faith having lapsed years earlier, played by actor Arthur Kennedy, in a restrained but pivotal role. Something notable about the movie is what a fantastic cast of actors are present, so many familiar faces, aside from those mentioned previously we have appearances from Jeff Goldblum as a fashion photographer (The Fly), Jerry Orbach (Law and Order) as a commercial director, Martin Balsam (Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho), Deborah Raffin (God Told Me To) as Alison's best friend, Jose Ferrer (The Swarm), William Hickey (Christmas Vacation) as a cat burglar,  and if you're quick you might spot Tom Berenger (Major League) who shows up right at the end. 

Now The Sentinel is not a movie I have a lot of nostalgic fondness for, I didn't catch it until my early thirties, which is actually a lot longer back than I'd care to admit, but the point being that this '70s slice of supernatural cinema holds up without the benefit of having seen it in my youth, which is great. There's that strange seventies atmosphere and weirdness throughout it right up to that fantastic finale with her neighbor (a seething Burgess Meredith) leading the deformed minion of Hell against her, the demons are portrayed by actual circus freaks afflicted with deformity, it's unnerving stuff and brings to ind the Tod Browning classic Freaks.

The Sentinel is obviously Universal's exploitative stab at some of that fat Exorcist and Omen cash that was flowing freely through the cinemas at the time, the Italians weren't the only ones cashing in, but this does comes off more along the way of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond by way of Polanski's The Apartment, or maybe the Dan Curtis possession movie Burn Offerings, and none of that is bad, I loved it. Sure, the movies a little kitchsy and clunky, and the score is a bit of let down, but what a great cast to carry it through, it moves slower than a modern audience might appreciate but as someone who grew up in the '70s I have an appreciation for a supernatural slow-build with some truly frightening highlights, which this delivers time and time again. 

Audio/Video: Creepy classic The Sentinel 91977) arrives on Blu-ray for the first time from Scream Factory with a brand-new HD transfer from he interpositive and it looks surprisingly good with a fair bit of grain in the darker scenes and some minor print imperfection such as white speckling and scratches do show up from time to time,but all things considered this is a nice upgrade from the previous standard-def version. Colors are nice and skin tones are natural in appearance, not a lot of depth to the image but a fairly crisp presentation without any notable digital manipulation. Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with optional English SDH subtitles, clean and crisp but that Gil Melle score is pretty bland stuff.

Onto he extras on the disc we should begin by noting that while this is not one of the Scream Factory Collector's Editions, so we don't get a ton of new stuff but they do manage to squeeze quite a lot onto the disc beginning with  a new video interview with assistant director Ralph S. Singleton (director of Graveyard Shift (1990)) who speaks of breaking into the movie business working as a PA on the Captain America TV Pilot before becoming an assistant director for Michael Winner on the revenger Death Wish (1974)with Charles Bronson (White Buffalo) before joining him on the crew of this movie, he's very respectful of Winner whom he credits for helping launch his career. 

Unfortunately there aren't any other interviews but the disc is well-stuffed with audio commentaries, beginning with a somewhat candid one from actress Cristina Raines moderated by Sean Chains of the Hill Place Blog, here she reveals to having not ever watched the movie before, owing it to the awful experience she had onset with director Michael Winner, she goes out of her way not to be overly negative but it becomes clear she was not happy on-set and has a very low opinion of the man, at the end implying if she had to do it over again, she would not. 

The second commentary comes from writer/producer Jeffrey Konvitz who wrote the novel the movie is based on and whom co-wrote the screenplay with director Michael Winner. The commentary is moderated by Nathaniel Thomspon of Mondo Digital, and Konvitz also comes across as not being a fan of the director and many of the casting and directorial choices he made. He speaks about writing the novel and the follow-up novels, which thus far have not been made into movies, but he holds out hope that since the remake rights for the movie have been optioned something will happen shortly, including writing a new entry in the series. 

Director Michael Winner offers a solo commentary and it's a bit on the dry side with a lot of talk about his career and more of an observational commentary, it was the driest of the three options and the one that put me to sleep. I would have appreciated more of an informed fan commentary to be honest, someone from the outside with a more horror-nerd perspective that from he inside, this must not have been an easy set to work on, at least that's what I gathered from the commentaries.

Extras are finished-up with a a scratchy full frame theatrical trailers, an assortment of TV spots and three still galleries featuring movie stills, lobby cards and posters, plus black and white press photos. Unfortunately no new video interviews with stars Christina Raines, Chris Sarandon or Beverly D'Angelo, the latter of whom I would have loved to hear discuss her infamous masturbation scene!

Special Features:

- NEW 2015 High Definition transfer of the film from interpositive!
- NEW Audio Commentary by actress Cristina Raines
- NEW Audio Commentary with writer/producer Jeffrey Konvitz
- NEW Interview with assistant director Ralph S. Singleton (24 Mins) HD
- Audio Commentary with director Michael Winner
- Theatrical Trailer (3 Mins) 

- TV Spots (3 Mins)
- Movie Stills Galleries (3 Mins) 

- Black and White Press Photo Gallery (3 Mins) 

- Lobby Cards and Posters Still Gallery (3 Mins)

The Sentinel is truly one of my favorite supernatural slices of cinema, for those of you who haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and check out this cult-classic now. This is a movie I've been wanting on Blu-ray since the format emerged and Scream Factory have done a nice job with the HD presentation, highly recommend for fans of supernatural '70s cinema. 3.5/5

EATEN ALIVE (1977) (Arrow Video Blu-ray Review)

EATEN ALIVE (1977) 

Label: Arrow Video 

Release Date: September 21st 2015

Certificate: 18

Duration: 91 Minutes

Region Code: A/B/ 1/2

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Audio: English Uncompressed PCM Mono 1.0 with Optional English SDH Subtitles

Director: Tobe Hooper

Cast: William Finley, Mel Ferrer, Marilyn Burns, Janus Blythe, Carolyn Jones, Neville Brand, Stuart Whitman, Roberta Collins, Kyle Richards, Robert Englund

Eaten Alive (1977) is a very strange movie all the way around, it was Tobe Hooper's follow-up to the seminal shocker The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and it centers around the run down Starlight Hotel located somewhere in the rural Louisiana bayou. An unattractive roadside hotel run by a Southern-fried weirdo named Judd (Neville Brand, Without Warning), a grizzled, middle-aged man with a wooden leg who deliriously alternates between a somewhat charming Southern nut and a a completely unhinged scythe-wielding, mumbling murdering menace. 

We have several disparate groups of patrons convening at the Starlight Hotel, beginning with a kind-hearted whore named Clara Wood (Roberta Collins, Caged Heat) who has just been fired from a brothel run by Miss Hattie (Carolyn Jones, from The Munsters!) when she won't give-up the backdoor to a local redneck named Buck. The horny backdoor man is played by future Freddy Kruger star Robert Englund. In the opening scene he's trying for some sweet backdoor action with the classic line, "My name's Buck, I'm raring to fuck", a line Tarantino famously paraphrased in Kill Bill Vol.1.  When she refuses to take in the behind Clara is thrown from the brothel by the madame and finds herself at the Starlight, but when the moralistic Judd realizes she one of the local whores he makes quick work of her with his pitchfork before feeding her to the hungry crocodile which he keeps in a swamp right next the hotel. 

Sometime later the Faye (Marilyn Burns) and her wildly disturbed husband Roy (William Finley, The Funhouse) arrive at the starlight with their young daughter Angie (Kyle Richards) and set-up for the night in a room, but not before the croc eats their pet dog in a frenzied scene. Around the same time Harvey Wood (Mel Ferrer, Nightmare City) and his daughter Libby (Crystin Sinclaire, Ruby) arrive on scene, looking for Harvey's runaway daughter Clara, who was the whore Judd just fed to his croc.  Then after a night of drinking and playing pool Buck (Englund) arrives back at the Starlight to Judd's dismay with his girlfriend Lynette (Janus Blythe, The Hills Have Eyes) and the bloody slaughter begins as the demented Judd sets about murdering damn near everyone and feeding them to his croc.

The set-up is simple and sleazy, and the tone of the movie is very surreal, having been shot completely on  a sound stage the movie is washed in an brain-searing red glow, as if a blood red neon-moon was ominously shining down from the sky, plus there's an impenetrable thick fog which enshrouds the area in an otherworldly blanket of fear. It establishes a claustrophobic vibe that seems inescapable, with a nerve shredding electronic score that gives the impression of a bad southern acid-trip. 

Neville Brand is in top-form here as the demented hotel proprietor, a nut who mumbles to himself in between murdering folks with his trusty scythe. He's not the only weirdo at the hotel this night either, William Finley's appearance as either a drugged-out, or clearly insane, Roy is right off the deep end of weirdness, the scene of him looking for his lost eyeball on the shag carpet of the hotel room is straight out of a David Lynch film. Marylin Burns stars as his suffering wife, she matches the ferocity of her final girl from Chainsaw here with ear-shredding screams of terror, as does her movie daughter Kyle Richards (The Car, Halloween), who spends most of the movie hiding beneath the crawlspace of the hotel trying to escape the grasp of the murderous Judd and his hungry croc.

The movie is oozing atmosphere from the first frame, a strange and surreal psychotronic terror film that at times feel almost post-apocalyptic with the neon-red lighting and relentless fog-drenched setting, unhinged and disturbing and maybe not an easy watch for some, a Southern-fried nightmare you cannot get away from. 

Speaking of nightmares, you just cannot get around how awful the ten foot animatronic croc looks on camera. The thing is straight-up dreadful but Hooper wisely keeps it in hidden-away for the most part, you definitely get the impression that his is the croc-version of Bruce the Shark from Spielberg's Jaws, on the numerous extras you can hear multiple testimonies from the cast and crew as to what a nightmare the water-logged croc prop was during the making of the movie. 

So we have a croc that's a croc-o-shit and some mild pacing issues in the mid-section of this Southern slice of surrealistic terror but I can look past the flaws, I love this strange movie and I believable it's an undervalued entry in the Hooper canon, one worth rediscovering on Blu-ray from Arrow Video. 

Audio/Video: Arrow Video have gone back to the original 35mm camera negative for a brand new 2K restoration of Hooper's  Eaten Alive in the original widescreen aspect ratio (1.85:1), and the results are stupendous. The movie has never looked better and far surpasses by Dark Sky Films DVD (2000) in all respects. The colors are rich and nicely saturated, looking more natural and reds not running so hot. There's a nice layer of natural looking film grain with a new depth, clarity and fine detail to the image we've not seen before on home video, it simply looks fantastic. 

Arrow keep the audio pure with an uncompressed PCM 1.0 Mono track with a psychotronic-electronic score from Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper, it is a harsh listen and it perfectly compliments the images of surreal terror. Dialogue and sounds effects are nicely balanced and optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing are included. 

Reversible Artwork 

Onto the wealth of extras we have all the bonus content from the Dark Sky DVD including the audio commentary with co-writer and producer Mardi Rustam, make-up artist Craig Reardon and stars Roberta Collins, William Finley and Kyle Richards. The commentary is a pastiche of separate commentaries stitched together and placed appropriately throughout the movie and works quite nicely. Also carried over are the featurettes 'My Name is Buck' with star Robert Englund discussing his early career and time on the film with the cast and Hooper. 

'The Butcher of Elmendorf: The Legend of Joe Ball' tells the story of the WWI vet turned bootlegger who is the inspiration for the character of Judd, who may or may not have fed his wife and lovers to the crocs he kept in a pit behind his bar. 

There's also the '5ive Minutes with Marilyn Burns' interview the original scream-queen, and star of Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, plus we get an alternate opening credit sequence. That's pretty much everything from the dark Sky edition, so feel safe to upgrade and enjoy the superior HD presentation. 

Onto the new stuff produced by Arrow Video we have three brand new interview coming in at about thirty-seven minutes in length with director Tobe Hooper, Special Effects Artists Craig Reardon and starlet Janus Blythe, and she seems like quite a character with loads of colorful stories as she recounts cruising the Hollywood studio lots in search of roles, her early career and she briefly mentioning turning down a role in what turned out to be Rob Zombie's Lords of Salem. Craig Reardon gives a somewhat scholarly recounting of history of the lot where the film was shot and his own insights into actor Neville Brand, who by all accounts was quite a weird guy and a decorated WWII soldier. Hooper recalls being pitched the film and how this was his first studio picture, re working the script, the true-life basis for Brand's character, and working on a sound stage and what he was trying to create.

Also included are thirteen-minutes of trailer for the movie under the myriad of alternate titles including Eaten Alive, Death Trap, Starlight Slaughter and Horror Hotel. There's also fifteen-minutes of TV and radio spots, and three galleries of behind-the-scenes and promotional images, including some hilarious comment cards from the test-screenings of the film. 

Away from the disc extras we have a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin and the original poster art, plus a 24-page collector's booklet with new writing on the film from author Brad Stevens, illustrated with original archive stills and posters

Special Features

- Audio commentary with co-writer and producer Mardi Rustam, make-up artist Craig Reardon and stars Roberta Collins, William Finley and Kyle Richards

- New introduction to the film by director Tobe Hooper (1 Mins) HD

- Brand new interview with Hooper (14 Mins) HD 

- Brand New Interview with star Janus Blythe (12 Mins) HD 

- Brand New Interview with Special Effects Artist Craig Reardon (11 Mins) HD 

- My Name is Buck: Star Robert Englund discusses his acting career (15 Mins) SD 

- The Butcher of Elmendorf: The Legend of Joe Ball - The story of the South Texas bar owner on whom Eaten Alive is loosely based (23 Mins) SD

- 5ive Minutes with Marilyn Burns - The star of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre talks about working on Eaten Alive (5 Mins) SD

- The Gator Creator: archival interview with Hooper (14 Mins) SD 

- Original theatrical trailers for the film under its various titles Eaten Alive, Death Trap, Starlight Slaughter and Horror Hotel (13 Mins) HD 

- US TV and Radio Spots (15 Mins) HD 

- Alternate Credits Sequence (1 Mins) HD 

- Galleries: Behind The scene (8 Mins), Still and Promotional Material (64 Images), Comment Cards (34 Images) HD 

- Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gary Pullin

- 24 Pg. Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film, illustrated with original archive stills and posters

Arrow Video have put together a pretty damn definitive HD version of Tobe Hooper's psychotronic terror-classic for fans of the movie, the HD presentation is fantastic and the wealth of extras are superb, very highly recommend. 

Screenshots from www.DVDBeaver.Com

THE LEGACY (1978)

THE LEGACY (1978) 

Label: Scream Factory
Release Date: September 15th 2015
Region Code: A
Duration: 100 Minutes
Rating: R
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Mono with Optional English SDH Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Wideceen (1.85:1) 
Director: Richard Marquand
Cast: John Standing, Ian Hogg, Katharine Ross, Roger Daltrey, Sam Elliott

Maggie Walsh (Katherine Ross, Donnie Darko) and her moustached boyfriend Pete Danner (Sam Elliott The Frogs)  are L.A. based interior decorators who accept a lucrative offer in England when their current client mysteriously dies in a fatal car wreck Arriving across the pond they rent a motorcycle and enjoy a ride through the scenic countryside, only to be run-off the road by a Roll Royce owned by Jason Mountolive (John Standing), who offers them lodging at his country mansion Ravenhurst while the motorcycle is repaired. 

Oddly, once they arrive the seem to have been expected, stranger still is that Mountolive turns out to be the client who contracted them, the whole encounter seems to have been fated.  After settling in other guests begin to arrive at Ravenhurst, we have "...a million-dollar prostitute, a star-maker, a nation-killer, a woman whose lust runs cold as graveyard snow...", all beneficiaries of Jason's who seem to owe their careers to him, including The who's singer Roger Daltry as - what else - a rocker. It is revealed that Jason is dying, which is surprising as he seemed the picture of health earlier in the day, aside from popping some pills. 

All are summoned to see Jason who is now bed-ridden and on life support in a sterilized chrome-and-glass-styled room, curtains drawn to obscure his face, he summons Margaret to come closer, as she near a monstrous hand emerges and places a ring on her finger, the same ring that the other visitors can be seen wearing, baring the Mountolive crest. She attempts to remove he ring but is unable to pry it off, which sh chalks up to just having a swollen finger. 

She is told of a some ancient Legay that will be passed onto one of Jason's beneficiaries, which she is now one of. Neither her nor Pete believe in the hocus pocus but soon enough, each of the beneficiaries begin to die in a series of strange accident; the rocker chokes to death, there's a drowning, a burning, and yet another is impaled with shards of glass and more, at one point one of the beneficiaries turn on the young couple, hunting them both with a crossbow from the rooftop of the estate.

There's also the Ravenhurst staff lead by creepy Nurse Adams (Margaret Tyzack) who turns out to be a shape shifter of sorts, it's all very strange stuff, the sort of thing that could only be a product of the '70s. The cast is damn decent with believable performances across the board, and while the kills are fun and somewhat elaborately staged they're not overly gory, but the the film does get by on some strange atmosphere and suspense, probably more weirdness than actual suspense to be honest.

Directed by Richard Marquanf (Return of the Jedi) I expected a bit more from it, but it's just not on the level of superior evil-house movies like The Sentinel or The Legend of Hell House It made for a decent watch as it too-slowly builds to a goofy finale, one which holds a few minor surprises, but not one that will leave you gobsmacked. There's just not a lot to love about this one aside from '70's weirdness and some decent murder set-pieces. 

Audio/Video: The Legacy arrives on Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a new 2K scan from the interpositive, and it looks darn good all things considered. As the movie was shot with a bit of the favored '70s soft focus so details are not as crisp as one could hope for but the image looks quite nice, colors are strong and the source material is near flawless with no detectable instances of print damage, this is a nice upgrade for the DVD. 

The DTS-HD MA 2.0 audio is solid, dialogue is crisp and clean, the somewhat bland Michael J. Lewis score and effects are nicely balanced, there's some nice oomph to it at times, optional English SDH subtitles are provided. 

Onto he extras we have an interview with noted Academy Award Winning Film Editor Anne V. Coates who speaks about how she came into the editing part of movie making, her thoughts on the film. There's a second interview with Special Effects Artist Robin Grantham who speaks about the effects of the movie. Unfortunately no input from Katherine Ross or Sam Elliot for this one. We also have a trailer, radio spot, a gallery and a sleeve of reversible artwork for the movie. 

Special Features
- NEW HD Transfer From The Interpositive
- NEW Interview With Academy Award Winning Film Editor Anne V. Coates (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) (14 Mins) HD 
- NEW Interview With Special Effects Artist Robin Grantham (11 Mins) HD 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) 
- TV Spot (1 Mins) 
- Radio Spot (1 Mins) HD 
- Photo Gallery (3 Mins) 

The Legacy doesn't hold-up for me very well, as a kid I found it to be eerie and weird, and while it is still pretty weird this occult-based thriller is sort of  goofy. Scream Factory have put together a nice HD presentation with at least a few extras, which is way more than I would have expected for this low-grade chiller. 2.5/5 

 

THE HUNGER (1983)

THE HUNGER (1983) 

Label: Warner Archive 

Region Code: A

Rating: R

Duration: 96 Minutes

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

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.40:1) 

Director: Tony Scott
Cast: Susan Sarandon, Cliff De Young, Dan Hedaya, Suzanne Bertish, Willem DaFoe

Synopsis: Miriam Blaylock collects Renaissance art, ancient Egyptian pendants, lovers, souls. Alive and fashionably chic in Manhattan, Miriam is an ageless vampire. Although "vampire" is not a word you'll hear in this movie based on the novel by Whitley Strieber (Wolfen). Instead, debuting feature director Tony Scott fashions a hip, sensual, modern-Gothic makeover. Catherine Deneuve radiates macabre elegance as Miriam, blessed with beauty, cursed with bloodlust. David Bowie is fellow fiend and refined husband John. In love, in life, in longing, they are inseparable. But when John abruptly begins to age and turns to a geriatric researcher (Susan Sarandon) for help, Miriam soon eyes the woman as a replacement for John. The Hunger is insatiable.

Tony Scotts moody and stylish take on Whitely Stieber's source novel is a thing of arthouse beauty, an original vision of  what the life of contemporary bloodsuckers might have been in the '80s.  Miriam (Catherine Deneuve) and John Blaylock (David Bowie) are centuries long lovers, Miriam a vampire from the time of the Egyptian Pharpahs, John her companion whom she turned during the 18th century. The film opens with a phenomenal scene of the lovers at a night club where Goth rockers Bauhaus are performing, they meet a young couple and take them to their home where they exsanguinate the clubbers while professing their eternal love for each other, is sad and wonderful, and has a fatalistic mystique about it. 

We learn that while Miriam is eternal in her youth provided she feeds once a week that her companions who she turns begin to retroactively age at an accelerated rate after three-hundred years. John grows increasingly panicked by the aging and seeks the assistance of scientist Sarah Roberts (Susan Sarandon), who has been in the news having published a book about her research into the biology of aging, she has been able to accelerate the process but have not yet reversed it. Roberts blows off John at her clinic believing him to be a nut and asks him to wait in the lobby with no plans to follow-up, during the hours long wait John ages dramatically in a well-executed series of scenes. Frustrated by being blown-off John leaves but not before Roberts spots him on the way out, later she tracks John to his shared home with Miriam in Manhattan, and there's a certain chemistry between the two women.

Afterward, in a moment of desperation John's commits a heinous murder that is hard to frogive, the murder of an innocent and one of the Baylock's only regular visitors to their home. soon after the aging progresses leaving his body near useless, what follows is a haunting revelation as we learn that Miriam's former lovers through the millennia do not die in a traditional sense, they merely wither away physically but live on, useless, she keeps each of them in lovingly tucked away in a series of coffins she keeps in her attic.

When Robert's (Sarandon) comes calling at a later date to look in on John she is told by Miriam that he has since left for Sweden to seek a cure for his illness, and the two women conversate over wine with Miriam seducing Sarah. In an erotically charged lesbian scene that has been burned into my head since my younger years, it rivals anything from Bound, which is surprising as I do not consider sarandon to be an object of sexual desire, but Deneuve on the other hand has a classic and eternal beauty. During the encounter Miriam transfuses Sarah's blood with her, infecting her with the curse of vampirysm. 

What happens next is an exploration of the forced vampirysm with Sarah's behaviours becoming more erratic which alarms her boyfriend Tom (Cliff De Young), who is also a co-worker at the lab, where Sarah begins to run tests ion her blood, discovering that there are two strains struggling for supremacy within her, he own natural blood and the infected strain from Miriam. As things transpire Sarah struggles to reconcile the her relationship with Jon who is becoming more suspicious of Miriam and the way she was turned without permission. 

Audio/Video: Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983) arrives on a long overdue HD format courtesy of Warner archives who have released this as an manufacture-on-demand format in the original (2.40:1) widescreen aspect ratio. The 2K scan looks fantastic in 1080p HD, faithfully reproducing the deep shadow and light compositions, this film is drenched is neo-noir imagery, each scene is painterly with hard shadow and angles of light slicing through it, the blacks are deep and inky and there are textured wafts of smoke permeating the air. 

We only get a DTS-HD Mono 2.0 mix on the disc, but it's solid with a good dynamic range and good separation, from the opening scenes with Bauhaus's "Bela Lugosi is Dead" on through to the more classical composition and electronic augmentation we have a top notch presentation free of any distortion, very crisp and clean. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided. 

A fantastic commentary from with director Tony Scott and actor Susan Sarandon and a theatrical trailer is carried over from the 2004 Warner Bros.DVD, missing is the extensive still galleries from that disc. The commentary is stitched together from two separate commentaries, Scott and Sarandon are not together on this one, but chime in separately. 

Special Features: 
- Commentary by Susan Sarandon and Director Tony Scott
- Theatrical Trailer 

As a young kid I saw this movie on TV and didn't care for it, the stylishness of the production did nothing for me, I wanted traditional bloodsuckers and Gothic vampire lore, the contemporary setting felt cold and I couldn't appreciate how prescient the transmission of the "curse" through blood was at a time when the AIDS epidemic was in bloom. Watching it again in my twenties after I'd developed an appreciation for foreign and arthouse cinema it floored me, and remains one of my favorite vampire movies of all time. A stylish, slightly narrative-poor, slice of arthouse that is both haunting and gorgeous, with a certain amount of ambiguity that I've come to enjoy, not all of life's mysteries require definition. The Blu-ray from Warner Archive looks fantastic, and while I would have loved a new making of doc the commentary is really great. 4/5

THE EDITOR (2014) (Scream Factory Blu-ray Review)

THE EDITOR (2014) 

Label: Scream Factory

Release Date: September 8th 2015

Region Code: A

Duration: 95 Minutes

Rating: Unrated

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)

Director: Adam Brooks, Matthew Kennedy

Cast: Laurence R. Harvey, Tristan Risk, Udo Kier, Matthew Kennedy, Paz de la Huerta, Adam Brooks, Jerry Wasserman, Conor Sweeney

Canadian movie-makers Astron-6 have seriously taken their craft of retro horror homage and parody to the next level with this endearing love letter to the classic Italian whodunit films of the '70s with The Editor (2015), a tone perfect send-up riddled with stylish and bloody kills, erotic fun and the scratch your head oddness that made the movies of Argento, Fulci and Martino so damn good, but they do it with their own brand of wink-wink irony firmly intact, making for a fun watch. 

The story concerns a once famous movie editor named Rey Ciso (Adam Brooks) who at one time in the past went a little crazy while editing a movie, in the aftermath his fingers were chopped off and he now wears prosthetic fingers made of wood which are attached to his hand with a strap-harness. After losing full use of his hands he now struggles for work, having been relegated to editing b-movie slasher movies. The movie begins with what seems to me to be an homage to Brian DePalma's Blow Up with a movie within a movie set-up, which is very nicely done, establishing the tone of the movie right from the start. 

Unfortunately the stars of the movie Rey is currently editing are dropping like flies on set, murdered one by one, and Rey's the number one suspect because the victims each have had their fingers cut-off in a way that mirrors his own disfigurement, which is pretty damning. Peter Porfiry (Mathew Kennedy) is on the case as a '70s cop with a glorious moustache and a white-Afro, wearing a turtleneck sweater and a jacket he seems to be channeling a b-movie Donald Sutherland by way of Franco Nero in the Fifth Chord. While Rey is suffering a some sort of mental breakdown Porfiry also struggles with own psycho-sexual madness, both men are on the edge and in search of who the movie star murderer might be.

Astron-6 have really stacked the deck with familiar faces this time around with appearances from Eurocult icon Udo Kier (Mark of the devil) as Dr. Casino, bug-eyed Laurence R. Harvey (The Human Centipede 2) as Father Clarke, sultry Paz de la Huerta (Nurse) as Rey's long-suffering wife and many familiar faces from the Aston-6 crew including the clearly well-hung Connor Sweeney as a vain, horny and possibly murderous actor ...is there any other sort? 

The tone and atmosphere of the movie is spot on beginning with the Argento-ish candy-colored lighting favoring red and blue tinting and an amazing Giallo score with a main title theme composed by none other than Claudio Simonetti of prog-rockers Goblin, who scored many of the most memorable Italian movies during the '70s and '80s including Dawn of the Dead, Suspiria and Deep Red, among many others.

The kills are glorious and very bloody, they didn't skimp on any of it the gruesome stuff, with numerous sweet throat slashings, grisly finger choppings, a chainsaw through the torso, and an unfortunate ax to the face, the gore hounds will not be disappointed. There's also a maddening sort of insanity at play throughout, with a hallucinatory "negaverse" complete with floating eels that brought to mind Stuart Gordon's From Beyond. There's even a bit of David Cronenberg's Videodrome thrown in for good measure, this one has a little bit of everything thrown into it. 

What I loved about it is you can enjoy the movie just as a slasher-style parody but if you're a true fan of vintage Italian whodunits there are loads of fun nuggets tucked away in each scene with multiple references to the films of Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento and Sergio Martino among others, you can enjoy it as a send-up or as an homage, but what's great about it is you need you not be steeped in the Italian movies to enjoy it, but if you are will enjoy it on a whole other level. 

Audio/Video: Astron-6's The Editor arrives on Blu-ray from Scream Factory framed in the original scope aspect ratio (2.35:1) and looking good, a candy-colored whodunit with the moody lava lamp lighting which looks fantastic in HD. Audio options include choice of English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround or DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo, the surround is awesome, the score is spot-on and sounds great, the post-dubbed English audio sounds appropriately hokey by design and totally puts you in the mind of an authentic dubbed '70s slice of cult cinema. 

Onto the extras we begin with a fun Audio Commentary with Adam Brooks, Connor Sweeney and Matt Kennedy, with the Astron-6  guys in fine form speaking about the making of the movie with a blend of low-budget movie insights and comic relief as they point out anachronistic goofs and various trials and tribulations they encountered during the production. Surprisingly they do not point out many of the movies they're referencing, which I would have enjoyed. 

There's a 50-minute "Making Movies Use to Be Fun" making of doc that is mighty thorough and if you're an indie filmmaker there's probably a lot to learn here, such as sometimes the professionals you hire are not exactly professionals and may just be lying to get the job. we have input from Graham Humphrey's about creating the carious posters he created for use in the film, the special effects team and interviews with cast and crew, a lot of it very funny and some of more serious,  like when they realize they've spent most of the money budgeted for the movie and have only completed roughly 20% of the film. 

A brief seven-minute interview with composers Norman Orenstein and Trevor Tuminski of Hook Lab who speak about comprising the score, it's a dryly comic and brought to mind something along the lines of Spinal Tap, fun stuff. The six-minute Brett Parson Poster Interview is another humorous one, as the artists sits in a lawn chair outside in the snow drinking a beer, recounting the tale of how he came across a machine that draws the image in your mind for you, complete with flashback sequences and an eerie score to accompany the story. 

In keeping with the goofy extras we have an Astron-6 Film Festival Introduction, a pre-recorded message for festival fans with a generic Troma-esque blank spot with an "insert festival name here' type gag. The last of the extras are finished-up with four deleted scenes adding up to about six-minutes total in various stages of completion. Separate from the disc we have a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring the gut-projector option which is also featured on the slipcover, plus an alternate option featuring the awesome Graham Humphrey artwork


Special  Features
- Audio Commentary With Adam Brooks, Connor Sweeney And Matt Kennedy
- Making Movies Used To Be Fun - Making-Of Documentary (51 Mins) 
- Hook Lab Interview (7 Mins)
- Brett Parson Poster Interview (6 Mins)
- Astron-6 Film Festival Introduction (2 Mins)
- Four Deleted Scenes (6 Mins) 

There are a number of recent Giallo homages out there right now worth a watch, The Strange Color of Your Bodies Tears and Berberian Sound Studio come immediately to mind, but Astron-6's The Editor is the best of the bunch in my opinion, a tone-perfect love letter to the Italian movies from the '70s and '80s loaded with nudity, gore and that strange Eurocult aesthetic, plus a healthy dose of Astron-6 retro-horror awesomeness, this has loads of re watch value, watched it twice this past week and it only got better. The Editor chis comes highly recommend and is sure to be on my best of 2015 wrap-up. 4/5 

NIGHTMARE CASTLE (1965) (Severin Films Blu-ray Review)

NIGHTMARE CASTLE (1965)

Label: Severin Films
Region Code: Region-FREE
Duration: 104 Minutes
Rating: Unrated 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1) 
Director: Mario Caiano
Cast: Barbara Steele, Paul Muller, Helga Line, Rik Battaglia 

Nightmare Castle is a solid black and white Italian creeper dripping with atmosphere and the unearthly charms of horror queen Barbara Steele (Pirahna) who portrays Muriel, the cheating wife of scientist Stephen Arrowsmith (Paul Muller, Vampyros Lesbos), a somewhat deranged doc whom rightfully suspects his wife of the infidelity, catching in the arms of her lover David (Rik Battaglia) in the green house. Arrowsmith incapacitates them before chaining them to a wall in the basement dungeon, where he subjects to a myriad of prolonged tortures through starvation, burning and lashings of the whip. In agony each begs for death, the end comes by way of disfiguring his unfaithful wife with acid, before electrocuting them both, but not before she curses him and reveals that she he is not the heir to her fortune, from which he has benefited from for years, after er death her half-sister Jenny (Barbara Steele, again) will inherit the estate and fortune.

Arrowsmith's aged house maid Solange (Helga Liné) is complicit in the crime and is rewarded for her allegiance with a blood-transfusion of Muriel's blood, which when treated to with electricity, somehow rejuvenating the old crow into a gorgeous young woman. The issue with the inheritance going to Jenny proves not to be so much of a problem for the doc, whom Arrowsmith conveniently marries with a diabolical plan to drive her completely mad, thereby becoming the heir to the fortune. Things seem to be going according to plan with the unstable Jenny hearing her sister's voice and experiencing vivid nightmares,  when Arrowsmith brings in Dr. Derek Joyce (Marino Masé) to treat Jenny he becomes convinced that something supernatural is happening. 

Barbara Steele is quite good in the dual role of the cheating Muriel and her half sister Jenny, one a raven-haired seductress, the other troubled innocent. Steele takes front and center for the duration of the movie, changing from the erotic venom of Muriel to the haunted confusion of the more frail Jenny with ease. Muller as the jealous scientist driven to murder plays the role with a sinister charm, he's a right bastard of a man and easy to root against. 

Director Mario Caiano might not have the cinematic grace of someone like Mario Bava but he made an effective chiller just the same, a movie steeped in Gothic atmosphere with a few vital scenes of note, the dreamy nightmare sequences are very eerie with the early Morricone score working in their favor. The scenes of the bondage and  torture endured by the cheating lovers is pretty intense for period, maybe not quite shocking but a sweet bit of bondage exploitation that went further than I would have imagined. 

Audio/Video: The new HD restoration of the European 'Night of the Doomed' cut from Severin Films looks mighty fine, the black and white cinematography comes through smooth and with a natural layer of film grain, along with it there's some nice depth and fine detail present, with nice contrast and a dynamic gray scale. There are instances of white speckling a print damage from time to time but nothing awful.

The English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono comes through crisp and clean, it's a dubbed track but this does allow for the fans to hear Barbara Steele's actual voice. Ennio Morricone's score may not be among his best remembered but the nightmare sequences are definitely enhanced by it. 

Onto the extras we have quite a few, including the including two more Barbare Steele movie, new 2K HD scans of Antonio Margheriti's Gothic-terror Castle Blood (1964) and Massimo Pupillo's plague-shocker Terror Creatures from the Grave (1965). While the print are in much rougher shape than Nightmare Castle they are very nice widescreen presentations easily the best versions of either film I have seen.

Nightmare Castle gets an audio commentary with Barbara Steele and Horror Historian David Del Valle, the recording is not too specific to her time on the film and is more of a career retrospective, for fans of the horror icon this is quite a treat. There's even more still from Steel with the exclusive 'Barbara Steele In Conversation', a video interview with the starlet, again recounting her storied career. 

There are also an exclusive interview with Nightmare Castle director Mario Caiano, plus brand new featurettes for Blood Castle and Terror Creatures from the Grave, including deleted scenes for Terror Creatures. Trailers for all three films are included. 

Special Features: 
- Audio Commentary With Star Barbara Steele and Horror Historian David Del Valle
- Barbara Steele In Conversation Featurette (30 Mins) SD 
- Black, White and Red - Interview Featurette w. Director Mario Caiano (14 Mins) HD 
- Castle of Blood (1964) New 2k Scan Of Rare US 35mm Release Print (82 Mins) HD with English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono Audio 
- Terror Creatures from the Grave  2k Scan Of Rare US 35mm Release Print (84 Mins) HD with English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono Audio 
- A Dance of Ghosts: Castle of Blood Featurette w.Director Massimo Pupillo, Actor Riccardo Garrone, Film Historian Fabio Melelli (Italian with Optional English Subs) (17 Mins) HD
- Vengeance from Beyond: Featurette for Terror-Creatures from the Grave (26 Mins) HD
- Terror Creatures: Deleted Scenes (In French with Optional English Subs) (14 Mins) HD 
- Terror Creatures from the Grave Original Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) SD 
- Castle of Blood Original Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) SD 
- Nightmare Castle US Trailer (3 Mins) HD
- Nightmare Castle UK Trailer (1 Mins) HD

A fantastic release from Severin Films that should those with enthusiasm for Eurocult, Gothic horror or just fans of the erotically charged Barbara Steele, regardless of which this is a terrific package. A high recommend, if not just for the main feature and the excessive amount of quality extras on the disc keep in mind you're getting three HD Italian Barbara Steele movies for the price of one, that's a bargain. 3/5