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Stars: Robert Flemyng, Maria Teresa Vianello, Barbara Steele, Silvano Tranquilli, Maria Teresa Vianello, Harriet Medin, Lamberto Antinori, Aldo Cristiani | Written by Ernesto Gastaldi | Directed by Riccardo Freda

The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, directed by Riccardo Freda under the pseudonym “Robert Hampton,” is a lurid and atmospheric Gothic horror film that exemplifies the Italian cinema’s talent for crafting macabre yet elegant tales during the golden age of Euro-horror. This genre gem, drenched in decadent visuals and infused with a morbidly psychological undertone, manages to unnerve and captivate in equal measure.

The story unfolds in 19th-century London, where the titular character, Dr. Bernard Hichcock (played with unnerving restraint by Robert Flemyng), is a celebrated anesthesiologist with a dark secret: his fetishistic obsession with necrophilia. After accidentally causing the death of his first wife, Margaretha (Maria Teresa Vianello), during a disturbingly intimate experiment with a powerful sedative, Hichcock disappears, only to return years later with a new wife,...

Sergio Martino’s Torso may not achieve the sustained delirium of Mario Bava and Dario Argento’s best work, but it’s still a top-shelf giallo. Martino directs with panache, deploying lots of slow zooms, putting the camera in odd positions, and cheekily toying with Pov shots. What’s more, Torso foregrounds a motif that recurs throughout the giallo: the interpenetration of sex, violence, and art.

In the opening scene, a professor lectures his distracted students on Pietro Perugino’s portrait of an arrow-pierced Saint Sebastian. While the professor drones on, the camera slinks around the ornate auditorium, catching the students’ exchanged glances and longing looks, hinting at the erotic appeal that can be unleashed by visual depictions of violence. Later, the evidence from a murder scene will be projected before the students in the same manner as the Perugino: art as murder, murder as art. As it turns out,...

A classic slasher film from the 1970s is making a major comeback more than 50 years later. Arrow Studios is officially releasing a 4K version of Torso, the 1973 slasher horror starring Suzy Kendall, Luc Merenda, and Tina Aumont. The film comes from legendary director Sergio Martino, who directed and also wrote the screenplay along with Ernesto Gastaldi. Torso takes place at the University of Perugia as a mysterious and terrifying serial killer strangles college girls to death with a black and red scarf. The film has a 56% score from critics (albeit with only nine reviews) and a 55% rating from general audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.

With The Case of the Bloody Iris, director Giuliano Carnimeo and writer Ernesto Gastaldi constructed one of the quintessential giallo films from that genre’s peak period in the early 1970s. Though it may lack the operatic excesses of Dario Argento’s “Animal” trilogy, the 1972 film is meticulously assembled with a keen eye to visual stimulation, and conveys its commentary about matters of race and gender at an almost subliminal level. What’s more, the filmmakers knowingly tinker with some of the iconic tropes of the giallo.

The Case of the Bloody Iris’s narrative centers around a 20-story Genovese apartment complex of Brutalist architectural design. Most of the action takes place in three neighboring flats. These settings emphasize the alienation of modern urban existence, as well as the kind of creeping paranoia that stems from living packed in tiny cubes on top of each other. The opening set piece...

Director Sergio Martino (All the Colors of the Dark) combines a monster reptile with an all-star EuroCult cast for The Great Alligator, one of the most outrageously entertaining Italian Jungle Carnage movies of them all, now in Uhd for the first time ever. At the opening of a tropical resort, a photographer (Claudio Cassinelli of Slave of the Cannibal God), an anthropologist (Barbara Bach of The Spy Who Loved Me) and an arrogant hotelier (Mel Ferrer of Eaten Alive!) are besieged by hostile natives, obnoxious tourists and a gargantuan river beast that intends to devour them all. Romano Puppo (Robowar), Richard Johnson (Zombie), and Silvia Collatina (The House by the Cemetary) co-star in this “top ten killer alligator/crocodile movie” (JoBlo), co-written by George Eastman (Anthropophagous), Cesare Frugoni (Spider Labyrinth), and Ernesto Gastaldi (Almost Human), newly scanned in 4K from the original negative.

The Great Alligator is available on 4K...

Arrow Video have released Mario Bava’s Blood And Black Lace on Limited Edition Uhd, Limited Edition Blu-ray and Limited Edition Uhd with Arte Originale.

We have more details of these releases below.

Blood And Black Lace – Limited Edition Uhd

The Christian Haute Couture fashion house is a home to models… and backstabbing… and blackmail… and drug deals… and Murder.

Having established a template for the giallo with The Girl Who Knew Too Much, Mario Bava set about cementing its rules with Blood and Black Lace. In doing so, he created one of the most influential films ever made – an Italian classic that would spearhead the giallo genre, provide a prototype for the slasher movie, and have a huge effect on filmmakers as diverse as Dario Argento and Martin Scorsese.

Newly restored from the original camera negative and presented here in its original uncut form, this all-new 4K Ultra HD...

Ask most cinephiles about the spaghetti western and Sergio Leone’s name will most likely be invoked. As for those who’ve delved a little deeper into the genre, chances are that they’ll name-drop one or both of the other Sergios: Sergio Corbucci (Django) and Sergio Sollima (The Big Gundown).

Back in 2021, Arrow Video’s Vengeance Trails box set aimed to broaden viewers’ horizons of the spaghetti western by spotlighting works by directors like Lucio Fulci, Massimo Dallamano, and Antonio Margheriti, whose names are more often associated with other genres. Now along comes Blood Money, which unveils several lesser-known yet excellent examples of the genre. The thematic through line this time out concerns the value placed on human life. As the grizzled protagonist of Find a Place to Die puts it: “Madness and greed were in men’s hearts a long time before you came along.”

Romolo Guerrieri’s...

Prior to becoming an actor, Giancarlo Giannini, who on March 6 will be getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, studied electronic engineering, a skill he’s been known to put to good use even on movie sets.

“I was meant to start working on the first artificial satellites, or on the first computers at Ibm,” the Italian film and theater thesp recalls. But then Giannini enrolled in acting school and soon was given major roles, first by Franco Zeffirelli and then by Lina Wertmüller, with whom he went on to make nine movies that brought them both international fame.

“I owe it to Lina that I will be getting the star. The only other Italian actor who has one is Rudolph Valentino,” he notes.

Before traveling to Los Angeles, Giannini spoke to Variety about his career journey and what he learned from Anna Magnani, Marlon Brando and Marcello Mastroianni.

Severin Films is bringing out the big guns and starting 2023 with a bang, exclusively telling Bloody Disgusting this afternoon about the first two releases they’re bringing to the new year.

On January 31st, Severin Films unleashes two definitive action releases: Violent Streets: The Umberto Lenzi/Tomas Milian Collection includes Almost Human, Syndicate Sadists, Free Hand For A Tough Cop, The Cynic, The Rat And The Fist and Brothers Till We Die. January also brings the North American debut of the 1981 Australian action classic Attack Force Z, starring Mel Gibson, Sam Neill and John Phillip Law.

Violent Streets: The Umberto Lenzi / Tomas Milian Collection: Italian director Umberto Lenzi had recently completed a landmark string of kinky gialli with Hollywood outcast Carroll Baker. Cuban-born/Actor’s Studio-trained Tomas Milian had become one of Spaghetti Westerns’ most popular stars. But when these two notoriously mercurial talents came together for a series of...

Hello, everyone! We’re back with a brand new batch of home media releases, and this week’s assortment is an eclectic group. Code Red is showing some love to The Dead Pit and Arrow Video is keeping busy with their latest Giallo Essentials set and the 2-disc limited edition release of Mill of the Stone Women. Other titles headed home on December 14th include Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Amityville Vampire, Alone in the Woods, The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre, and Chicken’s Blood.

The Dead Pit

Dr. Ramzi (Danny Gochnauer), a deviant who enjoys torturing his patients, is killed by a fellow doctor and buried in the basement of a mental health facility. Twenty years later, the hospital is up and running again and a “Jane Doe” (Cheryl Lawson) arrives at the institute with amnesia. Upon her arrival, a major earthquake rocks the building and unearths the now undead Dr.

The EuroCrypt of Christopher Lee

Blu ray – Region Free

Severin Films

1962-72

Starring Christopher Lee, Thorley Walters, Karin Dor

Cinematography by Ernst W. Kalinke, Angelo Baistrocchi

Directed by Terence Fisher, Harald Reinl

While Hammer Studios depended on bosoms and blood to rejuvenate a listless horror industry, their new contract player had some high octane ideas of his own. His name was Christopher Lee and though the hulking actor towered above the crew and co-stars, he proved shockingly agile as the newborn creature in 1957’s The Curse of Frankenstein. No matter how hospitable or well-tailored, his Dracula was a clear and present danger—fleet of foot and supernaturally strong. And in 1959’s The Mummy, he turned the slow-moving immortal into an Olympian killing machine, outpacing his victims like an undead Usain Bolt.

Making the scene just as the sixties were racing into view, Lee’s express lane monsters ignored musty gothic...

Arrow Video’s August films include a brilliantly original American indie comedy, a pair of out-there arthouse masterworks, a rediscovered 70s horror creepfest, a terrifying Korean ghost story, and definitive, collectable editions of an awe-inspiring science fiction blockbuster.

The releases will come in limited edition packaging, with beautiful new artwork, pristine restorations giving the films a new lease of life, brand new expert commentaries and feature-length documentaries,reversible sleeves, as well as goodies including fold-out posters, art cards, books and illustrated booklets.

First in August, Arrow Video presents the mind-blowing ‘acid-western’ El Topo, which shocked and bedazzled audiences upon its controversial original release, single-handedly inventing the American midnight movie phenomenon. A countercultural masterpiece which ingeniously combines iconic Americana symbolism with director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s own idiosyncratic surrealist aesthetic, El Topo is an incredible journey through nightmarish violence, mind-bending mysticism and awe-inspiring imagery. This era-defining film is now presented in a...

“From Dracula to Jedi master, Bond villain to a Metal god, Christopher Lee’s 70-year career was rich, varied and often, pretty weird.”

—The Guardian

The Eurocrypt Of Christopher Lee Blu-ray Collection is now available from Severin. The set can be ordered directly from Severin Here.

8 Blu-ray Collection Featuring 5 Classic European Films, A TV Anthology, Disc Of Rare Interviews + Book & Soundtrack CD

He remains one of the most beloved horror/fantasy icons in US/UK pop culture history, but Christopher Lee delivered several of the most compelling, acclaimed and bizarre performances of his entire career in 1960s Europe. The Eurocrypt Of Christopher Lee brings together five of these Lee classics – the 1964 gothic shocker Crypt Of The Vampire; the 1964 cult hit Castle Of The Living Dead co-starring an unknown Donald Sutherland; 1962’s celebrated Sherlock Holmes And The Deadly Necklace; 1967’s lurid favorite The Torture Chamber Of Dr. Sadism and the rarely-seen...

Lee Broughton returns with a review of Michele Lupo’s fine-looking Spaghetti Western, Arizona Colt. Giuliano Gemma stars as the eponymous anti-hero-cum-bounty killer who goes head-to-head with Fernando Sancho’s villainous Mexican bandit. The show’s collateral damage comes in the shapely form of fan favourite Rosalba Neri while its highly reluctant love interest is played by none other than Corinne Marchand, of Cleo from 5 to 7 fame.

Arizona Colt

Region Free Blu-ray

Wild East

1966 / Color / 2.35:1 widescreen / 116 min. / Il Pistolero di Arizona, The Man From Nowhere / Street Date 9 February 2021 / Available from Wild East / 16.95

Starring: Giuliano Gemma, Fernando Sancho, Corinne Marchand, Roberto Camardiel, Rosalba Neri, Nello Pazzafini, Jose Manuel Martin, Andrea Bosic.

Cinematography: Guglielmo Mancori

Film Editor: Antonietta Zita

Art director: Walter Patriarca

Original Music: Francesco De Masi

Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Luciano Martino

Produced by Elio Scardamaglia

Directed by Michele Lupo

A sadistic bandit, Gordo (Fernando Sancho), expands his gang...

Happy Monday, dear readers! We have a brand new slate of home media releases to look forward to as we head into a new month, and there are some great films coming out on Tuesday that genre fans will definitely want to pick up. Rlje Films is finally releasing Horror Noire on both Blu-ray and DVD this week, and they’re also bringing home arguably the most talked-about horror film of 2020 as well: Rob Savage’s Host. Kino Lorber is showing some love to Dark Intruder with their new 2K Blu, and Code Red is giving us more reasons to fear the water with their Blu-ray for The Great Alligator.

Other releases for February 2nd include Satan’s Blood, Sky Sharks, Deadcon, and Hellkat.

Dark Intruder

Brand New 2K Master! Dark Intruder stars Leslie Nielsen (Forbidden Planet) as Brett Kingsford, an Occult expert who is brought in by police to help...

[This October is "Gialloween" on Daily Dead, as we celebrate the Halloween season by diving into the macabre mysteries, creepy kills, and eccentric characters found in some of our favorite giallo films! Keep checking back on Daily Dead this month for more retrospectives on classic, cult, and altogether unforgettable gialli, and visit our online hub to catch up on all of our Gialloween special features!]

“Dead? I’m dead? Can’t be. I’m alive. Can't you tell I'm alive?” These are some of the first thoughts that cross the troubled mind of Gregory Moore (Jean Sorel) at the beginning of Short Night of Glass Dolls (aka La corta notte delle bambole di vetro). And Gregory has a right to be troubled. That’s a common response when someone is fully aware they're being placed on a cold metal slab in a morgue in Prague. But the problem is that Gregory hasn’t really woken up—not entirely. His brain is awake, but the rest of his body isn’t. In true nightmare fashion, he can’t move a muscle in the morgue. Even his heart has seemingly ceased beating, although his wide-open eyes can see the doctors evaluating him, and his brain knows that his next destination could be the autopsy table.

Although his mind is awake,...

Most gialli are focused on the aesthetic, making sure all the black boxes are checked - black gloves, black hat, black, black, black – and that the tropes are trotted out in a fairly predictable (yet entertaining) fashion. Stemming from procedurals, it makes sense for a strong structure to support the weight of red herrings and redder victims. And then there’s The Case of the Bloody Iris (1972), a giallo that loves the form so much it can’t help but be affectionate towards it, resulting in something closer to comedy than horror. The result is surprising and wholly entertaining.

Released in Italy in August, The Case of the Bloody Iris (Original Italian title: Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer? Aka What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood Doing on Jennifer's Body? – a very giallo title if there ever was one) was met with positive reviews, especially...

When it comes to releasing unique and collectible Blu-ray box sets (such as their Al Adamson: The Masterpiece Collection), Severin Films has done an amazing job preserving horror history, and this summer they'll continue to do so with The Complete Lenzi Baker Giallo Collection, featuring Umberto Lenzi's collaborations with Carroll Baker:

"On June 30th, Severin Films is bringing together the complete collaborative works of two cult film legends with The Complete Lenzi Baker Giallo Collection, which includes superlative editions of Orgasmo, So Sweet… So Perverse, A Quiet Place To Kill, and Knife Of Ice.

Italian writer/director Umberto Lenzi helmed popular peplums, created extreme poliziotteschi, and invented the Italian cannibal phenomenon. Hollywood actress Carroll Baker was the Golden Globe® winning/Academy Award® nominated star of Baby Doll, Giant and The Carpetbaggers. Together in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, they made four landmark films that changed the erotic thriller and giallo genres forever.

If you've read Scott Drebit's Blu-ray reviews for Wax Mask, Paganini Horror, and The Peanut Butter Solution, just to name a few, then you know that here at Daily Dead, we're big fans of the eclectic physical home media releases from the talented team at Severin Films. The company is looking to continue their tradition of obscure and intriguing releases this spring, as they've announced three new Blu-rays for May that should please fans of multifaceted international horror.

Announced on their Facebook page, Severin Films' May Blu-ray releases include Satan's Slave (1980) aka Pengabdi Setan, a limited edition of The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971), and Horrors of Spider Island (1960). All three Blu-rays are scheduled to come out on May 26th.

You can check out the full release details, trailers, and cover art for the Blu-rays below, and be sure to visit Severin Films' website for more information, including details...

Season’s Greetings, everyone! ’Tis the season to be busy and you’ll stay that way snatching up Blu-rays if Severin Films has anything to say about it. Here are two recent releases to consider:

Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory (1961): It’s an early giallo! No, it’s a monster movie! Actually, it’s both. Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory is a stone-cold gas; beautiful, evocative photography from Renato Del Frate (The Holy Nun) and solid direction by Paolo Heusch (Violent Life) highlight this tale of a reform school for girls that has enough red herrings and blackmail amongst its tale of lycanthropic dread. When a new teacher (Carl Schell – The Blue Max) arrives at the school, some of the girls begin to turn up dead, and are thought to have arrived at their station due to wolf attacks. But you and I know better; and with a clever...

Italian horror from the early 1960s covers a wide range of quality, from eerie hauntings to tacky vampire romps. For one of his first major credits, ace giallo scribe Ernesto Gastaldi cooks up Lycanthropus, a murder mystery in which the savage slashing is committed by a drooling maniac with a hairy face, wild eyes and saber-toothed fangs. You saw the poster out front, kid — do you think it might be … a werewolf? Director Paolo Heusch’s thriller is no classic, but neither is it stupid — and the original Italian language option on this disc reveals good work by a spirited cast. Dreamy Polish starlet Barbara Lass is a much more assertive, independent female than what we expect from conventional Italo horror fare.

Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory

(Lycanthropus)

Blu-ray

Severin Films

1961 / B&w / 1:66 widescreen / 85 min. / Street Date November 12, 2019 / 34.98

Starring: Barbara Lass (Kwiatkowska), Carl Schell, Curt Lowens, Maurice Marsac, Luciano Pigozzi,...

Arrow Video resurrects another Lee Van Cleef headliner with 1972’s The Grand Duel, the debut of Giancarlo Santi, who had previously been the assistant director on Sergio Leone’s celebrated The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). Notably, the film was scripted by Ernesto Gastaldi, a noted genre writer (who also directed a handful of titles), responsible for Elio Petri’s The 10th Victim (1965) and Mario Bava’s The Whip and the Body (1963). Like Gastaldi’s other spaghetti western treatment featuring Van Cleef, 1967’s Day of Anger, recycled themes popularized by Leone provide the narrative backbone of a title which supplies exactly what it promises, a climactic showdown, with little to run on between its opening and closing acts.…...

Lee Van Cleef in Giancarlo Santi’s The Grand Duel (1972) will be available on Blu-ray May 7th From Arrow Video

The Grand Duel is an archetypal spaghetti western which boasts many of the genre s classic hallmarks including action-packed gunfights, wild stunts and an impressive climactic showdown…

Genre stalwart Lee Van Cleef stars as a gnarled ex-sheriff called Clayton who comes to the aid of young Philipp Wermeer (Alberto Dentice), a fugitive framed for the murder of a powerful figure called The Patriarch. Clayton helps Philipp fend off attacks from bounty hunters in a series of thrilling shootouts before the two make their way to Jefferson to confront three villains known as the Saxon brothers, and reveal who really killed The Patriarch.

A complex tale of revenge penned by prolific giallo writer Ernesto Gastaldi, The Grand Duel benefits from a beguiling central performance from Lee Van Cleef and assured helmsmanship from Giancarlo Santi.

Even horror fans of an older vintage like me came to find out about giallo films at a later date; sure, certain big juggernauts would make their way through, like Deep Red and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, but at the advent of home video, they were mainly outliers. As DVD blossomed, many more were rescued and rediscovered by a whole new generation (and the ones before that missed them) clamoring for creative kills wrapped in (sometimes puzzling) whodunit packages. Now that a blood river’s worth of titles have been rereleased, it’s time to try and pool them together and take a vantage view of their place in the horror landscape. Enter Federico Caddeo’s All the Colors of Giallo (2019), a great overview for newbies and vets alike, overflowing with three discs of crimson wonder by Severin Films.

Yes, several books have been written on this (predominantly...

In many ways, as both its plot and title indicate, Luciano Ercoli’s jazzy 1970 directorial debut, The Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion, is merely highly stylized pastiche. Technically, the title is classified as a “melodrama gialli,” meaning it’s defined by psychological excess rather than the hyper violent aesthetics of the giallo craze, which would shortly take over following Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970). Instead, Ernesto Gastaldi’s script pays heavy homage to the gaslighting melodrama which popularized international film noir, particularly staples like (of course) Gaslight (1944) and Clouzot’s Diabolique (1955). And the fantastic, unmistakably giallo-y title capitalizes on Elio Petri’s celebrated Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion, released only months prior to Ercoli’s film—both Above Suspicion titles are marked by equally idiosyncratic scores from Ennio Morricone.…...

For this final week of home media releases in January, I hope everyone has prepared their wallets, because we have a lot to get excited about, especially if you’re a cult film fan.

Vinegar Syndrome is doing the dark lord’s work this Tuesday, as they are putting out four different titles, including Cutting Class, Splatter University, There’s Nothing Out There, and Uninvited. Severin is celebrating giallo filmmaking with their releases of All the Colors of Giallo and All the Colors of the Dark, Scream Factory is showing some love to Screamers, and if you missed it in theaters, you can also finally catch up with Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria on Blu-ray this week as well.

Other notable releases for January 29th include a new edition of Willow, Save Yourself, and Dead Silence (1989).

All the Colors of Giallo

'Giallo' is Italian for 'yellow', the color of the lurid...

The Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion (1970) will be available on Blu-ray January 15th From Arrow Video.

Before the influence of Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage permeated every corner of the giallo genre, another strain of these distinctive Italian thrillers enjoyed considerable success. These ”melodrama gialli”, heavily inspired by Clouzot’s Les diaboliques, relied less on graphic violence and high body counts and more on psychological tension.

Minou leads a pampered but dull life with her frequently absent husband, Peter. One night, while out walking on the beachfront, Minou is accosted by a mysterious blackmailer who informs her that Peter is a murderer. Driven by misplaced loyalty to her husband, Minou gives in to the blackmailer’s every perverted whim in exchange for his silence. But as the blackmailer ups the ante, demanding that she submit to his increasingly obscene demands, can Minou hold on...

Guest reviewer Lee Broughton returns with more vintage Spaghetti Westerns. Prolific Italo western star Anthony Steffen shoots first in Alberto Cardone’s gothic vengeance drama Blood at Sundown, and plays the revenge game straight up in Mario Caiano’s A Coffin for the Sheriff. The double bill disc also features appearances by genre stalwarts Gianni Garko, Erika Blanc and Eduardo Fajardo.

A Coffin for the Sheriff & Blood at Sundown

DVD

Wild East Productions

Color / Street Date January 8, 2014 / 19.95

Starring: Anthony Steffen.

Directed by Alberto Cardone & Mario Caiano

Reviewed by Lee Broughton

Blood at Sundown

1966 / 2:35 widescreen / 104 min. / 1000 dollari sul nero /

Starring: Anthony Steffen, Gianni Garko, Erika Blanc, Carlo D’Angelo, Sieghardt Rupp, Angelica Ott, Roberto Miali, Daniela Igliozzi, Gianni Solaro, Franco Fantasia, Carla Calo.

Cinematography: Gino Santini

Film Editor: Romeo Ciatti

Art Director: Amadeo Mellone

Original Music: Michele Lacerenza

Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Vittorio Salerno

Produced by Marlon Sirko

Directed by...

Severin Films has a special treat for giallo lovers this holiday season, as they'll not only be releasing Sergio Martino's All the Colors of the Dark on Blu-ray, but also a special companion release, All the Colors of Giallo, which includes more than four hours of giallo trailers, a documentary by Federico Caddeo, and much more:

Check out the release details for both Blu-rays below, and keep an eye on Severin Films' website for further updates.

All the Colors of the Dark Blu-ray: "As many of you have already guessed, Sergio Martino's classic giallo All The Colors Of The Dark is dropping during our Black Friday sale! Our release is a 2-disc set that features a new 4K scan from the original negative, blood-spattered Special Features, and a CD soundtrack! Special features listed below:

*They're Coming To Get You - Alternate Us Cut

*Color My Nightmare - Interview with...

Sergio Martino’s Torso will be available on Blu-ray October 30th From Arrow Video

Enter… If You Dare!

A talented and versatile journeyman, director Sergio Martino has lent his talents to multiple genres across his long and varied career, but it is undoubtedly his giallo thrillers from the early 70s for which he is best known. Among the most highly acclaimed of these, 1973’s Torso revels in the genre’s time-honored traditions while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the modern slasher movie.

A sex maniac is prowling the streets of Perugia, targeting picturesque university town’s female students. Alarmed at plummeting life expectancy of the student body, Jane and her three friends elope to a secluded country villa only to discover that, far from having left the terror behind, they’ve brought it with them!

Also known as ”Carnal Violenc”e, Torso was released in Italy towards the end of...

By Tim Greaves

The name Sergio Martino will strike a chord with anyone who has even a passing interest in Italian exploitation pictures of the 70s and 80s. Once seen, who can forget The Great Alligator or The Island of Fishmen – both of which are favourites of this writer in their showcasing of Barbara Bach at her most radiant – or premium Suzy Kendall giallo Torso, or for that matter once ‘video nasty’ and Ursula Andress headliner The Mountain of the Cannibal God? Marking Martino’s second giallo, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail (o.t. La coda della scorpione), was released in 1971, sandwiched between a couple of his most highly regarded titles, The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh and All the Colours of the Dark. Scorpion’s Tail isn’t quite on a par with either of those, but it’s still a respectable entry in the sub-genre.

When...

Tuesday, July 17th looks to be another busy day for home media releases, as we have a rather interesting blend of titles, both new and old. As far as recent flicks go, Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare, The Housemaid, Rampage, and You Were Never Really Here are the big highlights of this week’s Blu-ray and DVD debuts. And for those of you who are looking to expand your cult cinema collections, Arrow Video is keeping busy with new HD releases of The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail and Doom Asylum.

Other notable releases for July 17th include the new EndoArm edition of Terminator 2 in 4K, the Church of the Damned/Bad Magic double feature Blu-ray, Amityville Prison, and The Antithesis.

Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare

Lucy Hale (Pretty Little Liars) and Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf) lead the cast of Blumhouse's Truth or Dare, a supernatural thriller from Blumhouse Productions.

One of the major consequences of Western Europe s post-war Economic Miracle was the proliferation of international travel. Eager to tap into audiences desire to experience the glamor of the jet set lifestyle, the popular filmmakers of the day rushed to make the most of the exotic locales at their disposal.

Arguably no other giallo captured this trend as vividly as The Case of the Scorpion s Tail. The film begins in London, where Lisa Baumer learns that her husband has died in a freak plane accident. Summoned to Athens to collect his generous life insurance policy, she soon discovers that others besides herself are keen to get their hands on the money and are willing to kill for it. Meanwhile, private detective Peter Lynch arrives to investigate irregularities in the insurance claim. Teaming up with a beautiful reporter, Cléo Dupont, Lynch resolves to unearth the truth… before he too...

The 5-Disc Blu-ray Set The Complete Sartana will be available July 3rd From Arrow Video

Clint Eastwood s Man with No Name spawned imitations, each providing their own twist on the Eastwood antihero, and each of them then subject to their own spate of unofficial sequels, spoofs and cash-ins.

Sartana tapped into more than just his Spaghetti Western predecessors a mysterious figure, he has a spectral quality, aided by his Count Dracula-alike cloak which also nods towards comic strip figure Mandrake the Magician, with whom he shares he shares a penchant for card tricks. He takes pride in his appearance unlike the Eastwood s dusty wanderer or Nero s mud-caked drifter. And there s a dose of James Bond too in his fondness for gadgetry and the droll sense of humour.

Unsurprisingly, this unique figure in the genre was treated to four official follow-ups. The Complete Sartana collects all five films,...

Renato Polselli’s vampire rally ups the on-screen babe count first and provides horror thrills second, yet Ernesto Gastaldi’s screenplay introduces an interesting wrinkle or two to the bloodsucking genre. This new bilingual release is a good presentation of what for American chiller fans has been a long-absent title.

The Vampire and the Ballerina

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1960 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 85 min. / L’amante del vampiro / Street Date May 22, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 27.99

Starring: Walter Brandi, Hélène Rémy, Tina Gloriani, María Luisa Rolando, Isarco Ravaioli, Gino Turini (John Turner), Pier Ugo Gragnani.

Cinematography: Angelo Baistrocchi

Film Editor: Renato Cinquini

Assistant Director: Ernesto Gastaldi

Original Music: Aldo Piga

Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Giuseppe Pellegrini, Renato Polselli

Produced by Bruno Bolognese

Directed by Renato Polselli

We’re told that all of Europe jumped on a horror bandwagon with the success of the first two Technicolor Hammer gothic films, but it took...

By Adrian Smith

Julie Wardh (Edwige Fenech) is a woman who needs some time off men: she attempts to escape her sado-masochistic relationship with Jean (Ivan Rassimov) by marrying Neil Wardh (Alberto de Mendoza), an ambassador at the Italian embassy in Austria. But things are not that simple. Julie suffers from erotic nightmares, wherein she makes love to Jean whilst being showered in broken glass, but continues to proclaim her hatred for him to anyone that will listen, including jean himself. At a friend’s party, where women tear paper dresses from each other and wrestle naked, Julie meets the cool George (George Hilton) a man determined to seduce Mrs Wardh, regardless of her husband or complicated romantic history. He seems kind and he rides a motorbike, so it does not take Mrs Wardh long to fall for him.

Of course, this being a giallo, in the middle of this...

Review by Roger Carpenter

Sergio Martino was a journeyman Italian director who averaged around three films a year into the early nineties and who worked in many different genres including documentaries (Naked and Violent), spaghetti westerns (A Man Called Blade), poliziotteschi (The Violent Professionals), sex comedies (Sex with a Smile), and action films (The Great Alligator; Slave of the Cannibal God; 2019: After the Fall of New York). But this blue-collar filmmaker is arguably most famous for his early seventies gialli such as The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, All the Colors of the Dark, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, and Torso. Each of these gialli films are–rightly so–considered genuine classics of the genre and fans of these films each have their favorite Sergio Martino giallo. However, his final giallo of this period (he...

Sergio Martino’s The Suspicious Death Of A Minor (1975) will be available on Blu-ray September 26th from Arrow Video

In the wake of the success of Dario Argento’s ground-breaking giallo The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, numerous other directors stepped forward to try their hand at these lurid murder-mysteries. At the forefront was Sergio Martino (The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, Torso), whose sensual 70s thrillers starring Edwige Fenech and George Hilton are widely celebrated as some of the best the genre has to offer. The final of Martino’s six gialli, The Suspicious Death of a Minor combines conventional giallo trappings with elements of the then flourishing ‘poliziotteschi’ crime thrillers. Claudio Cassinelli (What Have They Done to Your Daughters?) stars as undercover cop Paolo Germi, on the trail of a Milanese criminal outfit following the brutal murder of an underage prostitute. But a killer-for-hire is also on the prowl,...

What a great sales hook — a feature film with a Bernard Herrmann music score that we hadn’t heard of. And one of the writers was Martin Scorsese, before Boxcar Bertha and Mean Streets! But wait, it isn’t as simple as that. The new release is more than a little confusing. Its own ad copy first calls this Dutch production ‘obscure,’ and not four sentences later describes it as a ‘classic exploitation film.’

Obsessions

Blu-ray + DVD

Cult Epics

1969 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame (should be widescreen) / 91 min. / Bezeten – Het gat in de muur / Street Date May 9, 2017 / 34.95

Starring: Alexandra Stewart, Dieter Geissler, Tom van Beek, Donald Jones, Elisabeth Versluys, Marijke Boonstra, Vibeke, Michael Krebs, Hasmig Terveen, Fons Rademakers, Victoria Naelin, Adrian Brine, Sara Heyblom.

Cinematography: Frans Bromet, Hubertus Hagen

Film Editor: Henri Rust

Original Music: Bernard Herrmann

Written by Pim de la Parra, Wim Verstappen, Martin Scorsese

Produced by Pim de la Parra,...

Giallo film fans should get excited, as there are two amazing special edition releases coming your way this week courtesy of Arrow Video: Death Walks at Midnight and Death Walks on High Heels. For those of you who may have missed seeing The Eyes of My Mother and Incarnate, both are making their home entertainment bows on March 7th, and Scream Factory is set to teach us all about pain with their new release, The Lesson.

Other notable titles coming home this week include Havenhurst, Bad Kids of Crestview Academy, The Shadow People, Door to the Other Side, and Slasher.com.

Death Walks at Midnight: Special Edition (Arrow Video, Blu-ray & DVD)

The second film in Luciano Ercoli’s Death Walks series (and his third directorial effort to feature his wife Nieves Navarro, aka Susan Scott), Death Walks at Midnight is arguably the director’s masterpiece aided in...

"Death will take you as you sleep! A sleep as deep as Death!" Barbara Steele doesn't realize that her husband is using her to recover a forbidden sexual thrill. Riccardo Freda's film plays games with Alfred Hitchcock's filmography, but it also generates a Euro-horror spell like no other. Outrageous in 1962, it was a Technicolor ode to funereal surrealism. New in this review -- a crazy theory that might upend story assumptions about L'orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock. The Horrible Dr. Hichcock Blu-ray Olive Films 1962 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 77 88 min. / Street Date September 13, 2016 / L'orribile segreto del Dr. Hichcock; Raptus The Secret of Dr. Hichcock, The Terror of Dr. Hichcock / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring Barbara Steele, Robert Flemyng, Montgomery Glenn (SIlvano Tranquili), Teresa Fitzgerald (Maria Teresa Vianello), Harriet White (Harriet White Medin), Spencer Williams, All Christianson, Evar SImpson, Nat Harley. Cinematography Donald Green (Rafaele Masciocchi) Film Editor Donna Christie...

Tuesday, July 5th is looking to be a busy start to another month of horror and sci-fi home entertainment releases as there seems to be something for everyone coming to Blu-ray and DVD this week. Arrow Video has given Mario Bava’s Giallo classic Blood and Black Lace the royal treatment with their new two-disc special edition release and for those of you in the mood for an anthology film, Holidays is making its way to DVD on Tuesday.

Other notable titles arriving on July 5th include The Pack, the Cabin Fever remake, The Levenger Tapes, Circle and two different editions of Parasyte – Maxim: Collection 2.

Blood and Black Lace: Two-Disc Special Edition (Arrow Video, Blu/DVD)

Six Models. Six Victims For A Crazed Masked Killer. The Cristian Haute Couture fashion house is a home to models... and backstabbing... and blackmail... and drug deals... and Murder.

Having established a template...

Mario Bava turns from spooky gothic tales to a relentlessly violent murder spree in the glossy world of high fashion. The large cast gives us a fistful of prime suspects, while the main draw is Bava's powerful direction and razor-keen images - and in this excellent transfer, the colors can only be described as hallucinatory. Blood and Black Lace Blu-ray + DVD Arrow Video U.S. 1964 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 89 min. / Sei donne per l'assassino / available through Mvd Entertainment / Street Date July 5, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok, Thomas Reiner, Ariana Gorini, Dante Dipaolo, Mary Arden, Franco Ressel, Claude Dantes, Luciano Pigozzi, Lea Lander, Massimo Righi, Francesca Ungaro, Giuliano Raffaelli, Harriet White Medin. Cinematography Ubaldo Terzano Editor Mario Serandrei Original Music Carlo Rustichelli Written by Marcello Fondato, Giuseppe Barilla, Mario Bava Produced by Alfredo Mirabile, Massimo Patrizi <Directed by Mario Bava

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

When Arrow Video released a U.K. Blu-ray...

Death Walks On High Heels screens Wednesday, June 1st at Schlafly Bottleworks Restaurant and Bar (7260 Southwest Ave.- at Manchester – Maplewood, Mo 63143) as part of Webster University’s Award-Winning Strange BrewFilm Series.

Giallo is the Italian mystery/horror genre that was most prominent in the 1970’s. It takes its name from the term for the mystery novels being published in Italy around the same time. These novels had yellow covers (Giallo is Italian for “Yellow.”) The films eventually gained a reputation for gratuitous violence and sexuality and their murder scenes served as a big influence on the American Slasher film. The genre has its greats, as well as its fair share of duds. If you’re unfamiliar with Giallo, Death Walks On High Heels, from 1971, is an excellent introduction.

A famed jewel thief named Rochard is slashed to death on a train. The police question Rochard’s daughter Nicole (Susan Scott...

Arrow Video announced an early July Us release of Blood and Black Lace (1964) on Blu-ray and DVD as well as a limited edition Steelbook. Directed by Mario Bava, the Blood and Black Lace Blu-ray / DVD is packed with features including, but not limited to, a 2K restoration of the original film and a new documentary exploring the giallo genre.

From Arrow Video: “New Us Title: Blood and Black Lace (Arrow Video) Dual-Format Blu-ray and DVD and Blu-ray SteelBook editions.

A Bava classic heading to U.S. shores!

Pre-order the SteelBook here: http://amzn.to/1qy2O9k

Pre-order the Blu-ray here: http://amzn.to/1qy2SpA

U.S. Release Date: 4th July 2016

Region: A+B / 1+2

Six Models. Six Victims For A Crazed Masked Killer.

The Cristian Haute Couture fashion house is a home to models… and backstabbing… and blackmail… and drug deals… and Murder.

Having established a template for...

It’s a light week for new releases my creeps, but I promise you I have some groovy goodies in store!

Village Of The Damned

• Release Date: Available April 12th on Blu-ray

• Written By: David Himmelstein

• Directed By: John Carpenter

• Starring: Christopher Reeve, Kirstie Alley, Linda Kozlowski, Mark Hamill

I admit it, I simply do not remember 99% of genre sin-ema of the mid 90s. I know for a fact I went to see most of the fright flick offerings out there, in a real live theater and all that, but nearly every picture after Interview With A Vampire and before Spawn (shudder) is a swirling mass of “Yeah, I know I saw it, but I’ll be damned if I ever watched it again… and there is no way I remember anything besides the broadest of details” (minus From Dusk ‘Til Dawn, Escape From L.A…. maybe that Dr. Moreau remake…...

Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key calls to mind what Orson Welles said of Paper Moon – “That title is so good, you shouldn’t even make the picture, you should just release the title!” For the first twenty or thirty minutes of Your Vice, I thought Welles’ advice especially apt. People keep dying in grisly ways around Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli), a failed writer who’s nonetheless held onto a pretty great mansion and is plenty creepy enough to be a rather obvious suspect. He regularly hosts parties for hippies as a way to amuse himself, feel connected to the kids, and provide a public platform from which he can get off on abusing his wife, Irina (Anita Strindberg). She’s timid, trapped in a hellish marriage, and genuinely terrified of Oliviero’s late mother’s cat (in her defense, the cat is named Satan...

Throughout the history of cinema there are countless adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s work, from D. W. Griffith’s early take on The Sealed Room through Roger Corman’s series of lo-fi refittings of the 60s up to last year’s attempt to adapt The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether in Stonehearst Asylum. Looking back at two loose Italian adaptations of Poe’s classic horror short The Black Cat, Arrow’s new Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cats set sees a towering duo of giallo cinema auteurs picking and choosing their favorite elements of the original tale and molding them to their supernatural, blade-wielding will with blood-spilling glee and cinematic aplomb.

Released in 1972 on the tail end of a trio of more classically typified gialli in The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail and All the Colors of the Dark, Sergio Martino...

Stars: Lee Van Cleef, Giuliano Gemma, Walter Rilla, Christa Linder, Yvonne Sanson, Lukas Ammann, Andrea Bosic, Ennio Balbo, José Calvo, Giorgio Gargiullo | Written by Ernesto Gastaldi, Tonino Valerii, Renzo Genta | Directed by Tonino Valerii

When it comes to cult Italian movies we tend to know them for two things, horror and the Spaghetti Western. This is probably why Arrow Video looked to the western for one of their latest releases with Day of Anger. Starring Lee Van Cleef who had somewhat of a career comeback with the Italian westerns is it about time to take another look at this movie?

Scott Mary (Giuliano Gemma) is at the bottom of the social ladder in the perfect little town of Clifton. Bullied and made to do the jobs like cleaning out the toilets, picking up trash and sweeping the floors he dreams of a better life. When an ageing gunfighter Frank Talby...

In the enduring, boundless shadow of Sergio Leone’s legacy, a deluge of neglected and forgotten Italian genre titles languish undeservedly, ready for rediscovery. Arrow Video has dusted off a masterful example long overdue, Tonino Valerii’s 1967 sophomore feature, Day of Anger (aka Gunlaw). Valerii worked as Leone’s assistant on A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More before launching his own directorial career, re-fashioning the villainous energy of Lee Van Cleef in the actor’s effort to break out on his own. Scripted by Italian genre regular Ernesto Gastaldi (who worked with many masters of giallo film, including Mario Bava, and Sergio Martino), the overtly familiar narrative does little to hamper the enjoyable performances of Van Cleef and Giuliano Gemma, replete with several memorable action sequences and set pieces that assist in elevating the title to its deserved reputation.

Lowly street cleaner Scott Mary (Giuliano Gemma...