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Gothic Fantastico-Four Italian Tales of Terror

Blu-ray

Arrow Video

Starring Barbara Nelli, Helga Liné, Franco Nero, Erica Blanc

Written by Giovanni Grimaldi, Bruno Corbucci

Directed by Massimo Pupillo, Alberto De Martino, Mino Guerrini, Damiano Damiani

The success of 1957’s I Vampiri, a grimly beautiful fantasy directed by Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava, provoked an unexpected trend in the country known for neo-realism; Italian horror films began to embrace the classical romanticism of Rebecca over the modernistic shocks of Psycho. Elegant nightmares like Bava’s Black Sunday cast their spell and soon this new breed of gothics—united by sumptuous black and white photography—dominated movie theaters with tbeir come-hither promise of seductive spirits and strategically lit negligees.

A few of these thrillers were more brazen in their approach—flaunting their teasing nudity and blood-soaked denouements, exploitation fare like Atom Age Vampire and The Playgirls and the Vampire took aim at...

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.

After a quiet day of releases last Tuesday, we have a ton of horror and sci-fi home media offerings on the docket for this week, including one of my favorite films of the year, Happy Death Day 2 U. Criterion has put together a new edition of the original Funny Games that fans will undoubtedly want to add to their collections, and Mill Creek Entertainment is bringing both Ghosts of Mars and the Eyes of Laura Mars to Blu-ray for the first time as well.

Scream Factory will be unleashing The Chosen this week, and Intervision is resurrecting the underground horror/wrestling mashup Masked Mutilator in what looks to be an ultimate celebration of the cult film. Mondo Macabro is keeping busy with their release of the gothic sexiness of The Devil’s Nightmare, and for those of you who love to indulge in Wtf-ery filmmaking, Saint Bernard from Gabe Bartalos is not to be missed.

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...

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,...

Review by Roger Carpenter

During the first half of the 60’s Mario Bava created several genuine horror classics that remain high-water marks in the genre over a half century later. Films such as Black Sunday (1960), Black Sabbath (1963), The Whip and the Body (1963), and Blood and Black Lace (1964) either pushed the boundaries of horror or helped to establish cinematic tropes still used in modern horror. Always saddled with shoestring budgets and bad deals, Bava nevertheless remained optimistic in the face of his cinematic struggles. A case in point is the troubled production of Kill, Baby…Kill! which ran out of money midway through the shoot. The cast and crew were so loyal to Bava they worked for free to finish the film—a film, by the way, which only had a 30-page script with no dialogue when filming commenced. Bava had the actors make up their own lines, preferring to resolve...

At the height of the Italian giallo boom in the early 1970s, scores of filmmakers turned their hand to crafting their own unique takes on these lurid murder-mystery thrillers. Emilio P. Miraglia may not be as well-known as Dario Argento or Mario Bava, but he did direct a distinct pair of thrillers that are out today on Blu-ray from Arrow Vide0: The Red Queen Kills Seven Times and In The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave.

In The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (1972), an age-old family curse hits sisters Kitty (Barbara Bouchet) and Franziska (Marina Malfatti) following the death of their grandfather Tobias (Rudolf Schündler). Every hundred years, so the legend goes, the bloodthirsty Red Queen returns and claims seven fresh victims. Was Tobias just the first… and are Kitty and Franziska next?

Director Emilio P. Miraglia once again combines a conventional giallo whodunit narrative with supernatural chills,...

Reviewed by Kevin Scott

MoreHorror.com

Arrow Films has solidified itself as a pristine oasis amidst the barren deserts of substandard Blu Ray transfers and the sadly basic re-releases of beloved and forgotten classics. A bold statement I know, but completely and entirely true. I’ve been lucky enough to get my hands on the Arrow versions of seminal classics from the 1970’s and 80’s that burned their influence into my cinema sensibilities from the first time I saw them on Uhf or VHS.

This new “Killer Dames” edition is a double feature of giallo from Emilio Mariglia, and it’s everything the giallo moniker brings with it. Boobs, blood, black gloves, even black boots, and a cloaked supernatural figure on a murderous rampage, all drizzled in that special 1970’s sauce where the skirts were short, the collars are wide, and solid color clothing was scarce. I love everything about this set,...

Mvd Entertainment Group looks to please Emilio P. Miraglia fans with Arrow Video’s May Us Blu-ray releases, including the Killer Dames box set collecting The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave and The Red Queen Kills Seven Times. Horror fans can also look forward to Arrow’s high-definition release of 1966’s Blood Bath that features all four versions of the Roger Corman-produced film.

Press Release: Mvd Entertainment Group furthers the distribution of Arrow Video in the Us with several new titles in May…

Hired To Kill (Director Approved Special Edition Blu-ray + DVD)

No man on earth could get him out of prison alive. Seven women will try.

Release Date: May 17th

List Price: $29.95

Starring legendary actors Oliver Reed (Gladiator, The Brood) and George Kennedy (The Delta Force and the Naked Gun series), Hired to Kill is a hugely entertaining action flick featuring guns, girls and a plethora...

The absolute nucleus, the atomic chain of Italian horror begins with Mario Bava. Filmmakers from Scorcese to Tarantino have praised the lurid, awe-inspiring artistry (and artwork) of such classics as Black Sabbath (1963) and Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971). However, Kill, Baby, Kill(1966) may be his crowning achievement, a fever dream of shadows and fog, illusion and menace.

Released in July in his native Italy (but not until 1968 in North America), Kill was a financial success back home. Bava was very prolific, with Kill being his ninth film in six years. This is all the more shocking, because his films don’t scream ‘rush job’, but rather seem meticulously planned and executed.

Kill falls right in line with the horror of the day, gothic du jour, served steamy and sensuous. Beautiful women (usually in low clingy bodices) swooning and/or screaming, usually pursued through a dark and gloomy castle by some evil doctor,...

While not as high-profile or prolific as some legendary Italian horror/thriller auteurs we've covered on these pages, director Emilio Miraglia has developed a bit of a cult following, mainly due to a pair of creepy and twisty films: the 1972 release The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, and this oddity from the previous year. I picked this one for today's feature, not because it's the better-made of the two – Red Queen is a slicker production, much closer in style and tone to the popular gialli of the period – but because Evelyn is so defiantly weird, and also to emphasize the strange beauty of co-star Erika Blanc. Fans of Euro-horror are already familiar with Erika's work – which includes a breakout role in Mario Bava's Kill, Baby, Kill! and a knockout performance as a sexy but terrifying succubus in the occult thriller The Devil's Nightmare. Her role in this film is nearly as memorable,...

Each country tends to have its own idiosyncratic film styles and genres or subgenres. Britain has the lugubrious Kitchen Sink Drama – best typified by the films of Ken Loach. Japan has scary as hell ghost stories. France has the New French Extremism with films like Irreversible, Romance, Baise Moi.

The Italians have Giallo. Giallo translates as ‘yellow’ and refers to the yellow covers of the pulp fiction mystery books that inspired many of these films. Giallo films, for Italian audiences, mean any kind of thriller – thus the term would include films like Psycho and Peeping Tom. For non Italian audiences, Giallo refers to a very specific type of Italian film.

In the Giallo, there is the murder mystery/ whodunnit vibe running throughout the film. The killer is usually dressed in black with the iconic black leather gloves holding the murder weapon. There is usually a seedy undertone to the proceedings...

Part of our series on Forgotten Gialli

"...for the secrets of the analyst's couch are as those of the confessional, only more interesting." —John Collier.

Love and Death in the Garden of the Gods (Amore e morte nel giardino degli dei, 1972) is a lovely test case for how far the giallo could stray from its sources of inspiration and still be true to itself.

Those sources: the original pulp yellowbacks that featured Agatha Christie and Edgar Wallace novels, writers who favored elaborate, formalist plot mechanics over plausibility or psychology; Edgar Allan Poe and his hysterical, irrational nightmare narratives; Hitchcock and film noir, the marriage of vivid, obtrusive technique to suspense and crime scenarios; the German krimi, which adapted Wallace with noir stylistics; the Italian art cinema and the celebration of aesthetic statements that overflow any narrative requirement.

"I didn't want to kill her... but I didn't want her animal eyes on me any more.

At the recent premiere of Dave Zagorski's Killing Brooke, Mad Z Productions debuted the teaser trailer for his next project, The Devil's Nightmare, and we have it for you right here along with a few photos and some preliminary details of what the film is about.

From the Press Release:

A remake of Jean Brismee's Belgian/Italian film from 1971 (not released in America until 1974 and alternately titled "La plus longue nuit du diable", "Castle of Death", "La terrificante notte del demonio" and "Succubus"), starring Seregon O'Dassey and Devanny Pinn.

The Devil's Nightmare is once again written and directed by Dave Zagorski. Regular Mad Z players Johnny Donaldson, Kt Baldassaro, Colin Allen, Ray Hryb, Dina Baker, and Chris Shanahan (all encoring from Killing Brooke) return alongside newcomer Camee Manderfield in this gory tale of demonic temptation and terror. Jared Skolnick, an award-winning director in his own right (for his short H.P. Lovecraft...

Dave Zagorski of Mad Z Productions recently got in touch with us to announce the company's next horror project: the gruesome occult thriller The Devil’s Nightmare. Addiction can be your own personal hell…

From the Press Release:

A remake of Jean Brismee’s Belgian/Italian film from 1971 (not released in America until 1974 and alternately titled La plus longue nuit du diable, Castle of Death, La terrificante notte del demonio, and Succubus), The Devil’s Nightmare is written and directed by Dave Zagorski (Killing Brooke), who’s producing under his Mad Z banner alongside Johnny Donaldson.

Veteran indie scream queens Seregon O’Dassey (Cleric, Ghost Watcher 2) and Devanny Pinn (15 til Midnight, Nude Nuns with Big Guns) join a cast that includes Donaldson, Kt Baldassaro, Colin Allen, Ray Hryb, Dina Baker, and Chris Shanahan (all encoring from Killing Brooke) alongside newcomer Camee Manderfield in this gory tale of demonic temptation and terror.

Here’s another helping of immorality and mayhem courtesy of Emilio Miraglia, the man responsible for one of my favorite gialli, The Red Queen Kills Seven Times (which, ironically, was glimpsed in last week’s Saturday Nightmare, New Year’s Evil, under the Us title - Blood Feast).

This film, the first of Miraglia’s only two forays into giallo cinema, isn’t as accomplished as its successor but has plenty of perversity to keep things interesting. If you’ve come to expect ludicrous plot twists, unscrupulous characters, sexual debauchery and a solid dose of murder, then you’ll find much to love about this atmospheric little shocker.

To put it mildly, Alan Cunningham has issues. As the Lord of a sprawling estate, the smarmy playboy spends his evenings luring attractive young women to his castle where he tortures them before savagely killing them. It seems as though Alan has...

There's something special about saucy European sleaze horror in the 70's.

That unique blend of morally bankrupt, American potboiler pulp noir attitude combined with a distinct haute couture informed Euro-sexuality and sensationally stylized level of graphic, phantasmagorical violence just speaks to me. I worship Dario Argento, swoon over Sergio Martino, bite my lip at the name Leon Klimovsky, click my heels over Antonio Bido, pump my fists at the mere mention of Lucio Fulci…yes, I love these men and the maniacal works of misbehaving, lush, junk-shock cinema they once slung (and in some cases, continue to sling).

I've seen and own so many fantastic Italian, Spanish and French genre films from this period that I consider myself something of a connoisseur, a man who knows and loves his Eurotrash and can differentiate between a really good lurid treat, a middling one and one that couldn't cut the mustard in...