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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.

It’s telling that the first feature-length film to come out of Italy was Dante’s Inferno (1911). Because of course, what else would it be? A silent, 68-minute adaptation of the classic poem that, quite memorably, features Satan munching on the souls of the damned. I suppose you could consider this film a tone-setter for the sort of genre films that would come out in Italy over the next hundred-plus years. The film is violent, demonic, and packed with full-frontal nudity. But most importantly, it was all about Hell.

Now, I know it should go without saying, but Italy is pretty big on that whole Catholicism deal. According to a survey conducted in 2005–2006, 87.8% of Italian citizens considered themselves to be Catholic. It should be no surprise, then, that while religious horror is prevalent in the United States, nobody can quite deliver a satanic panic like the Italians. And in the...