Mondo Macabro

[Finch]

soft teases from Mondo's newsletter:

BROKEN MIRROR/UNQUIET DEATH Double Feature

BROKEN MIRROR aka TROMP L'OEIL was recently announced as part of the Toronto International Film Festival's line up by our friend Kier-La Janise. By the time you read this it will have already played, but if you missed out on this 70s French psychological thriller you will be able to catch it as part of a double feature with another film by the same director Claude d'Anna, UNQUIET DEATH!

Here's the skinny on each film -

BROKEN MIRROR (France/Belgium, 1974)

Anne, a pregnant woman carrying her first child, lives in a magnificent but oppressive villa. She works as a restorer of old paintings and has become obsessed by a particular image of a nude woman on whose body is perched a giant bird. The bird seems to be feeding off the woman.

As she works in her studio at the top of the house, Anne becomes aware of a man watching her from a neighboring building. He wears a single glove on his left hand.

Fearing a descent into madness, Anne attempts to discover the origin and significance of the painting that obsesses her and starts on a perilous journey that takes her deep into the mystery of her past.

The film was highly praised on its initial theatrical run but has never been available on video before.

The film is featured in Kier-la Janisse’s new edition of House of Psychotic Women and was recently screened in the UK. After that screening, Letterboxd contributor Amelie wrote: “Let me just say that it's an incredible experience when you go to the first ever film festival screening of a completely forgotten, almost fifty year-old film, and it's one of the best movies you've ever seen”

UNQUIET DEATH aka LA MORT TROUBLE (France/Belgium/Tunisia, 1970)

Three haughty nieces of a wealthy uncle travel to his island estate and make life miserable for his Arab servant. When the rich uncle dies, the servant turns the tables on the helpless, inept girls, refusing to take orders from them and locking them away in their rooms. He forces them into lesbianism, strips them, and paints them up like hookers, but he refuses to touch them. When the servant fakes his own death, the girls revert to animalistic behavior to survive. Downed telephone lines and scattered radio broadcasts hint at a revolution on the mainland. Madness, savagery and death await the three girls when the servant returns.

Released shortly after the near revolution that took place in France in May 1968, and very much in the spirit of those times, the film created a sensation on its initial release in Paris. It has barely been seen since and this is its world premiere on video. Very much a first film by two film makers who would go on to make further very different works, the film still has the power to shock and disturb.

At the time of its initial release, French critic Louis Sauvet, writing in the prestigious Le Figaro, described the film as “a cinematographic treatise on insanity and degradation.”


- Paul Naschy's NIGHT OF THE EXECUTIONER

Your favorite icon of Spanish cult cinema does his version of DEATH WISH!

NIGHT OF THE EXECUTIONER aka LA NOCHE DEL EJECUTOR (Spain, 1992)

Naschy plays Dr Hugo Arranz who is celebrating his 50th birthday with his wife and daughter when a gang of degenerate thugs break into their home. They rob the doctor and his family and then rape and kill both the women. Their final gruesome act is to cut out Dr Hugo’s tongue after which they leave him to bleed to death. But the doctor survives and, seeking vengeance on the punks who destroyed his family, he begins a rigorous training program to turn himself into a merciless killing machine.

Naschy’s final film as writer/director/star, this is a bleak and violent work in which the action unfolds at a relentless pace, barely pausing for breath. Paul Naschy throws into the mix a huge dollop of sex and sleaze and his portrayal of the silent avenger is one of his most powerful and chilling screen performances.

This is the film’s first US release and a world premiere on Blu-ray, fully restored from the original negative and with a number of exclusive extra features.


- Indonesian horror/action freakout SPECIAL SILENCERS

Longtime fans of MM know we love the crazy Indonesian films of the 70s/80s/90s. And we know you love them too. Well, you will all be happy to know that after many years away we are finally heading back to Jakarta!

We have several projects in the works from that part of the world, but this is one of the most exciting!

SPECIAL SILENCERS (Indonesia, 1982)

One of the key works of Indonesian exploitation cinema, this 1982 film from action specialist Arizal mixes insane special effects, high-kicking martial, arts and gruesome horror into a highly entertaining brew.

Gundar, a sadistic and sleazy local politician steals a bag of small red pills from a local mystic. These pills, the “special silencers” of the title, when dropped into someone’s drink, cause a huge tree-like growth to burst from the victim’s stomach. Gundar uses these pills to wipe out anyone who gets in the way of him becoming a powerful local landlord.

Barry Prima plays Hendra, who is unwittingly drawn into the dark world of Gundar when he meets Eva Arnaz, whose father has been killed by the “special silencers.”

What follows is more or less not-stop action with many wild and highly improbable scenes. Todd Stadtman of Die, Danger, Die, Die, Kill! wrote: “Special Silencers has pretty much everything you’d want from an Indonesian exploitation movie.”

And he’s not wrong…

(Keep in mind that these are in varying stages of production and there are no guaranteed release dates as of yet, only that they are planned for 2023).

[spectre]

I looked up Broken Mirror and it looks very interesting. God bless labels like Mondo for salvaging these obscurities!

[therewillbeblus]

No idea how I lived this long as a horror fan without knowing of Who Can Kill a Child?'s existence, but what a movie. Don't Look Now counterprogramming doesn't need to have such an eclectic palette of technical choices, patient proliferation of narrative pace and tonal accumulation, or a courageously unfiltered execution of ideas, but this one does. I wasn't a fan of Serrador's other big movie coming from Arrow soon, but this is a best case scenario at what you get when baldly borrowing from influences to make something eccentrically attuned to a novel wavelength of creative horror accentuation. The film wouldn't fully succeed without strong lead performances though, and it seems insane to me that anyone could watch Prunella Ransome's work here and not give her the stepladder to stardom as a gift. It's an absolutely riveting, raw piece of acting, and she goes places I doubt were even asked of her. Bravo

[swo17]

Yep, and note that a couple other of the director's works have recently received attention: The House That Screamed from Arrow and Tales to Keep You Awake from Severin

[therewillbeblus]

The House That Screamed is the one I was referring to that sadly didn't do much for me, but I'll definitely seek out the other

[swo17]

It's an anthology TV series, somewhat hit and miss, but I'm enjoying it

[colinr0380]

That is really interesting. I had not been aware of the original series from the late 1960s that Severin are releasing but recall that Tales To Keep You Awake (which was retitled the "6 Films To Keep You Awake" series in the US and UK) got returned to in the mid 2000s with an anthology film series too. Serrador's entry into that series (the last film he directed) was Blame, but there was also a film by Alex de la Iglesia, The Baby's Room. There are also separate entries directed by Paco Plaza and Jaume Balagueró, who the same year had their breakthrough collaborating with the first of the [REC] series. And Spectre by Matteo Gil, who is better known as the screenwriter of many of Alejandro Amenábar's films, including Tesis, Abre los ojos, The Sea Inside and Agora.

So that might be good to see Severin tackle too, for completeness. Given that they are doing lots of Alex de la Iglesia films at the moment, it would seem perfect.

(I see from imdb that there is a more recent Amazon Prime revival of the series from last year under the same title)

Most amusingly Serrador apparently also was the creator of the 3-2-1 game show. So he is indirectly responsible for Dusty Bin, the mascot who haunted my nightmares as a kid and led to countless arguments with my parents when I did not want to take the bins out, just in case they came to life!

[therewillbeblus]

I've liked everything from my order so far, so here are some scattered thoughts on what I haven't mentioned yet in the event people are on the fence.

The Laughing Woman: If someone explained the plot of this to me, complete with the unsurprising and trite reveal in the denouement, I'd probably give it a hard pass. But the film utilizes its eliding style as an effectively provocative utility, destabilizing the audience in sync with its protagonist just enough to keep us glued to the unpredictable idiosyncrasies sewn into this familiar skeleton. There are some absolutely wonderful scenes, like the dance in the middle that seems to transcend whatever narrative device it's meant to serve as, detouring us into a vacuumed art exhibit of sublime cinema.

Honestly, I don't want to be too repetitive, but Mondo Macabro's best films seem to be so heavily focused on style informing substance that I could probably write more or less the same thing about each of these, listing examples of rich emphases tailored to each. Even terms of analysis, I could draw similar conclusions too, especially regarding the bait-and-switch trick of subjectivity used in both The Laughing Woman and Lizard in a Woman's Skin. A case could be made for The Blood Spattered Bride as well, which I really admired for how the narrative elisions worked to withhold where we should be aiming our focus amidst the ubiquitous creepiness and intrusive thoughts externalized in form. The relatively straightforward and conventional answer to the windup only amplifies the alien nature of the film's world, where disturbance is the norm and the banal logic of a lesbian vamp haunting is the antidote to this unnerving, nebulous atmosphere of erratic human behavior and disconnect!

The Killer of Dolls has one of the stupidest 'source of the murderer's compulsions' explanations, a psychological trauma so absurdly detached from any rational conclusion that it seemed deliberately lazy and half-formed. I think this strategy actually succeeds quite well to disempower the prioritized value audiences are typically asked to place upon getting to sympathize with the killers' "reasons" for killing in these kinds of films. Instead we get to know Paul first as a psychopath, fast-forward through any superfluous qualifiers in trauma history that would threaten to dilute the very real harm he causes with unearned validation, and then glance at his gentler qualities divorced from his pathology, simply placed in demonstrated action untied to any developmental certificate. Characterization is not explained as an argument forcing a conflict between binary moral assessment, but shown as a composite unable and unfair to be explained in such terms, and as the aesthetic insanity accelerates and the narrative progresses into wild territory, we are primed to accept the established madness with microdosed details of humanity. I can't really describe this much better- but it feels like a third, invisible path of how to approach a serial killer horror pic is located and built upon, and it works. Also the WTF ending and all the macabre set pieces perform so much better when we're ungrounded by a film that's disinterested in fastening its audience to a logic. That 'free pass' of liberation requires the filmmakers to commit to both confidence in their own strengths and trust in the viewer to engage with what they're doing and enjoy the ride devoid of holds, and the film is admirable for issuing this faith in skills consistently while basically applying no other consistent order on their product!

[ianthemovie]

Some potentially promising news about Lady Terminator: on the most recent They Live By Film podcast Jared Auner and Jesse Nelson have teased a potential release of this at Cauldron Films or Neon Eagle "at some point." They said "the rights might not be so difficult" but implied that the materials are more of a challenge. "There are possibilities in motion."

[therewillbeblus]

If you'd like to see Elina Löwensohn (from Hal Hartley's Amateur) in a bunch of weird shorts in the vein of Borowczyk/Quays/Jarman/Strickland/Maddin, I recommend the Apocalypse After pre-release that is already half sold-out. These are by Bertrand Mandico, whose Les Garçons sauvages topped Cahiers' top 10 list for 2018

I liked most of the experimental films on this release, but they were mostly front-heavy, aside from the fun Joan of Arc re-imagining and the titular film at the end. Speaking of reimaginings of historical figures' lives, the clear standout for me was Boro in the Box, a fantastical anti-biopic of Walerian Borowczyk that merges Lynchian schematic content into unpredictable but committed Ruizian narrative hijinks, shot with the surrealist-realist bend of Aleksei German, Tarkovsky, Vláčil, and all those Eastern European liberated artsy directors who create beauty out of even the ugliest of spaces. There are rich details in the mise en scene that are Tatiesque too though- I had to rewind a couple scenes and caught some great visual gags that were blink-and-you-miss-it type stuff (one of my favorites was the inexplicable abundance of fruit on a naked model's genital region that the camera just whisks by.. not just one piece covering her vagina, but a whole tree's worth lined all the way down her closed legs and sitting upon her lap, etc. - so weird, and even better for not pausing to nudge us)

[therewillbeblus]

I just happened to watch the East Asian films from my order back to back, but they were all wildly different so I almost didn't notice

Suddenly in the Dark: These Mondo horrors are often gory and stylistically infatuating (as is this, with its curiously incessant application of a kaleidoscopic visual motif), but they usually lean more heavily into camp and are less sincerely pitched at developing chilling vibes. This is an exception -not that it's not enjoyable to some degree, but the film is clearly influenced by gaslighting horrors like Rosemary's Baby that envelop our heroine's subjectivity to uncomfortably claustrophobic lengths as the tension escalates without cueing us into the internal logic of the horror. I'm not sure I loved the final product, which follows a pretty predictable narrative pattern while inconsistently breaking the mold with psychologically-stirring aesthetic deviations, but I did admire its craft and patience in delivering its atmospheric goals. The filmmakers create a kind of 'gaslight effect' for us, oscillating between feeling bound to and differentiated from our surrogate- which is a cool way to exhibit her own crisis of consciousness in self-doubt.

Hiruko the Goblin: Now we're back to pure fun. This Japanese horror-comedy is way more in line with some of those gonzo HK movies like Mr Vampire or The Seventh Curse than anything else I can think of offhand, but it's also emulating Sam Raimi's Evil Dead camerawork on amphetamines and the youthful horror movies like Gremlins or adventure-tales like The Goonies, as well as Ghostbusters and 50s B-horror movies in its plot, to set its offbeat tone. The camp is refurbished into art through slick filmmaking that takes the form seriously even within a story that's baldly silly. More movies should be packaged like this. It's a wonderful, exciting journey from start to finish, with one asterisk: the goblins can be so repulsive that they occasionally drown out the joys with grotesqueries. I guess that's the point, but man, some of these critters are just rancid to gaze at, especially when they're intruding in on our principals' faces and the camera plants us to suffocate right there with them- talk about vicarious trauma!

Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death: I forgot this was directed by Kim Ki-young (The Housemaid) before I watched it, so I was caught off guard by its blend of melodrama and eerie resonance, which really begins to work once you acclimate to its strange wavelength. At times, this resembles a typical 'Mondo Macabro horror vehicle', but even in those moments there's a subversion of our expectations for lucidity. The interpersonal exchanges carry an air of menace, and narrative withholding only amplifies the surreal, almost Pinter-esque theatre dynamics that simultaneously offers up familiar devices to ground us, and then repeatedly destabilizes us right with the characters trying to grasp what's going on. This is an exercise in style obfuscating tone, whereby we arrive at something truly terrifying in not even being spoonfed the basic need of we're supposed to 'feel' based on the mise en scene or other cinematic supports. As opposed to Hiruko the Goblin, it's not disturbing for its content, but for turning the tables on audience demands for mastery- and with a far more playful and respectfully indirect approach than Haneke might take. I'd categorize this film as Arthouse soup rather than any particular genre. Sure, it's ultimately a horror movie (it'd be insane to argue against it with that finale), but mystery, theatre, melodrama, crime procedural, and even noir could all apply. The key to the film is how Kim Ki-young bleeds all his substance together, subtext merging with text, until the disorganization becomes the genre itself. I could see an academic interest in formulating an intricate postmodern analysis of this one, but any superficial depth is all in service of a pretty naked punchline: the fallacy of will power trumping all.

[Finch]

sneak peek from Jared (subject to change)

April/May - NIGHT OF THE EXECUTIONER + BROKEN MIRROR/UNQUIET DEATH double bill + another French double bill + 60s Greek arthouse thriller (all of these will be worldwide disc debuts)

June/July - Two very weird 70s Japanese horror films (separate releases, not a double bill) + DEATH BRIGADE + double bill of Spanish films (all disc debuts, except sort of Death Brigade which is coming out in France around the same time)

August/September - Three film set of Asian action/fantasy weirdness + one or two other releases TBD (triple or double bills are possible here)

October/November (Halloween Sale) - SPECIAL SILENCERS + Franco horror + Spanish horror + Spanish erotic shocker

[Adam X]

What a year!
I was starting to wonder if Death Brigade would actually appear. Here's hoping La Punition & The Vampire of the Highway manage to find their way into this schedule as well.

I recently heard Jared say they were done with boxsets after the work required for their Bollywood set, but they certainly don't seem shy of double & triple bills if that list is anything to go by.

[Finch]

Jared mentioned on BR a few days ago that they won't be 4k upgrading Lizard in a Woman's Skin. Might come from Arrow US...?

[dwk]

The rights to both of those films are reverting to StudioCanal. I don't think Arrow has ever done a deal with them, so I would assume Severin is more likely.

[Adam X]

After Dr. Caligari, I get the impression they’re not in a hurry to release anything else on UHD, let alone upgrade one of their blu-ray’s.

[therewillbeblus]

Have the sales been exceptionally poor? It was a strange choice of title to start the format jump with- not only because it’s so much more esoteric than their typical accessible grindhouse fare, but it’s not exactly the most aesthetically arresting movie either!

[Finch]

They actually sold out their stock of Dr Caligari. Standard release coming later this year.

Re Lizard please let it not be Severin. Whoever they use for authoring their discs isn't reliable.

[dwk]

There is the possibility that StudioCanal will do their own UHDs of those Fulci titles in the UK. But looking at who SC has deals with in the US, I can't see it being anyone but Severin or, possibly, Scream Factory.

[Adam X]

Have the sales been exceptionally poor?

Nothing to do with sales, but rather the work that went into producing it, which was no doubt exacerbated by simultaneously working on their very first box set. But you know, time will tell, I guess.

[Finch]

Mondo announcements:

NIGHT OF THE EXECUTIONER (1992)
Dr Hugo Arranz (Paul Naschy) is commemorating his 50th birthday with his wife and daughter. As the celebrations reach their height, the family are terrorized by a gang of violent street thugs who have broken into their home. Initially the gang are after jewels and cash. But once they have their helpless victims tied up and defenseless, their thoughts turn to violence. They rape Arranz’s wife and daughter and then, annoyed by the doctor’s protests, they cut out his tongue and leave him for dead.
Arranz survives the attack and recovers after a stay in hospital. Abandoning his medical practice, he seeks vengeance on the men and women who destroyed his life. He embarks on a strenuous course of physical training, involving knives, guns and punishing bouts of weight lifting. Finally, he is ready to go in pursuit of his prey. But to track them down, he must enter the sleazy underworld which his potential victims inhabit. In the process, Dr Arranz begins to learn much, not only about his targets but also about himself.
NIGHT OF THE EXECUTIONER was Paul Naschy’s last complete film as writer/director/ actor. It’s a shocking and thrilling ride into the dark underbelly of the city and a true tribute to its star’s ability to craft exciting and thought provoking entertainment.
DISC FEATURES
Region Free
Brand new 4K restoration from the original negative
Spanish language track with optional English subtitles
Audio commentary by Rod Barnett and Troy Guinn of the Naschycast
Interview with Sergio Molina
Interview with actor Pepe Ruiz
Interview with actor Manuel Zarzo
LIMITED EDITION FEATURES
Full color booklet with a brand new essay on the film by Troy Howarth; 1500 numbered copies in the usual red case

BROKEN MIRROR (1975)
Anne Lawrence lives in Brussels, where she works as a restorer of rare paintings. When Anne becomes pregnant, her widowed mother visits her, which brings back memories from Anne’s past. Her mother asks Anne about the time she went missing and was found, lost in the city, clutching a strange painting with no knowledge of where it came from. Anne is fascinated by the painting but also scared of it. She becomes determined to discover why it now seems so important to her.
Strange incidents start to occur. Anne is pursued through empty streets by a large car with a hidden driver. She sees a man with a gloved right hand watching her from the deserted house across the street. She becomes frightened by her own reflection in mirrors.
As Anne sinks ever deeper into the mystery of her past, fantasy and reality start to merge and she finds herself entering a nightmare of fear and sudden violence from which she seems unable to escape.
Director Claude d’Anna’s third feature film is a dreamlike and hallucinatory journey into altered states of consciousness; a unique film, full of images of beauty and terror.

UNQUIET DEATH (1970)
Three sisters come from France to visit their wealthy uncle who lives on a remote island off the coast of Tunisia. The only other inhabitant of the island is the uncle’s manservant. The uncle dies in mysterious circumstances and the girls are left at the mercy of the servant. Initially he seems cooperative but then, as the radio broadcasts disturbing reports of trouble and unrest on the mainland, he rebels, refusing to obey the girls’ orders. Imprisoning them in the uncle’s house, he sets them various bizarre tasks, challenges their sense of superiority and even tries to teach them a new form of language.
Finally their veneer of civilization cracks, and the girls resort to savagery. The servant disappears, seemingly dead. Sensing freedom, the girls celebrate. But then the servant returns. And this time he is angry...
Made in the shadow of the May 68 Paris “events”, Unquiet Death is a truly revolutionary and radical film, one that throws all caution to the wind. Packed full of startling images that mix beauty and terror, there really is nothing else quite like it. The film’s rediscovery after more than 50 years is a cause for celebration.
DISC FEATURES
Region free
MIRROR digitally restored from the original negative; UNQUIET digitally restored from 35mm elements
French or English language tracks for MIRROR (with optional Eng Subs); French track with optional English subtitles for UNQUIET
Interview with co-writer/director Claude d’Anna
Interview with UNQUIET DEATH co-writer/director Férid Boughedir
Interview with actress/co-writer Laure Dechasnel
Profile of editor and producer Gust Verren
RAPPELS (Curtain Call), short film by Claude d’Anna
LIMITED EDITION FEATURES
Full color booklet with new essay on the films by Paul Geens; reversible cover sleeve each side highlighting one of the films; 1200 numbered copies in the usual red case

THE FEAR (1966)
Anna, a young female student living in Athens, returns to her family’s large farm in the remote Greek countryside. She starts to feel the tensions that lie, repressed, under the apparently tranquil rural setting. Her father and mother are trapped in a loveless marriage and her half-brother, Anestis, seems even more of a brooding and dangerous figure than ever before. Anna’s only real friend is the mute servant girl, Hrysa, who many of the local villagers see as some kind of saint due to her alleged sightings of the Virgin Mary in the lonely corn fields that surround the farm.
Hrysa disappears and is reported missing. Anna soon suspects her half-brother is responsible and has probably killed the girl. She starts to follow him, trying to trick him into a confession. Realizing that she might become his next victim, Anna starts to fear for her life. Confused and scared she accepts a marriage proposal from a local man. It’s at the wedding ceremony, with the whole village watching, that the truth finally emerges and the terrifying last act of this rural psychodrama is played out.
The Fear was the third, and final, film made by director Kostas Manoussakis. It was screened at the Berlin Film Festival and was widely sold around the world. However, due to a series of problems, Manoussakis never completed another feature. Now acclaimed as a classic and one of the best Greek films of its era, The Fear has lost none of its power to grip the viewer with its striking imagery and pulsing, avant garde soundtrack.
DISC FEATURES
Region free
Brand new 2K restoration from the original negative
Greek language track with optional English subtitles
Documentary about the film and director Kostas Manoussakis
Gallery of stills and artwork
Video: Remembering Elena Nathanail
LIMITED EDITION FEATURES
Full color booklet with brand new writing on the film by Jacques Spohr; reversible cover sleeve with original ad art on each side; 1200 numbered copies in the usual red case

RAVISHING DANY (1972)
Surely one of the weirdest “sex comedies” ever, the story concerns Danielle (’Dany to my friends’), a freelance fashion model in early 1970s France, played here by Sandra Julien of SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES fame. She wants to buy a car and so is saving the travel portion of her fee for that purpose. To get from gig to gig she hitchhikes. This puts her into numerous dangerous and bizarre situations, including being picked up by a hearse driver who wants to have sex with her UNDERNEATH his hearse, as there’s a corpse in the back; an escaped loony who mistakes sheep for women; a horny Italian countess who’s looking for some kinky sex and flagellation; a hippy who sings rather than talks (and has a big surprise in store for Dany); a crucifix-obsessed butterfly collector; a Byzantine prince in a Rolls Royce; and more...
Director Willy Rozier (1901-1983) was a pioneer of independent productions in his native France. He worked in many of the popular film genres - action, crime, comedy, thrillers and was an Olympic swimming champion as well as one of the developers of underwater filming equipment. He was perhaps most famous for the number of iconic female stars he discovered, which included Brigitte Bardot and French favorite Françoise Arnoul.
+
THE GIRL CAN’T STOP! (1965)
Based on a well known Greek novel, director Willy Rozier’s Les chiens dans la nuit (Dogs in the Night) was distributed in the USA as THE GIRL CAN’T STOP! and in Germany as Die Sadisten (The Sadists). It’s a gripping and often shocking story of how low some men will stoop to get what they want, and how they use and abuse the women in their lives to get it.
Manuel (played by Georges Rivière) is a struggling businessman about to go under. He loses his last cash in the casino. His sleazy and violent accomplice, Manolis, persuades Manuel that one way to save his ailing business would be to persuade his wife - the beautiful Tassoula - to sleep with banker Giorgian Kaledis and use her influence to borrow money from his bank. Although she initially rejects her husband’s plan, Tassoula falls in love with Giorgian and sees him as a possible escape from her loveless marriage. However, she is in for a shock when she discovers that the innocent looking Giorgian is in fact a sexual pervert, who likes to listen while his bald, one-eyed servant Kior Ali tortures women.
The Girl Can’t Stop is graced with a strong cast of European genre film stalwarts at the top of their game, including Greek “blonde bombshell” Zeta Apostolou and the stunningly beautiful Maria Xenia. The film is gripping entertainment right up to its bleak and cynical ending.
DISC FEATURES
Region free
Brand new 2K restorations of each film from the negatives
French or English audio (with optional Eng Subs) for DANY and French audio with optional English subtitles for THE GIRL
Interview with director’s daughter Catherine Rozier
Featurette - Dany and the Censors
Christophe Bier reads Willy Rozier
Trailer for DANY
LIMITED EDITION FEATURES
Full color booklet with brand new writing on the films by Jacques Spohr; reversible cover sleeve each side highlighting one of the films; 1200 numbered copies in the usual red case

[therewillbeblus]

Man, these are really deep cuts per usual - Willy Rozier's two don't seem to exist anywhere on back channels

[colinr0380]

Speaking of Sandra Julien films, I understand why Synapse might be focusing on name dropping her connection to Shiver of the Vampires given the upcoming Indicator release of that one and which was the film that really jumpstarted her career in these softcore films but she had quite a career there for a few years, most notably her starring roles in Max Pécas's two films I Am A Nymphomaniac and I Am Frigid...Why? (which was apparently less well received because, well, the title suggests there's not going to be much naughtiness occurring!). I would particularly love to see that Norifumi Suzuki film she was in, The Erotomaniac Daimiyo, sometime!

So the release of Ravishing Dany would be a great chance to see one of the most obscure titles she was in during that period.

[Finch]

new announcements have dropped on Facebook:





The latter is also known as Shadow of Death, but Mondo are including the Italian and longer Spanish versions, and Jared swears by the Spanish version being much better (the film was previously only available in the Italian cut internationally).

[Adam X]

Sad to see that Rod Barnett & Troy Guinn weren’t able to contribute to either disc, but they’re both welcome releases nonetheless.

I’d not quite gotten around to watching Cineploit’s Shadow of Death, but from what I’ve seen so far, their english subtitling isn’t always so hot. Mondo’s release should be a welcome upgrade.