Shameless Screen Entertainment

UK start-up specializing in giallo and other Euro-trash, i.e. Torso, New York Ripper, Phantom of Death, Killer Nun, Venus in Furs, and Fulci's The Black Cat. Maybe not that big a deal for US collectors--we have most of these--but some of these titles are being released on DVD for the first time in the UK.

Interesting to see the turn around from all prints of New York Ripper being escorted out of the country only a few years ago to this latest release seemingly only having 34 seconds of cuts to the razorblade scene.

The release that is most intriguing is Phantom of Death, which was directed in 1988 by Ruggero Deodato and stars Michael York, Donald Pleasance and Edwige Fenech, with an appearance by Giovanni Lombardi Radice.

It probably goes without saying, but Radice is perhaps most famous for his insane role in Cannibal Ferox, which on the US disc has a fantastic duelling commentary (though they are recorded separately) between Radice, who hates it (and is surprisingly candid about Leticia's role in the drug trade at the time being one of his primary reasons for accepting the film!), and the director Umberto Lenzi, trying to make justifications for the animal violence. It is a film that even makes Cannibal Holocaust look tame in its excesses.

Radice also had various memorable deaths in Cannibal Apocalypse (the origin of the grisly image of being able to see straight through a wound to action occuring on the other side of it that has been picked up by From Dusk Till Dawn and The Quick and the Dead among others?) Michele Soavi's Stagefright-Aquarius (which also features David Brandon aka the angel Ariel from Jubilee, who seems to have gone into a long career in Italian films following his debut in Jarman's film, most recently appearing in Asia Argento's Scarlet Diva and Soavi's 2002 St Francis TV movie which NoShame has released) and Lucio Fulci's City of the Living Dead. Also he previously worked with Deodato in House on the Edge of the Park.

Not to mention a role in the "20 years later" sequel to Big Deal On Madonna Street, which I have not seen.

Wonderfully he has turned up in small parts in a couple of Hollywood films recently, such as Scorsese's Gangs of New York and was the priest who hands baby Damien over to the Ambassador at the beginning of the recent Omen remake!

It seems that this release of Phantom of Death (classfied under an alternate title as Off Balance) is unedited after previously having been edited by 18 seconds.)

Radice always did a great job in his films no matter how bad they were, or how little he thought of them. I always hoped he would get a "Tarantino-esque" revival of sort (which he asks for in the Cannibal Apocalypse featurette) and I always felt he could of done a lot more than just be a lynchpin for italian horror films. Good to see he's at least getting decent bit parts.

DVD Outsider reviews of New York Ripper (I'll stick to my uncut Anchor Bay copy!) and Phantom of Death.