Severin Films

[fdm]

Mine were well beyond minor, though I guess we shall see whether they meet their severe threshold (certainly meets mine)…

(Update: A while back for Blood for Dracula got fresh new (unassembled) packaging; for Santa Sangre got not so fresh but less dented packaging (bah, probably should have pursued it further at the time.))

[dwk]

Hmmm...I actually like some early Franco films like Awful Dr. Orloff and Diabolical Dr. Z. Has anyone seen these noirs?

I haven't seen them, but I'm listening to the Severin Films' official podcast and one of the hosts hates Franco's movies but he seems to really like these two.

[domino harvey]

I believe Orson Welles hired Franco for Chimes at Midnight based on his work on one of these films

[dwk]

Drop Dead Fred has disappeared from Severin's site and they've cancelled people's preorders.

[dwk]

Severin finally commented on Drop Dead Fred. Their release is canceled and it will be coming from another label.

[CSM126]

Gonna LOL so hard when Vinegar Syndrome announces a $70 UHD of Drop Dead fucken Fred and that other forum explodes in an orgasmic torrent because they can’t wait to collect all five slipcovers.

[dwk]

Scratch what I said before. Severin called the label releasing it "our friends," so it probably is going to be Vinegar Syndrome.

[dwk]

Looks like Universal's lawyers have discovered Severin. The Cruel Jaws discs and novelization have been removed from Severin's site.

[domino harvey]

Does Severin not have a lawyer they can talk to first or something

[L.A.]

Eloy de la Iglesia’s Quinqui Collection and Mondo Digital’s review.

[dwk]

Severin is releasing Mike Leigh's All or Nothing on Blu-ray on October 26th.

Looking at the specs and this appears to be identical to the upcoming UK release from StudioCanal.

[dwk]

NASTY HABITS: THE NUNSPLOITATION COLLECTION [4-DISC BLU-RAY BOX SET] (PRE-ORDER 11/30) containing the following movies:
CRISTIANA DEVIL NUN
STORY OF A CLOISTERED NUN
IMAGES IN A CONVENT
THE TRUE STORY OF THE NUN OF MONZA

[colinr0380]

That is an interesting selection. I have not seen any of these but really all the films in the nunsploitation genre are coming about in the wake of The Devils with more or less justification to their interminglings of wimples and wantonness. Christiana Devil Nun was made the same year as The Devils and was directed by Sergio Bergonzelli just after his giallo film In The Folds Of The Flesh. Story of a Cloistered Nun was directed by Domenico Paolella in a turn away from his run of Hercules and Goliath peplum movies (when are we going to start getting box sets of those?) along with The Nun and The Devil from the same year which features a similarly interesting cast of Anne Heywood and Ornella Muti.

Then we get to a couple of the better known films from late in the 1970s with Joe D'Amato's Images In A Convent and Bruno Mattei's The True Story of the Nun of Monza. The latter film stars Zora Kerova the same year as she played the pregnant lady in D'Amato's Anthropophagus The Beast. Kudos to Severin for doing a nunsploitation Mattei film and not just releasing The Other Hell again, but going for this relatively lesser known film! Most of what I know about The True Story of the Nun of Monza comes from Brad Jones and pals when they discussed the film in their Bruno Mattei show. Apparently we have to be prepared for some horseplay in the opening scene, which makes me think that this film coming late in the cycle is perhaps also taking some cues from Walerian Borowczyk's The Beast in that moment, since that also begins with a male horse and a female horse graphically engaged in the act of love (Borowczyk himself would make one of the best of the Italian nunsploitation films with Behind Convent Walls)

[domino harvey]

Discussion of All the Haunts Be Ours split off here

[dwk]

They mentioned during the most recent podcast that they have some Argento coming and I assume it has to be one of the following:
Four Flies on Grey Velvet
The Five Days of Milan
Door into Darkness
Do You Like Hitchcock
Mother of Tears
Giallo

I think everything else is already on Blu-ray/with a different label in the US.

[Luke M]

Don't know if we knew this yet, but the former Kickstarter release of Dennis Hopper's Out of the Blue will now be released by Severin. Expected to be released in January, but Kickstarter backers *may* get it earlier.

[Cash Flagg]

…Which is a really surprising/disappointing choice, considering they originally referred to a ‘very well-regarded and innovative American disc company’. Fingers crossed for a competent encode.

[swo17]

I can't speak to their technical consistency, but they have really upped their game with several recent releases

[L.A.]

Franco Noir @ Mondo Digital

[dwk]

January 2022's releases

Don't Go in the House
More than 40 years ago, it ignited a firestorm of outrage in America and DPP 39 condemnation in the UK. Now one of the grisliest gems of the ‘80s can be seen uncut and fully remastered like never before: A shy incinerator worker (an unnerving performance by Dan Grimaldi of THE SOPRANOS) scarred by memories of his mother’s abuse begins luring women to his childhood home for incendiary torment, including “one of the most shocking, notorious scenes in sleaze-horror history” (Mondo Digital). Director/co-writer Joseph Ellison delivers “an underrated classic on the same level as MANIAC” (Ninja Dixon), now featuring a new 2K scan from the original negative – plus the alternate TV Version and The Extended Cut combining scenes from both – with 2+ hours of exclusive Special Features.

Special Features:
Disc 1 (Theatrical Cut)

• THE BURNING: Alternate TV Cut
• Audio Commentary With Director Joe Ellison And Producer Ellen Hammill
• Archival Commentary With Actor Dan Grimaldi
• “House” Keeping: Interviews With Co-Producer Matthew Mallinson and Co-Writer Joseph R. Masefield
• We Went In The House!: The Locations Of DON’T GO IN THE HOUSE
• Playing With Fire: Archival Interview With Actor Dan Grimaldi
• Trailer Gallery
• Image Gallery

Disc 2 (Integral Cut)

• Audio Commentary With Stephen Thrower, Author Of Nightmare USA
• Minds On Fire: Video Essay By The Reprobate David Flint
• Burn Baby Burn: Interview With Director Joseph Ellison
• Grindhouse All-Stars: Interviews With Filmmakers Matt Cimber, Joseph Ellison, Roy Frumkes and Jeff Lieberman

Delirium
For his feature film debut, director Peter Maris (MINISTRY OF VENGEANCE, DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY) took portions of an unfinished urban conspiracy thriller and added a new psycho-killer procedural to create what may be the most unusual/vicious proto-slasher shocker of the ‘70s: When a series of savage murders rocks St. Louis, the police investigation will lead to a deranged Vietnam vet “who looks like a cracked-out Seth McFarlane” (HorrorNews.net), an underground organization of white-collar vigilantes, gratuitous nudity, graphic violence and an absolute masterclass in low-budget regional filmmaking. One of the very first Section 2 Video Nasties, this longtime VHS rarity – also known as PSYCHO PUPPET – is now presented on disc for the first time ever, restored from the only known 35mm print in existence.

Special Features:

• Directing DELIRIUM: Interview With Director Peter Maris
• Monster Is Man: Interview With Special Effects Artist Bob Shelley
• Trailer

[colinr0380]

It will be interesting to see Delirium, as at the moment the only thing that registers with me is that they used the same library music track ("Approaching Menace") that the BBC uses for Mastermind! This was the first film of Peter Maris, and probably the most notable one, though he also directed the FMV scenes in the 1994 video game Phantasmagoria!

[dwk]

Upcoming titles revealed at Severin's pop-up screening:
Bloody Pit of Horror
Night of the Demon (1983) (and a novelization)
Pintu Terlarang
Black Candles
The Halfway House
Ballad in Blood
House on the Edge of the Park

[colinr0380]

Night of the Demon is another video nasty release. It was one of the earliest that I got to 'illicitly' see (thanks to an Uncle leaving his VHS collection at our house whilst he was moving) and whilst it wasn't as great as The Hills Have Eyes, or as eye-popping as Absurd, it still made a big impact. Its a strange mix of cheesy B-movie that could have been made in the 60s (and looks like it comes from the 70s) only interspersed with very long and lingering shots of gore scenes that go on for a disturbingly long time.

I had never seen anything like that at the time (and still haven't to such an extent, especially in this modern hyper-edited era when even the grisly Saw films only show milliseconds of edited flashes of carnage. The closest thing, and this may just have been seeing them both in quick succession, would be to the the similarly lingering kills in Absurd) and whilst I would never argue particularly hard with someone who felt that the lengthy lingering dulled the impact and turned something scary into just silly, revisiting it a few months ago it still felt weirdly effective. In some ways it is working as a 'mind's eye' version of events as all the early deaths are being described by a College professor to his students (why?) and then the isolated murder scene flashbacks play out in the goriest possible way! (And the entire film itself is one giant flashback) I particularly liked the moment early on when it seems that the film is going to be 'subtle' at first, as an unfortunate person has their arm ripped off by Bigfoot only shown in shadow, only for the victim to wander armlessly into frame and then fall on the ground to gush blood into the creature's footprint over the opening titles!

That is really the entire reason for being of the film, and on that level I think it works. Over explicitness and lack of subtlety turns into a kind of virtue here (at least in my opinion. Other's may have different reactions) which runs from the way that the gore scenes are stretched and distended (even employing slow motion) under the disturbing noodling, wailing electronic whining score; to the way that Bigfoot himself after lingering on the edges of the frame like Jason Voorhees makes a sudden last act appearance in full view; to the way that the film in that final sequence that has the framing narrative characters themselves finally come under attack sort of 'clicks' into slow motion as the gory massacre begins is kind of horrifically perfect in emphasising that, as with the victims in the campfire tales that came before, there is no possible escape here either. At least not without hideous disfiguring wounds that is the final coupe de grace of the film (going beyond just being gorily killed but left alive in such a mutilated state being the ultimate horror perhaps).

It is a kind of sadistic film in that sense as whilst there is a bit of a plot about Bigfoot's back story, the film (like the characters) is obviously far more focused on the spraying blood and gory wounds. Which is probably why it ran into trouble in the UK as a video nasty, as it is difficult to mitigate or justify the material as being essential in a narrative way! But remove the gory set pieces and there's nothing particularly compelling left, as the way that the mundane plotting is clashing up against the much gorier than expected for its time set piece moments is the unique aspect of this film. I have always found it difficult to really appreciate many of the films of filmmakers like Herschell Gordon Lewis but Night of the Demon is probably working in much the same territory, and it sort of helped me to understand the way that something like Blood Feast may have affected audiences of the time.

But whilst I do like this film a lot as a nostalgic guilty pleasure, I wouldn't argue against people with opposite points of view too strongly. And of course it commits the ultimate egregious crime of bearing the same title as the classic 1957 horror!

[dwk]

They also showed a teaser reel for 2022 and it appears that the mystery Argento title they have is Five Days of Milan.

Other 2022 titles teased Hard Rock Zombies, Caligula 2: The Untold Story and Black Demons.

[L.A.]

Reviews for An Angel for Satan (1966) @ Beaver, CineSavant and Mondo Digital.