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Just to really annoy everyone (well, Matt), Blue Underground have now announced the third installment of their Mondo Cane Collection repackaging. Shockumentary Extreme Collection will contain the director's cuts of Africa Addio and Addio Zio Tom. This means you can now pick up the complete contents of the "10,000 copies only" boxset for just over a third of the original price.

Oh well, I would have just spent the extra money on coke and hookers anyway.

Would this be a good place to suggest a stickied thread for SEVERIN FILMS, the Blue Underground breakoff positing themselves as 'The Criterion of Smut'?

Details on the Daughters of Darkness re-release. No actual word on a new transfer, but all the new interviews plus The Blood-Splattered Bride make it extremely tempting.

Things are looking up

From DavisDVD:

Blue Underground will release a new two-disc Special Edition of Harry Kümel's 1971 psychosexual shocker Daughters Of Darkness on October 31st. Featuring a newly remastered 1.66:1 anamorphic transfer from a hi-def master, the film arrives in its unrated Director's Cut with Dolby Digital Mono audio, a commentary track with Kümel, a second track with star John Karlen and journalist David Del Valle, "Locations Of Darkness" interviews with Kümel and cowriter/coproducer Pierre Drouot, "Playing The Victim" interview with actress Danielle Ouimet, "Daughter Of Darkness" interview with actress Andrea Rau, theatrical trailer, radio spots and poster & still galleries. Also included is a bonus disc featuring Vicente Aranda's The Blood Spattered Bride in 1.85:1 anamorphic. Retail is $29.95.

Mondo Digital and DVD Drive-In give the new Daughters of Darkness high marks.

Has anyone checked out the Enzo Castellari Italian Crime Flicks?

I knew it was going to happen eventually. Blue Underground is going to release Maniac and Vigilante.

Yet, Maniac Cop is being released by Synapse...

Davis DVD reports that Blue Underground will re-issue Deep Red and Inferno, as well as some Fulcis and a stack of other catalogue titles soon.

Lustig has spoken in the past of fixing up a choice he made in the restoration of Deep Red on DVD years ago... he ended up freeze-framing the final shot which plays under the end credits due to the elements available. Let's hope that's been corrected for this release, as well as perhaps providing a better cover...

Fans - including me - want to see Blue Underground release the shorter 105-minute english-language cut of Deep Red in addition to the 126-minute cut which has portions in Italian only that are fairly dull. The pacing of the 105-minute cut is far superior, I feel.

Gordon wrote:Fans - including me - want to see Blue Underground release the shorter 105-minute english-language cut of Deep Red in addition to the 126-minute cut which has portions in Italian only that are fairly dull. The pacing of the 105-minute cut is far superior, I feel.

The pacing might be better (and you get rid of the awful comedy), but you loose a ton of thematic material, and Argento's unities get lost or muddled. The American cut makes the film a more or less usual hack-and-slash film, with the murders having no point beyond themselves. What makes Deep Red interesting is the way in which those murders all have a thematic purpose, essentially reducing the male-potency of Hemmings. Slant have a really good essay on this and other Argento films.

Gordon wrote:Fans - including me - want to see Blue Underground release the shorter 105-minute english-language cut of Deep Red in addition to the 126-minute cut which has portions in Italian only that are fairly dull. The pacing of the 105-minute cut is far superior, I feel.

Amen to that. Not only do I prefer the shorter cut, but I think the ideal set would include both versions in any case.

Oh, and SHOCK WAVES is without a doubt the best underwater Nazi zombie movie ever made.

djali999 wrote:Davis DVD reports that Blue Underground will re-issue Deep Red and Inferno, as well as some Fulcis and a stack of other catalogue titles soon.
Lustig has spoken in the past of fixing up a choice he made in the restoration of Deep Red on DVD years ago... he ended up freeze-framing the final shot which plays under the end credits due to the elements available. Let's hope that's been corrected for this release, as well as perhaps providing a better cover...

Well, they changed the cover although I'm not sure if it was for the better (see it for yourself) but the specs seem to indicate that it's the same edition.

The cover is minimally improved - the old version showed you the father's rotted corpse, which is a plot point, and I spent the whole film by first time through waiting for it to appear - bad form, spoilers on the cover.

I agree that the 107 minute version is more tonally consistent, if that's what one means by better - it's basically more like Suspiria. I think what's so disarmingly brilliant about the full version is that you get banal comedy, lots of wandering about with Hemmings, and this doesn't change so much throughout but because the sinister events stack up "in the real world" (as opposed to the utterly unrealistic universe of Suspiria) your paranoias begin to leak over into the film in much less controlled ways because we know Argento isn't to be trusted. When he pulls a stunt like the mad puppet charging in through the door, it's an even more spectacular violation of our securities because we haven't been primed to accept that such things are possible in the fabric of this film, and have been consistently allowed to let a false sense of security sink in.

That being said, I'm not kidding myself here and it's not like I wouldn't gobble up a nice R1 set of both cuts like an orgy of delicious chocolate candy.

DVDManiacs review the new edition of Daughters of Darkness.

Has anyone here seen Tinto Brass' Salon Kitty release from Blue Underground? I was curious about renting it through Netflix.

Yes, I've seen it. Are you asking about the quality of the film? It is certainly bizarre, and I find the continuous pans and zooms of the camerawork add to the disturbing nature of the film. Obviously for a film set in a brothel there is lots of nudity but no hardcore scenes (unlike the scenes Bob Guccione shot for Caligula without the knowledge of Tinto Brass).

I just find it fascinating to see this sex/art film taking place on a huge scale on sets made by Ken Adam! I have only seen this and Caligula (both the Guccione version and the Channel 4 re-edit from 1999, which was said to be closer to the director's intentions), but none of the other films Tinto Brass has made. I guess making films this controversial on this scale just wasn't feasible any more, although I'm surprised it ever could have been!

I guess if Salo is completely an art film, meant to be suffered through, and those late 70s Nazisploitation films like SS Experiment Camp or The Beast In Heat are pure exploitation of their settings to show as much nudity and violence as possible for 'entertainment', then a film like Salon Kitty is important to understanding the link between them, as it really feels like it acts as a bridge from one style to the other. I actually feel better knowing that the later exploitation films appeared as a progression from more serious attempts to explore the themes (The Night Porter and The Damned could also be as art films released around that time that had an influence - The Damned especially since it shares Helmut Berger and Ingrid Thulin with Salon Kitty), than I was when I couldn't see a connection and it just felt that something like SS Girls had come about from nowhere!

I like the way that (obviously!) the major themes of this film and Caligula are power and control and I like that those themes are never lost amongst all the sex - in fact the sex is where the themes are stated most powerfully. I felt there is an insight into the collapse of the society through madness and senseless mass murder, especially in Caligula with the insane death machine (Salon Kitty, perhaps because of where the story is set, doesn't focus much on the concentration camps, but you get the feeling they are always there in the background, ready to take anyone who falls out of favour or fails to perform their duty). The turning points for the society in the films come when they start turning on themselves and start murdering those close to them rather than anonymous, faceless soldiers; or get so paranoid that they need to have an entire brothel bugged to spy on their own side.

As with my comments on the Friday the 13th films, my main aim is not to suggest these films are 'great', underappreciated, or even essential viewing - there is some terrible acting, bad dubbing, and bizarre plotting throughout. My aim is really to suggest that some films can be worth watching without needing to be claimed as classics - I find the flaws in both this film and Caligula, and the way they both push at the bounds of (and many may feel, completely fall into) exploitation is what adds to their grimy, disturbing atmosphere.

I have heard that the two disc edition of Salon Kitty is out of print now, which is a shame as it has a great interview with Ken Adam, who talks about rewatching it recently getting ready for the DVD with a group of elderly lady friends, who all seemed to enjoy it! I would say that his sets add an enormous amount to the film, giving it an impressive quality that contrasts enormously with the action taking place in them!

Thanks a lot, that's exactly the feedback I was hoping for. And are you sure the 2-disc is out of print? Amazon seems to be carrying it.

They have said it is officially out of print in the catalogues for their most recent releases, but I guess there will probably be some still in circulation in the shops (although I think it has supposed to have been 'out of print' for over a year now). Other than that I don't know - perhaps there wasn't much of a market for a Nazi sexploitation film, albeit one of the most famous ones, with respectable actors like Ingrid Thulin and Helmut Berger starring in it!

Blue Underground will be releasing Autopsy, City of the Living Dead, Deep Red and Inferno (already mentioned), Don't Torture a Duckling, Shock, and Black Cat. Link.

The video quality would have to be greatly improved for me to rebuy some of these titles.

Karva wrote:The video quality would have to be greatly improved for me to rebuy some of these titles.

They're just re-offering these titles before taking them off the market.

DrewReiber wrote:

Karva wrote:The video quality would have to be greatly improved for me to rebuy some of these titles.

They're just re-offering these titles before taking them off the market.

Yeah, I kind of figured that. Oh well.

Karva wrote:Yeah, I kind of figured that. Oh well.

You just need to be patient. They're clearly taking them out of print so they can rework the releases with better transfers and content. This is just a nice way of saying "Get 'em now if you want 'em now".

to be released on May 29:

Circle Of Iron - 2-Disc Special Edition

[quote]CIRCLE OF IRON – also know as THE SILENT FLUTE – has now been remastered in stunning High Definition and remixed in bone-crunching 6.1 DTS-ES and 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround EX. Extras in this new 2-Disc “Kick Assâ€