Some Great Releases from Arrow Video!

Oh, hell yes, I love how all these great movies are finally getting the proper Blu Ray/DVD treatment! I got some great news from MVD Entertainment Group a few days ago about one film in particular that I have been waiting to get my hands on - my favorite giallo film of all, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key!!! Not only that, the film is being released in conjunction with Lucio Fulci's The Black Cat, seeing as how both films are based on the Poe story The Black Cat. WANT WANT WANT!!!



Here's the press released from MVD with all the important info:

Edgar Allan Poe's Black Cats: Two Adaptations by Sergio Martino & Lucio Fulci

 

Edgar Allan Poe's celebrated story The Black Cat has provided the inspiration for numerous films over the years. But few adaptations are as stylish as those offered up by the twin Italian titans of terror, Sergio Martino and Lucio Fulci.

 

In Martino's classic giallo Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, teacher Oliviero (Luigi Pistilli, A Bay of Blood) finds himself under suspicion for murder when one of his students - and mistress - is found brutally murdered. As more bodies start to pile up, the arrival of Oliviero's attractive niece (Edwige Fenech, Five Dolls for an August Moon, All the Colours of the Dark) brings with it complications of its own. 

 

In The Black Cat, from that "other" Godfather of Gore, Lucio Fulci (Zombie), Scotland Yard Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck, The Beyond) find himself summoned to a sleepy English village to investigate the recent murder of a young couple. With no obvious signs of entry at the murder scene, Gorley is forced to start considering the possibility that his suspect may not be human... 

 

Finally together on Blu-ray and in stunning new 2K restorations from the original camera negatives, fans can enjoy the double-dose of terror that is Edgar Allan Poe's Black Cats - Italian-style!

 

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS:
-Brand new 2K restorations of the films from the original camera negatives
-High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
-Original Italian and English soundtracks in mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
-Newly translated subtitles for the Italian soundtracks
-Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
-Brand new interview with director Sergio Martino
-Dolls of Flesh and Blood: The Gialli of Sergio Martino - a visual essay by Michael Mackenzie exploring -Sergio Martino's unique contributions to the giallo genre
-Stephen Thrower, author of Beyond Terror - The Films of Lucio Fulci, on The Black Cat
-Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin
-Limited Edition 80-page perfect-bound book featuring new writing on the films, Poe's original story and more, illustrated with archive stills and posters
-Much more to be announced!

 

RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 13th

 

Pre-order at Amazon: http://amzn.to/1RMWmH0 

 

 

 

Movie Review: City of the Living Dead (1980)

 

It is good to be acquainted with you again, Mr. Fulci. I believe we last visited during my viewing of The Black Cat, which was okay but not necessarily my favorite of your work (thus far, that is). It was certainly no House by the Cemetery, tell you what! I bumped City of the Living Dead up my queue recently because I was jonesing for what I hoped the movie would be.

A priest's suicide in a cemetery in the small town of Dunwich causes the gates of Hell to open, and the recently dead to come back as horrid zombies. At the same time, a psychic in New York named Mary has a vision of these events and together with a newspaper reporter, they travel to Dunwich to close the gates of Hell before All Saints' Day, lest the dead never be free to rest peacefully.

So this is most definitely an odd one. Fulci somehow takes a zombie story and mixes it with elements of the supernatural - which shouldn't actually be that much of a stretch, but it is when you handle it this way. There's the obvious psychic connection to the other world with the character of Mary, but a lot of other random weirdness happens here. A bar is destroyed by something unseen. The living dead disappear and reappear seemingly at will, and seem to have a strange hypnotic power. Oh yes, we will be talking more about THAT element of the story later. Could some of this have to do with the fact that the ancestors of Dunwich burned women accused of witchcraft during the Salem trials? Is it a curse? I don't know, maybe. This is an approach to the zombie genre that I haven't seen before, and I'm not entirely sure if it works or not, in a long term sense. But for this one movie, Fulci at least makes it entertaining, even if there isn't much sense to be had.

It's really all in the presentation, really. The way Fulci introduces the story is at times confusing. Transitions between locations and scenes are often unclear, and new character after new character are introduced with hardly an introduction. Eventually there comes to be a core four that make up the main cast - Peter the reporter, Mary the psychic, and Dunwich residents Gerry and Sandra (he's a psychiatrist, she's his patient). It is up to the audience to figure out that the other people that are randomly introduced are just other people in Dunwich that aren't really that important. Probably the weirdest side character and side plot is that of Bob, who has some kind of bad reputation among the locals because of his relationships with ladies - possibly criminal? Again, I don't know, and it doesn't have anything to do with zombies so who cares.

City of the Living Dead is certainly memorable in the gross-out and kill departments. Of course I almost vomited myself during the scene where a young woman is zombie-hypnotized by the dead priest. She first starts to bleed from her eyes, which was gross enough, but then comes the infamous part where she pukes up her internal organs. As a horror fan, I fucking loved that. Genius. My gag reflex, however, did not enjoy it so much, but that was probably the point, amirite? There are a lot of other great gags in the movie besides this one, too. My favorite was actually Bob's death by a drill through the head. There was really beautiful, seamless effects work on that one, and I loved how they showed it pretty much uncut. Also awesome were the couple of times when zombies would just rip off the backs of peoples' heads, skull and all - pretty effortlessly, I might add. I'm jealous of their hand strength. Strange as it was, the randomness of the maelstrom of maggots that come flying through the window was also... interesting.

Couple other high points: the scene where Peter is freeing Mary from her coffin was hilarious. He had absolutely no regard for how hard he was swinging that pickaxe or where it happened to land on the coffin. Kind of strange, but great for a little tension even though it was comedic. I also dug the makeup on the zombies' faces, all gross flesh and wormy. For the finale, the group heads underground into the priest's crypt, and this was a cool location with awesome set design. During the burning sequence, though, there were a couple of wide shots that I could not figure out how they were possible because of the tightness of the location. Then the low point of the movie comes right at the end, when Mary and Gerry emerge from the crypt and John-John, the brother of a girl who turns into a zombie, comes running at them happily. For some unknown reason, they suddenly get scared and start screaming, and cracks appear on the screen and the movie is over and we are all left confused.

As for the rest of it, City of the Living Dead is a pretty badass outing from Fulci. I liked the different approach to the typical zombie story, and the gore was freaking amazing. This is one for fans not to miss, for sure.

Movie Review: The House by the Cemetery (1981)

Oh, Lucio Fulci, where have you been all my horror-loving life? Terrible dubbing actors aside, The House by the Cemetery is just aces in my book. I'm still a little confused on the whole "what is giallo and what is not" thing, and whether or not this movie can be considered one, I have to say that this is one Italian horror film that actually has a mostly coherent plot, some kick-ass gore, and a truly disgusting looking killer.

Norman and Lucy Boyle and their young son Bob leave hectic New York City temporarily so Norman can do some research on the strange death of a colleague. They are put up in a rundown mansion by a cemetery which houses a most unwelcome guest in the basement - a slaughtering maniac who needs human flesh to keep himself alive.

Can I get one thing out of the way first? "Bob" is not a good name for a child. I mean, if his full name was Robert, wouldn't it be more fitting for him to be a Bobby or a Robbie when he is still a kid? You don't generally become a Bob until you're much older, so this was kinda weird.

Anyway, I like this movie! It may seem a bit disjointed because it's a strange combination of a haunted house/ghost story, a slasher, and possibly a zombie film at the same time. I thought it all mixed together quite well myself, for if the story ever got boring, there was usually a great gore sequence to kick things up a notch. We don't get to know anything about the characters - why Bob is randomly psychic with a ghost kid named Mae for one thing - but, like I usually say about a lot of these movies, who cares?! There's some totally awesome and realistic gore and that is what makes this movie special to me.

Almost right off the bat, we're given an inkling of coolness to come when a girl and her boyfriend are killed in the house after having a mattress party. The guy comes through the doorway so messed up that I don't even know what happened to him and the girl gets stabbed in the back of the head with the knife point sticking out of her mouth. Pretty good, but it gets better. Ann the babysitter (whom for most of the movie looked like she was on the killer's side but I guess not so much) gets one of the best and most realistic throat-slashings I've ever seen. The knife goes one way across her throat, then the other way, and both ways it's AMAZING. Love it.

No doubt the best death is that of little Mrs. Gittelson who decides to stop by the house at exactly the wrong time. Gittelson is deliberately and slowly stabbed three times with a fire poker - twice in the chest and once in the neck. It is the aftermath of the latter wound that probably caused the movie to be so heavily cut in earlier releases. There is an extensive lingering shot on her neck wound as arterial blood spurts and sprays out of it.  Cooooooooool. Also just as realistic looking as Ann's death.

Another thing about blood in this movie. Two words: maggot blood. Maggot blood coming out of Dr. Freudstein when he's stabbed. A little bit vomit-inducing.

The only gore sequence that wasn't all that great was the overlong killing of the bat that attacks Norman and Lucy in the basement. Seriously, how difficult is it to get a bat off your hand? You use the other hand, grab it, and kill the dang thing. But apparently that doesn't work for Norman as he has to run all the way up the stairs with the bat on his hand, flail around a bit, and then stab it a few times. Just a totally unnecessarily long scene that is so random and not in the least bit important to the story. I guess Fulci wanted to include it because he could.

Another strange Fulci choice: the insane amount of close-ups, especially on people's eyes. Whenever Ann and Norman are in the same room together, it's like a showdown at the OK Corral because all their communication is done through them looking at each other and Fulci zooming in on their eyes. There's also a few weird close-ups on random objects to dictate their importance. Zoom in on the girl's ring! The same ring appears in the basement later on! Zoom in on the bar where Peterson hung himself! I don't really know why this is important! Odd style choice. Not saying I hated it though, because it was rather amusing.

Again, despite the freaking horrible acting by the people doing to dubbed voices, The House by the Cemetery was hella fantastic and I will definitely be adding more Fulci films to my must-see list.