Lots of interesting suff has been released in the last couple of weeks, so here’s a brief round-up:
From MYA, the latest in their seemingly random selection of Italian obscurities are Lamberto Bava’s Dinner with the Vampire (A cena col vampiro), Italian Sex (Sesso in testa) and Mafia Connection (E venne il giorno dei limoni neri). Can anyone see any kind of defining thread in there at all? Well, apart from the fact that they’re all Italian. As with all their stuff, it’s a hit and miss selection. Dinner with the Vampire wis a late 80s TV movie, and although it features a star performance from George Hilton, a big favourite here The Wild Eye, it’s kind of difficult to get excited about any Italian genre films from that period. It’s not bad, for sure, but hardly unmissable. Italian Sex is probably best known for it’s soundtrack, which was an Easy Tempo release some years back, but the film itself is rather obscure: a sex comedy starring the gorgeous Pilar Velasquez, Didi Perego and a host of Italian comedians. This is a welcome release just because it will be nice to see the damned thing, but is probably not to everybody’s taste. Mafia Connection is probably the most accessibly of the bunch, a decent crime film directed by Camillo Bazzoni and starring Antonio Sabato and Florinda Bolkan.
Spaghetti Western fans, meanwhile, might be interested to hear about a new comapny in France, Snc Francia, who are putting out a bunch of really obscure items. Their first releases are Giulio Petroni’s excellent Night of the Serpent (La notte dei serpenti), A Man Called King (Lo chiamavano King) and Roberto Montero Bianchi’s very obscure Arriva Durango… paga o muori, which I don’t think has ever come out anywhere before. I don’t know what the specs are for these but, wow, these are ones that I never thought I’d see get a legitimate release. The downside: It’s Italian and French language options only, I’m afraid, and they come complete with awful, Lucky Luke style covers!
Also for western fans… Dorado have released Paolo Bianchini’s excellent Gatling Gun (Quel caldo maledetto giorno di fuoco), with English language options, and Koch Media have a bunch of new releases on the way. But don’t forget to save some of your money for Xmas presents!
In the mood for some contemporary Italian horror. Well, how about Crazy Blood, a film that’s so obscure it’s not even on the IMDB. God knows what it’s about, but it’s directed by Gaetano Russo, who acted in a bunch of Italian b-movies through the 90s, and another Wild Eye favourite, Maurice Poli. Italian language only, I’m afraid, but could be worth a punt.
Hey ho, a few months back you might remember me having a rant about marketable Italian films being released without English subtitles (or audio options). Among the examples I mentioned were Marco Bellochio’s Vincere and Visions, an interesting sounding giallo. And, what do you know… they’ve both just been re-released in Italy with English options! Snap ’em up, while you can…
Finally for now, Retro have put out the decent Paul Naschy / Jose Luis Merino horror film, The Hanging Woman (L’orgia dei morti).