Q1 2021 TBDSerge Leroy's
La traque aka
The Hunt (1975) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Le chat qui fume (France). Includes English subtitles.
Le chat qui fume's releases can be ordered from their
online shop.
A young tourist is sexually assaulted by two men in the countryside. After she manages to escape, a party of local hunters agree to track her in order to cover up the scandal.Skeevy but slow-moving thriller with a rape/revenge premise that's actually just a jumping off point for a rather ponderous allegory of bourgeois exploitation and thwarted masculinity. Honestly more interesting and ultimately more disturbing than that sounds but be prepared for minimal violence and a lot of quasi-moral handwringing among a bunch of French dudes about whether or not they deserve to be punished for their myriad sins. Short answer: of course they do, but of course they aren't.
"La Traque" is an undeservedly obscure French drama/thriller that is incredibly tense, intelligent, compelling and unpredictable. The title, plot synopsis and awesome movie poster make you assume that this is another variant on the "The Most Dangerous Game" in combination with "Straw Dogs" or "Deliverance", but the film is much more than that.
It's a dreary Sunday and a bunch of macho males gather in the countryside for an afternoon of wild boar hunting. The group of acquaintances (I really wouldn't refer to them as close friends) exists of prominent aristocrats, like a land owner and an aspiring senator, as well as middle class guys, like a pair of car mechanic brothers and a former military man. During the hunt, the Danville brothers encounter Helen Wells, a beautiful English tourist searching for a country cottage to rent during the holidays. They viciously rape the defenseless poor girl, but she manages to wound Paul Danville and flee into the forest.
Although none of the other hunting party members is responsible for what happened, they all have their own dark secrets and absolutely want to avoid getting linked to a scandal. Therefore, rather than helping Helen, they decide to collectively track her down and silence her. The acts and decisions taken by the lead characters may seem illogical and revolting, but they're actually very realistic and plausible. In fact, "La Traque" is much more of a social character study instead of a rancid backwoods thriller. Real human beings are much more cowardly and self-protective than the heroes depicted in movies, as illustrated in the unforgettably bleak finale.
There have been innumerable horror films in which faceless psychopaths pursue women to their deaths. What makes "La Traque" all the more unnerving is that the faces of these hunters are all too familiar. They are the faces of politicians, landowners, war heroes, pillars of the Establishment (and Leroy carefully chooses actors who have played such respectable types in other films). Their actions derive not from a loss of control, but from an excess of it: these are men who have learnt to suppress human compassion when necessary to achieve their goals in life. And murder is the logical consequence of that.
February 2021Claudio Fragasso & Bruno Mattei's
Scalps (1986) on blu-ray from Le chat qui fume (France)
The commander of a Texan fort in the Civil War refuses to surrender to the Northerners, and tries to buy the local Indian tribe chief's daughter. The sage man refuses, and the Southerners massacre the tribe and abduct the young squaw anyway. The noble squaw manages to escape, and hides out with a rough rancher, who dislikes Indians, but hates the Southerners more. The odd couple joins forces, and tactics, to exert ultimate vengeance on the men at the fort.March/April 2021 TBDCarl Schenkel's
Abwarts aka
Out of Order (1984) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Subkultur Entertainment (Germany)
Subkultur's releases can be ordered from their
online shop.
It's Friday evening. The lift repairman leaves the building and wants to finish his work on Monday. But he doesn't know there are four men in the building. They use the lift but stay in it about 100 meters from the floor. They have little oxygen and must survive...April 16, 2021Roland Klick's
Deadlock (1970) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Subkultur Entertainment (Germany). Includes English subtitles.
In a deserted mining town at the end of nowhere three desperate men fight over a suitcase full of cash.A suitcase full of money is a premise as old as the western genre itself, probably even older, and there's no shortage of slickly directed, well acted, top-quality grime-caked Eurowesterns. Deadlock stands ahead of the pack for a few reasons- namely, it's setting, an impossible-to-define wasteland beyond time dense with dusty, broken genre iconography, looking just alien enough that you can never quite put your finger on where and when you are. But let's be real- that's well and good, but this thing boasts a krautrockin' soundtrack by (The) Can, and if you need anything else to sell you on it, buddy, you might be beyond help. Play loud.
TBDRoland Klick's
Supermarkt (1974) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Subkultur Entertainment (Germany)
Willi is 18 years old and lives on the street. Without a goal in his life he walks around the city and meets several people, helping but also cheating him. When he meets a girl, Monica, he realizes that there are people out there whose lives are even more desperate than his. So he’s trying to help her (and him) by planning a great robbery on a supermarket’s money transporter.There's a documentary on Roland Klick,
The Heart is a Hungry Hunter (2013), which can be rented on
Amazon and other VOD platforms
April 27, 2021Alejandro Jodorowsky's
Santa Sangre on 4K UHD blu-ray from Severin, from a 4K restoration supervised by Alejandro Jodorowsky, in both standard and limited editions
A young man is confined in a mental hospital. Through a flashback we see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers: he saw his father cut off the arms of his mother, a religious fanatic and leader of the heretical church of Santa Sangre ("Holy Blood"), and then commit suicide. Back in the present, he escapes and rejoins his surviving and armless mother. Against his will, he "becomes her arms" and the two undertake a grisly campaign of murder and revenge.March 30, 2021Álex de la Iglesia’s
Perdita Durango (1997) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Severin, from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative
For his English-language debut, writer/director Álex de la Iglesia (DAY OF THE BEAST) chose novelist Barry Gifford’s prequel to WILD AT HEART featuring sociopath priestess Perdita Durango. But when the U.S. distributor saw the finished film, they slashed 10+ minutes of gleefully profane sex & violence and dumped it under the title DANCE WITH THE DEVIL. Severin is proud to present the complete Director’s Cut starring Oscar® nominee Rosie Perez and Academy Award® winner Javier Bardem in the “amoral love story” (DVD Talk) filled with human sacrifices, kidnapping, murder, fetus trafficking and the dogged DEA agent (James Gandolfini) on the trail of it all. Don Stroud (DJANGO UNCHAINED), Demián Bichir (THE HATEFUL EIGHT), Alex Cox (REPO MAN) and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins co-star in this “splendidly irresponsible” (Moria) joyride to the dark side.March 30, 2021Álex de la Iglesia’s
Day of the Beast (1995) on 4K UHD blu-ray from Severin, from a 4K restoration of the original camera negative
In between his cult hit debut ACCIÓN MUTANTE and proudly depraved PERDITA DURANGO, writer/director Álex de la Iglesia delivered the international smash that remains one of the best horror comedies of our time: When a rogue priest (Álex Angulo of PAN’S LABYRINTH) discovers the exact date The Antichrist will be born, he’ll enlist a Death Metal record store clerk (Santiago Segura of KILLER BARBYS) and a cheesy TV psychic (Armando De Razza) for an urban spree of “gore, sacrilege and twisted humor” (San Francisco Examiner) to prevent the Apocalypse by summoning Satan himself. Q1 2021 TBDJorge Grau's
Hunting Ground (1983) blu-ray from Mondo Macabro
The story tells of a female lawyer who finds her liberal convictions wavering when she comes under repeated threats from the vicious hoodlum who she defended in court in the past. The story that follows is a combination of Death Wish and Straw Dogs that, in its gruesome final segment, ventures into the territory of films such as LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.Though there are some queasy moments. It's almost as much a look at coping with the loss of a loved one. The film is set around Christmas but it's not particularly emphasized. The sleaze factor does go nuclear at the climax. Very grim payoff to what has been a fairly tame film.
March 9, 2021Jorge Grau's
Blood Ceremony (1973) on blu-ray from Mondo Macabro
An ageing Countess discovers that the blood of a maid can temporarily restore her youth and great beauty. Then she falls in love with a dashing young soldier, but is compelled to kill again and again to maintain her attractiveness and prevent the secret getting out.Q1 2021 TBDElwood Perez's
Silip: Daughters of Eve (1985) on blu-ray from Mondo Macabro
In the remote countryside of Ilongo, various women are sexually abused by local men. Two sisters meet Simon, the most attractive man in the village, and fight over him--one constantly haunted by Catholic dogma because of the abuse she suffered previously.Somewhere halfway through the second hour of this, all the various pieces click into place for a greek tragedy ending which is genuinely grim and dour.
I won’t lie and say I understand what the director was trying to say (beyond that a balance between purity and promiscuity must be met within one’s self - the animal can’t be denied nor the soul), but this is exactly the kind of movie I live for because it is the product of a vision.
Thought it was just another shitty '80s sexploitation erotica so I really didn't expect to be engaged by this film -- in various ways. It has a plethora of incredibly disturbing and fucked up things in it that most viewers would find uncomfortable to watch. I liked its bizarreness and its commentaries on several things such as sexual repression brought about by religious fanaticism, dogma and mob mentality.
Raw and untamed indeed! I am floored. What a remarkable film. Silip is so much more than just an exploitation movie. It explores what it means to be human.
2021 TBDPiero Schivazappa's
Femina Ridens aka
The Laughing Woman aka
The Frightened Woman (1969) on blu-ray from Mondo Macabro
A rich and sadistic man, who enjoys degrading women as part of elaborate S&M games, abducts a female journalist. She is subjected to his unpleasant games, but eventually the players' roles reverse.April 6, 2021Dario Argento's
Sleepless (2001) on standard blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing. Previously released in a limited edition.
An elderly and retired police detective and a young amateur sleuth team up to find a serial killer who has resumed a killing spree in Turin, Italy after a 17-year hiatus.Q1 2021 TBDRoberta Findlay's
The Oracle (1985) on blu-ray from Media Blasters, from a 4K restoration
Moving into an apartment formerly occupied by an old gypsy medium, Jennifer (Caroline Capers Powers) and her husband (Roger Neil) discover 'The Oracle' which the gypsy used to communicate with the dead. Before long, Jennifer is contacted by the ghost of a murdered man, who is seeking revenge on his killers, his wife's lover, and a psychotic transvestite lesbian assassin (Pam La Testa). Soon, Jennifer is deeply obsessed with this unearthly power. Battling possession as the tormented spirit terrorizes and manipulates her into investigating his death, Jennifer finds herself directly in the path of a violent and dark force.
