Baba Yaga (1973/Blue Underground Blu-ray)/The Burning Moon (1997/InterVision DVD)/Catechism Cataclysm (2011/IFC/MPI DVD)/Kill (2011/Troma DVD)

 

Picture: B/C/C+/C     Sound: C+/C/C+/C     Extras: B-/C-/C/D     Films: B-*/C/C/D

 

 

Though many would write off the Horror genre as just capable of producing mostly schlock, which seems sadly more valid these days, the truth is it is a great enduring genre at its best.  In addition, it has more range than you might first consider.  Here are four titles that show this.

 

 

We start with an erotic supernatural thriller that also happens to be an early non-superhero genre comic book adaptation.  While Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik (1967) might have been a great anti-superhero work and heist genre work, Joseph Losey’s Modesty Blaise a disaster and Roger Vadim’s Barbarella a camp epic, Carmelo Farina’s Baba Yaga (1973) is one of the first serious, dark adaptations of the format in any form on film.  Note these are all pretty much Italian films.

 

While the graphic novel comic book is known as the most serious from of the comic book, sometimes not as good as it thinks it is, the bolder, more cutting edge, daring and radial movement of comix in the 1960s and 1970s (mostly independent, even explicitly political publications) were the peak of art form (led by the art world successes of Warhol Lichtenstein, followed by counterculture art movements) that remain the most underrated period of comics, even influencing DC and Marvel for a time.

 

The title character (a bold performance by Carroll Baker) is a witch who becomes fixated with a sexy young woman (Isabelle De Funes) named Valentina, a photographer who starts to have bizarre visions that mix violence, terror and erotica.  As well, as she does her still work with various (and sometimes semi-naked) models, some of them start to get suddenly ill.  She also gets a strange human-looking doll from Yaga.  And is something strange happening with her still camera?

 

Based on the groundbreaking characters and art by Guido Crepax, Farina tries to imitate the look of the strip down to using black and white drawn frames (based on stills of photographs) to match scenes and shots in the film, which drifts into the comic reality as well as a palpable paper text.  In this respect, it is lightyears closer to succeeding in this than a failed, phony, overrated work like Zack Snyder’s commercial demolition of the otherwise superior graphic novel Watchmen.  It is also far more honest about sexuality, including the lesbian leanings of the title character, though it starts to go beyond what is sexy into much darker territory.

 

It has been a long time since I have seen the film and it holds up well, looks and sounds better here than ever and even in this * edited version (more on that in a minute) is a lost gem that may well be one of the most underrated comic adaptations in cinema history.  Several scenes and sections were removed for sexual and especially political reasons, but you can see those scenes in a compilation on this disc and when you add those pieces in after seeing the film, you’ll know a classic was being shot down in the process.  George Eastman also stars.

 

Extras include those extra scenes, a Poster & Still Gallery, Theatrical Trailer, Comic Book-To-Film Comparison, Farina & Valentine interview featurette with Farina (who also co-wrote the script) and terrific documentary on Crepax called Freud In Color.  There is more to say on this film and Blue Underground have done us all a big service by getting this released on Blu-ray.  Serious cinema and serious comic fans will hopefully rediscover this one ASAP!

 

Another growing segment of the Horror market is an amusing trend that has surprised more than a few people.  From the 1980s until the official death of VHS, thousands of Horror works were being made on analog videotape and were only issued on VHS, a few making them onto TV (usually cable) and then forgotten except by diehard fans of the time.  In addition, hundreds to thousands of other Horror films shot on film have yet to make it to DVD let alone Blu-ray, so the hottest back catalog VHS taped have become those films.  Olaf Ittenbach’s The Burning Moon (1997) is one of those taped works, but here it is making its DVD debut.

 

A bloody, graphic romp with dark comedy in the mode of Dead Alive or Evil Dead, this was actually made in Germany and relishes its cheapness while energetically moving along like its filmed counterparts involves a junkie, a rapist priest and serial killer on the loose.  And that is just the beginning, but it is ultimately undone by the glee of its excess and does not add up to nothing more than what a fanboy might like.  Still, it is better and more ambitious than the camera-shaking embarrassments in the wake of the first Blair Witch Project and in that deserves this DVD release.  A trailer and Making Of Featurette (47 minutes) are the extras.

 

Todd Rohal’s The Catechism Cataclysm (2011) is a comedy about another wacky priest, but this one tells tall tails so odd, his church forces him to take a leave of absence road trip and he brings a secular Rock musician friend with him.  They get lost and bizarre things start to happen to them, reinforcing the possibility that those tales were not so tall and that Satan (the logo has an “S” hidden in the second “C” of the title) might have it out for the priest, but is more interested in tormenting him than killing him.

 

The makers want to be ambiguous on this point to make the humor ironic, but this is too flat and dull to make its intents work.  This might be amusing at times, but it was too one-note for me and it wants to appeal to fanboys too.  Extras include Outtakes, Trailer, Japanese Trailer (though it is an English-language film), bizarre short Sasquatch Birth Journal 2 and feature length audio commentary by Rohal and co-stars Steve Little and Robert Longstreet.

 

Finally we have the Chad Archibald/Philip Carrer dud Kill (2011) with six people fighting for the death when they wake up in a house where they will slowly be killed unless they kill.  Yet another bad “stuck-in-a” work with nothing new to offer, more one-dimensional characters and gore in ways we have seen way too much in the torture porn era.  Unless you really, really like this kind of thing, skip it.  Extras include a trailer, “Tromatic Extras” and feature length audio commentary.

 

The 1080p 1.66 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Yaga is the best here as expected for being the only Blu-ray, but has some fine shots throughout as this material is in fine shape for its age down to its EastmanColor and the print has limited damage.  Too bad the edited, censored clips were not in good enough shape to be added, though a longer cut could have interactively been added since the format can deliver it.  Director of Photography Aiace Parolin (The Moment Of Truth, reviewed on Criterion Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) creates a very atmospheric film and this even looks better than that recent Criterion release.

 

The 1.33 X 1 image on Moon is as weak as expected begin shot on what looks like limited (possibly consumer) PAL analog video, but at least color (for what it is) is consistent.  The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the remaining DVDs are on the soft side, but Cataclysm looks better and a little more refined than Kill, which is as weak as the old German taped disc.

 

The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 1.0 Italian lossless mix on Yaga is better than the English language version and as good as any release here.  Of course, all the audio in both cases was dubbed in post production and Baker is speaking in her voice in the English edition.  The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Cataclysm is its equal, pushing what is simple, low budget audio and having a limited soundfield.  Lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 sound on the remaining DVDs (Mono on Moon, Stereo on Kill) are the weakest here, but why Kill sounds so weak makes no sense for being the newest production and it has location audio issues.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo