Black Magic Rites (1973)/The Living Dead Girl (1982)/Two Orphan Vampires (1997/Redemption/Kino Blu-rays)/The Life & Death Of A Porno Gang (2010/Synapse Blu-ray)/Lovely Molly (2012/Image Blu-ray)

 

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

 

 

Thrillers that sometimes mix sex are never treated as a subgenre of the Horror genre, but maybe it could be.  If anything, the sexuality was more honest prior to the 1980s, in part thanks to the counterculture movement.  Here are five thrillers that show how that worked and the decline that goes with time in the genre.

 

 

First we have Renato Polselli’s Black Magic Rites (1973, aka The Reincarnation Of Isabella) which has the most convincing script here, the best use of color, much blood and nudity and spares no details about the satanic activities it wants to show.  Though the film is not great, it is always interesting and rich, even when I was not as convinced of the events as expected.  The virginal sacrifices in this case are meant to bring a murdered witch back to life that the Satanists here love and want back.

 

Their unexpected obstacle is when the castle where this is to take place in and near is bought by an American (Mickey Hargitay) who has no idea the unexpected ‘tax’ that comes with the purchase of such an old estate, but as you know, none of us can escape death and taxes.

 

I don’t know if this worked better in its day, but at least it is serious about being a good film and has some energy to it.  It is also a curio for genre fans, so it is nice to see it on Blu-ray.  The only extras are trailers.

 

 

Jean Rollins’ The Living Dead Girl (1982) has a following, as does its director, but does it deserve it?  I think the film is good at its subtleties, but I was disappointed with the story of a dead rich woman from the past revived by the problematic, ill-advised storage of chemical wastes in a cellar where she turns out to be buried.  This brings her to life and all she can do is kill and drink the blood of her victims to stay alive again.

 

This makes her a sort of vampire, but also a zombie, yet this becomes almost a spoof of itself throughout despite good intentions and though the film has a good look and there are some good moments here, it never worked for me.  I also thought it was not as effective as Bob Clark’s somewhat similar Deathdream (reviewed elsewhere on this site) with some of the same things going on.

 

The cast and locations are good and I can at least see why people would like this film, as it is at least ambitious and intelligent, but it too makes sense to have out in a Blu-ray with many extras.  Those extras include trailers, an intro by Rollin, four featurettes on the film, excerpt of a Rollin interview by Joshua T. Gravel, 36 minutes-long Jean Rollin At Fantasia featurette and illustrated booklet inside the Blu-ray case with an essay by fan and film scholar Tim Lucas that covers this film and…

 

 

Rollin’s later Two Orphan Vampires (1997) which also has a female pair of more explicitly vampires who that is not a remake of the earlier film by any means, but (as Lucas rightly points out, thus they are issued at the same time) has two female protagonists against a background that deals with the past and more explicitly here.  At about the time this offers references to the past, including past literature and maybe pop culture, corporately-owned studios were starting their heavy recycle mode of franchises, so the visual connections made here are more sincere and organic.

 

However, like the other film (proving this is not my favorite section of the genre), you get some good scenes, some challenging images and challenging material, but it does not add up for me or do anything for the story outside of what Rollin might be trying to say or show.  I actually think Rollin handles the sexual aspects well without getting tripped up in them and being they are both metaphysical films, wisely stays away from corny sex that would make the films spoofs of themselves like so many others in the genre then and now.

 

Even if they do not work, serious genre fans should see both of them.  Extras include that same booklet from the Dead Blu-ray above, trailers, a 40-minutes-long Making Of featurette Memories Of A Blue World and 2008 Rollin interview by Rebecca Johnson.

 

 

Moving to more recent works, the wall-to-wall overly sexual Mladen Djorojevic release The Life & Death Of A Porno Gang (2010) offers a Serbian twist on the endless stream of bad U.S. productions that are self-conscious of the use of video cameras, but still cannot escape being a formulaic rehash with rough gay sex thrown into the straight sex and wild sex situations.  There is also plenty of gore as the director plays a director hired to do XXX work, but lands up crossing paths with gangsters and other unique characters.

 

What could have been funny and interesting starts out mixed, never recovers and then becomes the same old “how did I let myself get into this nightmare” (the characters and the audience?) tale that in U.S. hands would usually ideologically say that you should be punished for having any kind of sex (death, torture, etc.) and maybe heterosexual-only encounters can be something to hide behind.  At least this does not lie like that.

 

If you are interested, expect the sex to be as graphic as any of the blood, violence and gore, but I was disappointed that the makers did not find a way to do something new with the material considering the possibilities before them (blame those Hostel films again).  Extras include a more explicit “reversible” cover lining the Blu-ray case, Deleted Scenes, a Making Of featurette, Theatrical Trailer and Djorojevic’s overly long documentary Made In Serbia about XXX sex productions in his country.

 

 

Finally we reach the bottom with Eduardo Sanchez’s Lovely Molly (2012) which imitates the lame wave of supernatural films where when ghosts arrive, they shake up people and rooms, plus sometimes rape and kill people.  Molly (Gretchen Lodge) is the victim here, living in a new place that may be haunted.  Of course, instead of running away, calling a cab, calling the police or having friends come over and help, she actually stays (her father used to own the isolated place, so it must be OK, right?) and this just gets dumber and dumber and dumber.

 

It had a chance to become interesting, but decided that shaky camerawork, bad visual effects, obvious video cameras and bad editing are somehow scary.  However, it can only keep reminding us of so many better films (even Donnie Darko) to the point that the script (what there is of it) seems to come from a bad video program that you feed video release information in, hit the “mix” button, then try to edit a resulting script out of it.  See this one only if you are extremely desperate and bored.  Extras include four making of featurettes.

 

 

All the Blu-rays here are presented in 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers, though the video-shot Porno is listed as 1.85 and was likely cut slightly to try and have a more theatrical frame versus an HDTV one, but it is a poor performer looking like it was shot on amateur HD cameras that are old, while Molly is also an obvious video shoot that is one of the darkest transfers on any Blu-ray I have seen of late beyond any attempts at style.

 

The older films fare better.  Kino claims that Rites was mastered off of its original 35mm negative and I believe them, as it displays the best color and color range on the whole list and looks as good as such an independent feature from its time with its budget is going to look.  The color will challenge the best HDTVs and projectors, even when the print shows its age.  Dead was also mastered off of its original 35mm negative and it looks a little clearer and moiré detailed than Rites, but has slightly less color range, in part due to the film stock differences.  Give or take spending a good bit of money for fine tuning, I cannot imagine these looking much better.

 

That leaves Orphan shot on and coming from its 16mm negative (at 1.33 X 1 and not Super 16mm apparently, yet seeming to consider a widescreen release), which actually gives the film character and with the slightly diffused approach, has atmosphere HD cannot duplicate.  It proves once again how good 16mm film can look on Blu-ray and in High Definition, as well as how superior it is at its best versus most HD video.  Kino did a fine job in upgrading and cleaning up all three films without making them look phony or like bad video.

 

 

The PCM 2.0 Mono on Rites and Dead sound as good as they are going to for older, lower budget films their age, but Kino has cleaned them up as much as possible.  The PCM 2.0 Stereo on Orphan (released in Dolby Digital at the time, but there are no signs it was a true 5.1 mix) also offers good surrounds (could this have started out as a Dolby SR analog (Spectral Recording) release?) is better and the equal of the two newer releases: Porno has Serbian DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo with mixed location recording and some surrounds at times, while Molly has a full fledged, yet often quiet (until the sound goes BOOM to catch you off guard since it has zero suspense) DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) a 5.1 lossless mix.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo