Bloody Flesh (1983/One 7 DVD)/Exploitation
Double Feature: Black Cobra Woman (1976)/Superbitch (1973/Apprehensive DVD)/Lost Films Of Herschell Gordon Lewis (w/Black Love, Ecstasies Of
Women & Linda & Abilene/Vinegar
Syndrome Blu-ray w/DVD)/A Perfect Ending
(2012/Wolfe DVD)
Picture:
C-/C- & C/B- & C/C Sound:
C/C- & C/C/C+ Extras: C-/C-/C/C Films: C/C/C+/C
Here is a
very interesting cycle of exploitation films, including a new one that
inadvertently goes into that direction…
We don’t
get many films from Colombia, let alone Horror genre films, but Carlos Mayolo’s
Bloody Flesh (1983, presented at the
time by Roger Corman and Roman Polanski) takes place in 1956 under a militant
dictatorship, but an uncontrollable crisis is about to take place in part of
the country as buildings are blown up, people exterminated and a hidden evil
force is unleashed.
The
supernatural force released starts to turn innocent people into bloodthirsty
killers (a combination of zombies and vampires) but the military and most who
live in the countryside of Cali
are unaware of this. There is also a
little political subtext when incest becomes involved, though if they are
possessed, does that take on a new meaning?
Needless to say some will find this film sick, but I just found it a
mixed bag, intermittently effective and dull.
We have seen much of what happens here before and the political side is
a bit trivialized, along with a little of the genocide, so I was disappointed
at what could have shown and said more since we don’t get many films from this
part of the world. It obviously is
partly an exploitation film to begin with, but Bloody Flesh could have been much more, though it is still
disturbing in its own ways.
A trailer is the only extra.
Next is
an interesting (and in a rarity these days, double sided) DVD with two
grindhouse type films that arr worth a look, even if they are not the strongest
works. First in this self-titled Exploitation Double Feature is Black Cobra Woman (1976, directed by
Joe D’Amato) with a wealthy Jack Palance dealing with deceit and sexually
seductive women including the title snake charmer/stripper () in a thin script
that is heavy on softcore sex over a weak plot, which is essentially the point,
along with showing what was even considered then an exotic locale. This is exaggerated, of course, but the porn
chic angle is part of its dynamic (Emmanuelle anyone?) and it is amusing and
worth a look just the same.
More
ambitious and with more of a screenplay is an unusual Italian/British co-production
called Superbitch (1973, directed by
Massimo Dallamano) with Stephanie Beacham still in bad gal mode and not
necessarily the title character (there are several potential meanings to the
title) and is not to be confused with Joan Collins in The Bitch (reviewed elsewhere on this site) but also involving
gangsters. In this case, it is a Turkish
drug family run by an elderly killer mother who are sadistic. Beacham’s character is involved with shady
types all around, plus cops who are a bit dirty (in the Get Carter/Sweeney mode)
as other criminal activity (plus honey traps where prominent men are filmed
having wild sex, then blackmailed) has many Italian actors and is well shot,
but it takes on many things to be like the films of their respective country’s
crime cycles and does not work out as I would like it to. Still, it is worth a look and Beacham goes
topless!
The film
also stars Patricia Hayes, Leon Vitali, Ivan Rassimov and Cecil Linder.
Trailers
for various Apprehensive DVD releases are the only extra.
You might
expect more bloody horror exploitation from The Lost Films Of Herschell Gordon Lewis, but the three films here
are actually softcore erotica including a not-so-cleverly disguised as a
documentary science film called Black
Love (1971, which is politically incorrect and even racist as anything) and
two softcore howlers in Ecstasies Of
Women & Linda & Abilene (both
1969). All of it is an excuse for nudity
and goes far for pre-Deep Throat
erotic cinema, but is not necessarily hardcore, but always shady. It is a bit of a surprise that he even made
these films (even if he did not always use his name), but they are typical of
where these kinds of films were at the time and show a director who wanted to
go where no one else would.
They turn
out to be the most interesting on this list and I commend Vinegar Syndrome (issuing
these in a Blu-ray/DVD pack) for saving these as much as they could and issuing
them because they serve as time capsules as much as anything else and should be
seen again by a wide audience.
Extras
include trailers in both format versions, plus the case has postcard-sized
reproductions of charts from the film shoots and a quality paper booklet with
an essay on the films and Lewis.
Finally
we have a new lesbian drama in Nicole Conn’s A Perfect Ending (2012) which is a supposedly provocative,
realistic tale of lesbian prostitutes and one who gets too close to a
client. The ideas are somewhat bold, but
we have seen much of this before.
However, the problems here are the talk-at-each-other dialogue (which
can get ridiculous at times), shrill moments of lines and shrill acting, plus a
detached sense of just about everything that makes it hard to buy after about
the first quarter and in never recovers.
Conn is
trying to be artsy with editing actual art into the (or is that in between) the
scenes and then Morgan Fairchild shows up as a complex Madame in the best role
in the film where she essentially outacts everyone in the film, which is a real
problem. She was always underrated to
begin with, but she is really good here and it is a shame the rest of this is
not up to that. The ending was lame too.
If a
female discourse of some kind, lesbian or not, was intended, it gets lost in
the mechanics of the plot. John Heard is
the other known name in the cast of this independent production.
Extras include
an extended love scene, Deleted Scenes, Original Theatrical Trailer and a
Behind The Scenes featurette.
The 1.33
X 1 images on Flesh and Cobra are from a faded film prints, though
I was able to get better color when I adjusted the image, but that should be
done by the persons doing the transfer.
The prints also have their share of damage, scratches and this is very
soft, but we get the idea that this was well shot at the time at times. The
letterboxed 1.85 X 1 image on Superbitch
is barely better with a little more definition and correct color, but the print
is also on the shot side. Sadly, the
1.33 X 1 images on the three Lewis
films and anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Ending are very soft and detail challenged, so they are no better
despite having less scratches and better color.
Fortunately,
the 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on the Lewis films on Blu-ray are the clear
visual champs here by default (and boy, do we mean that) showing their age and
the flaws with the prints more, but you can see more detail, depth, color range
and you can see how good these must have looked when they were first
filmed. A good approximation of
EastmanColor stocks of the time, it may not always be demo quality, but it is
easy to look at.
The lossy
Colombian Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Flesh
is rough and shows its age, plus is a few generations down with background
hiss, which is what we get on the lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Cobra, Superbitch and the three Lewis
films in both formats exhibiting the same issues, but Cobra is especially worn, distorted, warped and problematic. That leaves lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Perfect we expected to be the sonic best
on this list by default, but it is not as well recorded and even harsh at times
in its mixing, which can collapse to mono and play too much towards the front
speakers and even center channel.
- Nicholas Sheffo