Bloody Moon/Devil Hunters/In The Folds Of The Flesh (Severin DVD)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: C/C/C- Films: C/C-/C-
Severin
continues to issue various Italian Horror/Giallo films from the original period
(1960s to early 1980s) that put the genre (or is that cycle? It can be debated) on the map. They come from opposite ends of the
spectrum. In The Folds Of the Flesh (1970) wants to be the Destroy All Monsters of the genre,
starting with the basic tenants of such a film, the adding everything
exploitation it can from Nazis, to sex, to torture, to deadly pets, to poison,
to strange dialogue, to beheadings, to incest and the psychedelic era! It flaunts star Pier Angeli and director
Sergio Bergonzelli throws in everything but the kitchen (or is the kitsch-en)
sink in this curios that never adds up in any way. Withy all that, how could it? I could see how this could be a cult film for
someone and it is said to be uncut here, though with the themes, what would cut
be? At best, it is a weird curio that
could have only come out of its time.
Mario Pacheco’s cinematography is not bad, though.
The other
two films Severin has issued recently are two more features from the infamous
Jess Franco. Devil Hunter (1980) is a thriller about killing and cannibalism
that is all over the place, never working except as a curio about how bad these
films usually are, while Bloody Moon
(1981) is an early “maniac on the loose” film in the giallo (and the then
sub-Hollywood) tradition as a killer stalks and brutally kills each of the
ladies he is out to get. This one has
naked schoolgirls and is only a few generations away from Bob Clark’s Black Christmas, though John
Carpenter’s Halloween was only a few
years before. It has some style, but can
also be uneven in that approach, though it actually has more of a plot/story
versus the current torture porn cycle.
It is the only film here that makes any sense and is itself as effective
as the endless entries in the cycle at the time, including the barrage coming
from the U.S., Hollywood or not. All
three films are curios at best and only for serious fans, the crowd Severin is
obviously aiming for.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 images are on the soft side, but can also
display some good color, though the prints in all these cases have some flaws
and issues throughout, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono sound is not bad across
the board, but you can tell they are dubbed (which is typical of Italian
productions) and some cleaning up might help, but they are just old soundtracks
and that is that. Extras include trailers
on all but Hunter, which only has an
interview with Franco entitled Sexo
Canibal and another with Franco on Moon
called (surprise) Franco Moon.
- Nicholas Sheffo
