The arrival of the uncut, restored, director’s cut of Perdita Durango on Blu-ray is almost enough excitement for an entire month. But then there’s the whacked-out horror film from Argentina- The Curious Dr. Humpp; a huge, limited edition, Andy Milligan box set; a few screwball Bob Hope comedies; a savage, under-appreciated Sam Peckinpah film; a collector’s edition of the truly nightmarish sci-fi movie Event Horizon; a nasty cannibalistic shocker- Raw; another great box set of rare “Gialli” from Vinegar Syndrome and plenty of rare, juicy cult treats. What are you waiting for?
Perdita Durango: The Director’s Cut (Severin) One of the most ferocious, outrageous films I’ve ever seen. Directed by Alex de la Iglesia (Witching & Bitching) and loosely based on the Matamoros killings, it stars Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) as the long-haired Romeo Delorosa, “drug dealer, bank robber, scumbag!” Trafficking in drugs and dead bodies with his sidekick (the late Screamin’ Jay Hawkins), Romeo lives by the motto “the two greatest pleasures in life are fucking and killing.” He invokes Satan by hacking up corpses at his Mexican hideout during voodoo rituals, but he meets his match when he runs into Perdita Durango (Rosie Perez), a sexy drifter who dreams of jaguars licking her naked body. She encourages the sadistic gang to kidnap a young gringo couple; plan to sacrifice one of them; and then transport stolen fetuses to a gangster (Don Stroud) in Las Vegas. This berserk 1997 shocker, also known as Dance with the Devil, features James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) as a special agent doggedly hunting them down. You can’t imagine how really insane this gets. Not since Tura Satana (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!) has there been a screen villainess as sexy and savage as Perez’s Perdita. This is the full, uncut feature from a 4K restoration.
Damn Yankees (Warner Archive) Glorious film adaptation of the successful George Abbott musical about an older fan of the Washington Senators baseball team who makes a deal with the devil (Ray Walston) to help the team win the pennant. He is transformed into a young, handsome baseball player (Tab Hunter) and the seductive Lola (Gwen Verdon) is sent in by the devil to insure the bet. Verdon’s number “Whatever Lola Wants,” is a showstopper in this incredibly tuneful blast of a film. Directors George Abbott & Stanley Donen (who did a smashing job with Pajama Game) knock this movie out of the ball park. The cast is great (and despite critical naysayers, Tab Hunter is appealing and terrific in the lead). And just to see the extraordinary Gwen Verdon on screen is a fathomless delight.
Isle of the Dead (Warner Archive) Another of producer Val Lewton’s great, incredibly atmospheric, horror films made for RKO. This one is set in 1912 where a group are quarantined (because of the plague) on a spooky, small Greek cemetery island where peasants talk about a vampiric creature called a “vorvolaka” preying on the villagers. Boris Karloff plays a General who comes to the island to visit his wife’s grave in this shadow-laden terror tale expertly directed by Mark Robson.
The Curious Dr. Humpp (AGFA & Something Weird) Bonkers 1969 Argentinian horror film directed by Emilio Vieyra about a mad scientist who sends out his lumbering monster (with a blinking light on his forehead) to abduct couples. They are imprisoned in his mansion and he injects the couples with a powerful aphrodisiac so he can extract their blood at the height of their lovemaking as a rejuvenating serum for himself. “Sex dominates the world and now I dominate sex!” the doctor exclaims. Oh right, there’s also a talking brain in a jar, permanently in a grumpy mood. If that isn’t nuts enough, the American version added 17 minutes of soft core sex footage. The hilarious and informative audio commentary is by director Frank Henenlotter (Bad Biology). A crackpot wonder.
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Kino Lorber) Reviled when it came out in 1974, this brutal and perversely brilliant Sam Peckinpah film is about a powerful Mexican crime lord, whose daughter gets pregnant. When he finds out the name of the baby’s father he demands, “bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia.” Warren Oates plays Bennie, a grubby Mexican saloon singer who finds out that Alfredo is dead and digs up his grave to transport the head back for cash (his last chance for the brass ring). But many greedy, seedy gangsters follow behind him. It’s a dark, savage, almost existential tale. Warren Oates, as usual, is just amazing, as is Isela Vega as his sensuous singer girlfriend who tags along hoping for some sense of commitment from Bennie. Kris Krisofferson pops up as a rapist biker. A 4K scan of the original negative, the disc comes with two fascinating audio commentaries.
The Dungeon of Andy Milligan (Severin) this astounding 9-disc Blu-ray set which includes many jaw-dropping films from Staten Island auteur Andy Milligan who turned out incredibly talky costume horror films that played on 42ndStreet (with his actors from the old Café Cino days). Films like The Ghastly Ones; Torture Dungeon; The Rats Are Coming, the Werewolves Are Here; Guru, the Mad Monk, which are all part of this set. He also made some offbeat gay films that are included here like Vapors, set in a bathhouse, and Fleshpot on 42nd Street with the amazing Neil Flanagan as a hard-boiled Times Square transvestite. This limited edition comes with a new 128-page book by Stephen Thrower, who is so brilliant, insightful and funny about cult films that this box set is almost worth it just for that alone.
Nothing but the Truth (Kino Lorber) Another great collaboration between wisecracking Bob Hope and the lovely Paulette Goddard. Hope plays Steve Bennett, a stockbroker who bets his boss (Edward Arnold) $10,000 that he can continuously tell the truth for 24 hours. The money is actually Gwen Saunders’ (Paulette Goddard) charity money, which Steve has promised to double. There are hilarious dinner scenes on a yacht where Hope is forced to be brutally honest to his host, hostess and snooty guests. Great silly fun, it zips along, briskly directed by Elliot Nugent.
My Favorite Blonde (Kino Lorber) World War II spy comedy with Madeline Carroll as a British agent on the run from a group of killers (which include Gale Sondergaard and George Zucco). She drags a vaudevillian (Bob Hope), who does an act with a penguin, into her melodrama and they go on a cross-country chase in this enjoyable comedy that was the first of Hope’s “My Favorite” movies (followed by My Favorite Brunette (1947) and My Favorite Spy (1951). This also has an amusing cameo by Hope’s “Road” pictures co-star Bing Crosby.
Event Horizon (Shout! Factory) The fact that this brilliant, nightmarish 1997 sci-fi film, directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, tanked at the box office is on par with the fact that John Carpenter’s The Thing failed to click with audiences at the time. Now both films are celebrated for how visionary they both are. Event Horizon concerns a space craft responding to a distress signal coming from a thought-to-be-lost space craft (Event Horizon) which disappeared into a black hole in space 7 years earlier. But what has that ship brought back with it? Eventually the crew’s greatest fears are realized in this hallucinatory, intelligent shocker starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Joely Richardson, and Kathleen Quinlan. The real tragedy is that much of the more extreme sequences were heavily cut by the studio and thought to be lost. This special collector’s edition (restored in 4K) has scores of extras about the missing footage. Nonetheless, it’s still a truly scary film.
Panic Beats (Mondo Macabro) Stocky Spanish horror great Paul Naschy directed (under his actual name Jacinto Molina) and starred in this 1982 modern shocker with a gothic horror feel. Paul Marnac (Naschy) is taking his wealthy wife Genevieve (Julia Saly) to his country estate for rest and fresh air due to her heart condition. There is an elderly housekeeper Mabile (Lola Gaos) who is caring for the place with her sexy, orphaned niece Julie (Frances Ondiviela). Mabile is forever telling stories about Paul’s notorious historical relative- Alaric de Marnac, a crazed knight who murdered his wife for being unfaithful and was damned to return to take vengeance on all the Marnac women. Genevieve begins to experience frightening hallucinations, driving her to the edge of madness. After a series of murderous, bloody deaths there’s an actual supernatural payback for the villains responsible. Gloriously remastered in high definition this is the uncut version containing all the gleeful gore and nudity one could hope for in a Naschy film.
Queens of Evil (Mondo Macabro) Really difficult to categorize, this rare, wonderfully weird 1970 film is about a hippie drifter- David (played by Italian genre favorite Ray Lovelock), who, riding his motorbike along the countryside, sleeps for the night in a woodshed and wakes to find he is on the grounds of a lakeside house owned by three gorgeous, mysterious sisters. Like sirens of sort they seduce him into staying and eventually he beds all three of them. But there’s an element of supernatural; a hint of horror; a satanic spin on social order that simmers beneath each frame. Haydee Politoff, Silvia Monti (A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin) and Evelyn Stewart (The Sweet Body of Deborah) play the siblings. Director Tonino Cervi plays this like a twisted fairy tale, with Lovelock as the naïve Goldilocks and the gals are like the three hungry bears. There’s a 26-minute interview with still-handsome Ray Lovelock from 2012 (sadly he passed away in 2017) where he talks about his early film roles, his recording career (he sings two songs in English in this film), and his fandom in Japan. A unique, fabulously strange film.
Blood Ceremony (Mondo Macabro) Jorge Grau, who was part of the Spanish “new wave” cinema of the 60s, turned out some amazing horror films in the 70s, memorably The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (aka Let Sleeping Corpses Lie). This film is set in 1807 Central Europe. Lucia Bose plays Erzebeth, a relative of the bloodthirsty historical Countess Bathory. She is worried about losing her looks due to age and is coerced by her occult-loving nurse to take up bathing in virgin blood. Her sadist husband Karl (Espartaco Santoni) fakes his own death so he can prey on village girls and ravish and kill them, draining their blood for his wife to bathe in. Ewa Aulin (Candy) plays a village girl fascinated by the evil Count. Known under other titles like Legend of Blood Castle and The Female Butcher, this restoration is spectacular and comes with fun, incredibly informative commentary by Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth, and interviews with the director Jorge Grau.
Raw (Shout! Factory) This is the French film that reportedly caused audience members to faint at the Toronto International Film Festival. Directed by Julia Ducournau, it stars the sweet-faced Garance Marillier as the virginal, vegan Justine, who goes through a brutal hazing in her early days of Veterinarian college where she is forced to eat some disgusting bit of beef. Her body breaks out in a hideous rash and suddenly she craves meat of all sorts. Much to her gay roommate’s (terrific Rabah Nait Oufella) alarm she starts spinning dangerously out of control. Her wilder, older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf), also at the school, begins to unwholesomely encourage Justine’s carnivorous ways. There are all sorts of complex emotions working here, and the film does capture the delirious abandon Justine experiences in college all the while grossing you out with deeply unsettling imagery. Sardonically satisfying.
Wrong Turn (Lionsgate) This is the new reboot of the six-film series about a bunch of cannibalistic hillbillies preying on any poor soul that makes a “wrong turn” on the highway and ends up in their path. And to my amazement, the 2021 movie a grisly treat. A white-haired Matthew Modine plays the father of a missing girl- Jen (Charlotte Vega), who went lost six weeks earlier hiking with her 5 friends on the Appalachian trail in Virginia. You know it’s a new movie because the kids are more ethnically diverse and one of the couples is gay. A local woman even warns them, “A piece of advice- keep to the marked trail- the land here can be very unforgiving.“ But do those damn fool kids listen? Suddenly giant rolling logs are roaring at them in the woods and booby traps are everywhere. But here’s where director Mike P. Nelson’s movie takes a genuine surprising turn, which really changes everything in creepy, gory, unexpected ways. The wonderful Bill Sage even shows up as a major, menacing character. I wasn’t much of a fan of the original slasher franchise (except for Part 2, which was just outrageous). But this reimagining is pretty damn good. And for God’s sake, make sure you watch the final credits!
Forgotten Gialli: Volume 3 (Vinegar Syndrome) Another great collection of rare European thrillers from the 70s. This handsome box set includes Autopsy (1975) concerning a rash of suicides in Rome one summer and starring Mimsy Farmer as a sexually frigid medical student dealing with an arrogant race-car-driver boyfriend (Ray Lovelock) and a priest (Barry Primus) trying to get to the bottom of his sister’s brutal murder. Filled with plenty of disturbing imagery, this twisty thriller was directed by Armando Crispino. Murder Mansion (1972) is a Spanish/Italian production directed by Francisco Lara Polop about a group of strangers who get lost in the fog one night and end up stranded at a creepy mansion where they get murdered one-by-one by the wrathful spirit of the former mistress of the mansion and her ghostly killer chauffeur. (Or are they spirits?) Crazy Desires of a Murderer (1977) is an oddball tale directed by Filippo Walter Ratti about a young woman returning to her family castle with a group of friends to spend a fun-filled weekend only to meet their deaths by a weird figure that stalks the halls at night and removes their eyeballs just for fun. These invaluable box sets from Vinegar Syndrome include stunning prints scanned from the original negative. Keep ‘em coming!