New from Severin is this fabulous 4-movie Blu-ray box set of Italian gothic horror treats from the 1960s and 1970s. There is an abundance of cobwebs and candelabras, gloomy castles with secret passageways and hidden horrors. But some of the films are elusive rarities and many scanned from recently discovered negatives. It’s a treasure trove for horror aficionados.
The Monster of the Opera. (1964) Sandro is the director of an acting troupe who has found the perfect theater for his new production. It’s set in an old castle but there is a hitch- the place is supposedly haunted and many leading ladies over the years have vanished off the face of the earth. The spooky gray-haired watchman repeatedly warns everyone that the place is cursed but no one listens, “You reckless fools! You are playing with something that is beyond your understanding!” Dancers, mimes, actors and many women in various stages of undress make up the company. The highly strung leading lady Guilia has dreams of being chased through the castle by a cackling vampiric figure wearing a tuxedo with a gardenia on his lapel. The rehearsals are bursting with Bob Fosse-like dance lunacy. There’s also some lesbian shenanigans thrown in. Fanged female vampires are discovered chained down in the crypt and there is an interminable musical freak-out scene at the end. With audio commentary by historian Kat Ellinger, and interview with screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi and an archival audio interview with director Renato Polselli (The Vampire and the Ballerina).
The Seventh Grave (1965) Several relatives arrive by coach to the castle of Sir Reginald in “Old Scotland” for the reading of his will. Within no time, Sir Reginald’s corpse disappears from the crypt, the caretaker is found hanged, and a relative is found murdered. Even the will goes missing. This has got mad scientists, spooky séances, lepers on the loose and many, many scenes of everyone traipsing back and forth along the corridors of the castle. It was filmed at the famous Piccolomini castle in Balsorano. Lacking the gothic style that permeated films by Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda, this plays out more like a silent movie mystery. According to film historian Fabio Melelli, in a fascinating extra: “Seven Graves and a Mystery,” the biggest secret was who directed the film. He uncovers the man behind the director pseudonym “Finney Cliff.” There is also a video essay “English Aesthetic with Giallo Blood” by gothic scholar Rachel Knightley, and audio commentary by film critic Rachael Nisbet.
Scream of the Demon Lover (1970) An Italian/Spanish production that was picked up for the States by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures– which cut 20 minutes out of it. Erna Schurer plays Ivanna, a feisty biochemist who comes to a gloomy castle to work alongside the handsome and secretive Baron Janos Dalmar (Carlos Quiney) after his brother died in a fire during a scientific experiment. Women have been systematically found slashed to death in the local village and all suspicious eyes fall on the castle. Ivanna is met with hostility by the housekeeper and maid and even the Baron, when he sees that this “Dr.” he sent for is a woman. But Ivanna stands her ground and refuses to leave. Maybe she should have. Nightly, she is drugged by gas piped into her room, carried to a gloomy dungeon and strapped nude to a torture rack by a hideous, deformed creature. In the morning, she has no memory of it. There is a disclaimer that this is from the 16mm negative that has suffered deterioration but it looks sensational. The disc comes with a fascinating extra with Stephen Thrower discussing the film and its director and there is also a candid and delightful interview with actress Erna Schurer who reveals the director and cast would hold séances practically every evening.
Lady Frankenstein (1970) It looks like a Hammer film but jazzed up with plenty of wonderful gratuitous sex and violence, not to mention starring veteran actor Joseph Cotten and directed by Mel Welles (who played the guy who owned the flower store in Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors). It also stars the regal, incredibly beautiful Rosalba Neri (The French Sex Murders) as Dr. Frankenstein’s (Cotten) dutiful daughter, just back from college with a surgeon’s degree who wants to take up where daddy left off (after a botched experiment caused a hulking 7-foot giant with a burnt face and one eye gets loose killing random villagers). Daughter dearest wants to put her doctor’s assistant’s (Paul Muller) brain into the body of the mentally defective, but hot, handyman (Marino Mase). But the chief of police (Mickey Hargitay!!!) is suspicious of the goings on at the castle. This was produced by Roger Corman and has been out on home media several times in muddy, heavily cut prints. This is scanned from the negative with all the sex and gore restored and it looks incredible. It also comes with a fabulous interview with Rosalba Neri today, a hilarious extra about how director Mel Welles tried to turn the film into an expensively produced “spook show” in Australia, several audio commentaries, and much, much more. Over 5 ½ hours of extras.
What’s even more exciting than this mouth-watering set is the fact that is says “Volume One” on the box. I feel like hitting myself over the head with a hammer and only waking up from a coma when Volume Two is out.
