Suspected Death of a Minor

Earlier this week it was time for this year's first giallo, or at least so I thought, Sergio Martino's Suspected Death of a Minor aka Morte sospetta di una minorenne. As Martino says in the interview included on Sazuma's dvd that the movie is "poliziesco", not a giallo. According to Martino it was originally supposed to be titled Milano Violenta which sort of closes the case. And I agree, even though it has giallo elements such as murders performed with straight razor. The film however is definitely recommended even if it was little bit slow occasionally. Claudio Cassinelli is good in the main role, and despite the dark subject the film has plenty of humour which actually works. Some political commentary is included, and there are several car chases. Suspected Death of a Minor is not of course the only film where the genre definitions are not that clear. I'd say this one is not a giallo, while I'd call Blazing Magnum (the name of course is sheer police stuff inspired by Dirty Harry) one even though that's e.g. left out of the book Blood and Black Lace.

Sazuma's dvd of Martino's film is recommended as well. The picture quality (naturally anamorphic, 2,35:1) is very good, and it comes with the Italian soundtrack supported by English subtitles. It includes some extras as well; featurette Crime Scene Milan including director Martino as the main one. I only watched the first 2 minutes of the featurette, but I'll get back to that later if needed. It also has audio commentary by film critics but I'm not sure whether I'll ever have time for that (I haven't actually checked whether it is in English in the first place), as well as trailer and poster gallery. "Jewel case" type of packaging is nice looking, and comes with a short essay (in English and in German) by Christian Kessler who is the other one of the critics on the commentary track.

Nothing Underneath

I received earlier this week a review copy of Another World Entertainment's dvd of Nothing Underneath. Movie itself is decent giallo with excellent cinematography and Pino Donaggio's score. Exploitation focuses more on the scantily clad models than violence.

The dvd has English soundtrack, and subtitles include Finnish, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. The film is also viewable without subtitles. Credits are in Italian. Picture is anamorphic (ratio approx. 1,78:1), and quality is ok. The film looks grainy, and the source print has some speckles. Some compression artifacts are visible especially during the opening credits. Extras are minimal: some filmographies and the disc contains trailers of other movies. All in all, disc worth getting if the movie interests. At the moment this is the only dvd release of Nothing Underneath. The screen capture is somewhat compressed, but gives you the idea of the picture quality.

The Devil Has 7 Faces

Minor update again. Some time a go Simple Movie released The Devil Has 7 Faces in Germany. It's a clear improvement compared to the earlier unauthorized release from Alpha Video in US. This German release has also english audio and it's presented in widescreen format (anamorphic 2.35:1) with much better picture quality. There are five different covers available and also two limited edition (150 pieces each) covers.

Simple Movie release features also French and US opening credits as an extra. The actual movie has German title text in french opening credits. The Alpha Video has used logically the US opening credits in their release.

Fulci's The Psychic and other releases added

I did little updating on the list. Several releases were added, but mostly to titles already having a (superior) release. One thing I have completely missed even though I've been aware of the release. And that was Severin's release of Lucio Fulci's Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes aka Sette note in nero aka The Psychic.

Soon we'll also have another contributor to this blog page which hopefully results in much more active blogging than what I've been able to do.

Paranoia

I apologize the mistake in my previous post. I claimed that Italian dvd of Orgasmo aka Paranoia would have English dub without doublechecking. Unfortunately, there's only Italian language option. The list is not yet updated but I'll update that next weekend.

Big update

Thanks to fellow elitists (especially Dremez) at www.elitisti.net a big update to giallo list: German uncut Bloodstained Butterfly. Of course the upcoming legitimate R1 release of Argento's Four Flies on Grey Velvet. Copkiller from BCI Eclipse. Italian releases of Deadly Inheritance, Lenzi's Orgasmo, So Sweet... So Perverse, Nine Guests for a Crime, Foxy Lady, The Girl from Cortina, Killer Wore Yellow Shoes and The Strange Story of Olga O. All those are dvd debuts, but none seem to have English options. Damn, just the title So Sweet... So Perverse sounds enticing.

Bluray disc of The Stendhal Syndrome will be released next week. As a happy new owner of PS3 I guess I have to order this.

And I have to say I'm pretty pleased to win the auction of this nice Belgian poster of What Have They Done to Solange?

Minor updates

I've been lazy, I know. I just updated giallo list a bit. I added the upcoming Blue Underground blu-rays, and several Stendhal Syndrome discs in general.

I should receive Nothing Underneath review disc once it'll be released, so you can expect the report as soon as I'll get my hands onto it, and have time to view the disc.