DEATH PROMISE - BLU-RAY REVIEW

The nutty theme song by Opus gets thing rolling right off the bat for Robert Warmflash’s DEATH PROMISE (1978), a lowly if highly-compelling urban action film, which not only capitalizes on the popularity of the then-still-ongoing global martial arts craze of the time, but also another staple exploitation subgenre of the seventies: the vigilante flick.

In-between his intense MA training sessions down at the local dojo, Charley Roman (Charles Bonet) simultaneously wages war against a number of wealthy slumlords in his dodgy New York City neighbourhood. It seems the predatory Iguana Realty Corporation is bent on evicting all the current residents from their seedy ghetto tenement properties in order to erect much-pricier buildings in their place. Unfortunately for said corrupt company, the laws are set-up to protect (quote) “those welfare people,” so the criminal capitalists resort to hiring cheap muscle in cheap dress-shirts and flared slacks to continually harass their tenants, which includes everything from shutting-off their utilities to unleashing rats inside the buildings. Assisting in the fight is our high-kicking hero’s sparring partner Speedy (Speedy Leacock), along with Charley’s hot-tempered father, Louie (Bob O’Connell) who, interspersed between doing his best Jimmy Cagney impersonations, also gets to engage in some sloppy street-fightin’.

 

When Louie is found dead after having threatened Alden (Vincent Van Lynn), one of the co-financiers of this little (quote) “landlord syndicate,” Charley vows revenge, and with the help of Shibata (Thompson Kao Kang), his teacher at the dojo, he travels to the orient to continue his MA studies under the world-renowned Master Ying (Anthony Lau). Following this (quote) “advanced training,” Charley returns to NYC to honour his murdered father’s memory. However, in a highly-implausible turn of events, everything isn’t as it seems…

 

Throughout the ’70s, cinema screens were flooded with all types of so-called ‘chop-socky’ movies as every small-time distributor imported anything and everything with even a passing resemblance to Robert Clouse’s smash hit ENTER THE DRAGON (1973). Bruce Lee’s final film, THE GAME OF DEATH (1978) is referenced immediately herein as Charley and Speedy are seen running through the streets of NYC in bright yellow tracksuits, similar to the one worn by Lee in that film. As Alden’s men desperately try in vain to forcibly vacate the (quote) “rat-infested tenements,” Louie educates both Charley and Speedy in the shady complexities of ‘dummy corporations’ and even shares some anecdotes from his boxing days, when one of his opponents had been no less than the legendary Sugar Ray Robinson! When Louie refuses to accept a pay-off (“You can take your polite bribe and shove it up your polite ass!”), his stubborn resolve to resist ‘The Man’ gets him killed. Even after visiting Master Ying, where Charlie learns a (quote) “old Japanese assassin trick,” most of his other special—as per the title—‘death promises’ simply seem like much the same punches and kicks seen earlier in the film, although the climactic battle is long, drawn-out and entertaining as hell!

 

Previously released in 2014 by Code Red, their DVD featured an excellent anamorphic transfer of the film, which was crisp, colourful and very robust given the scrappy nature of the film. Extras were limited to the film’s trailer along with several others for titles in CR’s catalogue. Featuring a new 2K scan taken from the film’s original camera negative, the film looks even better on Vinegar Syndrome’s new Blu-ray, with an excellent, textured film-like image. The DTS HD Master Audio 2.0 also sounds very crisp, clean and clear, which helps one better appreciate all the customary hyper-exaggerated sound effects heard during the numerous fight scenes. Optional English SDH subtitles are also provided. Unlike CR’s relatively bare-bones disc, VS have included 9000ft in 90 minutes (16m06s), a highly-informative on-camera interview with the film’s editor, Jim Marcovic. He discusses his early start in the business cutting commercials in the early ’70s, how he got involved with several independent producers, plus how DEATH PROMISE came about. He also talks at-length about the difficulty of cutting the film because of the poorly-blocked fight scenes (some of which had to be reshot as a result), the colourful cast members, as well as dealing with the tough, by-the-book NYC unions. The film’s very entertaining trailer and a nice still gallery (1m55s) of ad-mats and production photos finish-off the extras. Any self-respecting exploitation movie junkie will love this. That’s a promise! Order the Limited Edition Blu-ray here.

HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS - BLU-RAY REVIEW

Barely released in this digital age, Pierre Chevalier’s HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS (1974) was produced by the budget-conscious specialists at Eurociné, a still-active French distribution and production company based out of Paris, who are probably best-known for producing Jean Rollin’s & Julián Esteban’s aquatic zombie snoozer ZOMBIE LAKE(1980) and a number of Jess Franco films, including The AWFUL DR. ORLOF (1962) and FEMALE VAMPIRE (1973, a.k.a. EROTIKILL).

 

Better known as The HOUSE OF THE LOST DOLLS to the few Eurotrash cineastes that have actually seen it, this is one of Eurociné’s notorious patchwork efforts starring Silvia Solar and Sandra Jullien (from Jean Rollin’s The SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES [1971] fame), which utilizes redubbed footage from Gianpaolo Callegari’s AGENT SIGMA 3: MISSION GOLDWATHER (1967), an Italian spy flick also starring Solar (which undoubtedly accounts for all the reused footage) and Franco regular Jack Taylor as the titular agent.  Of course, this slapdash bit of cinematic manipulation is nothing new for Eurociné, whose alternate version of Jess Franco’s A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD (1971) contains numerous added reshoots (courtesy of Jean Rollin) of zombie mayhem not seen in Franco’s original edit.  Probably one of their most notorious fusions of sleaze is Alain Deruelle’s JAILHOUSE WARDRESS (1979), which utilizes newly-shot footage cobbled together around redubbed scenes from Jess Franco’s BARBED WIRE DOLLS (1975) and Alain Payet’s HELLTRAIN (1977)!

 

Like most of these quickly thrown-together efforts, the minimal storyline is usually lost among a variety of differing footage and redubbed dialogue, which strives desperately to make some semblance of coherence; HOUSE OF CRUEL DOLLS is no exception.  Opening against the supposed “House of Cruel Dolls” (the same house from Jean Rollin’s zombie reshoots, and the very same house from the opening of Jess Franco’s GOLDEN TEMPLE AMAZONS [1986], no less!), nudity fills the screen from the opening shot as Yvette (Magda Mundari) accepts “a date” with Mr. Gaston (Raymond Schettino), but he actually wants to bust her out of this prison/brothel, even though she has abandoned (quote) “all hope”. This way-out-in-the-woods, clandestine destination of sin can only be accessed via a very bumpy dirt road – which doesn’t allow our escapees to drive very quickly! – and then, in a mind-boggling bit of idiocy, our couple decide to celebrate their successful escape with a little hanky-panky in the woods.  They eventually make it to a lowly police station where, via flashbacks, Yvette proceeds to recount her story to a highly doubtful police inspector. 

 

It seems Mr. Raski (Olivier Mathot), along with his accomplice Sylvia (Solar), is running a white slavery syndicate where he conveniently gets to sample the goods.  The women are then put in large wicker baskets and shipped to the titular location run by Madame Zozo (Gillian Gill), but once again, are repeatedly taken advantage of by Raski’s henchmen, led by Eurociné stock player ‘Yul Sanders’ / Claude Boisson.  Much of the film unfolds through a seemingly endless parade of women being groped in grungy garages and the ship’s cargo hold, which does nothing to enhance the film’s already flimsy plotline.  With the help of Yvette’s testimony, some mysterious government agency gets involved and recruits Special Agent Jack (Jack Taylor from SIGMA 3) to help infiltrate this seedy organization, which takes him from Tangiers to Barcelona.  Of course, all of jack’s scenes are taken from the aforementioned Callegari film, which is mostly relegated to car chases and cut-rate punch-outs, while the unscrupulous Sylvia kills a snooping woman with poisonous fingernails.  Then, much like Bela Lugosi was hilariously “doubled” by Tom Mason in Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959), Jack Taylor is also doubled by some anonymous guy in a few of the sleazy, nudity-filled ’70s scenes.

 

After getting some solid intel from Barcelona about that mysterious cargo ship, the case is reassigned to Magda (Sandra Jullien), who ends up in Raski’s office with promises of a luxurious getaway, but is instead drugged and seduced on Raski’s office floor.  Like the other girls, she too ends up being raped in the ship’s cargo hold in yet another protracted, nudity-filled scene. Eventually, Magda manages to escape after karate-chopping Sylvia, and then Jack shows up for a shoot-out on the docks as the film clumsily moves between SIGMA 3: MISSION GOLDWATHER and Chevalier’s newly-shot footage with Jullien.

 

Director Pierre Chevalier (sometimes credited as ‘Peter Knight’) is probably best-known on these shores for his hokey, invisible woolly-monster movie The INVISIBLE DEAD (1970) and his cheap Sybil Danning action film, PANTHER SQUAD (1984). Like most of Eurociné’s output in the ’70s, it’s incredibly cheap-looking, with harsh lighting and flat photography, this time courtesy of Franco regular Gerard Brissaud, unlike Eurociné’s usual stock DP, Raymond Heil.  Incidentally, Heil went on to shoot ‘John O’Hara’ / José Jara’s similar-sounding OASIS OF LOST GIRLS (1982, a.k.a. POLICE DESTINATION OASIS), which also used many of this film’s sleazy sequences!  

 

Originally released on Dutch PAL videocassette (courtesy of EVC) in English with Dutch subtitles under its original export title THE HOUSE OF THE LOST DOLLS, the film made its digital debut in 2006 thanks to Austria’s XT Video. Although marketed under its German release title DAS SCHIFF DER GEFANGENEN FRAUEN (“The Ship of Imprisoned Women”), the print itself sported the film’s alternate, and rather nonsensical, English language export title POLICE MAGNUM 84.  Unfortunately, XT’s disc only contained German and French language audio options and a smattering of extras, including the film’s original theatrical trailer, alternate video credits and a small still gallery. 

 

As part of their on-going Eurociné Collection, Charles Band’s Full Moon have given this little-seen sleaze opus an unexpected HD debut, which is a vast improvement over XT’s earlier DVD. This time featuring Italian credits (hence the film’s curious re-title yet again!), the transfer, which is (quote) “remastered from the original negative” looks quite good given the inconsistencies of the varying footage, and while it certainly isn’t on par with some of the other Eurociné Blu-rays on the market (Kino Lorber’s ZOMBIE LAKE comes to mind), everything herein looks well-defined with some surprisingly rich colours. Unlike XT’s non-English friendly disc, English is the sole audio option (in either a DD 2.0 or DD 5.1) this time around, which also sounds quite good given the wonky nature of most Eurociné Anglo dubbing tracks. Extras are limited to a handful of re-edited Eurocult promo trailers including one for the present title. 

 

While it may not be the (quote) “lost sexploitation classic”, Full Moon so proudly proclaims it to be, it’s nice to see them digging deep into the Eurociné archives just the same, even if most of the films are not to everyone’s tastes. Order the Blu-ray from Full Moon Direct. The DVD is also available here.

THE AGFA HORROR TRAILER SHOW - BLU-RAY REVIEW

Right from the opening frames of Europix-International’s now-famous “Orgy of the Living Dead” triple-feature trailer, which kicks things off in fine style, the folks at the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA) really revel in all the lurid ballyhoo these long-gone trailers always delivered. You will see plenty of familiar trailers in this Blu-ray collection, which was curated by AGFA’s and Bleeding Skull’s Joe A. Ziemba, but it also delivers a number of unique, eye-opening surprises along the way as well. For anyone well-versed with their oeuvre, AGFA’s HORROR TRAILER SHOW is very much in the same vein as their amazing Mystery Mixtapes, bringing together several intermission ads for the likes of Pepe’s Pizza, cigarettes, flea markets and other regional attractions, loads of (quote) “disgustingly-photographed food snipes”, as well as several other, oddball commercials too, such as one for a novelty product called “Flamer – The Electric Football.” As Ziemba points-outs in his enthusiastic audio commentary, this is like a (quote) “curated night at the drive-in from Dimension X”!

“You’re about to enter the 21^st Century of terror!” opines the narrator on Troma’s trailer for NIGHTMARE WEEKEND (1986), an unclassifiable bit of gory ’80s mayhem, which serves as a wholly-appropriate WTF beginning to this fast-paced compilation. This is immediately followed by the U.S. trailer for WITCHCRAFT ’70 (1970), an Italian-made mondo movie from director Luigi Scattini, which was reedited by American director and exploitation vet, Lee Frost. Here appearing under its much-shorter alternate title THE TEENAGE PSYCHO MEETS BLOODY MARY, Ray Dennis Steckler’s trash classic THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECOME MIXED-UP ZOMBIES (1964) was allegedly filmed in (quote) “shocking Bloody-Vision!” In keeping with the carny spirit, a spot for Leonard Kirtman’s CARNIVAL OF BLOOD (1970) also shows up (“This picture begins where Hitchcock stops and climaxes in nerve-shattering terror!”).

 

Even though the trailers aren’t necessarily compiled into specific separate sections, ’80s slasher flicks are given plenty of coverage, beginning with SPLATTER UNIVERSITY (1984) and J.S. Cardone’s wonderfully-atmospheric THE SLAYER (1982). Other titles include Stu Segall’s DRIVE-IN MASSACRE (1976)—which, hilariously, comes complete with a misspelled title card!—plus Dominick Brascia’s low-budget oddity EVIL LAUGH (1986) and Jimmy Huston’s much-maligned FINAL EXAM (1981), whose trailer bears the memorable tagline, “Some may pass the test, God help the rest!” Mexican horror films are also well-represented with several oddly-tinted trailers for Fernando Méndez’s THE VAMPIRE’S COFFIN (1958), Chano Urueta’s insaniac THE BRAINIAC (1962), Rafael Portillo’s THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY (1958) and also the same director’s wonderfully-titled TERROR SEXO Y BRUJERIA (originally released as Cautivo del mas allá [1968]), a film with a remarkable release history, and one that definitely warrants a BD release of its own! A choppy—if most welcome—trailer for Walter Boos’ MAGDALENA, POSSESSED BY THE DEVIL (1974) and a quite lengthy if strangely mesmerizing one (featuring a Christopher Lee intro) for Evan Lee’s MEATCLEVER MASSACRE (1977) are just a couple of the other rare coming attractions nuggets contained on AGFA’s disc. 

 

Featuring a new 2K scan from a (quote) “newly-struck 35mm theatrical print of the show,” each trailer looks terrific, even though the quality does fluctuate from trailer to trailer, with all the scratches, dirt, debris and other surface damage of the celluloid emulsion you might expect so many years after the fact. That said, there really isn’t anything to complain about, though. The DTS-HD master audio 2.0 also sounds fine, despite the inherent imperfections of the various audio tracks used. Of course, plenty of extra features accompany the ‘main feature’ (i.e., the trailers themselves), beginning with a breezy audio commentary by the AGFA team headed by Ziemba, which barely touches on the actual individual films themselves, they discuss how everything came about and their challenge of compiling something a little different alongside the numerous other trailer compilations on the market, including Garagehouse Pictures’ essential TRAILER TRAUMA discs, which Ziemba admits can’t be beat. They also enthusiastically discuss their earliest memories of seeing their first trailers; their nostalgia over VHS video boxes; and Something Weird Video’s contribution to film preservation and their amazing HEY FOLKS! IT’S INTERMISSION TIME compilations.

In what is easily the biggest surprise, AGFA’s disc also includes Videorage (70m42s)—highlighting the (quote) “most ghastly, repulsive and unbelievable shot-on-video and direct-to-video horror trailers the underworld has ever seen!”—which is surely going to please even the most jaded horror junkie, despite the fact that most of the, uh, ‘films’ represented herein aren’t worth sitting through in their entirety; although several SOV staples, such as Christopher Lewis’ Oklahoma-shot BLOOD CULT (1985), and both Jon McBride’s CANNIBAL CAMPOUT (1988) and WOODCHIPPER MASSACRE (1988), are included, AGFA’s (quote) “video dungeon” also showcases Todd Jason Cook’s zero-budget anthology HORRORSCOPE (1994) and DEATH METAL ZOMBIES (1995); Todd Sheets’ CATACOMBS (2000); the U.S. trailer for Olaf Ittenbach’s German gorefest THE BURNING MOON (1992), which emphatically declares, “No matter what you’ve seen, you’ve ain’t seen nuthin’ like this! Banned in 14 countries!”; Nick Millard’s mind-numbing DEATH NURSE (1987), whose home video preview is also hilariously pathetic; Andrew Jordan’s Canadian-lensed and shockingly-awful THINGS (1989); plus Ron Switzer’s nigh-on-unwatchable SCIENCE CRAZED (1991), another Canadian (non-)production. An exceedingly loooooong trailer (which seems like more of a demo-reel!) for Doris Wishman’s A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER (1983) also appears, as do several homegrown—and highly energetic—Nigerian (“Nollywood”) movies, such as Kalu Anya’s SPIRITUAL CHALLENGE (2007) and Emeka Nwabueze’s ENJOYMENT IN HELL (20??). Not enough, you say? How about video previews for Mack Hail’s MR. ICE CREAM MAN (1996), Doug Robertson’s HAUNTEDWEEN (1991), Don Dohler’s BLOOD MASSACRE (1991), and Mark and John Polonia’s HOLLA IF I KILL YOU (2003), which are just a few more of the titles included in this very welcome bonus feature. 

 

As if all that lot ain’t enough, AGFA also include Say Goodbye To Your Brain (6m50s), a short (quote) “found footage experiment” comprised of lightning-fast clips and titles from a wide range of horror films. This totals an all-round great comp, that is worthy of repeated viewings. Order it from Vinegar Syndrome.