Italian Film | Cagey Films

Crime and Horror from Radiance

Posted on December 13, 2023December 12, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Cynthia (Barbara Steele) descends into the cellars in search of answers in Riccardo Freda's The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962)

A sampling of releases from new U.K. label Radiance covers a range of favourite genres from the 1960s and ’70s – from classic Japanese yakuza film Big Time Gambling Boss (Kôsaku Yamashita, 1968), to the American indie horror Messiah of Evil (Willard Huyck & Gloria Katz, 1973); from the Swedish police procedural Man on the Roof (Bo Widerberg, 1976) to a pair of Italian Gothic horrors separated by a decade, the perverse The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (Riccardo Freda, 1962) and The Night of the Devils (Giorgio Ferroni, 1972), a contemporary retelling of the final story from Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath (1963); topped off with a revisit to Gordon Hessler’s Scream and Scream Again (1970), which seems to get better every time I see it. All of them come with excellent presentations and a wealth of extras, including commentaries, documentaries, interviews and visual essays.

Fall 2023 viewing, part four

Posted on November 1, 2023October 31, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Frequently betrayed by those who hire him, Shouhei Narumi (Yusaku Matsuda) stays focused on the job in Toru Murakawa's The Game Trilogy (1978-79)

Crime, violence, sports, noir, international intrigue and political allegory from Kino Lorber and Arrow Video.

Fall 2023 viewing, part three

Posted on October 25, 2023February 5, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Photographer Jennifer (Charlee Danielson) captures her lovers in the moment of fatal ecstasy in Frank Henenlotter's Bad Biology (2008)

Something for everyone this week – killer clowns, sea monsters, Gothic horrors, a high-speed ambulance and haunted buildings, werewolves, Nazi cannibals and anatomical abnormalities, murder and madness.

Summer viewing, 2023: Vinegar Syndrome

Posted on September 13, 2023September 10, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Cynthia Rothrock is prepared to kick ass in Godfrey Ho's Undefeatable (1983)

Another assortment of horror, fantasy, murder, madness and general mayhem from Vinegar Syndrome.

More recent Indicator releases

Posted on July 22, 2023July 22, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Arthur Welt (Frank Wolff) seeks revenge for what he believes was an injustice in Enzo G. Castellari's Cold Eyes of Fear (1971)

A pair of colourful Robin Hood adventures from Hammer Films and an atypical home-invasion thriller from action specialist Enzo G. Castellari are showcased in two recent releases from Indicator.

What I haven’t been writing about

Posted on May 24, 2023May 24, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Mia Goth as a porn actress who encounters a rural killer in Ti West's X (2022)

Although I write regularly here about the movies I watch, there are a lot more I don’t get around to mentioning – the reasons for what write about or ignore are not entirely clear.

More Italo-horror: The Good, the Bad and the Gory

Posted on May 3, 2023April 30, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Nevenka (Daliah Lavi) is trapped in a sado-masochistic relationship in Mario Bava's The Whip and the Body (1963)

Several new (and a couple of slightly older ) releases restore a range of Italian horrors from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, including a pair of artless movies by Bruno Mattei, Hell of the Living Dead (1980) and Rats: Night of Terror (1984); one of Mario Bava’s finest (and most perverse) Gothics, The Whip and the Body (1963), as well as his final made-for-television work, La Venere d’Ille (1979), co-directed by his son Lamberto; and a 4K restoration of Lucio Fulci’s gore masterpiece City of the Living Dead (1980).

Re-evaluating Italian horrors on Blu-ray from 88 Films

Posted on March 29, 2023March 28, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Model Alice Norton (Femi Benussi) makes the mistake of accepting the gift of a bridal gown from John Harrington (Stephen Forsyth) in Mario Bava's Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)

Collector’s Editions from 88 Films provide an opportunity to re-evaluate two familiar Italian horror movies. My opinion of Pupi Avati’s creepy Zeder (1983), always favourable, has been confirmed, while I now have a new appreciation of Mario Bava’s Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970), which I’d always seen as a minor and not entirely successful addition to his filmography.

Recent Severin viewing

Posted on March 22, 2023August 23, 2024 by Kenneth George Godwin

Alice Campos (Florinda Bolkan) searches for her own past in Luigi Bazzoni’s Le Orme (Footprints on the Moon [1975])

It’s taken me a while to work through some of the many Severin box sets that have been piling up over the past year – the folk horror set All the Haunts Be Ours, House of Psychotic Women and the latest set of Italian movies Violent Streets: The Umberto Lenzi/Tomas Milian Collection – along with some 4K special editions of movies by Dario Argento and Alex de la Iglesia.

January releases from Indicator

Posted on March 1, 2023February 27, 2023 by Kenneth George Godwin

Santo confronts a smuggler in Joselito Rodríguez' Santo vs Infernal Men (1961)

Indicator start the new year with some impressive Blu-ray sets, including a massive 10-disk tribute to amateur filmmaker Michael J. Murphy whose five-decade career produced three dozen features in multiple genres; a two-disk set of the first two adventures of Mexico’s most famous masked wrestler, Santo, which includes a fascinating history of popular cinema in Mexico; and another two-disk set with three different cuts of Sergio Sollima’s first western, The Big Gundown (1967).

Tag: Italian Film