Thursday 17 May 2012

Upcoming Jean Rollin/Redemption Blu-rays, Round 3

Redemption and Kino Lorber are (after Requiem For a Vampire and Rape of the Vampire have been released) putting out Blu-ray Discs of another couple of Rollin films in August, one of his better ones, and one of his lesser (you can probably guess which is which): The Living Dead Girl, a 1982 artfully poetic take on walking death, and one of his later pieces Two Orphan Vampires.  I couldn't quite get into the latter although Shriek Show's DVD wasn't especially good (aside from the ropey image, there were problems selecting the French language audio on the players I tried, and the alternative English dub is god-awful!).  Perhaps a HD re-evaluation may help; I'll probably get both discs.  I have to say I love what Redemption are now doing with these films, and the prolific nature of the releases is perfect, particularly compared to the other collectors' favourites who are releasing stuff pretty slowly on Blu-ray (e.g. Blue Underground, Synapse, Shout, etc).  Whilst I don't believe Redemption ever really did the best they could with DVD, they've suddenly and surprisingly embraced the Blu-ray format.

Just before that in July we can expect The Blood Beast Terror (a 1968 creature feature with Peter Cushing) and Burke and Hare (the 1972 Armitage film of course rather than the more recent re-telling with Simon Pegg and Gollum as the titular characters...).  One more film of interest coming our way around the same time as the aforementioned titles is Black Magic Rites (previously also released as The Reincarnation of Isabel), a completely insane occult exploitation nuthouse from the lovable Renato Polselli.  There is also word that we will be in the salivating possession of the following BD products in the not-too-distant: Virgin Among The Living Dead (Jess Franco - hopefully the proper version without the stupid wandering dead Rollin inserts, or perhaps both common versions branched), Female Vampire (Jess Franco), Exorcism (probably Demoniac - er, Franco again!), Frightmare, Die Screaming Marianne (both Pete Walker), Lisa and the Devil, plus - FFS! - Black Sunday/Mask of Satan!  Please, God of Exploitation, let the latter have an Italian language track!  I'm in for a year of drunken nights in by the looks of it...

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