L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone - Camera Obscura Blu-ray review

L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone, aka The Killer Reserved Nine Seats

Italy, 1974

Directed by Giuseppe Bennati

Written by Giuseppe Bennati, Paolo Levi and Biagio Proietti

Cast: Chris Avram, Rosanna Schiaffino, Howard Ross, Paola Senatore, Eva Czemerys, Janet Agren, Lucretia Love, Gaetano Russo, Andrea Scotti, Eduardo Filipone

Label - Camera Obscura
Release Date - June 26, 2014
Running Time - 1.43.31
Aspect Ratio - 1.85:1
Video - 1080p, AVC
Audio - Italian, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono
Subtitles - German, English
Region Code - B

The Movie

A group of people led by wealthy Patrick Devenant arrive to an ancient theater in the middle of the night to continue the party they were having at Patrick's place. Among the guests are mostly Patrick's relatives, his fiancée and daughter and friends. Also a stranger who claims he knows everything about the theater. But the problem is that no one really knows who that stranger is. The theater has been owned by the Devenant family for centuries. It's been abandoned for the last 100 years. Soon the stranger disappears and a black gloved hand cuts a rope holding a big wooden beam to crush Patrick. Fortunately for the man the beam misses its target. Patrick gathers the group together to tell them someone has just tried to kill him. But someone locks all the doors trapping the group inside the theater and a crazed masked man starts killing off the cast one by one. As the killings go on Patrick remembers the legend about the curse on his family: Every 100 years on the 15th of February in this theater a group of people is killed. Also there's a picture showing various methods of killings and the maniac follows that picture very closely. Who is that killer? Someone from Patrick's relatives? Or maybe one of his friends? Or maybe the mysterious stranger? Or maybe someone from the netherworld?

Shot in 1974 by Giuseppe Bennati, L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone is a very good but weird giallo. By that time the giallo genre was slowly dying off. Giuseppe Benatti wasn't a very well-known director. Before L'assassino he made a couple of films in the 50's and 60's. L'assassino was his last movie. As I said L'assassino is a weird giallo. It starts as a routine giallo but soon gets supernatural touches. The plot is simple and is a variation of Agatha Cristie's "Ten Little Indians" or "And Then There Were None" if you prefer this title - ten people arrive to an island and are killed one by one. In the movie there are 9 people related to each other and everyone has their own motives to kill. We get back stories of all the characters except the stranger, plus a lot of red herrings to keep us busy guessing who the killer might be. At the same time there are questions that weren't answered. Whose voices we were listening from the stage? Why those voices couldn't be recorded? Who was that stranger and who opened the doors of the theater in the morning? As you can see, there's not much logic in this movie but we don't love Eurohorror and gialli for logic, do we? We have all the giallo ingredients, beautiful babes, who don't think twice to get naked, lesbians of course, a masked killer. Also some incest. Heavy on atmosphere and light on gore although we get one very gruesome scene, L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone is a beautifully filmed movie. The ancient theater is beautiful, the scenes in the crypt remind me of the gothic movies of the 60's. The cast is great as well.  It is an excellent giallo with touches of gothic and supernatural. Very highly recommended.

  

Video

L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone arrives on a 50GB dual layer Blu-ray disc. Encoded in 1080p AVC, the 1.85:1 framed picture looks absolutely fantastic. It was a very obscure and hard to find title. For years it was available on bootleg VHS and VHS-to-DVD releases, with horrendous image quality. Last year Camera Obscura went HD with this stunning release. Colors look very natural, black level is very strong, no contrast boost. The grain looks very filmic, no traces of DNR and edge enhancement. It was a revelation to watch this release after those murky bootlegs.

Audio

We get two audio options: Italian and English DTS-HD Master Audio in Mono. Optional German and English subtitles are included too. Both audio tracks are well balanced and sound fine and are easy to follow. No issues here. The English subtitles are easy to read.

Please note that there are some scenes for which no English audio was dubbed. Those scenes are presented in Italian with optional German or English subtitles.

Extras

Camera Obscura provided the following extras for this release:

Audio commentary with Marcus Stiglegger and Kai Naumann. It's in German but Camera Obscura provided English subtitles for it. As usual Marcus and Kai give us a lot of useful information on the film’s background, cast etc. 

Interview with Howard Ross - In this 8 minute interview, the actor talks about the cast, the director and the main location of the movie, Fabriano Theater.

Interview with Biagio Proietti - the interview runs for 28 minutes and he talks about his career and L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone.

Picture gallery.

Italian and English trailers for the film.

A very interesting and informative booklet is inside the packaging.

Final Thoughts

L'assassino ha riservato nove poltrone is Camera Obscura's first release on Blu-ray. Camera Obscura saved it from obscurity by releasing this impressive edition. I'd easily include this Blu-ray in the top 10 genre releases of 2014! If only all the labels would work like Camera Obscura. Wonderful HD debut from one of the best labels specializing in Italian genre cinema.

Show your support to Camera Obscura and purchase this Blu-ray from DiabolikDVD.  

La noche de Walpurgis - Subkultur Entertainment Blu-ray review

La noche del Walpurgis, a.k.a Werewolf Shadow, a.k.a. The Werewolf Against the Vampire Woman, a.k.a. Die Nacht der Vampire

Spain / West Germany, 1971

Directed by Leon Klimovski

Written by Jacinto Molina and Hans Munkel

Cast: Paul Naschy, Gaby Fuchs, Barbara Capell, Andres Resino, Yelena Samarina

Label - Subkultur Entertainment
Release Date - December 5, 2014
Running Time - 1.33.39
Aspect Ratio - 1.85:1
Video - 1080p, AVC
Audio - Spanish, German DTS-HD MA 1.0
Subtitles - German, English
Region Code - B


The Movie

As the movie starts we see two morticians rushing to a morgue at night to perform an autopsy on the recently killed Waldemar Daninsky. The locals killed him with two silver bullets claiming Daninsky is a werewolf. But the morticians think differently and in order to prove there's no such thing as a werewolf, one of them removes the silver bullets. Naturally Waldemar comes back to life, transforming into the bloodthirsty lycanthrope and kills both morticians. He flees to the nearby forests and kills a girl.

Two girls, Geneveive and Elvira are looking for the grave of vampire Countess Wandessa Darvula de Nadasdy. Of course they soon meet Waldemar who offers them his kind help to find the grave. Waldemar is looking for her grave too. He needs the silver dagger that killed the vampire to end his doomed life once and for all. They successfully find the grave but the vampire is brought back to life when Elvira cuts her arm and her blood drips onto the remains of Wandeassa. So begins the deadly battle between the two unholy creatures, the werewolf and the vampire woman.


La noche de Walpurgis is the fifth film in the Waldemar Daninsky franchise and one of the most successful ones. Paul Naschy (under his real name Jacinto Molina) once again wrote the screenplay but this time in collaboration with Hans Munkel. The director was Leon Klimovski, an Argentinian born director. La noche de Walpurgis was a starting point of a very successful collaboration between Klimovski and Naschy. They made some very successful movies together such as Doctor Jekyll y el Hombre Lobo a.k.a. Dr. Jekyll Versus the Werewolf (1972), La rebelion de las muertas a.k.a. Vengeance of the Zombies (1973), Una libelula para cada muerto a.k.a. A Dragonfly for Each Corpse (1974), El mariscal del infierno a.k.a. Devil's Possessed (1974) and Ultimo deseo a.k.a. The People Who Own the Dark to name a few. 

Besides working with Naschy, Klimovski made many other B-movies too, mostly spaghetti westerns and horror movies. Leon Klimovski was born on October 16th 1906 in Buenos Aires. He was a dentist. Klimovski was a big cinema fan and the founder of Cineclub in Argentina. He was financing theaters to show movies. Then he started to write screenplays and sometimes worked as an assistant director. In 1948 he directed his first movie El jugador. In the 1950's Klimovski moved to Spain. He was mostly directing comedies and melodramas. During the 60's when spaghetti westerns were very popular Klimovski jumped on the bandwagon and made some Spanish and Italian spaghetti westerns. One of the notable westerns made by Klimovski is Pochi dollari per Django. But he is most known for his efforts in horror cinema. Besides his aforementioned works with Naschy, Klimovski made a handful of other movies in the horror genre: La saga de los Dracula a.k.a. The Dracula Saga (1973),  La orgia nocturna de los vampiros a.k.a. The Vampires' Night Orgy (1974), El extraño amor de los vampiros a.k.a. Night of the Walking Dead (1975) etc. In 1995, the Spanish Film Director Association gave him an honorary award. He died in 1996 at the age of 90 from a heart attack.


La noche de Walpurgis was a Spanish-West German co-production and was released worldwide under different titles. It was an unexpected hit and made Paul Naschy's name very well known outside Spain. The most important thing was the movie had success in the US too. So successful that after its release Spanish filmmakers were interested in making horror movies that they could sell in a big market like the US. Like La marca del Hombre Lobo, La noche de Walpurgis has good direction, excellent visuals and make up effects. Plenty of good gothic atmosphere too. As usual Naschy steals the show. I found some similarities with Amando de Ossorio's Blind Dead films but that's always a good thing. We get Paul Naschy, beautiful Euro babes, some boobs, gore, a rabid werewolf and a bloodthirsty vampire woman, old castles and crypts, wonderful dreamlike gothic atmosphere.  It is a kind of a homage to Universal and Hammer monster movies but with gore and nudity. Excellent Euro horror!

Video

La noche de Walpurgis comes on a 50GB dual layer Blu-ray with the aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Like with La marca del Hombre Lobo, Subkultur did a wonderful job on this release too. Again there's a healthy and natural looking layer of fine filmic grain. No traces of DNR, edge enhancement or artificial sharpening. Colors look natural. Some white specks and scratches are present but one must keep in mind that we are talking about a 44 year old low budget horror movie. Overall La noche de Walpurgis gets a solid release from Subkultur Entertainment. Also I must mention that we get 2 cuts of the movie on the disc - unclothed export and Spanish clothed versions.  

Audio

We get Spanish and German audio options in DTS-HD Master audio. Optional German and English subtitles are available. Both audio options sound nice. I haven't noticed any distortion or background noise. Both are well balanced and are easy to follow. The English subtitles are easy to read.

Extras

Subkultur provided the following extras for this release:

Paul Naschy: Interview with the Werewolf. In this 15 minute documentary that was made by Blue Underground, Paul Naschy talks about his career and life. His relationship with Leon Klimovski. This documentary is in Spanish with English and German subtitles.

Interview with Gaby Fuchs. This interview runs for 9 minutes. Unfortunately I don't understand German and there are no English subs for this interview.

Next is the German Super-8 version of the movie in German with no subtitles. It runs for 33 min. 

International opening and closing credits, 7.24 min.

German and US trailers

Gallery

Easter Egg 

Klimovski vs. Naschy - Interviews with Paul Naschy (in German) and actor Jack Taylor (in English). 

Final Thoughts

La noche de Walpurgis is an essential Paul Naschy movie. A real treat for all Euro horror fans. Heavy on atmosphere, featuring gorgeous girls, monsters and some gore. Subkultur Entertainment once again pulled out all the stops releasing this beautiful Blu-ray / DVD combo edition. Like La marca del Hombre Lobo it's limited to 1500. Standing ovations to Subkultur Entertainment!

Purchase La noche de Walpurgis from DiabolikDVD or from Subkultur directly. 

 

 

 

 

  

La marca del Hombre Lobo - Subkultur Entertainment Blu-ray review

La marca del Hombre Lobo, a.k.a Frankenstein's Bloody Terror, a.k.a. Die Vampire des Dr. Dracula

Spain, 1968

Directed by Enrique López Eguiluz

Written by Jacinto Molina

Cast: Paul Naschy, Aurora De Alba, Manuel Manzaneque, Julian Ugarte, Dyanik Zurakowska, Jose Nieto

Label - Subkultur Entertainment
Release Date - February 5, 2015
Running Time - 1.34.33
Aspect Ratio - 2.35:1
Video - 1080p, AVC
Audio - Spanish, German DTS-HD MA 1.0
Subtitles - German, English
Region Code - B

The Movie

Two gypsies decide to spend the night at the castle of Count Wolfstein. Wolfstein who was a werewolf has been dead for a long time. Wolfstein's guests decide to look for the treasures of the Count and accidentally resurrect him. Count Wolfstein comes back to life and the locals must hunt down the beast. A nobleman named Waldemar Daninsky joins the forces to track the werewolf down but is bitten by the werewolf. Now he's doomed to be a werewolf himself. It appears that there's only one man can help him, Dr. Janos Mikhelov. Waldemar however doesn’t know that Mikhelov is a vampire and unfortunately for Daninsky has plans of his own.

Paul Naschy a.k.a. Jacinto Molina Alvarez was born on September 6th 1934 in Madrid, Spain. Before starting to act he was a very successful professional weightlifter. He also studied architecture and started designing album covers. In 1958 he won the Spanish National Weightlifting championship. Because of his physique he started to get roles of extras in various movies, such as the Biblical epic King of Kings (1961). After a couple of movies he decided to stop acting and began to write screenplays instead. He was always fascinated by old horror movies, especially Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman.  

Horror movies weren't popular in Spain in the 60's. The country was ruled by Generalissimo Fransisco Franco who wouldn't allow horror movies. So it was virtually impossible to get finances for a horror production locally. When Jacinto Molina wrote the screenplay of La marca del Hombre Lobo he didn't know what to do with it. He approached his friend Enrique López Eguiluz, who was a director. But Enrique told Molina he was insane. Luckily Hi-Fi Stereo 70, a German company specializing in shooting in 3-D came to the aid. Originally the producers wanted Lon Chaney Jr. in the role of Waldemar Daninsky but Chaney turned the offer down because of his age. They couldn't find another actor and according to Jacinto Molina one day the producer stared at him and asked to take the part. Molina told the producer he had no experience for such a complex role, he wasn't an actor. But as the producers had no luck in finding another actor Molina took the part. After the shooting had been done Jacinto got a call from Germany. He was told he had to change his screenname into more Anglo-Germanic. He had to do it himself or the producers would choose the name they wanted. Molina chose to do it himself - Paul Naschy. He took the name Paul when he saw the portrait of Pope Paul VI in a newspaper and invented Naschy from the name of a Hungarian weightlifter Imre Nagy. The film had success outside of Spain. It was released in the USA in 1971 as Frankenstein's Bloody Terror and was cut by several minutes. The film was a success in France too where Naschy was offered a role in a new Daninsky movie, Las Noches del Hombre Lobo. Nowadays it is considered to be a lost movie. It has never been released theatrically or on home video. The long journey of the doomed nobleman Waldemar Daninsky was about to begin...

Video

La marca del Hombre Lobo comes on a 25GB single layer Blu-ray. It is presented in 1080p, framed at 2.35:1 widescreen. Subkultur did a marvelous job on the transfer. Colors look natural, there's a healthy layer of natural grain. I didn't notice any signs of DNR, compression artifacts or other anomalies. The picture is very nicely detailed and looks very filmic. Top notch job from Subkultur!

Audio

We get two audio options: Spanish and German in DTS-HD Master Audio Mono. Optional German and English subtitles have also been included. No issues with the soundtracks. Both sound fine and are easy to follow. The English subtitles are easy to read.

Extras:

We get German and US trailers, a TV spot and a picture gallery.

Final Thoughts

La marca del Hombre Lobo is the first major role of Spanish horror king Paul Naschy, the birth of a new horror star, Paul Naschy and the beginning of the long running series of movies about Waldemar Daninsky. One of the first horror movies made in Spain. It's a very enjoyable movie with good gothic atmosphere, fine directing and good make up effects for its time. Subkultur Entertainment did an admirable job on this release. This is the definitive release of the movie so far. It's also available on DVD that comes with the Blu-ray. The edition is limited to 1500. Despite the fact its light on extras I can't recommend this release enough. The movie is hugely entertaining, the transfer is excellent. Well done Subkultur, well done!

Purchase La marca del Hombre Lobo from our friends DiabolikDVD or from Subkultur directly.

 

 

 

 

  

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