Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.0

The Devil's Honey Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 2, 2017

Home theater aficionados who are also fans of Lucio Fulci can have a bit of a mini festival of sorts, what with the more or less simultaneous releases of this film and Don't Torture a Duckling on Blu-ray. Don’t Torture a Duckling is often cited as among the best, if not the best, of all of Fulci’s films, including evidently by Fulci himself. The Devil’s Honey has long been touted as Fulci’s “big comeback” item after some serious health scares kept him away from at least the director’s seat for several years, but this particular film is perhaps even more of a hard sell than a supposed giallo about a serial killer of little children in an isolated Italian village. The Devil’s Honey fairly wallows in a kind of squalid moral torpor that is most definitely on the kinky side and which exploits elements like sadism, torture, and what amounts to slavery. Its take on seesawing power struggles between the genders might make this film a near perfect double feature with Swept Away, though The Devil’s Honey forsakes a paradisiacal tropical island initially in favor of more mundane urban environments before ultimately getting to a seaside which is in fact somewhat reminiscent of the setting of the Wertmuller film. There’s a certain camp value at hand in The Devil’s Honey, first due to its mid-eighties ambience (including big hair and big shoulder pads), but perhaps more so due to Fulci’s over the top depictions of supposed sexual intimacy. Any film that has an amorous saxophone player siding up to his lover and thrusting the bell of his instrument into her private parts and then “playing” her into a shattering climax surely has something to recommend it to certain “discriminating cineastes”, but if that description doesn’t exactly sit well with you, you’d best stay far, far away from this entry, since that vignette barely scratches the surface of some of the bizarre and even lurid behaviors Fulci has in store for the viewer.

Johnny (Stefano Madia) is an up and coming sax player, though his career seems to take a back seat to his obsessive interest in his girlfriend Jessica (Blanca Marsillach). The Devil’s Honey depicts a number of kind of kinky behaviors on the part of Johnny, who, as mentioned above, actually uses his saxophone as an “adult toy” in a memorable early scene. But even Jessica is shown to give in to the throes of passion, including on a motorcycle ride which ultimately ends up giving Johnny a bump on the noggin, which in turn might account for his sudden collapse some time later at a recording gig.

Meanwhile there’s some simmering marital discord between a doctor named Wendell Simpson (Brett Halsey) and his wife Carol (Corinne Clery). None too surprisingly, these two plot strands weave together when Johnny is taken to the hospital in a coma where Simpson, in an emotionally roiled state due to a surprise announcement from Carol, isn’t particularly focused on Johnny’s state, leading to the musician’s death. That sets up the main thrust (so to speak) of the plot, where a distraught Jessica first more or less stalks the hapless physician and then goes full Fatal Attraction on him, drugging him and kidnapping him, making him into what amounts to her slave, chained on the floor and forced to eat dog food (among other humiliations). The fact that before this plot development unfolds Fulci indulges in a basically unnecessary vignette involving the doctor and a woman whose lipstick application to her privates offers an unabashedly fetishistic flavor that may titillate some but repel others.

There’s some rather interesting psychosexual content in The Devil’s Honey, but it’s often buried under a pretty tawdry presentational style that is frankly more adept at offering shock value than anything very insightful. Jessica is haunted by her memories of Johnny, though those memories start to help her understand certain deficiencies in her erstwhile lover, while the whole “relationship” between Jessica and the good (?) doctor is more or less an extended exercise in Stockholm Syndrome. When even Severin offers a pull quote celebrating the film’s “sleaze” factor on the back cover of this Blu-ray, it’s a perhaps significant clue, and maybe even a warning, that, like certain off kilter sexual behaviors, some may want to be cautious before proceeding.

The Devil's Honey Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Devil's Honey is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Severin's press materials tout a new 2K scan off the original negative, but there are both pluses and minuses to this presentation. Whatever restoration efforts have been undertaken have not done a lot (or at least enough) to remove still quite prevalent flecks, dirt and other passing damage. There are also occasionally fairly wide variances in both grain resolution and overall compression, as can be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review (contrast the overall look of screenshots 3 and 13 with those of screenshots 1 and 4 for some indication of the variances on display). That said, when the film ventures outside (which it does often), grain looks organic and the palette pops really magnificently, offering great expansive views of crystal clear blue skies and some very good fine detail on elements like some of Jessica's clothing. The overall look of this transfer is nicely organic (some may even find the passing damage adding to that "charm"), but the variability of clarity and grain may be more distracting to some than to others. My score is 3.75.

The Devil's Honey Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Devil's Honey features LPCM 2.0 tracks in both Italian and English, with both tracks showing clear signs of having been post dubbed, as tends to be the case with many Italian features. The Italian track has notably higher amplitude and an at least somewhat clearer high end than the somewhat muffled sounding English language track. The English language voice work is pretty inartful. There's passing but never overly problematic age related wear and tear, including clear pops and cracks as both tracks begin, along with what almost sounds like a bit of tape wobble during some of the sax drenched music. Other cues show just slight distortion, something that's perhaps a bit more noticeable on the Italian track since it's louder and has clearer highs. Dialogue also resonates more clearly on the Italian language track.

The Devil's Honey Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Devil's Halsey: An Interview with Actor Brett Halsey (1080p; 17:26)


• Wild Flower: An Interview with Actress Corinne Clery (1080p; 12:13)


• Producing Honey: An Interview with Producer Vincenzo Salviani (1080p; 13:22)


• The Devil's Sax: An Interview with Composer Claudio Natili (1080p; 9:51)


• Stephen Thrower on The Devil's Honey (1080p; 21:43) has some really good background on Fulci's career at this juncture as well as some of the "borrowing" Fulci may have done from another film he wrote, La Gabbia (also known as Collector's Item).


• Fulci's Honey: An Audio Essay by Troy Howarth (1080p; 16:55) actually plays out to a largely relevant series of images, and covers a bit of the same ground as the Thrower piece while also offering other assessments of the film at hand.


• Alternate Opening (1080i; 2:33)


• Trailer (1080p; 2:40)

The Devil's Honey Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you're a Fulci fan, you may have some idea of what you're in for with regard to The Devil's Honey, but this intentionally provocative film may be stronger on shock value than it is on anything overly analytical or "meaningful" (despite an attempt at a little poetic philosophy as the film comes to a close). One way or the other, this will make an interesting double feature with Don't Torture a Duckling, and with the supplementary material offering some of the same Fulci aficionados as are on the Arrow release, there are other linking elements as well. Both video and audio encounter passing hurdles, but the supplementary package is outstanding.