Independent U.S. distributors Severin Films have confirmed that they are planning to add a number of new titles to their Blu-ray catalog. Amongst them are Richard Stanley's
Dust Devil, Sergio Corbucci's
Castle of Blood (1964), and Mario Caiano's
Nightmare Castle.
Street dates and exact supplemental features are yet to be officially announced, but the releases are expected to arrive on the market later this year.
Dust Devil
Wendy (Chelsea Field, David Lynch's Hotel Room, A Passion to Kill, Wicked) leaves her husband, taking off into the voids of Africa. She picks up a hitchhiker (Robert John Burke, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich), a traveling serial killer who snaps photos of his victims before he kills them. Wendy does not realize the danger she is in until a police detective (Zakes Mokae, Gross Anatomy, Wes Craven's The Serpent and the Rainbow) arrives to warn her that her companion is something much worse then just a killer - he is a shape-shifting demon who steals his victim's souls. Soon both the officer and Wendy become the next intended victims of the Dust Devil...
Nightmare Castle
At the height of her career as the dark goddess of Italian horror, the legendary Barbara Steele (Black Sunday) delivered two of her most memorable performances in this tale of obsession, madness and depravity. Steele stars as a cheating wife who is chained, whipped and tortured to death by her sadistic scientist husband, and as her unstable blonde stepsister whose fate may be even more ghastly. Paul Muller (Vampyros Lesbos), Helga Line (Horror Express) and Rik Battaglia (Sister Emanuelle) co-star in this twisted shocker directed by Mario Caiano, featuring stunning black & white cinematography by Enzo Barboni and the very first horror score by Ennio Morricone.
Castle of Blood
When American author, Edgar Allen Poe visits London, he is approached by British journalist Alan Foster, who becomes the target of a peculiar wager. Not believing Poe's assertion that all of his macabre stories have been based on actual experience, Foster accepts a bet from Poe and his friend Sir Thomas Blackwood that he cannot spend an entire night in the Blackwood's haunted castle. Once in the abandoned castle, Foster discovers that he is not alone. He is approached by two beautiful women, a handsome man and a doctor of metaphysics who explains they are lost souls... damned to replay the stories of their demise on the anniversary of their deaths!
The Sinful Dwarf
"A young bride," promised the ads, "left alone to the lewd passions of an evil dwarf!" Severin Films is officially going to Hell - and taking you with them - with the first time ever in America DVD release of what may be the sleaziest film in EuroCult history: Diminutive former kiddie-show host Torben Bille - who looks disturbingly like Jack Black in a trash compactor - stars as the pint-sized pervert who imprisons drugged teenage sex slaves in the attic of his drunken mother's decrepit rooming house...and that's just the first ten minutes! The delicious Anne Sparrow - in her first and understandably only screen role - co-stars in this towering achievement in graphic depravity, now fully restored from a 35mm print discovered hidden in a janitor's closet at the Danish Film Institute! (DVD synopsis).
Axe / Kidnapped Coed
Axe
Three criminals seek refuge from the police inside a rural farmhouse occupied by Lisa and her paralyzed grandfather. One by one, Lisa must defend herself against their attacks with a well-sharpened axe. Kidnapped Coed: A rich young lady is kidnapped and held for ransom. She didn't expect to fall in love with her captor.
Kidnapped Coed
A woman living in a boarding house is kidnapped by a small-time criminal. Soon others in the gang try to take her away from him so they can get the ransom.