Vinegar Syndrome has announced its April batch of 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray releases. They are: Lady Reporter (1989), Witch Story (1989), The House Where Death Lives (1981), Paganini (1989), and Touch (1997).
When the FBI learns of an international counterfeiting operation being run through a Hong Kong newspaper, they send one of their leading agents, Cindy, undercover as a reporter in order to investigate. Upon arriving in Hong Kong, Cindy quickly becomes a headline herself after being photographed by a rival tabloid saving a child from a burning building. It doesn't take long for the criminals to realize what is happening and soon they are after Cindy and her good friend Judy. To make matters worse, Judy's father is the lead prosecutor trying to convict the head of the counterfeiting ring and the criminals will stop at nothing to remove him from the case. With the help of a few new friends, Cindy soon finds herself facing off against a wave of henchmen and hitmen all hellbent on stopping her from exposing the truth.
LADY REPORTER (aka Blonde Fury) was Cynthia Rothrock's first official leading role, as well as one of her last Hong Kong productions before switching to American-made films. Directed by actor and stunt coordinator Mang Hoi (Yes, Madam!) and featuring fight choreography by Corey Yuen (Righting Wrongs), LADY REPORTER delivers a barrage of head-spinning fight scenes including a climatic pole fight between Rothrock and fellow American martial artist Jeffrey Falcon (Six-String Samurai). Featuring strong supporting performances by Roy Chiao (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), Melvin Wong (Ghost Nursing), and actor/director Ronny Yu (Freddy vs. Jason), Vinegar Syndrome is proud to present this landmark in Cynthia Rothrock's filmography for the first time on Blu-ray in North America, newly restored from studio-provided masters.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION BY VINEGAR SYNDROME FROM EXISTING STUDIO MASTERS
Includes both the 88-minute Hong Kong theatrical version in Cantonese with English translated subtitles and the 90-minute English language export version
Brand new commentary track with martial arts film historian Frank Djeng for the Hong Kong version
No Mediocre Action (14 min) - an interview with actress Cynthia Rothrock
Playing the Villain (21 min) - an interview with actor Vincent Lyn
Cantonese theatrical trailer
English trailer
Image gallery
16-page booklet with new writing by historian Fancesco Massaccesi
Following the tragic death of their parents, a sister and brother take a group of friends to rural Florida to stay at a rickety old house which they've recently inherited. Little do the youngsters realize that some decades before, a woman suspected of being a witch was burned at the stake on the property by the zealous townsfolk. With the group settled in for a few days of drinking and partying, the demonic forces that reside in the house are quick to take hold - possessing a number of the teens and prompting them to take up knives, axes and chainsaws against their friends in an orgy of death and dismemberment. As the carnage escalates, the few remaining members of the group are forced to seek out the assistance of a local aged priest, in the hopes of putting an end to the horror.
The directorial debut of Alessandro Capone, who had previously penned Ruggero Deodato's slice-and-dice effort Body Count, WITCH STORY (which was originally marketed in the US as a sequel to the 1982 supernatural slasher Superstition) is a prime example of late 80s Italian splatter, featuring an astonishing array of nastiness with numerous bodies being hacked, slashed and generally beaten to a pulp. Frantically blending The Evil Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Exorcist and slasher elements in a way that only the Italians can, the celluloid sorcerers at Vinegar Syndrome have conjured up WITCH STORY for its world UHD debut, newly restored in 4K from its original camera negative and loaded with a bewitching assortment of new and archival extras.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
Presented in its original English language 2.0 stereo soundtrack, as well as its Italian language dub soundtrack (untranslated)
Commentary track with film historians Troy Howarth, Nathaniel Thompson and Eugenio Ercolani
Directing a Witch Story (32 min) - an interview with director Alessandro Capone
Producing the Witch (34 min) - an interview with producer Giuseppe Pedersoli
The Light of Witches (12 min) - an interview with cinematographer Roberto Girometti
The It-Brit Connection: British Actors in Italian Horror (17 min) - video essay by Mike Foster
An Italian Witch in Florida (44 min) - archival making-of documentary featuring interviews with director Alessandro Capone, cinematographer Roberto Girometti and composer Carlo Maria Cordio
Meredith Stone, a home care nurse, has been assigned the duty of looking after a wealthy invalid named Ivar Langrock. Cooped up in Langrock's stately country mansion, Meredith quickly suspects that someone sinister is lurking in the manor's dark halls only to discover that Ivar's demented and violent son has been locked away in a hidden room. Shortly thereafter, Ivar's grandson Gabriel also moves into the house and with his arrival a mysterious killer soon begins murdering members of the Langrock family along with their live-in staff.
An unjustly obscure early slasher made while the genre was still discovering and establishing its key tropes, Alan Beattie's THE HOUSE WHERE DEATH LIVES (aka Delusion) offers a twisted murder mystery which bridges the more nuanced and character-driven thrillers of the 70s with the stalk-and-slash structure of the early 80s. Starring Patricia Pearcy (Squirm) and John Dukakis (Jaws 2) along with Hollywood legend Joseph Cotten (The Third Man), Vinegar Syndrome is proud to bring this hidden gem of spooky-old-house atmosphere and blood-soaked mayhem to Blu-ray, newly restored in 4K from its 35mm camera negative and presented in its longest and most complete version ever released on home video.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Commentary track with The Hysteria Continues!
Dear John (19 min) - an interview with actor John Dukakis
Stuck in That House (15 min) - an interview with actor David Hayward
Mad House (25 min) - author Stephen Thrower on The House Where Death Lives
Niccolò Paganini was a legend in his time; a master violinist and renowned composer who brought new depth and complexity to the art of music. But in his private life Paganini was a brute and a womanizer who used his talents to seduce and manipulate beautiful women, driving himself, his young son, and devoted wife to the brink of madness.
A mesmerizing biography of the infamous composer as imagined through the eyes of equally notorious actor and director Klaus Kinski (Aguirre, the Wrath of God), PAGANINI explores the violinist's descent into derangement and carnal mayhem. Moving between the abstract, the beautiful, and the erotic, Kinski distills Paganini's life into a consuming cinematic fever dream as photographed by Pier Luigi Santi (Weapons of Death). Vinegar Syndrome Labs is excited to offer the Blu-ray debut of Kinski's sole feature film directing effort, newly restored in 2K from its 35mm original camera negative and loaded with an abundance of fascinating behind-the-scenes footage along with a selection of new interviews with cast and crew, detailing the untold and often harrowing story of how this unique outlier in Italian genre cinema came to be.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Presented in its original Italian language mono soundtrack with newly-translated English subtitles, as well as its English language dub soundtrack
Brand new commentary track with film historians Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
My Life with Kinski (16 min) - an audio interview with actress Debora Caprioglio
The Devil's Left Hand (30 min) - an interview with music consultant / violinist Salvatore Accardo
The Voice of Madness (26 min) - an interview with soundman Luciano Muratori
Aiming at the Director (29 min) - an interview with unit manager Stefano Spadoni
How to Kill a Producer (30 min) - an interview with film historian Eugenio Ercolani
Paganini - 95-minute English language director's cut (sourced from tape)
Behind-the-scenes footage (sourced from tape, partially translated, 52 min)
Klaus Kinski press conference from Cannes 1988 (5 min)
Former evangelist Bill Hill (Christopher Walken, King of New York), discovers Juvenal (Skeet Ulrich, Scream), a purported miracle worker who can heal people simply by touching them and bears the marks of stigmata on his body. Hill, no stranger to exploiting others, sees a potential fortune in Juvenal and primes him for show business but Hill's plans go awry when the woman he entrusts to seduce Juvenal (Bridget Fonda, Jackie Brown) falls for him and a fundamentalist reverend (Tom Arnold, True Lies) threatens to put a stop to the whole enterprise.
Based on a novel by noted crime author Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Jackie Brown) and
adapted for the screen and directed by Paul Schrader (Hardcore, Affliction), TOUCH is a burst of post-Tarantino dark comedy, matching Leonard's offbeat characters with Schrader's unwavering examination of theology in America. Featuring an ensemble cast that also includes the likes of Gina Gershon (Bound), Lolita Davidovich (Raising Cain), Paul Mazursky (director of An Unmarried Woman), Janeane Garofalo (Reality Bites) and LL Cool J as himself, TOUCH is quintessential Paul Schrader and ripe for rediscovery. Cinématographe is proud to present this often overlooked entry in the career of one of America's most prized filmmakers in its first ever blu-ray release, sourced from a new 2K scan of its original camera negative.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM A 35MM INTERPOSITIVE
New video interview with writer/director Paul Schrader
New audio commentary with film historians Howard S. Berger and Steve Mitchell
New video essay by Daniel Kremer
Essays by film critics Chris Cabin and Bilge Ebiri and filmmaker/writer Cosmo Bjorkenheim