Vinegar Syndrome has announced its September batch of 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray releases.They are: The ResurrecteD (1991), Bloodstained Italy (1972-1978), Of Monsters and Madness: The Films of Larry Fessenden Volume 2 (2001-2006), The Strange Affair (1968), the Films of Hisayasu Satō: Volume #1 (1987-1988).
Private investigator John March is handed the most unusual case of his career when the beautiful Claire Ward turns up at his office asking for help. Her husband, the esteemed chemical engineer Charles Dexter Ward, has started dabbling in strange and secretive experiments, and has recently moved out of the marital home and into a remote and disused ancestral farmhouse to continue his activities in privacy. As these experiments take an ever more sinister turn, with reports of body parts being delivered to the property, Charles himself begins displaying increasingly erratic behavior, apparently taking on the personality of someone from centuries ago. With Charles eventually committed to a psychiatric facility for evaluation, leaving John and Claire free to investigate the property, the nightmare has only just begun…
Taking its cue from the success of Stuart Gordon's similarly H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Re-Animator (1985), director Dan O'Bannon's (The Return of the Living Dead) THE RESURRECTED sought to further mine the works of Lovecraft with this thrilling take on his novella The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Starring John Terry (TV's Lost, The Living Daylights), Chris Sarandon (Fright Night, Child's Play), Jane Sibbett (TV's Friends), and Robert Romanus (Fast Times at Ridgemont High), and featuring some truly memorable and horrific prosthetic creature FX, Vinegar Syndrome is thrilled to breathe new life into this unjustly overlooked early 90s horror outing, which claws its way up from the subterranean lab newly restored in 4K from its original camera negative and loaded with a wealth of new and archival bonus features.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
TWO-DISC (4K BLU-RAY/BLU-RAY) COMBO PACK RELEASE
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
Commentary track with producers Mark Borde and Kenneth Raich, writer Brent V. Friedman, special effects artist Todd Masters, and actor Robert Romanus
Duality of Man (21 min) - a new interview with actor Chris Sarandon
Being Present (14 min) - a new interview with actor Robert Romanus
A Grisly Crossover (25 min) - a new interview with film critic and author Kim Newman
Claire's Conundrum (15 min) - an archival interview with actress Jane Sibbett
The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward (24 min) - an archival interview with author S.T. Joshi
The Resurrected Man (15 min) - an archival interview with actor Chris Sarandon
Abominations & Adaptations (18 min) - an archival interview with writer Brent V. Friedman
Grotesque Melodies (10 min) - an archival interview with composer Richard Band
Lovecraftian Landscapes (8 min) - an archival interview with production designer Brent Thomas
Human Experiments (16 min) - an archival interview with special effects artist Todd Masters
Italian horror in the 1960s and 70s went through several popular tonal and thematic phases. From gothic thrillers in the early to mid-60s, psychedelia and monster mayhem in the late 60s and early 70s, and of course, all manner of gialli and other assorted murder thrillers. But what of those films that offer a form of narrative bait and switch, luring the viewer in with the pretense of one genre while slowly revealing themselves to be something else entirely? Presented here are a trio of 70s Italian horror features which play with, combine, subvert, and surprise with their genre leanings, all newly and exclusively restored from their 35mm original negatives and all presented on English-friendly home video for the very first time, from Vinegar Syndrome.
In director Giulio Petroni's OBSCENE DESIRE (L'osceno desiderio), a young American woman, Amanda, moves to a large and creepy countryside villa with her newlywed Italian husband. Soon enough, strange and seemingly supernatural events begin to befall the property, as a black-gloved killer simultaneously picks up and murders prostitutes. What do these otherworldly occurrences and the vicious killings have in common? And what sinister plans have been hatched for Amanda? A truly genre-defying shocker combining elements of giallo, satanic horror, and very raunchy sexploitation, Petroni's film is one of the most head-scratching Italian horror films of the late 1970s and has been restored, as best as possible, to its never-released original director's cut.
In director Riccardo Ghione's THE BLOODSTAINED LAWN (Il prato macchiato di rosso), a group of hippie drifters find their way to the luxury and ultra-modern country home of Dr. Antonio and his wife, Nina Genovese. While the seemingly charming couple's offer to let the aimless youngsters hang out at their property appears initially motivated by the couple's fascination with the lifestyles of the free love generation, when members of the group begin vanishing, it becomes clear that something much more sinister - and deadly - is afoot. Taking a cue from jet-set thrillers of the late 1960s, this horror rarity evolves into a high-concept science-fiction nightmare.
In director Leopoldo Savona's DEATH FALLS LIGHTLY (La morte scende leggera), wealthy businessman Giorgio Darica's wife is murdered by an unknown assailant. Fearing that he will be fingered as the prime suspect, due to their failing marriage and his well-known philandering, his advisors suggest that he go into hiding at a shuttered hotel until the police can investigate more thoroughly. Taking along his mistress, Giorgio assumes he'll be in for a secret romantic getaway, but is soon besieged by supernatural visions which seem to be drawing him into the hotel's own dark and murderous past, threatening to drive him mad. Strangely similar to, but predating, "The Shining," this wholly unpredictable thriller is further complemented by a throbbing prog rock score by Lallo Gori.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
THREE-DISC SET
NEW 2K RESTORATIONS OF ALL THREE FILMS FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
All films feature newly-translated English subtitles
Reversible sleeve artwork
OBSCENE DESIRE
Commentary track with film historians Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
Disowned Desires (14 min) - an archival interview with director/writer Giulio Petroni
The End of it All (21 min) - an interview with daughter of Giulio Petroni and script supervisor, Silvia Petroni
Dissecting the Desire (44 min) - an interview with grandson of Giulio Petroni and film historian, Eugenio Ercolani
A Controversial Desire (20 min) - an interview with censorship expert Alessio Di Rocco
A Question of Faith (11 min) - an interview with director Pupi Avati
Alternate and extended scenes from the Spanish version (13 min)
Original Italian trailer
THE BLOODSTAINED LAWN
Commentary track with film historian and critic Rachael Nisbet
Bloodstained Piacenza (24 min) - an interview with film historian Enzo Latronico
Odd Choices (16 min) - an interview with filmmaker/film historian Luca Rea
DEATH FALLS LIGHTLY
Commentary track with film historians Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth
Anything Goes (15 min) - an interview with actor Alessandro Perrella
That Kind of Film (11 min) - an interview with filmmaker/film historian Luca Rea
Where Death Landed (5 min) - a then and now location featurette
For forty years, Glass Eye Pix and its founder, Larry Fessenden, have been leaving their bloody mark on independent genre filmmaking in America. To celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Glass Eye Pix, Vinegar Syndrome is proud to present brand new 4K restorations of Larry Fessenden's shot-on-film features, continuing with WENDIGO (2001) and THE LAST WINTER (2006).
WENDIGO
George (Jake Weber, Dawn of the Dead [2004]), his wife Kim (Patricia Clarkson, High Art and TV's Six Feet Under), and their son Miles (Erik Per Sullivan, TV's Malcolm In the Middle) leave their home in Manhattan for a winter respite in Upstate New York, looking for some much-needed rest and relaxation. On their drive north, the family is involved in a sudden accident when George hits a deer that runs across an icy road, setting the stage for a snowbound supernatural showdown between them and the titular Wendigo, a grotesque legendary beast from Native American folklore.
Larry Fessenden's long-awaited follow-up to his breakout feature, Habit (1995), WENDIGO is a distinctly American folk horror film shot entirely on location in New York's Catskills, on Super 16mm film by director of photography Terry Stacey (American Splendor). Vinegar Syndrome is proud to present Fessenden's icy, DIY monster movie in a brand new director-approved 4K restoration of its original 16mm negatives.
THE LAST WINTER
At the remote Alaskan base of an oil company, hard-headed base leader Ed Pollack (Ron Perlman, Hellboy) faces off with eco-scientist James Hoffman (James Le Gros, Living In Oblivion), who has raised concerns about the environmental impact of the drilling in the area due to the abnormally warm temperatures in the region. When one of Pollack's crew is found dead on the ice, and members of his team start experiencing hallucinations, Hoffman turns to a scientific explanation despite signs pointing towards something more supernatural at play.
Larry Fessenden followed up the winter folk horror of Wendigo with a similarly chilly ghost story set near the Arctic Circle. Shot on location in both Alaska and Iceland, marking Fessenden's first film to be shot outside of the United States and New York, THE LAST WINTER is a remarkably cold and claustrophobic piece of folk horror that shares a few notable similarities with John Carpenter's The Thing and is, to this date, Fessenden's final movie shot on film and the only one to be shot entirely on 35mm. Vinegar Syndrome is proud to present Larry Fessenden's wildly ambitious eco-horror thriller in a brand new director-approved 4K restoration from its 35mm negative.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
WENDIGO
TWO-DISC (4K BLU-RAY/BLU-RAY) COMBO PACK RELEASE
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 16mm original camera negative
Brand new commentary track with writer/director Larry Fessenden, moderated by Justin Laliberty
Brand new commentary track with film critic Simon Abrams
Archival commentary track with writer/director Larry Fessenden
Archival commentary track with actors Patricia Clarkson, Jake Weber, and John Speredakos
"Searching for the Wendigo" (32 min) - an archival making-of documentary
"A New Hallucination" (8 min) - an archival featurette with writer/director Larry Fessenden on Wendigo
Sales trailer for an animated Wendigo TV series with an introduction by Larry Fessenden (3 min)
Alternate ending for Wendigo (7 min)
Original video trailer
Glass Eye Pix sizzle reel from 2010 (3 min)
"Santa Claws" (5 min) - a short film by Larry Fessenden
Reversible sleeve artwork
English SDH subtitles
THE LAST WINTER
TWO-DISC (4K BLU-RAY/BLU-RAY) COMBO PACK RELEASE
DOLBY VISION/HDR PRESENTATION OF THE FILM
Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm digital intermediate negative
Brand new commentary track with writer/director Larry Fessenden, moderated by Justin Laliberty
Brand new commentary track with author & critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Archival commentary track with writer/director Larry Fessenden
"Making The Last Winter" (107 min) - a feature-length archival making-of documentary
Interview with co-writer/director Larry Fessenden, conducted in 2015 by journalist Adam Nayman (22 min)
Archival behind-the-scenes footage from the production (18 min)
"There's nothing more despicable than a bent policeman." In a less-than-swinging area of London, the grizzled Detective Sgt. Pierce is obsessed with taking down a local kingpin, Quince, who is an expert at evading arrest, as he was once a policeman himself. Meanwhile, PC Strange is a new beat cop, fresh and idealistic about serving the public good, who meets a hippie girl named Frederika while quieting a street scuffle. Frederika takes an interest in Strange, who is quickly learning the harder realities of police life. When Strange gets trapped in a budding scandal, it's Pierce who convinces Strange he can save him, but only if Strange helps bend the law to entrap Quince.
An early feature from prolific telefilm director David Greene (I Start Counting; Rich Man, Poor Man), THE STRANGE AFFAIR combines the grit of US police drama with English working-class culture, delivering a strong update to the form with its multiple storylines and cynical eye on both pop culture and bureaucracy. Featuring powerful performances from Michael York (Austin Powers, Murder on the Orient Express), Susan George (Straw Dogs, Tintorera), and Jeremy Kemp (Top Secret!, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors), it also boasts a stunning soundtrack by experimental composer Basil Kirchin (The Abominable Dr. Phibes) and photography from Alex Thomson (The Keep). Vinegar Syndrome Labs is proud to offer the disc debut of this police thriller, newly restored in 4K from its original Techniscope negative.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
NEW 4K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL TECHNISCOPE NEGATIVE
Commentary track with filmmaker, film writer, and producer Kat Ellinger
Swinging to London (5 min) - a featurette with words by actor Michael York
Greene Recruits (35 min) - a making-of documentary featuring interviews with the cast and crew
In Like Quince (18 min) - an interview with actor David Glaisyer
One of the most esteemed and transgressive filmmakers ever to work in Japan's explosively popular Pink Film genre, Hisayasu Satô crafted erotic films that were both genre-defying and artfully-minded. While Satô's work is infused with horror and thriller tropes, it boasts a punk and avant-garde aesthetic singularly his own. In this debut release, Pink Line begins to explore this immense body of work with three of Satô's most outlandish and profound features, each newly and exclusively restored in 2K from their 35mm original camera negatives with newly-translated English subtitles, all under the supervision of Satô himself.
In LUSTMORD (aka Pleasure Kill), Satô commences his meditation on the fusion of sex and death. Eiji, a reclusive and awkward teenage boy, is fixated on creating a serum capable of breaking down the barrier between pleasure and pain, much to the dismay of his research physician mother. Deciding to conduct his own experiments, Eiji slips the serum to several women, but is unprepared for the horrifying results. Later remade by Satô as the straight horror feature Naked Blood, this early directing effort conjures a remarkable waking nightmare approach, as the impending threat of violence and insanity permeates every scene as it builds towards a typically cynical and cryptic conclusion.
RE-WIND (aka Celluloid Nightmare) functions as Satô's tribute to Michael Powell's masterpiece Peeping Tom. After a grisly, point-of-view snuff videotape is found in a refrigerator, a young man becomes obsessed with discovering who made it and whether or not the brutal murder was real. As he delves into Tokyo's underground video scene, his own perversions come to the fore as he grows ever closer to uncovering the shocking truth, alongside a female reporter who calls herself Crime Hunter. Fusing gruesome gore and raw sex while wryly playing with the artifice inherent to the video format, RE-WIND remains one of Satô's most powerful and impressive early works.
LOVE LETTER IN THE SAND (aka Pervert Ward: Torturing the White Uniform), is Satô crafting a noir-inspired erotic thriller, using blazing, heavily-gelled color. During a month of unusually heavy rain in Tokyo, a mystery assailant has been brutally assaulting and killing people with a metal bat. When a handsome young man with amnesia is found outside an area hospital, the nurse who discovered him begins to suspect that he may in fact be the assailant. But her own strange erotic fixations with him, and the questionable involvement of the doctor tasked with the amnesia victim, lead them all down an increasingly twisted path of deeply-rooted trauma and violence.
Special Features and Technical Specs:
TWO-DISC SET
40-page perfect bound book (limited edition only) includes essays by Ariel Esteban Cayer, Tori Potenza, and Jasper Sharp
Reversible cover artwork
Newly translated English subtitles
REGION-FREE
LUSTMORD
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Commentary track with Japanese cinema expert Jasper Sharp for Lustmord
"Kill Kill" - an interview with director Hisayasu Satô
"Written in Blood" - an interview with writer Taketoshi Watari
"Walking in Circles" - a locations featurette with director Hisayasu Satô covering all three films
RE-WIND
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Commentary track with film critic Simon Abrams
"Visual Pleasure" - an interview with director Hisayasu Satô
"Caught in the Act" - an interview with actress Kiyomi Itô
"Shooting His Shot" - an interview with writer Yumeno Shiro
LOVE LETTER IN THE SAND
NEW 2K RESTORATION FROM THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVE
Commentary track with film historian & author Samm Deighan
"Medical Mayhem" - an interview with director Hisayasu Satô
"Pretty in Pink" - an interview with filmmaker Risaku Kiridoshi