I am lecturer, author and researcher in media and cultural theory at the Birmingham School of Media, Birmingham City University. I am currently completing my PhD on the political economy of Euro-Cult cinema fan production.
I don't get much time to produce to fan DVDs anymore but I recently completed work on a fan DVD of Ferdinando Baldi's gialloNine Guests for a Crime (aka Nove ospiti per un delitto, 1977). The video and audio was taken from the Italian Surf Video DVD. As you can see in the attached screenshots, the picture quality of the Italian DVD is very good indeed. One of the problems with the Italian DVD was that the 16x9 flag was not set correctly by the original author of the disc. This meant that when played the image was squashed. Using a tool such as Ifoedit it is possible to correct such an oversight with a simple few taps of a keyboard. Subtitles were created by DjangoLi, the owner and master fan subtitler over at Italian Film Translation. I also included the original Italian trailer from the Italian DVD. The Italian Surf Video DVD can be purchased from Kult Video.
Being a fan of Tessari's other gialli, The Bloodstained Butterfly (1971) and Puzzle (1974), and his excellent foray into the poliziesco genre Tony Arzenta (1973) I had always wanted to see Death Occurred Last Night, his first addition to the giallo canon. To my knowledge there has never been an official English friendly release of this the only available version being a poor quality English subtitled bootleg available from Video Search of Miami. Even though I own a copy of the latter I was never able to watch it because of the poor video quality. The excellent Italian DVD label Rarohad intended to release the film but it never surfaced. An Italian DVD was released by Ermitage but, again, the picture quality, though better than the Video Search of Miami Bootleg, was still poor. I had intended to use this DVD as the video source for a fan DVD project but Polla of Pollanet Squad was very kindly able to supply me with a rip of a widescreen Italian television broadcast. I enhanced this high quality rip for 16x9 playback and added subtitles which were built by DjangoLi of the Lovelockandloadforum. Screenshots can be found below:
As you can see, the station logo is unfortunately burnt-in to the video. I tried to remove it in VirtualDub but the result was not very impressive. Thankfully most of it has been cropped off during the 16x9 enhancement and the remaining half is not that noticeable. Below is the motion menu I created and also a screenshot of the chapter selection menu:
The film, though not as good as The Bloodstained Butterfly which would be Tessari's next entry into the giallocanon, is a gripping police procedural giallo with no straight-razor wielding black-gloved killer to be found. Berzaghi (Raf Vollone) approaches Police Commissioner Lamberti (Frank Wolff) to help find his mentally retarded daughter Donatella (Gillian Bray) who has gone missing. Lamberti, along with his assistant Mascaranti (Gabriele Tinti), begin to search for Donatella whilst Berzaghi continues his own investigation until they both uncover the shocking truth. Death Occurred Last Night is very well acted and well executed. It is a pity that Tessari did not make anymore gialli, his offerings are more thoughtful than the majority. Obviously, it comes highly recommended.Some of you may have noticed that this is my tenth fan DVD. It is quite fitting that number ten is a Tessari film as my first fan DVD was a fan dub of The Bloodstained Butterfly. I have been quite busy producing fan DVDs over the past few weeks. Look out for posts detailing my 16x9 enhancements of:Blazing Magnum (1976) The Sweet Body of Deborah (1968) Death in Haiti aka Tropic of Cancer (1972) Spirits of Death (1972) My next fan DVD will be an English dub of Luigi Zampa's little seen giallo/poliziescoThe Masters (1975) starring Franco Nero. I also have a few other surprises up my sleeve.
I wrote about this forgotten film last year after watching it via a murky avi file. I was very pleased to find that someone has recently built a fan composite DVD of the film using a widescreen French television broadcast and audio from a US VHS. The DVD also includes the original drive-in trailer. Screenshots from the disc are a revelation, no more struggling to see what is going on during the night time scenes.The only downside is that DVD is only available on the torrent site Cinemageddon. I am no fan of torrent downloads as they seem to take an age but I am currently downloading it. Hopefully it will be finished tomorrow. As the the DVD is non-anamorphic I will be using VirtualDub to crop the video and enhance it for 16x9 playback. I am very much looking forward to seeing this again. Here's hoping that an official DVD release will surface soon.UPDATE 21/07/08After nearly two days of downloading I was finally able to build my version of this great fan DVD and am quite happy with the results. I enhanced both the main feature and the original drive-in trailer for 16x9 playback and created some simple menus. Below are some screeshots from my DVD:
I really cannot thank the builder of the original fan DVD enough for making this available to download.
I had been meaning to purchase the Italian DVD of Illustrious Corpses (Cadaveri Eccellenti) for some time only to recently find that it had gone out print. Typical! After months of searching a copy finally showed up on eBay.it; a great resource for those hard to find Italian DVDs and VHS. As the DVD has no English options I was keen to build a fan DVD of this forgotten film. DjangoLi of the lovelockandload forum managed to locate a subtitle file online and was kind enough to make it available for download. Jim Quigley, who built the English subtitles, certainly deserves a pat on the back as this is a dialogue heavy film and it must have took an age to subtitle.The DVD did not take long to build and was my first attempt at making a dual layer DVD. I also used my new favourite software, VirtualDubMod, to crop and 16x9 enhance the thirty minute extra feature "An interview with Franceso Rosi". Even though the extra feature does not have any English options I still thought that it would be worthy of inclusion. Again, I created a motion menu and used some of the shots of the "Illustrious Corpses" as the background pictures for the other menus. They look quite effective. Below is a video of the motion menu and some some screenshots taken from my fan DVD:
I have not had time to watch the film yet but even though it is little discussed it is one that is highly regarded by those who have seen it. It is also quite hard to classify: is it a giallo, a poliziesco or an Arthouse film? From what I have seen while building the DVD it bears some similarities to Investigation of a Citizen Under Suspicion (1970), The Masters (1975) and some of the other Italian political thrillers from this period. Plot wise the film is about a detective who is investigating the murders of several respected judges only to find that the Italian Communist Party are involved. Hopefully I will get round to watching it over the next few weeks.Next up will be a16x9 version of Death in Haiti (aka Tropic of Cancer, 1972) using the colourful widescreen Eire VHS as the source. I had a tinker around with the video in VirtualDubMod and was quite impressed with the results. I might also have a few surprises up my sleeve over the coming month. Stay tuned!
Jay from the lovelockandload forums recently sent me a widescreen, uncut screener of this underrated 1980s giallo. The film itself is based on the unsolved 'Monster of Florence' murders which began in 1968 and were to influence a certain Thomas Harris who created the infamous character Dr Hannibal Lecter. Most reviews of the film tend to focus on the nastier elements such as the graphic murder scenes but there is more to this rarely seen thriller. In style it is more reminiscent of a television film than any of the quintessential gialli of the late 1960s and 1970s.Christiana, a criminology student researching the case, becomes highly involved in the case, receiving threatening phone calls and begins to suspect that her boyfriend Alex might be the murderer. But is he? There are some nicely shot scenes such as the one where Christiana is terrorised in her apartment and the seance scene, which although seemingly out of place with the rest of the film leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. The murder sequences are well filmed and very realistic. Even the most desensitized horror fan might wince during the final scene. Surprisingly scripted by legendary giallo screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi and well directed by CamilloTeti, whilst no masterpiece there is much more this film than its violent set-pieces.After a long wait I first viewed the film last month via an English subbed avi made by lovelockandload member Luca Caneli. The source for the avi was the fullscreen Italian VHS which, although uncut, was overly dark, so much so that it was difficult to make out what was going on during the darker scenes. The widescreenscreener I received was in similar shape seemingly taken from a print that was not in pristine condition. After viewing the fan DVDs of Queens of Evil (1970) and Formula for a Murder (1985) which used widescreen VHS as the source and were 16x9 enhanced and slightly remastered I have wanted to try my hand at producing something similar. The Killer is Still Among Us presented the ideal opportunity for such an effort.To 16x9 enhance and remaster the video I used VirtualDubMod, a modified version of the original VirtualDub software which offers MPEG-2 support. I was surprised how easy it was to crop and 16x9 enhance the video and also alter the contrast and overall brightness of the image. Within two hours I had edited, mastered and encoded the new MPEG-2 file. Unfortunately it is still overly dark during the night scenes but is now a little better than the original source. Subtitles were a pain to synchronise as per usual but they seem to be timed correctly. Again I used DVD Lab to build the final DVD and create a motion menu. Below are some screenshots taken from my DVD:
And here is the motion menu:Next up will be fan sub DVD of the forgotten poliziescoIllustrious Corpses (1976). I was finally able to purchase the out of print Italian DVD and hopefully it will arrive this week. Also on my list is Duccio Tessari'sDeath Occured Last Night (1970). I would like to work on some other 16x9 enhanced versions of giallitaken from widescreen VHS. Any suggestions?
As many followers of this blog will know, I have spent over five months trying to build a fan DVD of AnimaPersa(1977) using firstly the Czech DVD and then the Spanish DVD of the film. DjangoLi, a member of the excellent Lovelockandload forum who built the subtitles used on my previous fan DVD of PensionePaura(1978), kindly pointed out that there was a fan built subtitle file currently available for AnimaPersa. I really do hate building subtitle files. There is no simple way to produce them and it can take forever. Having one to work with obviously makes the job much easier. So my thanks go out to the original subtitlerMcDuck, whoever you may be, thank you so much for your excellent work! All I had to do with McDuck's subtitles was resynch them using Subtitle Workshop to fit with the print used for the Spanish DVD and that was that.Like my PensionePauraDVD, I took the 4x3 letterbox video file and converted it to 16x9 using DVD Rebuilder. The result is not exactly amazing but it is a major step up in quality from the Video Search of Miami bootleg that has been in circulation for a few years. I also decided to use motion menus for the first time rather than just copy the menus from the source DVD. Thanks go to Julian for his work on the logo used on the main menu. I am usually not one for flashy menus but I have to say that I am quite happy with how the motion menu looks. Below are some screenshots taken from the DVD:
And here is the motion menu taken from the DVD:So enough about the DVD, what about the film? AnimaPersa (which translates into English as Lost Soul and is also known by title The Forbidden Room) is generally regarded as a giallo even if it does not follow traditional conventions. If anything, AnimaPersa, like PensionePaura, allows to consider the giallo as a movement or a cycle of film rather than a distinct genre (a point I intend to discuss further in a forthcoming article). The basic plot of the film involves Tino, a young man visiting his aunt and uncle's house in Venice, who finds his uncle's insane brother locked away in their attic. This discovery leads Tino to find out more about his unusual relatives and the mystery of the man in the attic. This is a tense, well directed Italian thriller that certainly deserves a wider audience.I had intended my next fan DVD to be Murder in an Etruscan Cemeterybut the audio needs quite a lot of work and I just don't have the time for it at the moment. I also have Death Occurred Last Night on my list but apparently there is a nice quality Italian television recording of the film out there which is miles better than the very poor Italian DVD. This might mean that, with help from DjangoLi, my next project will be Illustrious Corpses, another little seen Italian thriller.
There really is no excuse for my lack of postings this year but for the few weeks I have been confined to my sick bed with a nasty case of tonsillitis that decided to morph into a chest infection. How considerate! Anyway, I am back now and have managed to complete my fifth fan DVD Pensione Paura. I had intended my fifth fan DVD to be Anima Persa (1974) but problems ripping subtitles from the Czech DVD meant that I had to purchase the Spanish DVD. Now I have this version I am left with the unenviable task of translating the Spanish subtitles into English, an arduous task that takes a very long time and time is something I do not currently have much of.Pensione Paura, however, was a much easier fan DVD build as lovelockandload forum user 'djangoli' had done a magnificant job of translating the Italian subtitle track from the Italian DVD into English. I decided to purchase the Italian DVD and convert the non-anamorphic widescreen transfer into a fake anamorphic 16x9 transfer thanks to the simple to use program DVD Rebuilder. The results are not incredible, pixellation is heavily noticeable if you upscale the DVD on a large screen plasma or LCD television, but picture quality isn't everything, we are more interested in the actual film. And as for the film, I have not had time to watch it yet. I was not overly impressed by director Francesco Barilli's previous gialloThe Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974) but Pensione Paura looks to be an interesting late entry in the giallo canon. Hopefully I will get round to watching it at some point this weekend. Below are some screenshots taken from the DVD:
Hopefully my next fan DVD will be Anima Persa. I don't suppose any readers out there fancy translating the Spanish subtitles to English for me and receiving a copy of the final DVD in return?
So here is fan composite number four and it was possibly the easiest one I have done so far. I took the video from the German DVD release of the film and, with thanks to Marc, added an English audio track from the Dutch VHS release. I am very happy with the results.It is far superior to the grey market release on the Eurovista label as The Dead are Alive.This release had terrible picture quality; the print was damaged, faded, cropped and missing footage. The audio was equally poor and the disc suffered from an authoring glitch where the DVD would skip to the main menu during the all important final scene.
The film itself is rather underrated.Professor Jason Porter (Alex Cord who would later star in the eighties television show Airwolf), an archaeologist examining an Etruscan tomb becomes involved in a series of murders that bear similarities to ancient Etruscan rituals. Porter, an alcoholic prone to blackouts, is identified as a suspect and attempts to find out who, or what, is behind the murders. Though it suffers from awful dialogue (“does the idea of an Etruscan burial ground turn you on?”) it is still an enjoyable giallo that is different to other gialli from this particular period. Even though Alex Cord has a good on-screen presence he is rather wooden here and his tash proved to be an annoying obstacle when trying to synchronise the audio with the picture.John Marley, who famously woke up to find a horses head sharing his bed in The Godfather (1971), is deliciously over the top here. RizOrtolani’s main theme is reminiscent of his wonderful theme from Cannibal Holocaust (1980).
Below are some screenshots taken from my fandub DVD and these are compared with shots from the Eurovista release:
Next up on my list of fan composites will be either a fan sub of the Czech DVD of AnimaPersa (1977) or a fan dub of the Italian DVD of Sergio Martino's The Scorpion with Two Tails (1982). I might also be working a complete composite of one of my favourite gialliDeath Laid an Egg (1968) (expect a post on this soon) and a DVD than combines the fan dub and fan sub of Violent Rome (1975). There is also a possibility of a HD version of my favourite giallo but I will need to confirm the possibility of this.
I have just completed work on my composite of Sergio Pastore'sgialloCrimes of the Black Cat (1972). This has taken much longer than I had initially anticipated but the outcome is quite pleasing. When creating fan composites it is not the creating of the audio track that takes a long time it is the arduous task of building subtitles. Thankfully, I had a subtitle file to work with so that I did not have to build one from scratch but it is still a time consuming job.
When blind composer Peter Oliver's (Anthony Steffan) lover is found murdered he takes it upon himself to find out who murdered her. As he becomes more involved more women are found murdered with scratches on their body and a yellow silk shawl. Peter becomes more and more involved as he gets closer to the truth, risking his own life and the lives of those around him in the process. This is a very strong entry in the giallocanon that comes highly recommended. I would not consider it to be in my top ten giallibut it would certainly be in my top twenty. The shower murder is both unexpected and very brutal. It is probably one of the nastiest murder scenes I have seen in a giallo. Steffan is very convincing in the role of Peter Oliver and evokes memories of Karl Malden's character in Dario Argento'sCat O' Nine Tails (1971) which clearly influenced this film heavily.The source for the composite was the Italian Federal DVD. Crimes of the Black Cat was released a few years back by Dagored in a version that was of very poor quality. I did purchase the disc but sold it after watching a scant few minutes. Whilst the transfer was presented in in widescreen, it was not anamorphically enhanced and of very poor quality. It was also discovered that is was missing footage, most notably from the notorious shower murder. The Federal release is a marked improvement on the Dagored DVD. Whilst not presented in the original 2.35:1 ratio it is cropped to 1.85:1 and is anamorphically enhanced. The transfer is much better than the Dagored one but it appears that Federal did not go to any lengths to clean up the master as there are a number of scratches present. The print appears to be uncut but there could be a few frames missing from the shower murder as the editing does not appear to be quite right. I have also read online that the version included is the 'clothed version' of the film which lacks some of the more explicit nude shots. Despite these minor flaws this is a most welcome release.The disc originally only had Italian audio and subtitles. Thanks to Lefteris from Trash-Online I was able to add an English audio that was taken from the rare Greek DAV VHS release of the film. The audio was not in great shape so I tried to remaster it using Adobe Audition. The result is not overly impressive but is more than listenable. I also used an English subtitle file that I found online, which could have been taken from the Dagored release, as the source for my English subtitle track.I have included some screenshots from my fan composite:
And some taken from the earlier Dagored release so that you can see the difference in picture quality:
My next composite will be of Armando Crispino'sThe Ertruscan Kills Again (1972). It was previously released on a grey market DVD by Eurovista and, like the Dagored release of Crimesof the Black Cat, is of very poor quality. The film was released on DVD in Germany by UFA as part of the Bryan Edgar Wallace Collection 3 and the transfer is absolutely stunning. I will be adding an English audio track to this which will be taken from the Dutch VHS. Hopefully it will take less time than Crimes of the Black Cat did.
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