Here’s what else Severin has for sale:
Closed Circuit: ABOUT THE AUTHOR: When Frederick Burdsall isn’t at work or watching movies while covered in cats, you can find Fred in the front seat of Knoebels’ Phoenix.
What we have here today, my friends, is your standard supernatural made for TV Giallo. From 1978, comes Circuito Chiuso (Closed Circuit), directed by Giuiano Montado, who is probably best known for the trilogy of films he made dealing with the various abuses of power, the most known being Sacco and Vanzetti. It stars Flavio Bucci, Tony Kendall and to an extent Giuliano Gemma. Let’s look at the story…
A harmless, movie-loving old man goes to the cinema to watch the Giuliano Gemma western now appearing. Everyone takes their seats and the film begins to roll. Nothing out of the ordinary happens here until the final confrontation, when the Pistolero (Gemma) fires at his adversary and the old man is struck and killed by a bullet. With police already in the theater, it is quickly locked down so the killer can’t escape. We watch tensions build as the interrogations begin and no one is allowed to leave. The police chief decides to re-enact the crime in the hopes of figuring it out and gets a volunteer to sit in the death seat. When the final confrontation takes place, the pistolero fires and the volunteer is gunned down. There doesn’t appear to be any connection and finally the chief runs the film a final time, taking the death seat himself. Not to spoil anything but it doesn’t end well for the chief and the mystery is solved.
It is part sci-fi, part social commentary and somewhat supernatural making for an interesting watch. If you go in expecting the usual black gloved killer and lots of bloody violence you will be very disappointed. Go in with an open mind, then watch and enjoy this visual experiment that has been overlooked long enough and I’ll see you at Knoebels.
The Unscarred: For his third feature film – and first outside his native Staten Island – writer/director Buddy Giovinazzo (Combat Shock) delivered an intense new take on alienation, desperation and retribution: In 1979, a shocking accident rocked the student exchange program at Stanford University and forever changed the trajectory of four young lives. Twenty years later, an impromptu reunion in Berlin will turn the sins of the past into an explosion of lust, deception, dark secrets and cold-blooded murder. James Russo, Steven Waddington, Heino Ferch and Ornella Muti star in this extreme neo-noir, now scanned in 2K from pre-print German vault elements with 2 hours of new Special Features for the first time ever in America.
Stir: In 1974, the cruel treatment of inmates at Bathurst Prison in New South Wales, Australia led to violent riots, savage reprisals and a still-controversial official inquiry. Six years later, this “furious, foul-mouthed, open wound of a film” (Bob Ellis, Nation Review) – the feature directorial debut by Stephen Wallace from a screenplay by Bathurst inmate Bob Jewson – dared to tell the inside story: When career criminal China Jackson (Bryan Brown) is returned to prison after exposing abuses by guards, tensions between inmates and officers begin to boil until they explode in rage, defiance and shocking carnage. Max Phipps co-stars in this “intense and authentic account of a brutal system” (Cinephilia) – nominated for 13 AFI Awards including Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay and Best Actor – scanned in 2K from the 35mm interpositive at The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.
Combat Shock novelization: Buddy Giovinazzo’s landmark gut-grinder is now an all-new page-turner. Available to purchase by itself or at a discounted price in two of our Severin Black Friday Sale Bundles.
There are two bundles, The Stir Crazy Bundle and The Buddy G Bundle for these movies and associated books.
Spider Labyrinth: The title of this movie may translate as The Spider’s Nest, but it was released here as The Spider Labyrinth, which is a really awesome name for a movie. Good thing that this blast of late 80s Italian horror lives up to it.
Professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga, Sinbad of the Seven Seas) is a professor of languages whose life’s goal is to translate the sacred texts of a pre-Christian religion. This brings him to Budapest, where Professor Roth gives him a black book and plenty of paranoid ramblings, telling him about a cult called The Weavers that worship living beings from before humanity was even an idea.
This film has its roots in not just giallo — Whitmore is the stranger in a strange land who is confronted by a dead body and plenty of mystery about exactly why — but also the works of Lovecraft, informing us that there are religions that existed before the ones that we know and accept. Also, a shade of yellow forms over this story as our hero has a phobia about spiders, as he was locked in the closet with one as a small child and has carried that fear with him into his adult life.
Oh yeah — there’s also a fanged woman who can climb the walls like a spider out there killing anyone who helps our hero, even transforming the murder of one of the maids into an Argento-style art murder. It helps that Sergio Stivaletti, who did the effects for so many of the giallo maestro’s films, is on hand here. And this movie works admirably without CGI, as the ending gets absolutely into the stratosphere of wildness with an infant that becomes a spider.
This isn’t just a giallo cover movie. It has a genuine story to tell and some beautiful scenes along the way, as a real air of death just under the surface of reality. Sadly, its director Gianfranco Giagni has mostly worked in television, such as the show Valentina (a remake of Baba Yaga), or made documentaries such as Rosabella: la storia italiana di Orson Welles and La scandalose.
You can buy this by itself or get it as part of The Tangled Web Bundle which includes the Spider Labyrinth 4K UHD, the Collectable Spider Baby Metal Figurine and the Spider Labyrinth Sticker. It’s a $73 value for $65.
There’s also a Saturday sale and a huge bundle where you can get everything. You can also get half off anything that was released a year or longer ago.
Look, just throw your paycheck to Severin and they’ll take care of your movies for you. The sale starts at midnight tomorrow.
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