Set against the backdrop of the Italian Unification in early 19th-century Italy, after the fall of Napoleon, Fulvio (Marcello Mastroianni), an aristocrat who has dedicated his life to the revolution, has become disillusioned.

You will understand why, as the movie starts with Fulvio being released from prison after authorities spread the rumor that he sold out the Master of Sublime Brothers, a secret society of revolutionaries, to be freed. His formers friends put him on trial until they find out that their missing Master committed suicide days earlier. The group disbands and Fulvio finally goes home after decades gone, just as his relatives mourn his death.

His lover Charlotte (Lea Massari) wants to go to Sicily to start another revolution but Fulvio is exhausted by it all. He decides not to tell his fellow revolutionaries that the authorities are coming and most of them die, including Charlotte, moments after they are reunited with their son Massimiliano (Ermanno Taviani). The survivors have no idea that Fulvio has turned against them and think the money his lover left will go to the struggle; he wants to take their son to America.

He manages to nearly convince one of the revolutionaries, Lionello (Claudio Cassinelli), to kill himself before their boat capsides and kills him anyway; he also seduces his lover Francesca (Mimsy Farmer) while using the money to send his son to a boarding school while making it appear as if he were robbed. It all seems to come together, except for the titular Allonsanfàn (Stanko Molnar).

Directors and writers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani were inspired by 19th-century Italian operas, as well as an ill-fated 1857 revolutionary expedition led by Carlo Pisacane. Originally, the movie ended with Fulvio choosing not to betray his companions, but the Tavianis were themselves disillusioned with Italy itself.

It also has a great team working on the soundtrack, as it was composed by Ennio Morricone and directed by Bruno Nicolai.

The Radiance Films blu ray release of this film has a new 2K restoration of the film from the original negative, presented on blu ray for the first time in the world. There’s audio commentary by critic Michael Brooke, an archival interview with the Taviani brothers by critic Gideon Bachmann, a trailer, a reversible sleeve and a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Italian cinema expert Robert Lumley and a newly translated contemporary interview with the Taviani brothers. There are only 3000 copies complete with full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving the packaging free of certificates and markings. You can get it from MVD.

Man, Alan Ormsby has done so much. In addition to working with Bob Clark on Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things and Death Dream, he wrote My Bodyguard and the remake of Cat People. Plus, he was the original director of Popcorn and the man behind Kenner’s Hugo: Man of a Thousand Faces action figure. 

He’s the man behind Deranged, along with Jeff Gillen, who played Jeff in Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things and who you can see every Christmas Eve as Santa Claus in A Christmas Story. 

Deranged is filmed as if it were a true story, with reporter Tom Simms (Leslie Carlson, Black Christmas) appearing within the events and narrating them. The whole thing was based on Ed Gein, the infamous real life Butcher of Plainfield, Wisconsin that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psycho are both based on.

It was produced by producer Tom Karr, a concert promoter for bands like Led Zeppelin and Three Dog Night who had been fascinated with Ed Gein and dreamed of making a film about his story.

Ezra Cobb (Roberts Blossom, Old Man Marley in Home Alone, how’s that for a scary tie-in role?) is our Ed Gein stand-in, running a midwest farm with his mother Amanda (Cosette Lee, who played Raxl, Daughter of the Priestess of the Serpent on Strange Paradise, a Canadian occult soap opera created in the wake of Dark Shadows). Since he was a boy, she’s taught him to hate women.

Once she dies, it takes a year for him to come out of his shell. When he finally snaps to it, he does what any loving and grieving son would do: he digs his mom up and puts her body together with fish skin and wax.

Ezra gets involved with an eccentric older woman who claims she’s psychic named Maureen Shelby (Marian Waldman, Mrs. MacHenry from Black Christmas, and if you don’t know who that is, please stop reading and start watching). They have a fumbling sexual encounter that ends with Ezra killing her and we’re off to the races.

Ezra’s next target is Mary Ransum (Mickie Moore, who is also in The Vindicator and is one of the Believers in, yes, The Believers), a waitress who he lures home, knocks out and dresses in just her underwear for dinner. Their nice meal is ruined by her trying to run, so he smashes her head with a femur bone. And then he takes out young Sally, which leads the police to his home, where they find him in the kitchen, enjoying a bowl of blood after skinning her.

Deranged is not an easy watch, as its subtitle, Confessions of a Necrophile, will tell you. It’s also the second movie — after Deathdream — that Tom Savini ever worked his special effects magic on.

You can get the blu ray of this film from Kino Lorber.

José Ramón Larraz went to school for philosophy, became a comic book writer and then made some wild movies, like Whirlpool, which Roger Ebert negatively reviewed — I mean, I love it — by saying that it was a genuinely sickening film. It has to do with various varieties of sex, yes, but its main appeal seems to be its violence… The violence is not, however, the cathartic sort to be found in The Wild Bunch or the comic strip spaghetti Westerns. It’s a particularly grisly sort of violence, photographed for its own sake and deliberately relishing in its ugliness. It made me awfully uneasy.” He also directed the Spanish Western Watch Out Gringo! Sabata Will Return, The House That Vanished (which had so many titles, including Scream…And Die! and Please! Don’t Go in the Bedroom, as well as a campaign that made it look like Last House on the Left), Symptoms, Stigma, Black Candles (AKA Sex Rites of the Devil) and three American co-productions before the end of his career, the underrated Edge of the Axe, Rest in Pieces and Deadly Manor.

The film starts with its leads, Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska, billed here as Anulka; a former Page 3 girl who was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for May 1973, she was once married to Soupy Sales’ son Tony, who was in Tin Machine with David Bowie, Reeves Gabriels and his brother Hunt Sales) in bed together, which was probably quite shocking in 1974, but perhaps even more shocking is when they’re machine gunned before the credits.

They’re brought back as vampires that roam the British countryside and take in wayward male motorists, draining them of more than blood before disposing of these conquests. They have a different form of vampirism than you may have seen before, making grisly arm wounds that they continually feed from, closer to cannibals than bloodsuckers.

Morris and Anulka make quite the pair; the film is in love with everything they do. Beyond the gorgeous leads, the scenery is just as inviting, as this was not around Oakley Court, which Hammer used for The Man in Black, The Lady Craved Excitement, The Brides of Dracula, The Reptile and The Plague of the Zombies. William Castle shot The Old Dark House there and you’ll also see it in films like Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly; And Now the Screaming Starts! and perhaps most famously, it was the home of Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. While it had no heat or running water when that movie was filmed, it’s now a luxury hotel.

This played double features with The Devil’s Rain! in England, which is my kind of night.

You can watch this on Tubi.

When a movie has the working title Want A Ride, Little Girl? you know it’s going to be scummy. What may surprise you is that William Shatner — who director William Gréfe met at an airport — is in the lead role.

Don’t be fooled by the supernatural looking poster. No, this is a slasher with Shatner’s Matt Stone as the bad guy picking up young women, freaking out Shat-style and getting rid of their bodies. He’s being trailed by a detective named Karate Pete (Harold “Oddjob” Sakata), which is, pardon the pun, pretty odd. He’s on the trail because Stone keeps bilking and killing old women for their money.

Jennifer Bishop (who is also in Gréfe’s Mako the Jaws of Death) plays the daughter of one of these older women who suspects that the leisure suit-wearing Stone is a shyster. And oh yeah — Ruth Roman is in this!

Sakata almost died making this, as the rig that was used for his hanging death failed and he was nearly hung for real. Shatner saved his life — breaking a finger in the process — and the entire accident can be seen on the He Came from the Swamps documentary.

This movie belongs to Shatner. As a child, his character kills William Kerwin with a sword in a kind of pre-Pieces opening, then murders a puppy and gets so worked up in one scene that he supposedly farts on camera. His assortment of 70’s fashions are pretty astounding and every single frame of this feels as sweaty and gross as a night in the Everglades.

Impulse is being presented in a beautiful new master lovingly restored in 4K from rare archival 35mm film elements.

Extras include:

• Spectacular new 4K restoration created from rare archival film elements
• Two disc set containing over 15 hours of bonus materials!
• KINGDOM OF THE SHATNER – William Shatner Live in Santa Monica – Oct. 9, 2022
• Provocative, in-depth interviews with director William Grefé
• Additional interviews with producer and make-up artist Doug Hobart and art director Roger Carlton Sherman
• Audio commentary by William Grefé
• Haunting alternate French soundtrack
• Hours of rare cinematic treasures from the vaults of William Grefé
• Glossy illustrated booklet with liner notes by acclaimed underground filmmaker Jacques Boyreau
• Beautiful embossed slipcover with new art by esteemed painter Dave Lebow
• Still galleries, trailers and an ad gallery by Bill Van Ryn of Drive-In Asylum
• Two bonus features! The Devil’s Sisters and The Godmothers
• Glossy illustrated booklet with liner notes by acclaimed underground filmmaker Jacques Boyreau

You can get it from MVD.

José Ramón Larraz went to school for philosophy, became a comic book writer and then made some wild movies, like Whirlpool, which Roger Ebert negatively reviewed — I mean, I love it — by saying that it was a genuinely sickening film. It has to do with various varieties of sex, yes, but its main appeal seems to be its violence… The violence is not, however, the cathartic sort to be found in The Wild Bunch or the comic strip spaghetti Westerns. It’s a particularly grisly sort of violence, photographed for its own sake and deliberately relishing in its ugliness. It made me awfully uneasy.” He also directed the Spanish Western Watch Out Gringo! Sabata Will Return, The House That Vanished (which had so many titles, including Scream…And Die! and Please! Don’t Go in the Bedroom, as well as a campaign that made it look like Last House on the Left), Symptoms, Stigma, Black Candles (AKA Sex Rites of the Devil) and three American co-productions before the end of his career, the underrated Edge of the Axe, Rest in Pieces and Deadly Manor.

The film starts with its leads, Fran (Marianne Morris) and Miriam (Anulka Dziubinska, billed here as Anulka; a former Page 3 girl who was the Playboy Playmate of the Month for May 1973, she was once married to Soupy Sales’ son Tony, who was in Tin Machine with David Bowie, Reeves Gabriels and his brother Hunt Sales) in bed together, which was probably quite shocking in 1974, but perhaps even more shocking is when they’re machine gunned before the credits.

They’re brought back as vampires that roam the British countryside and take in wayward male motorists, draining them of more than blood before disposing of these conquests. They have a different form of vampirism than you may have seen before, making grisly arm wounds that they continually feed from, closer to cannibals than bloodsuckers.

Morris and Anulka make quite the pair; the film is in love with everything they do. Beyond the gorgeous leads, the scenery is just as inviting, as this was not around Oakley Court, which Hammer used for The Man in Black, The Lady Craved Excitement, The Brides of Dracula, The Reptile and The Plague of the Zombies. William Castle shot The Old Dark House there and you’ll also see it in films like Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny, and Girly; And Now the Screaming Starts! and perhaps most famously, it was the home of Dr. Frank N. Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. While it had no heat or running water when that movie was filmed, it’s now a luxury hotel.

This played double features with The Devil’s Rain! in England, which is my kind of night.

You can watch this on Tubi.

There are rip-offs of The Exorcist. And then there are rip-offs where copyright infringement lawsuits lead to Warner Brothers getting a cash settlement and a portion of the film’s future revenue. Beyond the Door would be the latter. It’s $40 million worldwide gross meant that this film would a film draw the ire and call of that most Satanic of all monsters, the suits and the lawyers.

Directed by Ovidio G. Assonitis, who wrote 1979’s most insane film The Visitor and directed Tentacles and Madhouse (and he was also CEO of Cannon, producing films like Lambada and American Ninja 5), the film opens with Satan literally speaking, promising to give a man ten more years of life if he knocks up a woman. Oh yeah — there’s also a naked female on a light up crucifix.

Jessica Barrett (Juliet Mills, TV’s Nanny and the Professor) is pregnant with her third child, which leads to the typical symptoms — strange voices, throwing up blood, screaming all night long. You know — the normal stuff.

Her other kids are also impacted by all this Satanic panic going on in the Barrett house, as her husband Robert (Gabriele Lavia, Deep Red) tries to help. Turns out an old lover, Dmitri (Richard Johnson, Dr. Menard from Zombi!) has something to do with all of this, as he’s the man Satan was speaking to in the opening of the film. He offers to help Jessica, but he’s really trying to ensure that her baby is born because it’s gonna be the Antichrist (DUM DUM DUM)!

The possessor ends up killing Dmitri after asking him to reach into Jessica and pull out her baby. She vomits blackness all over his face, so he starts banging on her stomach while yelling, “LIES! LIES LIES!” So the devil sends him back over that cliff in his car, killing him.

A dove flies by as we find Jessica on a boat, covered with a robe and wearing sunglasses. She has lost the baby but regained her life. Children run and play everywhere. Meanwhile, we cut to a young child unwrapping a gift, which contains a red car. He tosses it overboard, revealing that he’s the Antichrist. Or maybe he’s Jessica’s kid? Who knows. Who can say? He does have glowing eyes, so there’s that.

Beyond the Door zigs where The Exorcist zags. Instead of “Tubular Bells,” we get 70’s funk. Instead of priests, we get weird ex-lovers. Instead of kids being possessed, here they are just foul-mouthed little bastards.

Professor Gabriele Luciani (Jacques Stany) has a pretty good scam going, as his wife Elisabetta (Fiorella Galgano) is bedridden in their gigantic castle. He’s already with her nurse Anna (Femi Benussi) but that’s not the only woman he’s cheating with, like his secretary Angela (Sonia Viviani). But when he finally poisons his wife for good and marries another lover named Roberta (Erna Schurer), he learns that she’s the daughter of the man who he stole the castle from in the first place.

Speaking of that castle — Castello Orsini-Odescalchi — other movies filmed there include Spirits of the Dead, Spellcaster, The Inglorious Bastards, Night of the Devils, Castle of the Living Dead and Challenge the Devil.

Also known as Naked and Lustful, this was directed by Alfredo Rizzo, who also made The Bloodsucker Leads the Dance, another giallo-esque film that has a version with and without hardcore scenes. That also has Femi Benussi in it and was filmed at Castello Piccolomini, the same location as Lady Frankenstein and Black Magic Rites. He directed eight movies but appeared in more than 110 films as a character actor.

The oddest thing about this is that its supposed to be some revenge when Roberta makes love to the villain to death. Most Italian men would see that as the best of all little and big deaths.

Director and co-writer Gianni Manera only directed two other movies — 1974’s La lunga ombra del lupo and 1981’s Il cappotto di legno — and acted in 17 films, including this movie. He wrote the screenplay with his brother Enrico and Ivano Gobbo.

Directed and written by Luigi Batzella (who is also the Ivan Kathansky who made The Beast In Heat, the Paul Solvay who made Nude for Satan and The Devil’s Wedding Night and the Dean Jones who made God Is My Colt .45 but Joe D’Amato made a bunch of those as well, so he at least signed for them), Blackmail is all about bad girl Babel Stone (Brigitte Skay). She’s just been busted for drugs again and her father (Umberto Raho) has to bail her out. He’s probably wondering why the Italian title translates as The Strange Blackmail of a Respectable Girl.

Babel does have an excuse. When her mother died, her dad quickly got remarried to the much younger Stella (Rosalba Neri). If she was a son, she would probably understand. I mean, I get the need to grieve but Rosalba Neri, you know? Give your dad a rest.

She decides to get back at him — and make some money — that her friends Claudio (Benjamin Lev), Rick (Claudio Giorgi) and Eva (Nuccia Cardinali) will kidnap her. This seems a bit like Delitto al circolo del tennis but you know, the giallo directors never seem to trust hippies.

The whole plan goes wrong when they decide to hide at the home of Claudio’s sister Paola (Darla Abrem) and her husband Marcel (Lorenzo Piani) and they return home early, which means that they also have to get kidnapped.

You know how people thought that John Paul Getty III kidnapped himself? This movie is based on that, except that I doubt that that real life story had attacks on maids that end with sapphic interludes and Neri getting involved to make money off everyone. If you’re a fan of Skay — she’s also in Isabella, Duchess of the Devils, A Bay of Blood, The Love Factor and Four Times That Night — you’re probably going to want to see this. Beyond showing off her body for most of the running time, she plays a really ice cold manipulator and is the whole reason why this movie is a success.