Severin - Upcoming Blu-Ray releases

I have grown to love Franco movies over the years. Of course he has a large filmography and it's very varied. For example if you like b/w Gothic movies in the vein of Black Sunday and Eyes Without a Face then Franco has a bunch of those. If you like 60s pop/spy movies there are some of those. There are sex movies, experimental movies, WIP movies, surreal dreamlike movies, slashers, even noir. Of course they are not all good but Franco usually has something interesting going on and I enjoy his stylistic touches. I compare him to Takashi Miike - not in style and content but in the fact they are both extremely talented artists working vert fast in disreputable genres who have still not really had their due. Personally I feel that "professionalism" is a little overrated. Many of the movies praised on this site are low-budget and do not have great professionalism but they have other qualities not present in mainstream movies.

Franco's movies are low-budget and shot fast but the older I get the less I am interested in plot and convention and the more I enjoy the atmosphere and style of movies - I want to see something different and worthwhile. I think Franco's best, most accomplished films are the ones that are the mysterious dreamlike sex-infused ones from the late 60s - mid 70s like Succubus, Vampyros Lesbos, A Virgin Among the Living Dead. If you have not seen anything from this era I would recommend Venus in Furs, one of his most famous movies. It has a conventional plot (sort of) but handled in a typical Franco way.

On a related note I just watched In Fabric which owes a debt to Franco and giallo. Like other Strickland movies, it has a somewhat conventional genre plot but is more concerned with mood and the way it looks and feels. Just like Franco it has two or three strange, surreal sequences that are eerie and hypnotic. It is great to see a modern film with such a spirit.

 

Horror is horror and thrillers are thrillers but every Franco film is phantasmagoriacal. His filmmaking aesthete is closer to louche opium dreams rather than conventional narrative.

 

Lina Romay

 

Another huge Franco fanatic here, as he's my all time favourite director - I even have a Jess Franco tattoo! I've currently seen 128 Franco films and associated projects (or 142 including alternate cuts) and counting, so working my way through his available output. You can check out my Franco Report Card here on this site. But he's not for everyone and takes a serious effort to appreciate, and of course not all his output is good in the traditional sense - he's got some stinkers for sure. I'll even admit the first handful of films I saw I wasn't a fan, and it took me at least 10 or 15 flicks in to get them. The one thing about Franco is that there is absolutely no other Franco or filmmaker like him, and he was indeed an auteur in the truest sense. For those unfamiliar or new to Franco, or have only see a small handful of his huge output I always say getting into his filmography and style is akin to first listening to jazz (which Franco was a huge fan of and jazz musician himself) in that it's not always accessible or easy to digest, and can take some time to adjust to and enjoy, but is highly rewarding when you do catch the groove. And you do need to put a bit of time in. And like jazz, he worked with a stable of actors and crew whom collaborated with him from film to film and country to country, despite lack of knowing which film they were in or the content - they just enjoyed the experience. As others here have mentioned his style is all about mood and ambience and he wasn't driven by story or plot, or a budget, and he loved that zoom and he just shot like he himself was a camera. He lived cinema in a way that's not like anything else or anyone else, and to me there is something magical and out of time in his images that no one else has captured or replicated. Whether he was making Gothic horror, moody noir, surreal spy flicks, Sadian cinema and WIP flicks (which I believe he is the founder/king of), adult flicks, they all have an undeniable Franco stamp. He touched every genre under the sun, and they are all pure Franco - good or bad or in-between.

 

Mondo-Digital reviews Caligula and Messalina: https://mondo-digital.com/messalina.html

 

Mardi Gras Massacre is shipping out now along with the April bundles.

 

Severin sent me the Folk Horror set by mistake instead of the February bundle. After my initial shock and anger subsided I decided to keep the set. I already have a copy but this thing will be worth a fortune after it goes OOP. Besides, the set is worth much more than that Feb bundle lol. Their mistake - not mine. What would you guys do if this happened to you? Would you return it?

 

Not in a million years! Lol

I've had a few "bank error in your favour" moments like that, although nothing on that level. Amazon has made a few mistakes sending me stuff I didnt order, and strangely they've usually been stuff I kind of wanted - i got a free copy of Mondo Macabro's The Fan blu ray and the Universal Archive's The Truth About Spring DVD. Maybe 15 years ago a deep discount order worth about $100 went missing. They sent me a replacement, but then about a month later the original showed up. That was pretty sweet.

 

I would contact Severin and let them know the error so they have the option of what to do. Arrow sent me a duplicate order once and when I contacted them they said I could keep it as it wasn't worth trying to ship it back to the UK. Recently Diabolik sent me the steelbook for Living Deat at Manchester Morgue. I had pre-ordered the standard edition and they sent me the limited by mistake. After I contacted them them gave me a return label so I sent it back.

 

Question: Do Canadian editions of Monopoly actually say "Bank error in your favour"?

 

I checked, and my copy does not. It's the standard edition which, according to the box, was "made in USA with dice and tokens made in China". But there are specialty Monopoly sets with Canadian themes (I think theres a Toronto one, and one that's just Canada) and perhaps those do?

 

Two of Severin's mid-year sale titles revealed - FEMALE EXECUTIONER (Blu-ray) / FACELESS (UHD/Blu-ray) - which will be available early for those of you who are making it out to Texas Frightmare since Lahaie will be there signing.

 

Mondo-Digital reviews Stone: https://mondo-digital.com/stone.html

 

Severin is releasing another large box set. Ray Dennis Steckler is the director this time.

https://severinfilms.com/shop/terrorama-bundle/

https://severinfilms.com/shop/hallucinogenic-bundle/

 

I always get a kick out of him in the Thrill Killers for accidentally inventing "skinhead chic" 25 years ahead of schedule. To me in the early 60s he was a looker.

 

God, I hate Severin so much, especially when they release stuff I love like Steckler which will probably be fucked up. I wish they’d just die.

 

Since this is a 10 disc set even if 1 disc is bad you still get 9 good discs.

 

For some reason, Severin seems to have pretty good quality control on their Boxsets. It's the single releases they seem to screw up more often.

 

I really don’t remember enjoying the few Ray Dennis Steckler movies I saw back in the VHS days at all but for some reason I really want that set!