Mondo Macabro To Bring Three More Rare Gems To Blu-ray This Fall/Winter

This amazing, almost unknown film is full of uncomfortable sexuality, cheap visual effects, creepy dolls, shamanism, butterflies, and murder – all set to a searing, original synth score!

Contrary to some popular belief, Korean horror didn’t just start in the late 90s. It had been a staple genre in that country for many decades prior, with the early 1980s being a particularly rich period. Unfortunately, these films remain almost completely unknown outside of the ROK. Just the sort of challenge we love! SUDDENLY IN THE DARK is one of the very best pre-millennial K-Horrors: genuinely frightening and utterly bizarre.

This will be our next blu release after PRIVATE VICES, and we hope to have it out by early October. We are currently hard at work cleaning up the HD master given to us by the Korean Film Archive, so it will look miles better than any of the versions have have been floating around the internet.

A quasi-remake of his own earlier film NIGHTMARES COME AT NIGHT, this unusual thriller finds Franco at the height of his stylistic delirium:

“The dreamlike atmosphere is everything here and the director gradually develops a layered nightmare. Humid tints, tilted set ups in cramped interiors, painterly compositions and the most beautiful seven note phrase ever written by Daniel White do the rest of the job.” – Robert Monell, I’m in a Jess Franco State of Mind

We think this is one of best films of Franco’s fruitful partnership with Golden Films in Spain, perhaps the last extended period of greatness for the ever-prolific exploitation director, and couldn’t be more excited about bringing to an English speaking audience for the first time.

Variously known as In the Eye of the Hurricane, Lusty Lovers, El Ojo del huracán, La volpe dalla coda di velluto and Suspicion this 1971 Italian/Spanish giallo is a hugely enjoyable and very stylish addition to the "Murder on the Med" strand of movies originally popularized by Umberto Lenzi and US star Carroll Baker.

Here, Spanish director José María Forqué - who later made the controversial It's Nothing, Mother, it's Only a Game (released in the US as Beyond Erotica) - brings together a talented and good looking cast, great Côte d'Azur locations, one of the best Spanish cinematographers of the day (Alejandro Ulloa) and a fantastic, lounge style score from Maestro Piccioni to create a twisty, if not twisted, tale of deception and revenge.

The director's long career at the more prestigious end of Spanish cinema and the presence of award winning scripter Rafael Azcona - who worked with many top European film makers including Marco Ferreri and Luis García Berlanga - give the film an edge of sophistication alongside its enjoyably devious narrative.

From its very first seconds, the film has a unique and hard to define atmosphere, almost dreamlike. Everything seems a little out of kilter. It's apt that the French release title of the film was Suspicion, not only for its Hitchcockian wrong echoes but also for the way it suggest that nothing here is to be taken at face value. There are constant doubts about minor details, about characters who seem to emerge, without warning, from the past. We feel, while watching it, as though under the influence of a benign narcotic. Only gradually do we realise what's going on and, as we do, the film builds to a tense and gripping final act, with Rosanna Yanni rising to the occasion as a gold digging harpy. Her obvious pleasure in tormenting poor Analía Gadé is genuinely upsetting to watch.

The film is like the smooth blue waters of the Mediterranean where it's set. It looks inviting and seductive, the sun glistening off the gentle waves; but just beneath the surface, sharks are swimming, and they're hungry for prey...

The cast includes top Spanish diva Analía Gadé, giallo staple Jean Sorel, Kommissar X star Tony Kendall and the lustrous Rosanna Yanni in one of her most memorable roles.