Later this month, Kino Video's Redemption label will bring three cult genre favorites to Blu-ray: Black Magic Rites, The Living Dead Girl, and Two Orphan Vampires. These titles offer a gothic - and decidedly European - perspective to such classic horror tropes as satanic cults, flesh-eating zombies, and bloodsucking vampires.
From Redemption's official synopses:
Black Magic Rites:
"In a mountaintop castle, devil worshippers hunt down virgins and cut out their hearts to restore life to their Great Mistress Isabella (Rita Calderoni, Nude for Satan), a witch who was burned to death centuries before. The castle is purchased by the unwitting Jack Nelson (Mickey Hargitay, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?), whose niece Laureen (also Calderoni) bears a striking resemblance to Mistress Isabella. Drawn into the cult's evil orbit, Laureen is targeted as the final sacrifice in order to restore Isabella's terrifying power."
The Living Dead Girl:
"Catherine Valmont (Francoise Blanchard, Sidewalks of Bangkok), a wealthy heiress dead before her time...is accidentally reanimated when some unfortunate movers attempt to store drums of chemical waste in the neglected burial vaults below her uninhabited chateau."
Two Orphan Vampires:
"Henriette and Louise (Isabelle Teboul and Alexandra Pic), two blind girls of unknown origin, [are] raised in an orphanage by two adoring nuns. Little do the nuns know, each night as the sun goes down, their 'little angels' acquire night vision (they 'see blue'), as well as an appetite for blood and teenage mischief."
Note: Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas supplied Redemption with the descriptions for The Living Dead Girl and Two Orphan Vampires.
Redemption's Blu-rays present each film in aspect ratios of 1.78:1; the HD transfers have been digitally mastered from the individual features' original negatives.
Bonus supplements include:
Black Magic Rites:
Original theatrical trailer
The Living Dead Girl:
Introduction by Jean Rollin
Four featurettes by Daniel Gouyette:
Jean-Pierre Bouyxou on La Morte Vivante
The Living Dead Girl: The American Version
Music by Philippe D'Aram
When I Was Seventeen: An Homage to Benoit Lestang
Jean Rollin at Fantasia
Excerpt of an interview with Jean Rollin by Joshua T. Gravel
Twelve-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog
Original theatrical trailer
Original trailers of nine other Rollin films
Two Orphan Vampires:
English dubbed version
Memories of a Blue World, the Making of Les Deux Orphelines Vampires by Daniel Gouyette, featuring interviews with the film's cast and crew
Interview with Jean Rollin by Rebecca Johnson
Twelve-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog
Original theatrical trailer
Original trailers of nine other Rollin films
Black Magic Rites streets on August 21st, while The Living Dead Girl and Two Orphan Vampires are expected to street on August 28th.
These two Rollin titles are two of the rare ones I don't like. I'd love to see Black Magic Rites though; right up my alley in the demonic sleaze subgenre :P
TheManInBlu, how can you not love Living Dead Girl?! Easily one of Rollin's best, in my opinion. All in for that one. Probably gonna pick up Black Magic Rites as well. I do agree that Two Orphan Vampires is a little on the weak side, though.
Living Dead Girl is a little too gory for my taste as far as a Rollin film is concerned. When I want gore, I can watch Fulci. Rollin himself has said in some interviews that he wanted to stay away from gore so I was real surprised to see it in this one. It was okay I guess, but I didn't enjoy it anywhere near as much as his '70s output.
Love Renato Polselli's insane work, so Black Magic Rites is on my wishlist (hopefully they'll be putting out Nude for Satan on Blu at some point), plus Living Dead Girl is another great one (I think it's easier to appreciate over several viewings, Man, if you've only seen it once or twice). I do agree with Brain and Man's sentiments on Two Orphans though - really lacklustre effort.
Two Orphan Vampires is bad, even by Rollin's standards. I saw this at the French National Film Library (la "Cinémathèque"), at a special showing that had Rollin in the assistance. Dracula's Bride, that was the next showing on the same program and his next feature film, is much more satisfying.
Rollin was recovering from health issues at the time he shot Two Orphan. One day, Tina Aumont (Jean-Pierre Aumont's daughter and Henriette from Fellini's "Casanova") came up on the set to shoot her scene wearing a bat disguise (she assumed that, since it was a vampire movie, she should look like a bat). Rollin shot her in her costume anyway, in a scene that's, let's say to be charitable, confusing.
