Dawn of the Mummy

Frank Agrama's Dawn of the Mummy (1981), whatever one might think about it, at the very least momentarily broke the genre away from its traditional bandaged trappings.  It starts with the usual sort of prologue, ancient Egypt natch, where a curse is laid down for some unwitting future generation to fall foul of.  Forwarding to modern day, a gold digging American has blown open the tomb protected by the curse.  Stumbling into the picture is a group of fashion models with their culturally inconsiderate photographer, who locates the same tomb that the gold-digger has just blown open.  He decides to bring the models into the tomb for an exclusive shoot, the digger putting up with them until they hopefully move on to allow him to scavenge what he can.  What the fools don't realise is that the heat of their powerful lighting equipment reactivates a mummified corpse, and thus the curse is unbound.

The film is littered with dopey characters, from the fashion models to the superstitious locals, and of course the photographer alongside his greedy kindred spirit, the gold-digger.  This provides the viewer with some fun, and some gratification as most of them receive some justice.  Standing the film out from its sub-genre predecessors is a leaning towards gore, with several nicely executed killings (helping it to become the victim of overly zealous authorities in 80s Britain, who blamed anything but themselves for a crumbling country - these days it gets a 15 certificate!).  Connected to this is the lethal nature of the mummies themselves - rather than shuffling along slowly with one useless arm, these guys are pretty ruthless, and numerous.  A standout sequence has them all rising from their sandy graves one night, and this indirectly leads to the best segment of the film: the bloody destruction of the village as the mummies descend on it to enact violent, relentless havoc.  It's not a great film but is an enjoyable night in, being both derivative and original is some twisted way.

Treasured Films put out a deluxe Blu-ray edition here in the UK, attempting to compile the most complete, adequately watchable version they can.  It appears that the negatives are not available, so you have to limit your expectations quite a bit, particularly when it becomes apparent that the sources vary greatly (it looks like they used a combination of cinema prints and possibly even tapes to bring everything together).  Certain sequences are excellent with plenty of detail and good rendering of colour, whereas others are quite horrific with fleetingly hefty digital processing being used in attempt to level everything together.  I wouldn't say the worst offending scenes are excessive, but it does mean the viewer has to accept an uneven experience.  If, like me, you are used to seeing former presentations of this, you may be quite pleased for the most part.  Having had this on tape and seen it many further times thanks to the old Anchor Bay UK DVD (see picture at bottom), the new disc is leagues beyond.  The DVD at least included two ways to view, either 1.33:1 or 1.78:1 (the Treasured disc is an improved 1.66:1 presentation), however, was very messy and almost looked like a VHS port itself in terms of its detail and emaciated colour.

The (English language) audio probably fairs better on the new disc, being generally consistent and delivering reasonable dynamics for the period/budget.  Added to that are a couple of audio commentaries, two featurettes from Stephen Thrower and Darrell Buxton, who between them cover a range of mummy films over the ages (although, oddly, talk very little about Dawn of the Mummy itself), and a nicely researched piece by Eugenio Ercolani, mainly about Agrama (including some of his more controversial activities as a businessman).  Ercolani is also involved with the fairly long talk with surviving cinematographer Sergio Rubini.

If you pick up the deluxe version the film is packaged is a sturdy outer box adorned with fresh artwork, and contains a booklet of essays coupled with a collection of cards.  A webstore exclusive also bundled an attractive poster, Egyptian 'scroll', and metal pin (see photograph above), though these don't fit in the deluxe box.  So, uneven presentation aside, this is a forgivable effort considering what the guys purportedly had to work with, and also a brave move when it's possible many labels might not have wanted to handle the project because of the source limitations.  It's the best I've ever seen it, and value is added with a really appealing package all round that happens to look great on the shelf (next to its very inspiration, Dawn of the Dead, of course).

Castle of Blood

Castle of Blood (AKA Danza Macabra) from 1964 continued in the footsteps of Mario Bava in forging a path through Italian Gothic Horror territory, and quite effectively so.  The story begins with travelling journalist Alan Foster stopping off at an inn to interview author Edgar Allan Poe, who he finds regaling other drinkers with his tales of uncanny strangeness (which he professes are all based on true events).  During the ensuing debate, Foster accepts a bet to stay in a supposedly haunted castle where people tend to wander into, but never back out of.  Sceptical Foster leaves the others at the gates of the house, ventures inwards, and is accosted by unusual events.  These culminate in a ghostly re-enactment of a jealous murder aeons ago, the two worlds crossing over leading to one of the women of the event (Barbara Steele) becoming romantically entangled with Foster.

It's a lovely piece of work from Antonio Margheriti, shot in startling black and white and featuring a wonderful gothic castle throughout which most of the action takes place.  Steele made a name for herself in these types of films, starring in the alluded to (above) Mask of Satan (Black Sunday) and another similarly-styled project with Margheriti just a short time later (The Long Hair of Death).  Most of these Steele films at time of writing have materialised on Blu-ray or 4K (the notable absence being The Ghost (Lo Spettro), Riccardo Freda's very loose follow-up to the legendary Horrible Dr Hichcock.

Released a number of times over the years, I'm focussing on three discs in particular here.  The recent 4K/Blu-ray edition from Severin Films, an earlier Blu-ray from Severin again (the film essentially being an extra on their Nightmare Castle release), and a much earlier DVD from Synapse FIlms.

In terms of presentations, the new Severin provides both the Italian Danza Macabra and US Castle of Blood cuts.  These run 90'10 (after removing tech notes preceding the film) and 82'56 respectively.  The former Severin Blu-ray was only Castle of Blood running 82'27, while the Synapse was a hybrid that approximates the European version, running 89'01.  The earlier discs were 1.78:1 framed, while the new Severin is (most likely) a more accurate 1.85:1.

Language options are Italian for Danza... on the new disc (with English translated subtitles) and English for Castle... again on the new disc.  The former Severin Blu-ray was English language only, while the Synapse was English for the most part, switching to French (with English subs) for the extra scenes.  There is a full French track on the Synapse DVD but this is unfortunately not subtitled.

Picture quality was reasonably good on the old Synapse, Don May Jr. being adept within the confines of each format he has worked with.  The previous Blu-ray from Severin was very rough, appearing to be taken from an unrestored theatrical print - scratchy and damaged throughout.  I imagine this (along with the sound - see below) is why it was only included as an extra rather than sold as a standalone feature.  The newer Severin release is pleasingly a substantial upgrade, with more detail, more shadow detail, and a beautiful grain field resolved nicely throughout.

It's a similar story with the audio quality - Synapse had cleaned up the sound though it's slightly muffled by today's standards, the older Severin Blu-ray was quite bad featuring distortions, hissing, crackle, etc.  The newer 4K is excellent: clean and very audible.  Obviously all of these presentations are effectively mono.  Interestingly, the Severin releases utilise credits that take place - inappropriately in my view - over a shot of then-modern day London, whereas the Synapse credits are more obscure (the London credits are included as an extra).

The new Severin set's extras include an engaging 15 minute chat with Margheriti's son (obviously the great man is dead now), a 20 minute return to the shooting location for parts of the film, a wonderful 5 minute chat with the charismatic director himself (shot for an article elsewhere), and a half hour piece on Steele's Italian gothic period by Rachael Nisbet, which unfortunately descends into the usual obsessions with identity politics, historical 'female oppression', and - wait for it - 'patriarchy' that almost all female critics seem to salivate over, reading the same tropes into everything they watch and attempting to pollute the minds of others with their own warped outlook along the way.  Much more engaging is the talk with ever-reliable Stephen Thrower, who delves into more varied details about the film.

It's a relief to say that the Severin 4K release, both standalone and previously included in their Danza Macabra Volume 2 The Italian Gothic Collection, is as definitive as I can imagine it, with a fantastic video and audio presentation that thoughtfully includes the two main edits of the film (plus English translated subtitles!) alongside a reasonable supply of extras.  The former Severin Blu-ray is atrocious but to be fair, as mentioned above, it was a supplemental feature to Nightmare Castle, which looked good.  The Synapse DVD is not without its value, being a decent way to experience what approximates the European cut in mostly English.  As it stands though, the new Severin 4K is now my go-to option for this minor classic.