Demons Part VIY: The Mask Of Satan

Ooh, I've been waiting for this one!  And I don't just mean that it took Severin approximately two months to ship my Black Friday order. 😉  Lamberto Bava's Mask of Satan is a title I've been eager to own since the days of laserdisc, but it's never been released on any format.  The best I'd been able to manage was a bootleg DVDR I purchased at a horror convention years and years ago; and I was happy to get that.  So, while this may not be the single greatest I-horror title in the pantheon, I was thrilled when Severin announced it as a special edition blu-ray.  Curiously, they describe their release as "the first time ever in North America," which is typically a delicate way to hype a quasi-debut without mentioning the film's already been released in other parts of the world, sort of like saying a scan is from "original film elements" when a label can't find the original negatives.  But if there's another blu out there anywhere in the world - Japan, Italy, Spain, anywhere - I've never heard of it, and believe me, I've searched!  I would've bought it.  But if it is out there, I'm glad I never found it now, because I'd be double-dipping for this anyway.

Mask Of Satan has always struck me as the most Demons-like of all the unofficial Demons sequels (this one was known as Demons 5).  Ostensibly, of course, it's a remake of his father, Mario Bava's Mask of Satan, a.k.a. Black Sunday, where a woman is accused of witchcraft, killed by having a spiked mask hammered into her face, and resurrected a hundred or so years later to seek revenge.  But they immediately, with Barbara Steele and her zombified husband lurking around a mansion in the original, and a bunch of yuppies turning into monstrous maniacs in an ice cave here.  And hey, Demons also had a Black Sunday-inspired metal mask starting off the horror, worn by Michele Soavi, who also has a major role in this.  The only thing really separating this from the Demons franchise proper is the fact that the demonically possessed in this film spend most of their time behaving like rude pranksters rather than feral killers.

Rewatching this more recently, I was surprised to see Nikolay Gogol's name in the credits.  Indeed, both this and the original Mask of Satan claim to be remakes of his famous story Viy, famously adapted directly in 1967.  And sure, both films feature a resurrected witch, but otherwise Mario's Mask feels even more dissimilar to Viy than it does Demons.  However, watching Lamberto's Mask with Viy in mind, yeah, now I see it.  Sure, it's a modern updating that takes plenty of liberties, but there's definitely more Viy in here than Black Sunday or Demons, especially the climax, when our hero draws a protected ring around himself in the haunted church while various monsters and spirits fly circles around him.

Putting aside its associations to other films and stories, though, 1989's Mask of Satan is a good time in its own right.  Bava's pretty much got the band back together with some wild special effects by Sergio Stivaletti (one in particular really stands out!) and an lush score by Simon Boswell.  Everything takes place on one elaborate set, enhanced by one or two impressive outdoor locations, with the kind of colorful photography we've all come to love and expect in classic I-horror (for no reason at all, one nook in the ice cave emanates a bright green glow).  You do feel the lack of gore, which is probably an unavoidable consequence of this being a made-for-TV project.  I wouldn't hold this up as high as the official Demons movies, but it's a respectable runner up.

2024 Severin BD.

Presented in a pillarboxed 1.67:1, we're told Severin's blu is a 2k scan taken from the original negative and, in terms of colors, contrast, etc, it looks pretty great.  The film's grain is barely even hinted at, though, and I know 2k ain't 4k, but you'd never see a 2k scan on 1080p looking like this come out of Arrow.  It is a dual-layer disc, with the film taking up more than half the space itself, but I wouldn't be at all surprised this is a transfer Severin was just handed from an Italian lab.  Honestly, it's the kind of thing that will irritate the "pixel peepers" among us, but most viewers won't mind or even notice, because it's such an attractive transfer otherwise.  Talk about colors "popping," that one girl's ski jacket practically irradiates your living room with pinkness whenever it's in front of the camera.

Interestingly, there is no English dub, but besides the Italian, there is also a Spanish track, both of which are in DTS-HD.  And Severin has gone the extra mile to include two sets of English subtitles, one matching each dub.

Mary Sellers

Severin's blu isn't over-crowded with special features, but what it's got is excellent.  Basically, there are three on-camera interviews, and each one is a great addition.  First, Bava himself gives an enthusiastic and comprehensive overview (except he doesn't address the Demons connection at all), talking about everything from how this was originally planned as a six-part international film series of witchcraft to the fact that this film hasn't been available on disc until now is because the negatives were lost and just recently located.  Then we've got tighter interviews with two of the lead actresses: Mary Sellers and Debora Caprioglio, who talk about their experiences on this film and their careers in general.  Yes, Debora is asked and explains her relationship with Klaus Kinski.  Besides that, though, there's not much else.  But this does come in a super cool, embossed slipcover if you order it direct from the label.

So do I recommend this?  Heck yeah, I'm dancin' in the end zone!  Not that it's a classic, but it is good - it impresses a little more now, too, seeing it in full quality - and ticks a very long awaited title off of our lists.  This is a film fans have been pestering Anchor Bay and everybody else about for decades.

Beyond All the Doors, Now In HD!

It's time to go beyond all the doors!  The Beyond the Door movies are three unrelated Italian horror films that just so happen to be sequels to each other.  One's a pretty well made Exorcist knock-off, one's an atmospheric ghost story, and one's about a coven of Yugoslavian witches on a train.  They're all a good time, though; and they do share some coincidental themes.  Thankfully, they also have pretty decent DVD releases.

Update 9/4/15 - 8/23/19: And one of them even has a blu-ray release.  Amazingly, the sequels still don't, but in 2017 Code Red upgraded their DVD to BD.  It's been requested a couple of times, so I just had to include it before I closed out Update Week.  Otherwise, could we really say we went beyond all the doors?  😜

Update 10/27/19: Boy, I never thought Mario Bava's Shock would be the last film in the trilogy to get a high def release, but here we are!  Vinegar Syndrome has just released a fancy Limited Edition blu-ray of Beyond the Door 3, a.k.a. Amok Train!

Update 4/20/20: Surprisingly, Arrow's already giving us another edition of the original Beyond the Door, and they're clearly aiming to make it the definitive, ultimate edition.  And it makes Bava's film even more conspicuous in its HD absence.  But rather than dwelling on what we're missing, let's open our presents!

Update 1/28/22: Another year, another update... but this is the one we've been waiting for!  Beyond the Door 2, a.k.a. Shock, has gotten the special edition it's always deserved, and we've finally got quality HD editions of the whole trilogy.

The original Beyond the Door, released in 1974, is the directorial debut of Ovidio G. Assonitis, who also directed a couple other films we've looked at here on DVD Exotica: Super Stooges vs the Wonder Women and The Visitor. Like I said, it's a pretty blatant Exorcist rip-off - it's got the head spin gag and everything - but it also goes in some pretty original directions. Where Exorcist was about a mother whose little girl becomes demonically possessed, here the mother is possessed by Satan himself, who actually opens the film by directly addressing the audience. While the bulk of the film focuses on the possession and following in the Exorcist's footsteps, the plot goes off in some different directions towards the end, which I won't spoil, but definitely doesn't march in line with Friedkin's film. I also don't remember him having any scenes with an aggressive nose flutist.

Beyond the Door's pretty well made. It's got high production values, is stylishly shot, and stars two very credible British actors: Juliet Mills and Richard Johnson. It's got some effective sequences, only about half of which are derivative, and it easily out-classes most of the Exorcist clones that popped up around its time. It might strike viewers as boring, as it can get a bit dry in the middle considering so much is entirely "seen it before" stuff; but it's held aloft by the novelty value of some two badly dubbed children who curse like sailors.

Beyond the Door debuted on DVD in Japan, from JVD, which was a pretty nice import. It was widescreen and featured an international cut about ten minutes longer than what had been released on VHS in the US. Unfortunately, it wasn't anamorphic, and the only extra was a trailer. But Code Red took care of that, releasing a loaded special edition in 2008. I used to own the JVD disc, and I think it had the same core transfer, but Code Red made it anamorphic, and like I said, had a bunch of extras. But that's not all. Code Red made a 2-Disc Collector's Edition exclusive for Best Buy with some bonus goodies.  And that was all until 2017, when Code Red reissued the film on blu with a "Brand New 2016 HD Master," bringing us into the HD era.  And now, in 2020, Arrow's come for the crown with their new, 2-disc limited edition BD set.

1) 2008 Code Red DVD; 2) 2017 Code Red BD; 3) 2020 Arrow BD.

So Code Red's BD starts off correcting the slightly off 1.83:1 of the DVD to a proper 1.85:1, though the newer framing is actually a bit tighter around all four sides.  Film grain on the blu is still a bit light, but generally present and film-like, and it clears away the unfortunate compression artifacts and combing that was present on the DVD.  You can read much more of the lettering on the book behind the kids now in this clearer HD presentation.  The colors have also been re-timed, and overall it's a nice improvement, but at some points, like that first set of shots with Gabriel Lavia crossing the street, I prefer the color timing of the DVD.  But there's no way anyone in their right mind is going to look at that close-up and say, "no thanks, I prefer the standard def version."

Still, Arrow's blu is another healthy stride forward.  Still slightly matted to 1.85:1, this time the framing reveals more around the edges than ever before.  And the grain from this fresh 2k scan from the original negative is no longer light but explicitly captured and rendered.  Fine detail like the kids' hair is similarly restored.  And the colors have been re-timed a third time, this time capturing the best of Code Red's previous worlds.  Whether it's worth double-dipping for is up to you, but this is a distinct and obvious upgrade in PQ.  It's also not the only upgrade Arrow has in store for us here.

All editions use the original English mono audio, but the blu-rays do bump their tracks up to uncompressed DTS-HD (Code Red) and LPCM (Arrow).  Arrow, however, is the first to add optional English subtitles to their release.

1) 2008 Code Red bonus DVD; 2) 2020 Arrow bonus BD.

Before we get into the extras proper, one of the goodies the Best Buy 2-disc set features is the shorter, US theatrical cut, taken from a funky looking, fullscreen (1.32:1) source. There's nothing really exclusive to the US cut, it's basically only missing stuff (including the Satanic nose flute attack!), so this version doesn't have much to offer besides disappointment and very mild curiosity value.  I think it was only included to show off how much better Code Red's main transfer looked.

1) 2020 Arrow uncut BD; 2) 2020 Arrow US edit BD.

Still, for whatever reason (perhaps to justify spreading their release across two discs, though I appreciate the dedication to being completist regardless), Arrow has also thrown the US edit into their set.  And this time, they've used their new 2k remaster, so it looks just as good as the full, uncut version.  Except for in a few minor instances, like this shot above, where they had to use a theatrical print to fill in the gaps (because the uncut version plays the credits over the following scene, which the US edit cuts, so that version plays the credits over this opening).  You can see it looking slightly grungier, greener and a bit more tightly cropped compared to the rest of the film, but it's still 1.85:1 and miles beyond the old Code Red bonus transfer.  And yes, it also has lossless audio and optional subtitles.

Now as far the regular extras, there are two audio commentaries, one with Juliet Mills and a really good one by Ovidio himself. Both have multiple moderators to help things along. There's also a terrific 35 Years Later featurette, which includes interviews with just about everybody and is very engaging. There's also a fun, on camera interview with Richard Johnson, plus the trailer, a TV spot, stills gallery and some bonus trailers. And the first 2500 copies pressed featured a cool looking slip cover, pictured above. The Best Buy edition never came in the slip, but did feature an on-camera interview with Juliet Mills (who was seen on disc 1 in the 35 Years Later featurette), where the focus is on the rest of her career rather than Beyond the Door.

And their blu?  That's got everything from the single-disc DVD, but not the Best Buy exclusive stuff.  The fullscreen, edited version of the film is no loss, but it's a shame they didn't squeeze on Juliet Mills' interview, if only so we don't feel like we're moving backwards when we upgrade.  But if I had to lose one of the old DVD's extras, that would be it.  And for our one step backwards, we get to take two forward, because we also get something new and better: an on-camera interview with co-star Gabriel Lavia, in Italian with dense English subtitles.  He's funny and has some unique anecdotes we haven't heard in the previous extras.  Code Red's blu-ray also includes reversible artwork and a cheesy, illustrated slipcover.

With Arrow's fancy, new release, I was happy to see they included everything from Code Red.  Even the brief intro, the Lavia interview they added to the blu-ray and the extra Mills interview from the Best Buy bonus disc.  So this edition really has everything... including a bunch of new stuff.  First of all, they include a feature-length documentary on Italian Exorcist rip-offs.  The fan boy in me's first thought was that I hope they talk about The Eerie Midnight Horror Show, and yes, they do, though not as in-depth as most of the others.  It's essentially a composite of interviews with some veterans of these films, including of course Assonitis, Roberto D’Ettorre Piazzoli, Alberto De Martino (1974's The Antichrist), Elena Fusco (1975's Return Of the Exorcist), Giulio Petroni (1978's Obscene Desire), Giuliano Sorgini (Return's composer), Silvia Petroni (script supervisor for Return and Giulio's daughter) and Stella Carnacina (Eerie Midnight).  Also on board are a few Italian filmmakers who didn't make Exorcist rip-offs, but are there to rhapsodize more about the collapse of Italian genre cinema in general, specifically Marcello Avallone, Pupi Avati, Sergio Martino and Luigi Cozzi.  There are a handful of critics to bridge the gaps, but it still feels rather patchwork, elaborating on - or glossing over - films based just on who they could get interviews from.  I also realized after watching this that there actually weren't so many Italian Exorcist rip-offs as one might've guessed, making it a bit of a shallow field to ho.  It's dry, and the whole things gets stuck in a sand trap for a while of just chronicling the professional history of Giulio Petroni.  But for anyone who's a fan of these films, it's still an engaging watch that talks to some interesting filmmakers about some funky films that don't get talked often enough about.

Anyway, you'll probably be more interested in the new features that actually directly pertain to the film at hand (though, to be fair, Beyond the Door was one of the prominent examples discussed in Italy Possessed).  To that end, Arrow has conducted their own interview with Lavia, which has easier to read subtitles than Code Reds, but is audio-only.  So bit of a trade-off there.  And they conduct new, on-camera interviews with Assonitis, cinematographer/ co-writer Piazzoli, composer Franco Micalizzi and camera operator Maurizio Maggi.  So these, combined with the older Code Red extras, give us a pretty thorough examination of Beyond the Door.  They also throw in three more trailers (in addition to the ones Code Red had) and alternate credits sequences with the film's varying titles, plus a radio spot and an extensive stills gallery.  Swag-wise, there's a 60-page full color booklet, a double-sided fold-out poster, six lobby cards, reversible artwork, an Arrow card (mine's for White Fire) and a solid slipbox just like Arrow's other recent limited editions.

Ovidio had nothing to do with 1977's Beyond the Door 2, released on DVD in the US under the title Shock, and has said in interviews that he doesn't approve of the title borrowing. This Beyond the Door is actually the final film by Mario Bava, and it's based on an original script by Dardano Sacchetti and Mario's son, Lamberto Bava, who also got his start directing by shooting a few scenes in this movie. It's the story of a small family who move into a new house, which turns out to be sort of haunted. Everything seems great at first, of course, but we soon learn the father isn't the real father, he's just "mom's new boyfriend," because the real father killed himself years before, in this very house. And somehow that's causing their young son to behave pretty horribly towards his mother, who's having enough problems dealing with flying furniture and visions of the dead.

Unsurprisingly for Bava fans, Beyond 2 is a very well crafted film. It's expertly shot and full of the kind of ingenious camera tricks he's known for. It also has a bold score and stars Dario Argento's former wife and collaborator, Daria Nicolodi and Ivan Rassimov, who was unforgettable as the devil in The Eerie Midnight Horror Show. And by sheer coincidence, the possessed child in this film is the young actor who played Juliet Mills' son in the first Beyond the Door. He never acted in anything else before or since, just these two movies, and he's definitely not playing the same character. But once again he's badly dubbed and behaving diabolically. In fact, that's this film's greatest weakness or appeal, depending on your attitude. The child is basically this film's Freddy Krueger, but he's so badly dubbed, running around cursing and things, that he's downright comical. Only a really die-hard Bava fan will be able to see past it and take this film seriously as the atmospheric horror it's meant to be. But on the other hand, he's a real hoot (like he was in the first film) if you take it all as camp.

There had been a couple underwhelming international DVDs of this title out there for years (i.e. barebones, non-anamorphic), but the first worthwhile release came from Anchor Bay in 2000. This featured a high-end 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer and an interview with Lamberto Bava, as well as a couple trailers. Blue Underground re-issued it in 2007 when the rights went to them; but it's the same disc. It also featured English, Italian and French audio tracks, which was great except for one problem: no subtitles! So, unless you're fluent in the other languages, you were still stuck with the English audio. Anyway, all of that is finally in the past, thanks to Arrow's brand new special edition blu-ray, with a remastered transfer, a heap of extras, and the English & Italian tracks... with English subtitles!

1) 2000 Anchor Bay DVD; 2) 2022 Arrow BD.

I left the negative space around the first set of shots do show how the DVD is curiously three quarters windowboxed, which the BD corrects.  Both discs are actually 1.85:1, but we can see now AB only accomplished this by matting tighter and actually cropping out chunks along all four edges.  Often on this site, it's a matter of thin slivers gained or lost across newer editions, but here we've gained a considerable amount of picture.  And the resolution - wow!  Arrow's transfer utilizes a brand new 2k scan of the original negative (except on the English language version, which seamlessly branches to English credits and inserts taken from an interpositive) with a beautiful encode that looks finely detailed and naturally filmic.  Compare it to the DVD, which was anamorphic and free of interlacing, but still looks smeary and murky, almost like its taken from a tape master.  I usually find it pretty corny, if not downright dubious, when film reviewers talk about what a different, new experience watching a film on blu-ray is.  Sure, it's better, but it's not like you couldn't make everything out almost as well on the previous edition.  But here, the new picture really helped me appreciate this film as the effective psychodrama Bava was going for, and not just a silly ghost story with some neat trick shots.

Of course, a LOT of that is being able to finally watch this film in the original Italian, too. The whole cast, and the kid in particular, is dubbed much better. In the US version, he's voiced by an adult attempting to sound like a little boy, and it comes off as really cheesy.  And the translations are different, too; so it's not just hearing the lines read differently; the lines themselves are different.  For example, in the US version, the kid keeps yelling, "pigs, pigs!"  But according to the new Italian subtitles, he's saying, "filthy," which is at least slightly more grounded.  But if you still prefer it the other way, Arrow does also provide the dubtitle track, so you can read it either way.  Plus, of course, both audio tracks are remastered with lossless DTS-HD tracks.

Anchor Bay's original interview.

Previously, I wrote, "Interview Daria, get a Tim Lucas commentary... how isn't this a thing already? It's a no-brainer!"  Well, sadly Daria has passed, but the Tim Lucas commentary is here and it's great.  He sounds more natural than he did on his OG Bava commentaries for VCI, but still with no dead air and plenty of great info.  You can tell the difference when you have a general "cult films" expert doing a commentary versus Lucas here, who's dedicated decades to studying Bava in particular.  Still, this commentary is just the beginning.

Now, as I already mentioned, AB did have a nice little interview with Lamberto Bava, which Arrow has not carried over.  Instead they've conducted a new one, which looks a lot better in HD, and covers even more ground, running almost four times as long.  They've also got a substantial new interview with Sacchetti, who I've really been learning to appreciate more and more as the consistent voice behind nearly all of my favorite I horror films by all the most famous directors.  And if you want more critical analysis, there's an excellent video essay by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas on the themes of hands and puppetry in the film, and a more general overview by Stephen Thrower that runs almost a full hour.  Both are full of great insight, but I wish Thrower's had been edited down a bit... there are sections where he covers ground already well-trodden in the other special features, and this featurette could've benefited in the pacing department.  For instance, he, Bava and Sacchetti all explain how Bava accomplished the famous "hair" shot, using the same clips from the film, storyboards, etc.  It's completely redundant, starts to get tedious and it's not the only instance.

Arrow's new interview.

Still, at least they erred on the side of too much rather than too little.  You can't complain too much when an easy solution is to just fast forward here and there, but I just wish the people commissioning the extras for these discs would start taking a more holistic overview of what they're doing.  It's a common problem.  If a filmmaker tells an anecdote in the commentary, we don't want the exact same anecdote repeated in their on-camera interview.  And it's not like any of this Shock stuff are legacy extras that fell into Arrow's laps as-is.  Anyway, moving on: both discs also have a bunch of trailers and TV spots, with Arrow adding some new stills galleries, too.  And they've got a fun little curiosity piece where journalist Alberto Farina shows us a cute caricature from the film that Nicolodi gave him.  Anchor Bay threw in a cool insert with Beyond the Door 2 poster art, but Arrow gives us a 24-page booklet with notes by Troy Howarth.  It also comes with reversible cover artwork and a Shock slipcover.  Or, if you order it from Arrow directly, it comes in an alternate Beyond the Door 2 slipcover.

Now, after Shock, it took another twelve years to get the next unconnected sequel. Except the series returned to Ovidio Assonitis. This time he's just the producer, but based on interviews, he seemed to be the driving force behind this project. But his original title for the film was Train, and he says it was the distributors' idea to use the Beyond the Door title, an idea he was against. Because, once again, it has nothing to do with the other movies. Bo Svenson stars in this one, a story of a bunch of American college kids who travel to Yugoslavia and run afoul of a coven of witches who want to sacrifice them all.  The bulk of the film takes place on a runaway train, hence the film's original title.  This movie's from a whole different generation than the first two and feels very different. It's very 80s, less serious but gorier, and much less interested in psychology than kills.  It's got a good look to it, though, and at least someone gets possessed in this, so there's a thematic connection to the other Doors.

It's kind of a dumb movie.  It has dialogue like:

"What is it you love about me?"

"I don't know. Your hair?"

...But it provides ample quantities of everything you'd look for from a film like this.  There's plenty of special effects, exotic locations, action, production values (they got extensive use of that train), and a whole bunch of crazy, entertaining stuff happening at all times.  The cinematography's back to workman-like after the Bava entry, but it's glossy with plenty of interesting stuff in front of the camera, so it still looks pretty impressive.

Now, there had been a cheap Dragon DVD first, but Shriek Show came along and knocked it out of the box in 2008.  A somewhat special edition with a nice, anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer... although, to be honest, the framing looks pretty tight. I wonder if the filmmakers didn't also have 1.85 in mind? That's how Dragon framed it. Anyway, their DVD wasn't even anamorphic, so Shriek Show was easily the one to own regardless.  "Was," that is, because now Vinegar Syndrome's gone and restored this film in HD with a fresh 4k scan of the original negative for a brand new, Limited Edition blu-ray arriving just in time for Halloween.

1) 2008 Shriek Show DVD; 2) 2019 Vinegar Syndrome DVD;
3) 2019 Vinegar Syndrome BD.

Vinegar Syndrome's limited edition is actually a DVD/ BD combo pack, which is why we've got three sets of shots instead of two.  All three discs are presented in 2.35, but Vinegar Syndrome's discs do pull out to reveal a tiny bit more around the edges.  The colors have been corrected, looking both more genuine and vibrant, and detail is clarified so nicely.  I mean, we're jumping right from a DVD to a brand new 4k scan of a negative in HD, so it's a big leap forward even with Shriek Show's DVD looking as good as it did (one of their rare non-interlaced ones  haha).  I suppose I should point out a weird little detail where the edge of the frame sometimes comes in on the left, effectively giving us a slight black pillarbox on the left-hand side, re-adjusting the AR to about 2.33:1.  That's on the Shriek Show disc, too, though, and is clearly tied to certain shots (in one scene you can watch it appear and disappear as the camera shot/ reverse shots between two characters), so it's how the film was shot.  One could argue that maybe the proper framing would be to crop that edge tight enough, then, that you never see it?  But it's really no big deal; you won't see it unless you have your eye glued to the left edge of the frame the whole time watching for it.  ...Although, now that I've told you guys, maybe you will - sorry!

Both editions feature the stereo mix, which is in lossless DTS-HD on the blu-ray.  The Dragon DVD also offered a German dub, if anyone cares.  And both releases have optional English subtitles for the parts of the film spoken in... Croation?  I think?  But Vinegar Syndrome has taken the extra step of adding an additional option that subtitles the entire film, English and all.  So, to be clear, you can choose between either sub track or none.

Now, one thing Shriek Show's DVD had going for it that still holds weight is its special features.  It wasn't quite a fully loaded special edition, but it had some good stuff.  There's a lengthy and fascinating interview with Assonitis, and another interview with the cinematographer, Adolfo Bartoli. There's also the theatrical trailer, a couple bonus trailers, and an easter egg of an alternate title sequence with the title Amok Train, which is also what's on the case (the on-screen title for both Shriek Show and Vinegar Syndrome is Beyond the Door III).

Disappointingly, VS doesn't carry any of that over, but they have created all new special features.  They have their own interview with Bartoli, plus on-camera interviews with the director (40 minutes long!) and Bo Svenson, who's quite a character.  There's some spicy behind-the-scenes drama for this film (for example, Assonitis apparently fired the director, but then changed his mind), so the new extras are great, but it's a shame to lose that Assonitis interview as a counter-point.  And it's a small thing, but I'm surprised VS neglected the trailer.  They do give you some cool, reversible cover art, though, letting you choose between Amok Train and Beyond the Door 3.  Plus the limited edition (2000 units) comes in a very stylish slipcover that uses the same crazy art as the old laserdisc.  So get the VS for sure, but hang onto your old SS discs, too.

Well, they've done it!  We now have kick-ass, fully loaded HD editions of the entire trilogy.  It's been a heck of a journey, but all three films are perfectly represented on home video.  So, well, I guess it's time for Assonitis to hit us with that fourth Beyond the Door sequel/ reboot he's been teasing all these years.  Apparently, it's coming out this year?!

M.I.A.: Lamberto Bava's Prince of Terror

I've been adding so many films to my on-going list of DVD & blu-ray titles I want to cover on this site, that I've been neglecting those that are still desperately in need of any kind of disc release at all.  And man,  am I tired of waiting for this one!  Lamberto Bava's Il Maestro del Terrore, or The Prince of Terror, was made for Italian television in 1989 as part of their Alta Tensione quadrilogy, along with School of Fear, Eyewitness (a remake of a previous Dario Argento television production) and The Man Who Wouldn't Die.  But The Prince of Terror didn't air until 1999 because it was deemed to be just too much for television audiences at the time.  And oh boy, is it!   If you're looking for the kind of obscure movie with scenes so outrageous they can make you break out into applause even when you're just watching the film at home by yourself, this is it.  Sure, as a whole, the movie's a bit clunky, but prepare for an inflating zombie, chainsaw attacks, deadly golf balls marked 666, twisted mind games, lethal booby traps, multiple madmen, a dog named Demon, fake deaths, toilets overflowing with blood, diegetic special effects and one of the great, absurdist endings of all time.  There's even a robot!

Now, when I call this clunky, I think I mostly mean the typical Italian post-sync dubbing, which makes all the performances feel stagey and ridiculous.  In this case, though, that adds almost as much as it subtracts; and beyond that, screenwriter extraordinaire Dardano Sacchetti certainly knows how to keep the plot twists coming.  Production values are high and Bava's scenes are atmospheric and well lit, with that 80s neon tone and plenty of blue night filters.  Simon Boswell's score is reliably effective but feels a little low effort compared to his other work.  Typical suspense riffs play through scenes of our protagonists slowly creeping around the house, helped by the fact that our protagonist is a horror director himself, so while for the most part it plays like any other thriller, you'll notice he's suddenly walking past a giant glowing eyeball or a portrait of Frankenstein's monster.

Yes, Tomas Arana, star of The Church and The Sect, plays Vincent Omen, a famous horror director who's so successful, people have begun to associate him with the devil himself.  "Take a good look at me," he tells a reporter on his private golf course, "do I look different?  Do I have skin like a reptile?  Are my eyes phosphorescent?  Do I have hoofed feet?"  Yeah, so with an attitude like that, it's not hard to guess that he's made some enemies in the business, including a longtime collaborative screenwriter who he fired off his most recent production and an actor he injured in a dangerous stunt.  So when his family home is invaded in the middle of the night by someone intent on sadistically toying with the Omens, it could be anybody, or seemingly even multiple murderers, out to prove just who is the true prince of terror.

They have a daughter who's character, I guess, is supposed to be 13 or so?  She's treated as being that age and plays it that way, if not even younger.  Plus Mr. Omen says he's 37, so how much older could she be?  But she's clearly played by a grown woman to allow for some sexual tension in the third act.  It's the sort of move they'd never try to pull nowadays.  Not that there's ever actually any nudity, and the sleaze factor is never allowed to rise to House On the Edge of the Park levels.  It's mostly more of a fun, one-surprise-after-another spook show, but some moments dance on that edge.

Italian horror fans will spot plenty of familiar faces, including David Brandon from Stage Fright and monstrous cameos from the actual creatures of Devil Fish and Demons 2.  There are some great, gruesome effects by the one and only Sergio Stivaletti, and even a crazy bit of stop motion animation.  The Prince of Terror might not quite add up to a masterpiece, but it's constructed out of so many great parts, that I'm sure it would accrue a healthy following if it were ever allowed to find its audiences.  I honestly believe the cult video label that started putting titles like this and Spider Labyrinth out in HD would quickly become a horror fan favorite, even in this age of stiff competition.  And I know it's silly, but I want Mask Of the Demon, too, dammit!  (Update 2/2/25: we got it!) Come on, guys, who's going to finally step up for these must-have gems?