Update Megaweek, Day 6: Unleashing the Ultimate Sect

Oh, man.  How many years has it been since Code Red first announced their special edition of Michele Soavi's The Sect on blu?  Since that time, it's come out as a perfectly respectable edition in the UK from the fine folks at Shameless, Germany from Koch and Japan from Happinet, then switched hands to Scorpion Releasing, and come out as a budget single disc edition.  But I kept the faith and resisted all of those releases, holding out for the ultimate 2-disc special edition that was always just around the corner.  And now it's finally here!

Update 3/27/18 - 4/27/26: It's Update Megaweek and we're finally adding Severin's 2023 4k Ultra HD release of The Sect to this page.  And, at the same time, we're doing The Church, too - big Soavi day!

Now, I'm going to hold off official, final judgement until all four of Soavi's "main" films get proper, special edition blus to really lock in an official decision.  But most of my life, I've always been in the minority, holding up The Sect as my favorite.  Stage Fright certainly has the style to set it apart from the bulk of the genre, but still plays too much like a generic slasher to top my list.  The Church is a blast, but a bit sloppy, and unluckily stands in The Demons' shadow.  Dellamorte Dellamore was my favorite when I was young, but since then feels a little too comic bookish (fair enough, because it's based on a comic, of course; but still not my ideal sensibility).

So they're all great films, but The Sect winds up nestled in that sweet spot for me, still a more adult horror movie, full of atmosphere and completely wild imagery.  It feels more unrestrained, free to go where ever it wants, as opposed to his previous films, where he pushed against the envelope.  The Sect doesn't have an envelope.  It's just whatever Soavi wants it to be at any given moment.  Is Satan a hippy?  Is your face a lock that needs to be opened with a key of giant scary hooks?  Will a rabbit lead you down a hole that contaminates your drinking water with blue alien slime?  Will a bug crawl into your brain and make you dream about turning into a giant before a crucified bird monster pecks you to death?  Sure, all that can happen in The Sect!

With all of that said, I can just as easily see why this is some fans' least favorite film.  If you want a coherent, logical plot, you're out of luck.  It's confusing, seemingly arbitrarily weird, a little too reminiscent of Rosemary's Baby, and let's face it, the Alice In Wonderland theme is obvious and heavy-handed, and for all it's creative imagery, it can get pretty talky.  But even if it's at the bottom of your list, I think you have to admit it's still got a lot going for it.  There are undeniably cool scenes, and Soavi's camera is always crawling around, hunting out exotic new angles.  We get a pretty nifty performance from Herbert "Inspector Dreyfus" Lom from The Pink Panther movies.  And Pino Donaggio's score pumps the film full of cool energy.  At worst, it's a fascinating failure, which is still more than you can say for most movies.

So, like I said, I've held off on buying the previous blu-rays of this film, but I do have the original 2002 Cecchi Gori DVD from Italy, which until recently was the definitive release of this film for fans around the world.  So we've got that, Scorpion;s limited edition (to 3000, mine's #1892) 2-disc set that came out a few months after the 2018 single disc release.  The difference isn't just that second disc.  And then we've got Severin's 2024 BD/UHD set, which follows up their 2023 limited edition, where the difference is just swag.

1) 2002 Italian Cecchi Gori DVD; 2) 2018 US Scorpion BD;
3) 2023 US Severin BD; 4) 2023 US Severin UHD.

The Cecchi Gori DVD was pretty sweet it its day: uncut, anamorphic widescreen, with both English and Italian audio.  What more could you want?  Well, in this new era of HD, we want more.  Like for instance, not a soft, splotchy mess.  There's a weird kind of noise to the whole image, not interlacing, but this kind of pattern like you're watching the film through a screen door.  I remember the first edition of the Upstairs Downstairs DVDs looked like that too, until they corrected it with the remastered 40th Anniversary boxed set.  Or here, I've actually got an example of it already on the site with I, Claudius.  Look closely at the old screenshots from the original Image DVD.  All part of the ride in the olden days of DVD.

Anyway, both CG and Scorpion present the film in 1.78:1, although the DVD has a bit of feathered edging around all four sides and despite the DVD case claiming 1.66:1.  Even though they have the same AR though, we see Scorpion has unveiled a healthy amount of information around all four sides.  The case tells us that this is a brand new 2017 2k scan (so a fresher one than even the 2016 blus?) with over 45 hours of color correction.  And that color work really pays off, because it's beautiful.  I mean, it's clearly superior to the blander DVD, but even on its own terms as a contemporary blu, it's an attractive image.

1) 2002 Italian Cecchi Gori DVD; 2) 2018 US Scorpion BD;
3) 2023 US Severin BD; 4) 2023 US Severin UHD.

Now, the Severin discs are 1.85:1, which is basically Severin's framing just matted a little tighter.  This is a 4k scan of the original camera negative, and the boosted resolution shows, with tiny detail easier to make out than ever.  Grain is actually still a little splotchy at points, but it's better captured and rendered here than ever before.  But I do have a complaint: their BD looks decidelyy pale, with faded colors and light contrast.  Fortunately, their UHD, with Dolby Vision HDR, looks much better, with stronger contrast and lusher colors.  So, I think it's an issue, but honestly, I don't really care about redundant transfers on lower gen discs of a set, so I'm not really bothered about that.  But anyone just buying this for the 1080p version, take note.  Besides that, I only have one, far more iffy concern.  It looks like some portions of the film might be missing a blue night filter?  Look at those second and third set of shots, they're totally different.  But the BD's aforementioned washed colors must shoulder some of the blame; and maybe this really is the correct color timing, and Severin took the liberty in their color correction?  It's interesting to note that Severin credits their Church transfer as Soavi approved, but not this one.  Anyway, I can't call it for sure, but the longer I look at it, the more my opinion shifts from Scorpion's side to Severin.

And if Zeder had you worried, here's a shot of Scorpion's subtitles.  They're perfect, and no they're not dubtitles.  And that's the first big distinction between this 2-disc release and Scorpion's single disc that came out last month.  That version didn't have subtitles, only the English audio.  Scorpion's disc gives you the full language options with both the original Italian and English mono tracks in DTS-HD 2.0.  And this is a film where you want the Italian audio option; it has the better performances.  Try comparing the scene where Lom collapses in Kelly Curtis's house and she starts shouting for help.  In English, she sounds like a disaffected high schooler reading Shakespeare in a classroom.  In Italian, it's a convincing performance.  Admittedly, Tomas Arana's part is better in English; but overall, the Italian rules the day.

Cecchi Gori had both audio tracks, too (in fact, they have both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1 options for the Italian track), but it only has Italian subtitles.  So we English speakers had to stick to the dub.  I should also point out that there is some hiss to Scorpion's audio tracks.  It's not bad; and shouldn't bother you at all once you've grown accustomed to it.  The nearly wall to wall soundtrack covers up most of it.  But it's there and you won't exactly need to be wearing high frequency headphones to pick up on it.  And the old DVD doesn't seem to have it.  It's fine, though.  I guess Scorpion decided it would be more destructive or revisionist to run it through some noise filtering.  Cecchi Gori was happy to remix the whole thing into 5.1's after all, so they're hardly being true to the original mix like the blu is.

Now, Severin also has both 2.0 tracks in DTS-HD - yes, with the same hiss - and also with optional English sub and dubtitles.

But language options aren't the only difference between the two Scorpion blus!  There's a whole wealth of new extras.  Now the old DVD just had the trailer and a negligible stills gallery (and a cool looking insert).  Scorpion already topped that with their single disc edition, which included on-camera interviews with Soavi and Arana, plus the trailer and some bonus trailers.  Well, that stuff's carried over, of course, but we also get an audio commentary by Troy Howarth, who did an excellent job on Arrow's Phenonema disc, and an on-camera interview with Dario Argento.  As you can see, while this is definitively a Scorpion release now, Code Red still gets credit for the extras they created, including an intro with Arana and Banana Man.  And these aren't cheap, no frills interviews.  They're well shot in HD, cleanly subtitled (as opposed to the mess on that Zeder disc) and thoughtfully edited with clips from the film.

And that's just the first disc!  The second disc gives us two and a half hour's worth of additional interviews with cinematographer Raffaele Mertes, set designer Massino Geleng, screenwriter Gianni Romoli, Pino Donaggio, Giovanni Lombardo Radice and film historian Fabrizio Spurio.  And yes, these are all the same high quality as the ones on the first disc.  The only difference is the subtitles are removable here, but burned in on disc 1 (the extras, not the movie!).  Just something I noticed.  Anyway, this 2-disc set comes in a nice slipcover and features reversible artwork, utilizing the same poster image you see on the Cecchi Gori cover.

And just like with The Church, Severin has carried over most, but not all of those extras, and also come up with a bunch of new stuff.  This time, the loss is a little less disappointing, too.  They've dropped the commentary, the Arana interview, and the Banana Man intro.  The Arana interview is no big deal, because Severin has conducted their own talk with Tomas.  And they've created new interviews with effects maestro Sergio Stivaletti, expert Alan Jones and a fun featurette where Soavi takes us on a tour of a creepy basement on his family's property, which inspired the one in the film.  The initial limited edition also included a booklet, slipcover and soundtrack CD.  They also sold a t-shirt and a pendant of the film's spiral seal that you could order in a bundle directly from their site.

Scorpion clearly set their sites on the very top A-list releases by companies like Arrow and Criterion when they released these Italian titles.  And the result is Soavi's films finally got the treatment they've always deserved.  I mean, it's amazing The Sect never even got a standard Anchor Bay DVD back in the day.  It took until 2018, but we finally gotten The Sect release we've always wanted. Better yet, we have options!  You can spring for Severin's fancy 4k or stick with Scorpion's blu - either way, Sect appreciators are winning for the first time in a long time.

Soavi's Masterpiece, Dellamorte Dellamore

Ah man, it's been a long wait for a proper HD release of Michele Soavi's Dellamorte Dellamore, the demented comic book adaptation that's often called the last great Italian horror film.  It had some fine releases on DVD, and I've owned a few of them over the years, but on BD, they were both rare and uninspiring.  You'd be happy to pay to import a German, barebones disc with the old DVD master just because it wasn't compressed to 720p.  We were all excited when Shameless finally announced a BD special edition for 2018 until somebody asked them for the specs and it turned out the frame-rate was botched.  Still, a lot of desperate fans bought it anyway.  But happily, you can put all that behind you now.  Severin has a brand new 4k restoration from the negative with a whole ton of special features on BD and 4k Ultra HD with Dolby Vision HDR, fancy packaging and everything you could want.

Dellamorte Dellamore is based on Italian horror comic Dylan Dog, or more precisely Tiziano Sclavi's prototypical novel about a similar character in the DD universe, Francesco Dellamorte.  Both characters were drawn to resemble Rupert Everett, so it was quite a coup for Soavi to cast him here, not just for the coincidence, but the pitch-perfect performance Everett was able to deliver in a film where, after all, a lot of the cast is dubbed.  And it's not just Everett who's pitch-perfect here; the stylish direction, score, practical effects, supporting cast and the writer's clever blend of humor and genuine ennui are all operating on a level I'm not sure the original source material even fully deserved.  The elements have aligned to lift up an above average graphic novel to a bit of a cinematic masterpiece.

1) 2006 Anchor Bay DVD; 2) 2012 Shameless DVD;
3) 2023 Severin BD; 4) 2023 Severin UHD.

Each of these discs pretty much preserve the slightly pillar-boxed aspect ratio of 1.66:1, though if you look closely, you'll see Anchor Bay's disc is cropped a little tighter and really framed at 1.62:1.  I only replaced the AB DVD with the Shameless because it subtitled the Italian commentary for the first time, but I never realized until I started doing this comparison how they improved the picture.  It's not just the framing, which the 4k restoration has mirrored, but they've got more natural colors and toned down the edge enhancement/ contrast.  Of course, that's all academic now.  The colors are even more natural now and fine detail, like the mayor's hair, has been restored.  Of course, we're comparing UHD to DVD, so they have a huge advantage; but happily they didn't blow it.  Grain is still tough to discern, which seems to be a thing with Severin - are they lightly DNRing their UHDs (or is the Italian company that owns the film materials)?  Because the feature's only about 100 minutes and they've given it nearly 80GB, so it shouldn't be a compression issue.  Not that this looks like Predator anything.  And everything else, like the black levels (especially considering how much of this film is set at night) and the naturalism of the 4k are quite strong.

We're given a surprising amount of options for the audio: a Dolby Atmos track, a 5.1 and a 2.0, both in DTS-HD, all of which sound bold, clear and frankly rather similar.  We also get the Italian 2.0 in DTS-HD, and optional English subtitles for both the English and Italian audio tracks.  I'd recommend the English audio, since Rupert is speaking English in his own voice, but a number of supporting characters are dubbed, so both are valid options.

As far as extras?  Oh boy, Severin has us covered.  But they're not the only special features in town.  Anchor Bay had a nice half-hour featurette, which talked to a number of the key players, including Soavi, screenwriter Gianni Romoli, Sergio Stivaletti and Anna Falchi.  Shameless dropped that, but they preserved that aforementioned commentary from the 2008 Medusa DVD, and they added English subtitles for the first time.  It's Soavi and Romoli together, and it's pretty great.  They go at a good pace and cover a lot, including a few details that don't pop up in other extras.  Both discs also included inserts with notes, the trailer and a bunch of bonus trailers (especially Shameless, they have like fifteen!).

Thankfully, Severin keeps the commentary, too; though they almost don't need it, since the new interviews they conducted are pretty comprehensive and cover just about every topic mentioned and ignored by that commentary.  Romoli's interview goes for a good hour.  And they manage to get a great sit-down with Rupert Everett, which is impressive.  They also got a new interview with Falchi, plus cinematographer Mauro Marchetti, Stefano Masciarelli who played the mayor, Fabiana Formica who played the mayor's daughter, composer Riccardo Biseo, set designer Antonello Geleng and of course Sergio Stivaletti.  There's also a brief interview with Alan Jones to fill in the last few informational details, though he clearly doesn't know what he's talking about regarding the comics.  He goes into a whole explanation of "why hasn't there ever been a Dylan Dog film," when of course there was.  It's no Dellamorte Dellamore, but it has its qualities.  Jones also points out that "in Dylan Dog, the sidekick is based on Groucho Marx.  Here, I don't quite understand what he was doing."  I've never read an issue, and even I know Dylan Dog's sidekick was Groucho, not Dellamorte's, so of course he's not doing the Groucho schtick.  But hey, he's a film guy, not a comic book guy; what do you want?

Also on here is the old featurette that also used to be on that Medusa disc, though this one had subtitles even at the time.  It's good because it was made during production, so it has on-set footage and interviews with a couple people, including the editor and François Hadji-Lazaro, who couldn't contribute to the new features.  The Anchor Bay featurette wasn't so fortunate to make the transition, but that's fine, since nobody says anything in that that they don't also say in these other extras.  There are also two theatrical trailers, the complete soundtrack CD, a glossy full-color 50 page book, and a stylish slipbox.

So this is unquestionably recommended.  A fantastic film that's been in dire need of a fully loaded special edition since the concept existed, finally gets one.  This and Spider Labyrinth in the same month has Severin taking some serious cracks at Italian Horror fans' want lists.  What could be next... Demons 5?

Discover the Hidden Secrets Of the Church

Say, speaking of 90s horror classics that should've had special editions since the early days of DVD but are only just getting them now, how about Michele Soavi's The Church?  Scorpion Releasing's two disc set that's been pending for so long I was seriously beginning to doubt it would ever arrive has finally arrived.  If you're thinking, wait a minute, hasn't it already been out half a year or something, you're thinking of the single disc edition.  Just like with The Sect, Scorpion released a single disc edition first, with a two disc special edition to arrive months later, not just with more extras and better packaging, but both the English and Italian audio tracks (the single disc version only has the English).

Update 7/16/18 - 4/27/26: It's Update Megaweek and we're finally adding Severin's 2023 4k Ultra HD release of The Church to this page.  And, at the same time, we're doing The Sect, too - big Soavi day!

If you're looking for something stylish and cool, The Church is it.  There's a bit of a weird schism to it, but depending on your attitude, that can be as much a part of its charm as a critical fault.  You've got the original intention for this film: to be Lamberto Bava's Demons 3, and then you've got Soavi's re-imagining.  And for the first hour or so, while there may be material from the original script active in it, it feels like Soavi's vision.  A historical opening in the 12th century or so, with the Templar Knights committing and then burying their sins.  We then move forward to modern times, where a great gothic church has been built upon the site, and several characters get caught up trying to unlock its mysteries.  Dramatic camerawork of them fetishistically translating cryptic messages, unlocking secret panels, discovering hidden passageways, ultimately leading to a face off with mankind's dark past in a fantastical way.

Then in the last half hour, a whole bunch of extra characters plow into the church and suddenly we're in Bava and Sacchetti's Demons.  A bickering elderly couple, a teacher with an entire class of students, fashion photographers, one of Dario Argento's daughters and a romantic pair of bikers all find themselves trapped inside and desperate to escape as they get killed and possessed one by one.  So ultimately, The Sect is probably the better film; but The Church could be more fun, even upping the giant rubber monster quota of Bava's previous efforts.  The story's maybe a little inconsequential, but hey, who's counting?

So, The Church's story on disc is pretty similar to The Sect's, too, except that The Church at least had a proper US DVD.  Anchor Bay put it out in 2002 as part of their "Dario Argento Collection" (he produced and co-wrote the film), a barebones but anamorphic widescreen release that was later reissued by Blue Underground in 2007.  But on blu, the story is almost exactly the same.  There was a questionable barebones Japanese disc in 2016, and then Shameless released a remastered version later that year, featuring a new interview with Soavi (The Church's first proper special feature).  Oh, and there's an Italian blu, but it's not English friendly.  Anyway, Scorpion eventually released their single disc edition in the US in early 2018, and months later, their limited (1500 copies) 2-disc special edition came out.  And most recently, Severin released their limited edition 2-disc BD/UHD combopack in 2023, followed by the standard edition (same discs, less swag) in 2024.

1) 2002 US Anchor Bay DVD; 2) 2018 US Scorpion BD;
3) 2024 US Severin BD; 4) 2024 US Severin UHD.

The first thing that stood out to be is that sickly yellowish/ greenish hue that seems to hang over the DVD has been scrubbed from the blus, giving it a much more vibrant energy.  Scorpion's packaging tells us this is a "brand new 2017 2k scan with over 45 hours of color correction," and that certainly paid off.  Being in HD, of course, the detail is a lot clearer - grain appears natural here where before it was utterly invisible.  But really the second biggest thing after the colors is the framing.  The DVD is slightly vertically matted to 1.85:1, while Scorpion's blu-ray switches it to the filmmakers' possibly preferred ratio(? it would be nice to get a definitive answer on this) of 1.67:1.  Did they trade horizontal information for vertical?  No, the blu reveals considerably more picture on all four sides.  But then Severin goes back to 1.85:1, revealing slivers more along the sides, but shaving a bit vertically.  Soavi has approved this transfer, so we can guess this is the preferred AR, but we all know how inconsistent director approval can be.

Regardless, Severin has gone back to the original camera negative for an all new 4k scan, so it's going to win in the end regardless.  Honestly, just comparing the 1080p BDs, the color timing looks very similar, but it's definitely more vibrant and attractive with its Dolby Vision HDR.  Even converted to SD for the screenshots, you can see how much more vibrant the UHD is.  And all three encodes are great, but the UHD obviously takes the trophy for how it captures and renders detail and film grain.  Because Scorpion did such a good job, Severin's boost may not be so striking in comparison, but it is the best looking edition, no question.

Now, Anchor Bay just gave us the English dub, in our choice of Dolby stereo or 5.1, with no subs.  Scorpion's new blu (again, as opposed to their first single disc release) provides both the English and Italian stereo mixes in DTS-HD, without any of the light hiss we heard on The Sect, and with optional English subtitles "translated from the Italian track."  Now, on The Sect, I preferred the Italian audio, but here, I think the English dub is actually a little more natural.  Neither wins in every department - I'm not a fan of the voice they dub star Barbara Cupisti with in English - but overall, I'd say the English track is the preferable one here.  Severin also gives us both audio tracks in DTS-HD, plus that 5.1 mix in DTS-HD as well.  And it also has English subtitles for both language tracks.

2018 Arana

Now, like I already mentioned, the US DVD is barebones.  All they gave it was the trailer.  Ironically, that's all the Scorpion blu is missing (they list the trailer on the packaging, and it was on their single disc edition, but it seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle.  But you won't care once you see all the great stuff they've got.  First of all, there's a pretty great audio commentary by Nathaniel Thompson and Cupisti.  They list him as a moderator, but it's more of an even mix, with Thompson speaking as an expert and Cupisti providing the personal, first hand knowledge.  After that, there's a whole slew of smartly edited, on-camera interviews, averaging 15-20 minutes apiece, with Soavi, Dario Argento, Asia Argento, Cupisti, Tomas Arana, Giovanni Radice, set designer Massimo Geleng, screenwriter Franco Ferrini and makeup artist Franco Casagni.  Between all of them, they pretty much cover everything you could want to know about this film.  Most are in Italian with burnt-in yellow subtitles (as shown above), but a couple are in English.  Scorpion's 2-disc set also features reversible artwork, a slipcover and a poster.

2023 Arana.

And Severin?  It's interesting.  They port over most, but not all of the Scorpion stuff.  But they make up for the loss by adding some new stuff.  Specifically, they lose the commentary, the Cupisti interview and the Arana interview.  One of the new interviews is their own with Tomas Arana, so that one's fine, but it's a shame to lose Cupisti.  But we gain additional interviews with Sergio Stivaletti, Antonella Vitale, Dardano Sacchetti (who's got some tea to spill!), assistant director Claudio Lattanzi and expert Alan Jones.  Plus there's a funky video trailer in addition to the regular theatrical one.  The limited edition also included a soundtrack CD, a slipcover and a booklet.  They also had a T-shirt and a pendant of "the stone with the seven eyes" you could order in a bundle, which you have to admit is pretty cool.

Scorpion's limited release was a little pricey, but they nailed it.  Severin eventually came around and topped it now that we're in the age of 4k Ultra HD, though.  But if you've got the Scorpion, it wasn't a waste, because it's still got some sweet exclusives.  And honestly, it still looks good enough that this might be a lower priority upgrade.