We've already covered the one film that's been semi-/ quasi-released as
Demons 3:
Michele Soavi's
The Church. In fact, I've covered all the films that have been as the subsequent sequels, too:
The Sect a.k.a.
Demons 4,
Mask of Satan a.k.a.
Demons 5 and
The Black Cat a.k.a.
Demons 6. But there are two other movies that have also gone out under the banner of
Demons 3, and they're fun ones! (Honestly, there are no un-fun
Demons flicks.) So I'd feel downright remiss if
DVDExotica didn't tackle 'em.
So I guess it sorta makes sense why
The Ogre would be dubbed the next
Demons sequel, at least compared to any other random I horror title. For one thing, it's another
Lamberto Bava flick. And in 1988, it's not the film he made immediately after
Demons 2, but it's pretty close on its heels. Also, the leading lady had a bit part in
Demons 2,
Simon Boswell is back doing the score and, y'know, it has some kind of monster in it. What more do you need?
What this really is, though, is the third of four made-for-TV horror
films, collectively known as the Brivido Giallo series. It really does
not play like a
Demons film, instead focusing on a relaxed, slow
moving, almost fairy tale-like vibe. In brief, an American author of
horror novels used to dream about an ogre in her basement, and as an
adult, she moves into a castle which has that very same basement. Is
her imagination overriding her sensibility, or is there really an ogre
creeping around the premises? That's the question. And while we don't
get any action and barely any violence, the film does have a real
castle, a neat underwater
Inferno-style
sequence, a bad-ass ogre that hatches out of a cocoon like a gooey
spider (a scene they repeat over and over) and a catchy soundtrack. But
unlike a
Demons film, it's pretty shamelessly boring, almost
designed to make its audience fall asleep on the couch. Then you kinda
half remember a few key scenes, and you're not sure what you
legitimately recall and what you dreamt, just like the main character.
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| 2003 Shriek Show DVD top; 2026 Cauldron Films BD bottom. |
Shriek
Show originally released this on DVD in 2003, and it wasn't too bad for its time: anamorphic widescreen, slightly
windowboxed to 1.79:1. The only real drawback was that it was
interlaced. But a lot of time has passed, and even in progressive, that
kind of transfer doesn't pass muster. But it's all we had until
finally, in 2025, Cauldron Films released a 5-disc (including a
soundtrack CD) boxed set of all the Brivido Giallo films. And just this
summer, they broke that set up into two much more affordable 2-disc
sets. These are 1080p BD-only releases, but all four films have been
crafted from fresh 4k scans of the original 35mm film negatives. Here,
the film's been pillar-boxed to 1.67:1, but as you can see, unveils
considerably more picture than the previous Shriek Show framing. Of
course the picture is no longer interlaced, with colors and detail (we
can finally read the "SAN CARLO" chip bag logo in the first set of
shots, for instance) much more natural and photo realistic than the
comparatively washed out, pixelated DVD. Grain is a little soft and
inconsistent - it would've benefited from a genuine UHD release. But
it's a massive upgrade and exceeds expectations most would have for such
an off-beat title as this.
Shriek Show just provides us with the
basic English mono (though at least this film was shot in English) in
2.0. But Cauldron not only bumps that track up to lossless DTS-HD, they
also offer us the Italian track, also in DTS-HD, with optional
subtitles for both tracks. These guys know how to do Italian horror
right.
Back to giving them credit, Shriek Show did scare up a pretty good
interview with Bava for this release. They also included the trailer
and four bonus trailers. Cauldron carries over Shriek Show's interview
and trailer, then adds a bunch of stuff, including their own, new
interview with Bava (which does cover different ground). There's also a
decent expert commentary by
Rachael Nisbet, an interview with production designer
Massimo Antonello Geleng, and another one with his assistant
Roberto Ricci (who I don't think worked on
The Ogre; he certainly doesn't mention it, but does have a little I horror history to share).
Even broken into 2-disc sets, I still couldn't upgrade just
The Ogre, so let's quickly look at the other BG film in this set,
Dinner With a Vampire.
I don't have a DVD for this one
because, frankly, it's a Bava title I've always steered clear of. It's a
comedy, and a pretty doofy one at that. Still, it has its qualities.
George Hilton
plays the count, an ancient vampire who longs for death. So he holds
open auditions and selects a singer, a dancer, an actor and a stand-up
comedian (don't ask why; this film never explains it) to come to his
castle and kill him. But if they don't figure out how to do it by
midnight, he'll kill them! So, this film is well shot, Hilton has some
charm as the count, the special effects aren't bad (
Sergio Stivaletti!), and they have another cool castle... not as cool as the one in
The Ogre, but still a good location.
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| 2026 Cauldron Films BD bottom. |
Dinner is
also pillarboxed to 1.67:1 and looks just as good as its companion.
Once again, it's based on a new 4k scan of the original camera negative,
and the encode might even be a bit stronger with more consistent
grain. Colors are attractive without feeling unnaturally saturated.
These Cauldron films look so good, I think they're genuinely raising my
appreciation of the BV films. And once again, they're giving us both
the Italian and English mono audio in DTS-HD with separate sets of
subtitles for each track. They may be a smaller label, but they're
doing first rate work to rival Arrow or whichever boutique is your
favorite.
And
that includes in the extras department, where they start us off with an
admittedly somewhat irritating commentary from some familiar experts:
Eugenio Ercolani,
Nathaniel Thompson, and
Troy Howarth,
who have frustratingly little to say about the movie at hand. The
track spends about half of its running time just naming and discussing
other
vampire movies. More rewarding are three new interviews with Bava, Geleng
and Simon Boswell (who talks about all four Brivido Giallo films, so
even if you only care about
The Ogre, check this one out). Then
there's an audio interview with Hilton, conducted many years ago because
he's no longer with us. Unfortunately, he doesn't mention
Dinner With a Vampire at
all, but his life story is pretty interesting. Finally, they include
the trailer. According to Cauldron's site, only the editions in the
boxed set have reversible cover art, but the individual copy I ordered
from Amazon has it, so I guess they changed their minds. Still, buying
the 2025
limited edition (to 2500 copies) set was the only way to get the
slipbox, four exclusive posters and the aforementioned
soundtrack compilation CD.
Fun Fact: The Ogre was also released in some territories as
Ghosthouse 2. Of course, it has no connection to that film either, except in the very tenuous sense that
Ghosthouse was directed by
Umberto Lenzi, and so was the other
Demons 3: 1991's
Black Demons.
Anyway, "Demons"
might be in the title, but "zombies" would be a much more accurate
description (slow moving, voodoo powered). And while this movie isn't
as gonzo as
Nightmare City, it's still a highly entertaining zombie flick, which leans more towards gruesome atmosphere than running amuck. It's called
Black Demons
because they're literally black people - Brazilian slaves back from the
dead and taking revenge on the landowners when a couple of bungling
college students awaken them in their former plantation. I'm not saying
the racial politics are handled with grace and eloquence, but it's
basically a story of historically wronged people finally getting their
gruesome justice. It's main crime is just being slow with some cheesy
actors. But the zombies look good, the locations are authentic, and the
kills are gory. I don't understand why this film doesn't have a better
rep; I enjoy it every time.
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2003 Shriek Show DVD.
|
Unsurprisingly,
this is a similar situation to Shriek Show's Ogre DVD: anamorphic
widescreen (1.67:1, despite the back of the case saying 1.85:1), but
interlaced. It's a bit washed, soft and pixelated with maybe a little
bit of edge enhancement, but apart from the interlacing, not terrible
for DVD. Having just seen how much better
The Ogre could look, however, I'm practically dying for a new HD edition. And as with their
Ogre DVD, Shriek Show's
Black Demons disc just your basic 2.0 English track with no subtitle option.
By
way of special features, Shriek Show gives us a nine minute interview
with Umberto Lenzi, a brief follow-up with Lenzi and his wife/
co-writer
Olga Pehar, the trailer and bonus trailer for four
Zombi films. More would be great, but these interviews definitely enhance the viewing experience.
So
hopefully they will be ported over when somebody finally upgrades this
to HD. Not that there's ever been any indication, but it's blowing my
mind that such an effective Italian zombie horror from one of the more
celebrated directors keeps getting overlooked. If anybody takes
anything away from this post, I hope it's a home video label realizing
they need to put this film on disc. Then we could finally have all the
Demons films done right. But hey, we just finally got
The Ogre, so I'll remain optimistic.
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