Torso Is the Pick of the Week

We are getting ever so close to spooky season, and I am here for it. Every October, I watch as many horror movies as I can. The Criterion Channel is currently running a series of some of the best giallo ever made and I’ve been rewatching them in anticipation of the spooky season. It has got me primed to watch even more giallo.

Sergio Martino’s Torso is definitely not one of the greatest giallos ever made. It veers a little too far into skeezy territory for that. The plot involves a group of attractive women who head off to a remote villa for some sexy fun times and find themselves getting hacked into pieces by a – what else? – a black-gloved killer. But it has tons of style, some wild camera work, and some groovy kills. What more do you want from this genre? Read Kent Conrad’s review of the Arrow Blu-ray

Arrow Video has given Torso the 4K UHD treatment filled with loads of extras. Who’s ready for Halloween now?

Also out this week that looks interesting:

Caligula – The Ultimate Cut: A film with a sordid history gets a director’s cut of sorts. Famously director Tinto Brass, writer Gore Vidal, and most of the cast (including Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole, and Malcolm McDowell) disowned the film after the producer (and Penthouse Magazine publisher) kicked Brass out of the editing room and inserted hard-core pornography into the mix. Various attempts have been made to re-edit the film into something resembling what Brass and Vidal originally wanted. This edit removes all the hard-core action and adds in several new scenes and different takes to old ones. I’ve never seen any version, but this sounds interesting.

Bringing Out the Dead (25th Anniversary Edition): Paramount Home Media is giving Martin Scorsese’s classic tale of ambulance drivers in Hell’s Kitchen a spiffy new 4K UHD transfer and giving it lots of new extras including interviews with most of the cast and screenwriter Paul Schrader.

The Long Good Friday: Criterion is giving this classic British crime drama a 4K UHD upgrade. Bob Hoskins plays a mob boss with dreams of teaming with some Americans to turn some barren docklands in London into prime real estate. But the IRA keeps getting in the way.

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XX/Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXI: Kino Lorber continues to bring forth these nice sets of three relatively obscure film noirs. I reviewed XX which you can read here.