Severin Films' Summer lineup includes a massive Christopher Lee box set, a boatload of epic Action flicks, and a few Horror gems for good measure...
He remains one of the most beloved horror/fantasy icons in US/UK pop culture history, but Christopher Lee delivered several of the most compelling, acclaimed and bizarre performances of his entire career in 1960s Europe. THE EUROCRYPT OF CHRISTOPHER LEE brings together five of these Lee classics - the 1964 gothic shocker CRYPT OF THE VAMPIRE; the 1964 cult hit CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD co-starring an unknown Donald Sutherland; 1962's celebrated SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE; 1967's lurid favorite THE TORTURE CHAMBER OF DR. SADISM and the rarely-seen 1963 oddity CHALLENGE THE DEVIL - with the 24 surviving episodes of the 1971 Film Polski anthology series THEATRE MACABRE hosted by Lee, all remastered from original negative materials with over 10 hours of trailers, rare promos, audio commentaries & vintage interviews, plus the CASTLE OF THE LIVING DEAD soundtrack and an all-new 88-page book by Lee biographer Jonathan Rigby.
Two years before the deranged genius of ROBOWAR and SHOCKING DARK, writer/director Bruno Mattei and co-writers Claudio Fragasso & Rossella Drudi borrowed from RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, MISSING IN ACTION and more to create their own mind-blowing 'Namsploitation masterpiece STRIKE COMMANDO. Reb Brown (UNCOMMON VALOR) stars as Sgt. Mike Ransom, a one-man war machine on a screaming-for-vengeance mission against brutal Vietcong, merciless Russians, double-crossing U.S. officers and acres of bullet-blasted Philippines jungle. Christopher Connelly (RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS), Luciano Pigozzi (ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK) and Jim Gaines (ISLAND OF THE LIVING DEAD) co-star in this exploding bamboo gun-tower of "Mattei magic at its finest" (Good Efficient Butchery), now mastered in 2K from the original negative for the first time.
In STRIKE COMMANDO 2, Mattei and crew return to the Philippine jungles with a higher budget, bigger action and Richard Harris (yes, that Richard Harris) for a crowd-pleaser that shamelessly borrows from APOCALYPSE NOW, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, RAMBO and beyond. This time, Sgt Mike Ransom (Brent Huff of GWENDOLINE fame) battles the KGB, rogue CIA agents, an army of ninjas, a tough bar owner (Miss World 1977 Mary Stavin) and "all the stuntman craziness and explosions you can cram into 90 minutes" (DTV Connoisseur). Mel Davidson (ROBOWAR) and Vic Diaz (THE BIG BIRD CAGE) co-star in this slow-motion machine-gun of Mattei mayhem that's "just as insane as its predecessor" (Good Efficient Butchery), now featuring a 2K scan from the original negative for the first time ever.
From producer Dick Randall - whose international trashterpieces include ESCAPE FROM WOMEN'S PRISON, THE WILD WILD WORLD OF JAYNE MANSFIELD and PIECES - comes perhaps the most notorious all-star Philippine productions of the '80s, INVADERS OF THE LOST GOLD. In the last days of WWII, a Japanese platoon is attacked by headhunters while attempting to hide millions in gold. 36 years later, a grizzled guide (onetime Academy Award® nominee Stuart Whitman) is hired to lead an expedition - including Woody Strode (SPARTACUS), Harold 'Oddjob' Sakata and Laura 'Emanuelle' Gemser - into a jungle inferno of greed, violence, nudity and murder. Edmund Purdom (ABSURD) and Glynis Barber (DEMPSEY AND MAKEPEACE) co-star in this "delicious piece of atrocity cake" (Funxton) directed by Alan Birkenshaw (KILLER'S MOON) - also known as HORROR SAFARI - now scanned in 2K for the first time ever.
His mind-blowing work as an FX artist has included everything from Frank Henenlotter's BRAIN DAMAGE and FRANKENHOOKER to Matthew Barney's CREMASTER CYCLE. And for SKINNED DEEP, his 2004 debut as writer/producer/director, Gabe Bartalos created this "demented gift from the B-Movie Gods" (Bloody Good Horror) about a rural clan of psychotic freaks, the killing spree "that takes us places and shows us things we've never seen before" (Dread Central) and the final girl that may be their depraved undoing. Warwick Davis (LEPRECHAUN) and Jason Dugre (SAINT BERNARD) star - with an appearance by fandom legend Forrest J. Ackerman - in this "brutal, bloody forgotten masterpiece" (Morbidly Beautiful) featuring music by Captain Sensible of The Damned, now scanned uncut in 2K from the original negative for the first time ever.
From co-directors Paul Donovan and Maura O'Connell (DEFCON-4) comes one of the most disturbing - and rarely-seen - Canadian shockers of the '80s, SIEGE, which was inspired by the actual 42-day Halifax police strike. When a local group of right-wing vigilantes massacres the patrons of a gay bar, the sole survivor seeks refuge in a nearby apartment building whose residents must now defend themselves in a night of hate, terror and bloodshed. Doug Lennox (BREAKING POINT), Tom Nardini (CAT BALLOU), Jack Blum (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME) and Keith Knight (MY BLOODY VALENTINE) star in this "dark and intense thriller, still uncomfortably relevant 35 years after it was made" (Blog Of Horror) - released in the U.S. as SELF DEFENSE - scanned in 2K from the original negative recently discovered in a Nova Scotia archive.
In 1976, Montreal filmmaker Denis Héroux - future director of THE UNCANNY and Oscar®-nominated producer of ATLANTIC CITY - adapted the true story of Chicago mass murderer Richard Speck to war-torn Belfast, where a disturbed Vietnam vet drifter (Mathieu Carrière of MALPERTUIS and BILITIS fame) brutalizes a dorm full of student nurses in BORN FOR HELL. Re-edited by its video distributor and released as NAKED MASSACRE, Héroux's harrowing director's cut has remained unseen in America until now. Debra Berger (THE INGLORIOUS BASTARDS), Leonora Fani (GIALLO IN VENICE), Christine Boisson (EMMANUELLE), Ely Galleani (BABA YAGA) and Carole Laure (SWEET MOVIE) co-star in this "uncompromising and unfathomably grim work of art" (Video Basement), scanned in 2K from an uncut 35mm print discovered in The National Archives of Canada.
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