Highly touted as one of the greatest early European zombie films ever to hit the screen, this Night of The Living Dead-inspired Italian/Spanish co-production is definitely worth your strange, hustled bucks. Director Jorge Grau wastes no time in establishing a modernized society in numbing decay where even an excursion into the innocent countryside is met with technological mishap.  An agricultural experiment is bringing the dead back to life and it’s up to George and Edna, played by Ray Lovelock (Autopsy, Violent City) and Christina Galbó (What Have They Done to Solange?), to expose the awful truth while trying to stay alive amongst the cannibalistic roaming dead. With an excellent supporting cast, including Arthur Kennedy (Lawrence of Arabia) playing a bigoted police inspector, anxious to pin the countryside murders on Satanists or those “hippies with faggot clothes and long hair.” The picture quality and restoration on this 2-disc special edition is pristine and loaded with extras including interviews with Jorge Grau, Ray Lovelock and special effects artist Giannetto De Rossi.

— BlueBloodAngeleno

What happens when you take the forbidden carnal desires of a father and his step-daughter, throw in premeditated murder during sadistic sexual encounters and base the films’ main inspiration from a story by the Marquis de Sade? You get one of Jess Franco’s most disturbing yet most entertaining cinematic endeavors. My mind is still twisting from this one. Soledad Miranda (Vampyros Lesbos), arguably Franco’s best leading lady, plays the blossoming Eugenie, a woman in search for her loss of innocence at the hands of her beloved step-dad, Paul Muller (The Arena), an erotica writer obsessed with the sensuality of death. Their many deviant encounters and wicked perversions will stain your brain with help from Bruno Nicolai’s repetitive and alluring score. The picture quality is extremely clear and vibrant after having been remastered from the original negative. Extras include a brand new 20-minute Jess Franco interview in which he addresses the taboo nature of the film and why it couldn’t be shot in Spain.

— BlueBloodAngeleno

Another film by Jess Franco that, unless you are a die-hard Franco fan, is a wet fart in the guise of his cinematic erotica. Muriel Montesse (Emmanuelle Exposed) stars as a faux nympho turned full nympho after she embraces a savage rape by sweaty Spaniards in the back seat of a limo. That’s about as interesting as this piece got. The painful score by Daniel White turns nearly every multi-bodied romp into a funeral fuck-fest where you are the bereaved. I never thought such gratuitous sex would leave me so disappointed, but then again one can only tolerate so much hairy foreign ass. The transfer quality is good and the extra interview with Franco is more entertaining than the film. I say take your cash and grab Autopsy from Blue Underground to play right after The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue.

— BlueBloodAngeleno

AVAILABLE AT BLUE-UNDERGROUND.COM.