If you love Italian exploitation cinema, then Arrow Video's Masters of Giallo collection is not to be missed as three of the genre's best-known shockers are raised from the dead, uncut for the first time in the UK, with a host of extras.
Here's our look at the first batch, but what do fans think? What other creature features from the beyond would you like to see in Arrow's next collection?
The House by the Cemetery Zombie-master Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery was one of the original 39 video nasties that were banned in the UK in the 1980s. Now it’s back intact. When an historian moves his wife and creepy-looking son (with an even creepier dubbed voice) into an old mansion near Boston, he soon discovers something terrifying is living in the basement walls.
It might not make any sense (there's a tombstone inside the house), but House by the Cemetery remains a favourite amongst gore hounds – complete with graphic, drawn out scenes of decapitations and stabbings, a crazy bat attack and a cool, scary-looking zombie (worthy of a model kit replica). The special features include an affectionate look at Lucio Fulci's career http://youtube.com/v/zbIiJeCpCgY Macabre From Lamberto Bava (son of the one and only Mario Bava) and screenwriter Pupi Avati comes the ghoulish 1980 black comedy Macabre. A disturbed woman, still grieving over the death of her lover, moves into a boarding house in New Orleans where the blind landlord becomes convinced his new tenant is a necrophile. The special features include an illuminating Q& A with Lamberto Bava http://youtube.com/v/bLo0544ksiQ Sleepless Italy’s king of the giallo, Dario Argento, directs the 2001 mystery Sleepless (aka Non ho sonno), which sees Max von Sydow playing a detective tracking down an infamous killer who is embarking on a new killing spree, arranging each murder to an old nursery rhyme.
Packed with Argento's classic trademarks and glorious set pieces, Sleepless is Dario back in top form (his new feature Giallo is out later this year). The film also boasts one of the best Goblin scores since 1977’s Suspiria http://youtube.com/v/vVUBMIaf6OI Released 29 June 2009
