Posted Thu Aug 9, 2012 at 08:00 AM PDT by Tom Landy
Two cult horrors from director Jean Rollin will sink their teeth into Blu-ray at the end of the month.
In an early announcement to retailers, Kino's Redemption label is preparing 'The Living Dead Girl' for Blu-ray on August 28.
Catherine Valmont (Francoise Blanchard, Sidewalks of Bangkok), a wealthy heiress dead before her time...is accidentally reanimated when some unfortunate movers attempt to store drums of chemical waste in the neglected burial vaults below her uninhabited chateau.
It comes mastered in HD from the 35mm negative, and is presented in its original French language soundtrack with optional English subtitles. The disc includes special features, including an introduction by Jean Rollin himself; four featurettes by Daniel Gouyette: "Jean-Pierre Bouyxou on La Morte Vivante", "The Living Dead Girl:The American Version", "Music by Philippe D'Aram", and "When I Was Seventeen:An Homage to Benoit Lestang"; Jean Rollin at Fantasia (2007, 36 min.); an excerpt of an interview with Jean Rollin by Joshua T. Gravel; a 12-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog; the original theatrical trailer; and original trailers of nine other Rollin films.
The director's 'Two Orphan Vampires' will also be available on Blu-ray on the same date.
'Two Orphan Vampires' (Les Deux Orphelines Vampires) follows Henriette and Louise (Isabelle Teboul and Alexandra Pic), two blind girls of unknown origin, raised in an orphanage by two adoring nuns. Little do the nuns know, each night as the sun goes down, their 'little angels' acquire night vision (they 'see blue'), as well as an appetite for blood and teenage mischief.
Rollin's entire filmography, more or less, could be summarized as a poetical consideration of death, termination, and unreality, but coming to terms with his own pending death had a way of affecting how he regarded them (the film was undertaken just as he was diagnosed with kidney failure).
Something previously conceptual and child-like, nostalgic and precious in Rollin's work becomes more concrete and dimensional, unflinching and adult. When they commit one violent transgression against their kindly benefactor, the scene's abrupt and awkward brutality recalls the best of Henri-Georges Clouzot." (excerpt of the essay by Tim Lucas).
Specs have yet to be revealed, but supplements will include: English dubbed version; Memories of a Blue World, the Making of Les Deux Orphelines Vampires by Daniel Gouyette, featuring interviews with the film's cast and crew; Interview with Jean Rollin by Rebecca Johnson; Twelve-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog; original theatrical trailer; and original trailers of nine other Rollin films.
Suggested list price for each Blu-ray is $24.95.
You can find the latest specs for 'The Living Dead Girl' and 'Two Orphan Vampires' linked from our Blu-ray Release Schedule, where they're indexed under August 28.
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