Editorials
5 Severin Blu-rays That Are Perfect for Halloween!
Every Friday in October I am going to highlight 5 releases from some of my favorite Blu-ray labels that every horror fan needs in their collection for October. Think of it as a Christmas shopping guide, but with a Halloween slant.
In 2006 Carl Daft, David Gregory and John Cregan joined forces to launch Severin Films. Focusing on niche titles that for years had gone overlooked, including more than a few films that were considered to be lost, the company quickly started putting out some of the best physical media on the market. With restoration work that is second to none and special features that are produced with love and passion it’s no wonder the company has become a favorite for so many over the last 12 years. With a slew of wonderful titles to choose from it can be difficult limiting yourself, but I have done by best to hand select the 10 titles I think every horror fan should own.
In addition to their wide variety of Blu-rays, the company has some quality horror merchandise including shirts, dolls and enamel pins. They also have their DVD side of things in Intervision Picture Corp. Under that umbrella they’ve released a number of great DVDs including a personal favorite of mine, Beyond the 7th Door.
The Changeling (1980)
In this horrifying tale, George C. Scott stars as a man desperately trying to get over the loss of his wife and daughter who were killed in a terrible accident. Hoping to clear his head and work on his music — he’s an award-winning pianist — he moves into a large, old mansion. It doesn’t take long before a strange and eerie presence begins to haunt the house and unleash a horrific mystery.
This is the perfect film for Halloween. It features an old, creepy mansion and is reach with atmosphere. It’s one of those films that you watch in the dark and hearing the first note from the score — wonderfully done by Rick Wilkins — will instantly send chills down your spine. This was a first time watch for me recently and it’s been stuck with me ever since.
This recent release features a gorgeous HD transfer created from a 4K scan of the inter-positive film element. It’s an absolutely beautiful presentation and one of the best looking transfers I’ve seen in some time. In terms of special features, this bad boy is stacked:
- Audio Commentary With Director Peter Medakand Producer Joel B. Michaels Moderated By Severin Films’ David Gregory
- The House On Cheesman Park: The Haunting True Story Of The Changeling
- The Music Of The Changeling: Interview With Music Arranger Kenneth Wannberg
- Building The House Of Horror: Interview With Art Director Reuben Freed
- The Psychotronic Tourist: The Changeling
- Master of Horror Mick Garris On The Changeling
- Poster & Still Gallery
- Trailer
- TV Spot
The wide range of special features offer up a bit of something for everyone, but the story on the House on Cheesman Park is the most fascinating.
Zombie 3 (1988)
A body infected with a chemical intended for warfare is cremated by the US military, accidentally spreading the virus across a small island. The islanders quickly turn into blood-thirsty zombies and group of soldiers and tourists try to fend off the vicious creatures.
The Zombie or Zombi series is all over the place. None of the films are really connected but it’s still safe to say they share more in common beyond their similar titles. This second, or possibly third entry depending on how you view it, was maybe directed by Lucio Fulci. It also could have been directed by Claudio Fragasso and maybe even Bruno Mattei got in on the mix. It’s likely that all three played a role in creating this beautiful mess of a film. This is a meaty, nasty little Italian gut-muncher that you either love or hate, and for by God do I love it.
The Severin release of Zombie 3 is the first ever uncut release in American and is presented in a 2K scan that looks quite impressive. There are a handful of moments throughout where the clarity gets a tad rough, likely a result of the available elements used, but odds are most people won’t notice those segments. The colors pop quite a bit and there are some lab sequences that look especially good. All the lovely Italian gore looks nice and gruesome, just as one would expect.
Special features for Zombie 3 include:
- The Last Zombies – Interview With Co-Director/Co-Writer Claudio Fragasso and Co-Writer Rossella Drudi
- Tough Guys – Interview with Actors/Stuntmen Massimo Vanni and Ottaviano Dell’Acqua
- The Problem Solver – Interview with Replacement Director Bruno Mattei
- Swimming with Zombies – Interview with Actress Marina Loi
- In the Zombie Factory – Interview with FX Artist Franco Di Girolamo
- Audio Commentary With Stars Deran Sarafianand Beatrice Ring
- Trailer
- Bonus Disc: CD Soundtrack
It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that we live in a world where Zombie 3 is even on Blu-ray, but then to have all these special features too? That’s nuts. The interview with Fragasso alone is worth the purchase. If you haven’t seen an interview with that dude you’re missing out. Also, the soundtrack rules, making the CD a sweet bonus.
Wild Beasts (1984)
PCP spills into the water supply and that water is eventually consumed by animals in a German zoo. The result? The animals turn into crazed lunatics that break out of the zoo and going on a killing spree.
Next to Jaws, Wild Beasts may very well be my favorite animals gone wild film. It’s such a crazy concept for a film. Animals go on a PCP-induced rage. This is a film that could only be conceived by Italian filmmakers. This is the perfect film to invite the friends over for on a Friday night, order a bunch of pizza and then just have a blast. If you can’t have fun with Wild Beasts, you can’t have fun with anything.
Special features:
- Altered Beasts: Interview With Director Franco E. Prosperi
- Wild Tony: Interview With Actor Tony Di Leo
- Cut After Cut: Interview With Editor & Mondo Filmmaker Mario Morra
- The Circus is in Town: Interview With Animal Wrangler Roberto Tiberti’s son, Carlo Tiberti
- House Of Wild Beasts: A Visit to the Home of Franco E. Prosperi
The Amicus Collection
This wonderful boxset features three films — Asylum, And Now the Screaming Starts and The Beast Must Die! — from Amicus Productions. It also includes a fourth bonus disc called The Vault of Amicus, an original production from Severin that serves as a documentary of sorts on the history of the British horror factory know as Amicus.
Back in February, I called The Amicus Collection the first great Blu-ray of 2018, and now that we’re in October it may still stand as my favorite release of the year. All three films are wildly different. Asylum is a nutty anthology with a bizarre wrap around with a twist, And Now the Screaming Starts is a gothic thriller that borrows heavily from the more popular Hammer Horror and The Beast Must Die! is a Blaxploitation take on the werewolf subgenre. With this much variety in one box set, it’s hard to justify not buying this one. The box set was limited, however, which means you could have trouble finding it. In that case, individual copies of Asylum and And Now the Screaming Starts are available.
Asylum special features:
- Two’s Company – Archival piece originally aired on BBC in 1972
- David J. Schow on Robert Bloch
- Fiona Subotsky Remembers Milton Subotsky
- Inside the Fear Factory
- Audio Commentary with director Roy Ward Baker and camera operator Neil Binnery, moderated by Marcus Hearn
- Theatrical Trailer
And Now the Screaming Starts special features:
- The Haunted History of Oakley Court
- Audio Commentary with director Roy Ward Baker and actress Stephanie Beacham, moderated by Marcus Hearn
- Audio Commentary with actor Ian Ogilvy, moderated by Darren Gross
- Archive Audio Interview with Actor Peter Cushing by Denis Meikle
- Horror Journalist Denis Meikle Recalls And Now the Screaming Starts
- Theatrical Trailer
- Radio spot
The Beast Must Die! special features:
- And Then There Were Werewolves
- Audio Commentary with Director Paul Annett, morderated by Jonathan Sothcott
- Directing the Beast
- Trailer
The Vault of Amicus special features:
- Philip Nutman Audio Interview With Milton Subotsky
- Jonathan Sothcott Audio Interview with Max Rosenberg
- Audio Commentary with British Horror Film Writers Kim Newman and David Flint
The Devil’s Honey (1986)
A doctor is held captive by a young woman who believes he is responsible for the death of her boyfriend. In an effort to get revenge she subjects him to a number of sexual torture acts.
I prefaced this entire list by saying these are films that every horror fan should have, but I also understand that The Devil’s Honey is not forever one. This film was directed by Lucio Fulci, one of his later efforts, and when you’re dealing with Fulci people have a specific idea of what to expect. There should be gore and plenty of it. This isn’t that type of movie. This is an ultra-sleazy erotic thriller. It is not your standard Fulci, but it is so fascinating and has to be seen. And it stars Fulci regular, Brett Halsey.
The 2K restoration from the film’s original camera negative is uncut and uncensored and gives this trashy little treat a stunning presentation. The film pops when it should and contains plenty of that beautiful natural film grain that you always like to see.
Special features:
- The Devil’s Halsey: An Interview with Actor Brett Halsey
- Wild Flower: An Interview with Actress Corinne Clery
- Producing Honey: An Interview with Producer Vincenzo Salviani
- The Devil’s Sax: An Interview with Composer Claudio Natili
- Stephen Thrower on The Devil’s Honey
- Fulci’s Honey: An Audio Essay by Troy Howarth
- Alternate Opening
- Trailer
This great collection of interviews is highlighted by the Halsey. As an actor that worked with Fulci several times, the two developed a great friendship but it some rocky roads in the later part of Fulci’s career. It’s interesting to hear his take on the legendary filmmaker.
For more information and to purchase any of the mentioned titles please visit Severin-Films.com.
Steven Spielberg has always been conversant in the cinematic language of the horror genre, despite relatively few credits in the genre. His contributions as a writer and producer on things like Poltergeist are legendary, and films like Duel and Jaws certainly wield the horror genre in remarkable, often chilling ways. He may not be a horror filmmaker, but he knows when he needs to scare us, and he has the tools to make that happen.
I didn’t go into Disclosure Day, Spielberg’s alien epic, expecting outright horror, and indeed the film leans much more into thrilling than frightening. This is not a horror film, but for a few minutes in the middle, much to my surprise, it became one.
Spielberg has filmed more than his fair share of scary scenes over the years, but with Disclosure Day, he directed a new contender for the scariest scene of his entire career.
SPOILERS AHEAD for Disclosure Day!
Josh O’Connor in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Among the various alien secrets laced throughout Disclosure Day are a trio of palm-sized rods, the color of pencil graphite. These rods, originating from another planet, can be used for a number of things, but for the purposes of this scene, the most important is “diving,” gripping the rod in one bare hand and using its power to “dive” into the mind of another person.
The person holding the rod in this scene is Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth), head of shadowy cybersecurity firm Wordex, who is hellbent on keeping human knowledge of extraterrestrials secret from the general public. Scanlon’s trying to find whistleblower Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor), who’s got all of those alien secrets tucked in a backpack while he’s on the run, and while Daniel’s more experienced mind is protected from diving, his girlfriend Jane’s (Eve Hewson) is not. So, monitored by medical personnel at Wordex headquarters (diving is dangerous), Scanlon pushes his way into Jane’s mind to find the location of Daniel’s safe house.
A telepathic invasion is scary enough on its own, but Spielberg doesn’t stop there. When Scanlon dives into Eve’s mind, he appears to her to be sitting across the kitchen table, like he’s in the room. Her bright blue eyes turn Scanlon’s dark brown, and she loses much of her control over her own body, not to mention her mind. Moments before, Daniel finally shared with her the secrets in his backpack, so Jane is shocked, conflicted, deeply vulnerable when Scanlon slips inside her head. This is not just telepathy. This is possession.
Spielberg underscores this not just through the visual language of the scene, as Jane breaks out in a sweat and struggles to sit upright as Scanlon invades her mind, but through Jane’s background. As she revealed to Daniel earlier in the film, Jane is a former novitiate nun who left her convent when she began to question her calling. She still believes firmly in God and, more importantly, believes that perhaps proof of alien life should be kept secret from the public because, in her eyes, it would upset the entire balance of faith in the world. God is a defining factor for humankind, Jane argues, and showing humanity proof of creatures from the stars would undercut that in dangerous ways.
This context, combined with the crucifix necklace Jane’s holding in her hand at the time of the dive, makes this scene the closest thing Spielberg will ever shoot to something out of The Exorcist. It’s not just a battle of wills, but a battle of faith. As an amoral technocrat worms his way into her memories, her beliefs, her faith, Jane turns the crucifix into a weapon, squeezing it until her hand bleeds when she discovers that a pain response can momentarily push Scanlon out of her head.
Of course, when you put a crucifix and a bloody hand together, it conjures images of stigmata. Screenwriter David Koepp pushes the allusion further by having Scanlon quote Christ on the cross to Jane by way of convincing her that she must be the one to stop Daniel by any means necessary.
It’s easy to see why this is scary, right?
On a very basic level, you have a powerful, wealthy man subduing and assaulting an innocent young woman, which is frightening enough. Then, the layers of the scene kick in. Scanlon doesn’t just assault Jane, but possesses her, seizes her memories, her knowledge, and finally her own free will, all while Jane literally clings to her faith in an effort to fight back. Disclosure Day is, among other things, a story about who has a right to the truth, and Scanlon believes that he should be the arbiter of that truth. Not just the truth as he sees it, but the truth as Jane sees it as well. If they don’t see eye to eye, he’ll make her.
But the possession, as it turns out, cuts both ways. Using the rod to dive is, for a normal human being, an intensely strenuous process. Scanlon admits that previous attempts almost killed him, and for some members of his time, so much as touching the rod results in a near-death experience. Even accessing an unprepared mind like Jane’s takes a lot of Scanlon, and when she kicks him out by squeezing the crucifix – again, so much meaning embedded in the details here – his team holds him back and tries to offer medical intervention. But Scanlon persists, pushing them away, and keeps diving back in.
This means that Jane can’t escape him because he just won’t stop pushing back through her defenses, but it also means that each time Scanlon enters her mind, and thus the safe house, he looks more monstrous. By the end, through a combination of lighting and makeup, Firth barely looks human, conjuring up images of the possessed Father Karras at the end of The Exorcist.
Colin Firth (center, standing) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
On a pure, visceral craft level, all of this is quite frightening, but the real trick to making this scene into Spielberg’s most terrifying lies in the more existential horror surrounding all of this. Disclosure Day is a film about the battle for the truth over extraterrestrials, but it’s also about a fight against an impossibly powerful surveillance state, the devaluing of human and alien lives in favor of some nebulous collection of assets, and the value of the individual in a world that increasingly lumps people into demographic boxes and writes them off.
In this scene, the surveillance state becomes supernatural, a human life is worth less than a piece of information, and an extragovernmental technocrat would rather sacrifice his own humanity than see reason. In 2026, few things could be more terrifying than that. Spielberg knows this and wields it mightily, proving once again that, while he’s not a strictly horror filmmaker, he can direct horror with the best of them.
Disclosure Day is in theaters now.
Eve Hewson (second from left) in DISCLOSURE DAY, directed by Steven Spielberg.
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