Italian Horror and Michele Soavi: a “Shameless” Collector’s Retrospective. Part 2 of 2

Hi there! Sean here from The Film Utopia Podcast. I’m back to conclude my love-fest of the work of Italian filmmaker Michele Soavi, and to talk about four of his films that we covered on our recent podcast episode. In the first part of this article I gave a brief rundown of collecting Shameless Films Blu-rays, Italian genre cinema and Michele Soavi’s pre-directorial career.

In this second part I will be taking a closer look at the Blu-ray releases of Michele Soavi’s StageFright, The Church, The Sect, and Cemetery Man by UK based label Shameless Films. As said in the previous article, if you are curious about myself and my co-host, Steven Hurst, opinions on the films themselves, please do check out our Michele Soavi episode!

Shameless Films first released StageFright on Blu-ray back in December of 2021 in their customary bespoke yellow case and reversible sleeve, featuring the film's alternate title Aquarius on the flip-side. This side of the sleeve also breaks with the long running Shameless tradition of red text and instead presents the film's title in light blue on both the front and Spine. At the time of writing, slip cover editions are still available.

The film itself has been treated to a new 4K restoration and is presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio and with both the original Italian, and the English audio tracks presented in LPCM 2.0. Interestingly, Shameless have a separate version of StageFright available in an alternate full-frame presentation taken from the 35mm negative, without letterboxing as was prefered by Soavi. It's a completely separate product as opposed to being included as an alternative version on the other disc which I feel is a tad strange, but according to Shameless, only exists due to fan requests. The disc includes separate interviews with director Michele Soavi and actors Giovanni Lombardo Radice and David Brandon in which they discuss key scenes from the film, as well as the production in general.

StageFright is an exemplary slasher, and one that deserves attention for any fan of the genre. It tells the story of an escaped lunatic from a nearby asylum who infiltrates a theatre inhabited by a troupe of actors and their crew during an all-night rehearsal. He disguises himself as one of them, donning a stage costume that includes a giant owl head, before knocking each of them off one by one with an assortment of weapons. The one-set location is utilized to huge effect and the characters are written with a much higher level of wit than you would typically find in your off-the-shelf slasher, with Soavi’s colourful humor on full display.

Shameless Films’ original HD release of 1989's The Church was way back in November 2016 as a limited numbered edition with a slip cover. Half a year later, in May 2017, they re-released the film as a standard, un-numbered edition, but the disc contents remain the same for both versions. The film was co-written by Dario Argento and was originally intended as a follow-up to the Argento produced, Lamberto Bava directed Demons (1985) and Demons 2 (1986) before being reworked into a standalone piece.

This is unfortunately rather evident due to the film's awkward pacing and script, which was clearly unfinished at the time of filming and admitted to as much by Soavi himself on an interview included on the disc. Nevertheless, The Church features some completely off-the-wall set pieces and bizarre imagery, a glorious filming location featuring Matthias Church in Budapest, as well as an incredible music score by Keith Emerson, Philip Glass and Goblin. The film is presented in an impressive 2k restoration with great tonal depth for such a darkly shot picture. As with StageFright, both the Italian and English audio tracks are available in LCPM 2.0.

Released around the same time time as The Church, at the end of 2016, Shameless Films’ disc of The Sect (1991) is a similar affair, with sleeve art depicting one the film's most bizarre scenes - and in the case of The Sect, there's an incredible amount to choose from! The film introduces a murderous cult, a house infested by blue goop in the pipework, possession, a weird old man - played by the late, great Herbert Lom - who clearly knows more than he's letting on, possession, crazy dream sequences involving a giant bird, resurrection and someone having their face ripped off.

Picture-wise, it's also a similar story to The Church, with a competent 2k restoration of the most complete runtime version of the film ever seen, presented in 1.78:1 aspect ratio. However, I will say that the resulting picture isn't quite as impressive as The Church, which may be a result of the shooting locations, which were far more varied in The Sect and included on-location outdoors scenes - both at night time and during daylight hours - as well as location interiors such as subways and houses, and the interior stage set sewers and basements. But it could also be the result of the film's runtime of 117 minutes and subsequent transfer bitrate of 24.2 Mbps on the disc.

Needless to say, the occasional artefact can be seen. However, we're treated to a welcome DTS-HD 5.1 sound experience for the Italian audio track, but if you choose the English option, you'll be stuck with good ol’ LCPM 2.0. Personally, I'm fine with that. I don't really fancy the idea of hearing insects crawling up people's nostrils and a giant bird pecking at someone's neck drawing blood in surround sound!

Dellamorte Dellamore is easily Soavi’s greatest film, and not to mention his most notorious; for all the wrong reasons! And Shameless Films know it. Their HD Blu-ray disc was released back in October 2018 and unfortunately fully exploits one of the most notorious scenes in the film by depicting it in full glory of their cover art, but you can't argue that it isn't attention-grabbing.

The restoration is impeccable; both day and night scenes looking terrific with bold colours and deep contrast depth. The unadulterated 1.66:1 picture is a joy and had me revisiting scenes multiple times to enjoy details that were so obscured in previous formats. Likewise, the audio shines with clarity, from Francesco Dellamorte's internal dialogue voiceover, to the visceral ‘squish’ of a head being popped under the wheels of a coach.

Extras include interviews with writer-producer Gianni Romoli and special effects artist Sergio Stivalleti and a hugely welcome commentary track from Michele Soavi and Gianni Romoli, unique to Shameless Films’ release. As for the film, the more left unsaid, the better. It's a film that needs to be experienced without any preconceptions going in. No wonder Martin Scorsese called Dellamorte Dellamore one of the best Italian films of the 90s. As I mentioned previously, my co-host Steven & I go into detail on the plot and why we consider it the masterpiece it is on our latest episode of The Film Utopia Podcast.

In summary, Shameless Films clearly care about their presentation. It’s obvious to me that they go out of their way to locate the best available sources for these old films and practise the appropriate level of reservation with the restoration capabilities afforded by today’s technology, such as leaving the gorgeous grain from low budget film stock untouched and instead only attending to the most immersion breaking blemishes on the negative. You’re not going to be dazzled by suped-up visual masters with HD10+, or blown out of your armchair with DTS-HD or Dolby Atmos surround sound audio. With Soavi’s films – and most of the Shameless catalogue – in most cases, it’s 1.66:1 aspect ratio (as per the European widescreen standard) and either dual mono or stereo LPCM audio all the way. On that note, upon perusing the disc specifications, the eagle eyed will notice yet another Easter egg slice of Shameless Films’ wry humour, with the aspect ratio being noted as 1:666.

The resulting presentation of the Shameless way of doing things can be effectively described as honest, or genuine. These films look their best, while remaining true to how they would have looked back in the day on celluloid. Nothing more. No bells & whistles. And that makes me happy. The same can be said for the special features, which at first appear slim. But each film comes with several thoughtful and intimate interviews with Michele Soavi himself, and often an actor or two, or a member of the crew such as special effects artist Sergio Stivaletti on Cemetery Man. In all cases, rather than featuring waffle and typical talking points, the cast and crew talk very candidly about their time during production. It makes for some fascinating insight if you want to know how such a bonkers film like The Sect, for example, even begins to come into existence.

As I alluded to earlier, my only major gripe with the Shameless Films releases of Soavi’s works is the sleeve art for Cemetery Man, which features, albeit, a true depiction of a particularly striking (read: shocking) scene from the film itself, in which the titular Dellamorte and a recent widow get down to business on the tombstone of said widow’s just passed husband! Unfortunately, this places emphasis on the surface level crassness and exploitation elements of the film and massively misrepresents its artistic merit and, importantly, the overarching existential subtext. However, it’s a small gripe, as to be honest, the artwork does track for Shameless Films and it is in keeping with the other sleeve art in their Soavi collection, including a woman having sex with a demon on the sleeve of The Church! Also, thankfully, Shameless Films are one of the distributors to have the foresight to include reversible sleeves for all of their releases. So, an alternative and less ‘edgy’ option is available on the reverse featuring a close up portrait shot of Rupert Everett’s titular character looking distinctly James Bond-like.

Beyond that, and as for the director himself, I’d thoroughly recommend falling down the Michele Soavi rabbit-hole. Particularly if you’re familiar with other proxies of Dario Argento in Italian Cinema such as Lamberto Bava; whose Demons and Demons 2 fit tone-perfect with Soavi’s mad-hat vision, or Lucio Fulci; whose dreamy and shocking gore-ridden images are also a match made in heaven with Soavi’s! Is anyone up for a Demons/StageFright double-bill round my place?