BABA YAGA: THE FINAL CUT

(A.k.a. BABA YAGA, DEVIL WITCH; BLACK MAGIC; KISS ME KILL ME; THE DEVIL WITCH)

"Finally, after 35 years, you can see my film as it was before the producers hacked it to pieces" - director Corrado Farina.

After an amateur graveyard re-enactment of the American Civil War is brought to a close by the arrival of police, the film begins proper with funky music and lengthy comic book-style opening credits.

Then we meet Valentina (Isabelle De Funes), a pretty photographer who likes to party as hard as she works. At an evening soiree she fraternises with budding filmmaker Arno (Luigi Montefiori) before rejecting his advances when he begins to walk her home later. "I don't feel like making love to you ... tonight", she purrs.

As Arno leaves to continue partying with a friend, Valentina saves a stray dog from being run over. The driver of the car is Baba Yaga (Carroll Baker). She's extremely apologetic for scaring Valentina, and takes the trembling waif home.

Valentina is taken aback by the fact that Baba Yaga knows where she lives, and even more bewildered when the mysterious blonde snatches a fixture from Valentina's suspender belt saying she needs a "personal belonging" - and that all will be revealed soon.

The night ends with Valentina being haunted by dreams of Nazi officers forcing her to strip nude. It's the first of many increasingly surreal nightmares, along with visions that plague Valentina during her waking hours.

But Valentina has a job to do (largely, taking pictures of beautiful women topless, set to backdrops right out of the Guido Crepax comics that the film is based upon), and so the following morning she puts these images to the back of her mind.

But when Baba Yaga turns up that morning at Valentina's house, the young photographer continues to question the older lady's intentions. "It's too soon" to reveal, Baba Yaga reasons, and then caresses one of Valentina's cameras seductively before writing down her address, asking Valentina to visit her sometime.

Clearly, Valentina is shaken by this second meeting and has no intention of maintaining a relationship with Baba Yaga (hardly surprising, as the old woman has already displayed lesbian tendencies towards the young brunette). Instead, Valentina meets later that day with Arno and later discusses her misgivings with him.

All of which comes to nothing initially, but then strange things start to happen to Valentina: the camera caressed by Baba Yaga appears to hold devastating consequences for anyone captured by it (a cowgirl model is shot to the floor by the camera's flash), and a visit to the old lady's house - containing a bottomless pit and a creepy dominatrix doll in the cellar - leaves Valentina suspecting that her new acquaintance may in fact be a witch ...

The film unravels from hereon in by way of stunning pop-art set designs, garish costumes and a wonderfully austere score from Piero Umiliani.

The burgeoning romance between Arno and Valentina is perhaps a little distracting and weighs the pace down unduly, but it's all shot with such an abundance of style and creativity that it's tough not to enjoy.

And if the aesthetics aren't enough to arouse your sensibilities (a mixture of psychedelic colours and black-and-white-photo erotica), then allow the frequent instalments of naked female flesh to tickle your todger instead.

In fact, the film is probably weakest when regarded as a mystery. The plot, concerning the desires of an aged witch to possess the body and soul of a beautiful young woman for sexual needs, is secondary to the striking visuals. As a softcore exercise in striking but somewhat images, it's an unforgettable film that sits strongly alongside THE FRIGHTENED WOMAN as one of the most beautiful examples of Euro-sleaze around.

Performances are endearing if at times wooden, with Montefiori and De Funes making for likeable leads. Baker looks old beneath clumsy white make-up, but this is necessary and works in making her advances to Valentina creepier (the slow move-in for a kiss during the surreal boxing match scene, for example). Although she was not Farina's original choice as Baba Yaga - Anne Heywood bottled it at the last minute - she takes to the role with efficiency.

It could be argued that the lack of dialogue and free-flowing saunter from one dreamlike scene to the next render the film slow, but if you allow yourself to be taken with the visuals, it's a fairly joyous ride - right down to the spooky, smoke-filled finale.

The film looks as smooth and as clean as it did on Blue Underground's DVD for the most part, in a beautiful anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer. Colours are rich but solid, while detail remains strong throughout and grain is kept to a healthy minimum. There are no compression issues. The re-integrated footage is damaged in that it's speckly and softer than the main body of film, but it's a small price to pay for seeing this wonderful film uncensored (yes, this includes the full-frontal nudity scenes of De Funes and Baker). The occasional restored footage is provided with Italian audio and forced English subtitles, as these scenes were never recorded in English.

Audio is provided in both English and Italian mono variants, both of which are clear and free from intrusive hiss. Optional yellow English subtitles are available on the Italian audio track.

A lovely, stylish animated main menu sets the scene nicely when the disc starts up. It's nice to see an animated scene-selection menu too, allowing access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

Extras are something of a mini-revelation, and are further proof that any fans of this film need to upgrade their Blue Underground DVDs now.

First up, we get Farina appearing onscreen at the start of the film to briefly introduce this "final cut", in English.

Then there's the excellent 20-minute interview with Farina, directed by Roberta Licurgo. Presented in Italian with optional English subtitles, it's a highly enjoyable new featurette that sees the director looking back at the making of the film, the manipulation of the screenplay to contain factors from various Guido Crepax stories, the process of re-inserting the lost footage, and so on. Great stuff.

Next we get "Freud A Fumetti", an 11-minute look at the history of Italian cult comics. Narrated in Italian, it's a fascinating insight with many engaging comic-book stills, benefiting from easily readable optional English subtitles.

"Fumettophobia" offers a further 12 minutes of comic-related documentary fun, again in Italian with optional English subtitles. Amusingly, this plays like one of those old "educational" films that BBC2 used to screen during the day in the 70s. Both documentaries are directed by Farina.

BABA YAGA's original theatrical trailer is presented in all it's 3-minute glory, while a gallery of 59 stills runs for 5 minutes and takes in some fine domestic release artwork along the way.

Finally we get a text commentary track that can be selected to play as yellow text while the film runs. The track, penned by the Wilson Bros, is often informative and certainly witty. A little slow at times perhaps, but it's an improvement on the text tracks previously offered by Shameless.

The disc opens with trailers for FOOTPRINTS, WATCH ME WHEN I KILL, OASIS OF FEAR, STRIP NUDE FOR YOUR KILLER, THE FRIGHTENED WOMAN and VENUS IN FURS.

Always worthy of a mention also, is Shameless' continued use of nice double-sided cover artwork.

It's fantastic to see such a niche item as BABA YAGA receive a UK DVD release. For it to receive a world-best release, with brand new extra features and a fully restored presentation ... wow. In my opinion, this is one of the true must-haves of the year. Shameless have excelled themselves, with the assistance of Nucleus Films' Marc Morris who helped organise the director's re-edit. Which is stunning.

Highly recommended.

Review by Stuart Willis