THE MARIO BAVA COLLECTION (Volume Two)

Along with his mentor Riccardo Freda, Mario Bava created the Italian Horror film, ushering in an age of technological virtuosity, psychological realism, and grand gothic imagery -- all of which he coated with menacing and poetically ravishing atmosphere, violence, and macabre sentiment. Marrying sense and mind, image and metaphor, Bava translated the dark byways of the human heart and the unknown with an enthusiasm and intellectual dedication yet to be surmounted by other genre specialists. Similar to the narrative theatrics of Ray Bradbury, Bava didn't simply tell stories on film, he experienced them . . . feverishly, completely, with gusto. Lacking the respect of such macabre mainstays as Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, ignored for decades by a fickle film establishment who didn't even know his name, Bava began to enjoy popularity in the nineties thanks to the writings of Tim Lucas and other aficionados of weird cinema. This culminated in film festivals, renewed critical interest, and the restoration of several of the maestro's films. Hot on the critical and popular success of the Mario Bava Box Set, Collection One, Anchor Bay has given horror fans (and the film community at large) a dark, delicious treat for this approaching Halloween season. Screw the candy bars, people, you'll want this HUGE and insightful collection of instrumental horror, crime, and western films in your treat bag! A must for genre specialists and casual fans alike, this lovingly produced collection is especially significant for students of the aesthetics and influence origin of Italian horror cinema. Tracing the development of the genre from early gothic supernatural thrillers to the giallo, from westerns to naughty sex comedies, this isn't simply a retrospective of one man's career but a celebration of it -- an examination of the director's stylized and disciplined aesthetic that has influenced such later day genre specialists as Carpenter, Tarantino, and Steve Miller.

Serving as a passport into the Catholic guilt-and-sin haunted world of Bava, this box set thrusts the viewer into the cold chills and hot sensuality of the delirium found in his conflicted, tragic, and haunted characters -- people whose fears, lusts, and hatreds are captured by gorgeous, fairy tale red-and-blue set designs that shared psychological properties with character, and outbursts of terror and violence. A textbook on set design, establishment of scene, and special effects, this set features all the feverish romantic pinning, budget cheating miracles of innovation, ultra-violence, and surrealistic camera shots that one could want. Also on hand are all the lush moments of dark humor, shocking sexuality, and physical carnage. These are Bava's most notable operas of death and desire, battles between the living and the dead that made Bava's work sing as loudly to our subconscious as to our eyes, Anchor Bay represents the director/cinematographer/FX designer with examples of his pioneering work in both the Giallo and Gothic Romance, following such titles in the Alfredo Leone library as Black Sunday, Black Sabbath, and Evil Eye with another, no less instrumental slew of terror titles.

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Combining the supernatural with scientific rationalism and the secrets of fragmented psyches, Mario Bava both created and then flaunted several conventions of the supernatural gothic. Nowhere is this more evident and successful, challenging and troublesome, than in Lisa and the Devil, a film that, similar to the best existential literature, managed to combine the un-fabulousness of the everyday with the incredible. Questioning life, experience, and perception through the story of a young woman whose fate is inexplicably joined into a supernatural tragedy of eternal re-occurrence from which there is no clear meaning or salvation, Bava challenged the structure of film and storytelling with this nightmarish experiment.

An attractive young tourist (Elke Sommer) on holiday runs across an unusual mural of the devil (Telly Savalas in fine form as old Scratch himself) in Toledo, Spain. Leaving the tour, she finds herself captivated in a nightmarish world -- a villa where Satan/Savalas oversees an eternally repeated evening of incest, betrayal, matricide, and necro-love. Will she find some semblance of salvation or retreat or succumb to the temptations of love, deceit, and the damned?

A visually daring and beautiful film, Lisa and the Devil is as close to poetry as cinema can get. Failing at the box office, its convoluted story structure, underrated performances, and dream-like atmosphere envelop the viewer in a palpable blanket of unease and decadence. The film also merges Bava's pet themes of eroticism and death, identity and dissolution into a challenging but psychologically rewarding whole. Produced in 1973, this very personal picture was altered by producer Leone in 1975 to capitalize off the success of The Exorcist, resulting in The House of Exorcism. While retaining little of the original picture's thematic maturity, philosophy, or challenging shifts of perspective, House delivers as a pulp splatter fest, crass and in the best of bad taste. Not half as bad as Bava purists insist, House certainly can't hold a candle to the original vision. In a wise move, Anchor Bay generously supplies both versions on one disc, allowing folks to study the differences that result in two very different movies.

Visual and audio quality on both titles is a vast improvement over the previous Image releases. Presented in lush 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, Lisa and the Devil is startlingly clean and vivid. Colors are bold and vibrant, adding to the haunting atmosphere that so deeply permeates the film. House of Exorcism isn't as pristine in image or color. Also featured in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen, this latter print has slight grain. Audio is featured in English Mono for both titles, each of which does a fine job distinguishing between dialogue and score.

Extras for Lisa include the theatrical trailer and an all-new Lucas commentary that dissects the entire film and the conditions of its making, including production, planning, shooting, directing. Other extras include two trailers for House as well as a radio spot, and the international trailer for Lisa. The major extra for House is the Leone/Sommer commentary which originally appeared in the Image disc. Leone is clearly the most intriguing of the pair, exploring Bava's role in production, his disdain for the vulgarity, the filming of the new House footage -- directed with aid from son Lamberto -- and much more.

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Forging a stylistic template which is still imitated, Bava's craftsmanship is now more readily acknowledged by critics. Still the depth of his human understanding, the inventiveness of his technical scope, and emotional poignancy of his themes are taken for granted. While even lesser artists like Joe D'Amato are now lavished with praise, the man who started it all is often overlooked. Bava was the first truly important Italian director to merge the spectral conventions of the gothic and psychological in lyrical operas of fem fatales, repression, and cultural culpability. Mining the dark byways of human instinct, he brought a penetrating sense of realism to suspense formula, treating unnerving sexuality and taboo themes with unprecedented atmosphere. From the darkly beautiful romanticism of Black Sunday to the psychological thrills and preoccupation with murder of Blood and Black Lace, Bava's attention to character is intense and his visual integrity mirrors his character's haunted emotions. Bay of Blood (1971) displays this penchant even in a sub-genre noted for its neglect of characterization in favor of violent set-pieces. This should be no great surprise considering that this film was the creative template for the 'body count' slashers that would arrive on the scene with a bloody red splat just a few years later.

A seminal example of graphic viscera and lean realism, Twitch of the Death Nerve/Bay of Blood merges a naturalistic crime story with physical horror, capturing a psychologically horrific sensibility by minimizing the romantic sensibilities that coat much of Bava's work. Cynical and harshly beautiful, this modern masterwork of Grand Guignol is also notable for furthering the visual themes and stylistic experiments that Bava first explored in Blood and Black Lace. Taking a thematic and plotting rift from the Agatha Christie formula (ex: And Then There Were None), the convoluted story features an heiress, step-son, and various other misfits hungering for a prime piece of waterfront property after the gruesome death of a rich family's matriarch. From the haunting opening featuring the vicious hanging of an old woman in a wheelchair to the cruel, darkly humorous ending, this story attacks your expectations with precision and eloquence. Claudine Auger and Luigi Pistilli are just a few of the wonderful character actors scheming to get their hands on the late old gal's remote bay -- property she refused to sell, and which now results in several wonderfully nasty deaths mastered by FX man Carlo Rambaldi.

Various plots, double-crosses, and schemes move the story along, serving as the springboard for deadly thrills. Perhaps the true story of this bold, no-frills thriller are the various hideous ways in which numerous young vacationers and villagers are hacked, sliced, diced, garrotted and impaled -- including some of the meatiest, most stomach churning, and erotic violent deaths imaginable. Many of these still pack an emotional punch, such as the slow-mo throat slicing from behind and, more recognizable, the double impalement of two lovers. Note the artistic marriage of sex and death as the obvious impalement of the blade leads way to the lusty writings of the two bodies, particularly the female. This scene dares suggest that not only sex but violent death is giving her an orgasm! Strong stuff!

Anchor Bay presents Bay of Blood with a vivid 1.78.1 anamorphic transfer. Easily as good as the Image release, the picture is sharp and clean, with bold, bleeding color schemes and no grain. While some print damage surfaces now and again, the transfer is still an occasion to celebrate. Audio is featured in English mono. Superior to the uneven and scratchy Image release, this track has cleaned up the low dialogue and hissing. Tim Lucas explains why there is no Italian track in his commentary. This is another Commentary where Lucas is well informed and supplies historical context for the listener, chock full of intriguing facts, trivia, and criticism. The International Trailer, Radio Spots, and a Poster/Still Gallery round out the festivities.

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Cinematographer, FX technician, and director: Mario Bava was a visitor of the night-time world equally at home with the fantastical and harshly realistic. With Rabid Dogs, he proved to critics that he was as capable of exploring sensitive nuances of character and plot as he was of crafting sumptuous otherworldly visuals. While Bava was no stranger to frustrated efforts due to financial problems and troublesome distributors, his experience with Rabid Dogs was perhaps his most heartbreaking. When the film's producer s went suddenly bankrupt, and the film was shelved, unable to be released, it must have been heartbreaking for the 60-something director. Having abandoned his preferred gothic excesses for a more 'modern' and immediate style of shooting, and fresh from the failure of House of Exorcism (the Leone-instigated butchered form of Lisa and the Devil), Bava was forced to die before his most concise movie would ever be officially released. Two major versions of this crime feature exist. The first release of Rabid Dogs was culled from Bava's own rough cut, representing most honestly Bava's unique vision. Later, Bava producer Alfred Leone re-cut and re-edited the footage, altering various scenes in attempts to make the film more modern, changing the title to Kidnapped. Lucertola Media released Kidnapped in the late 90s. Anchor Bay offers both cuts in one package, and has given both significant visual and audio improvements.

Throughout his career, whether the tone was fantastical or realistic, Bava's attention to color, camera composition, and emotional honesty brought disturbing life to shocking characters and situations. Marking a visual departure for while preserving his interest in such themes as appearance vs. truth and the degeneracy of the human animal, Rabid Dogs and Kidnapped are striking examples of the director's naturalistic abilities. Simply put, this emotionally gripping tragedy of crime, hidden motivations, and survival is lean, mean, and grimy in its simplicity. In a plot reminiscent of several other Italian crime thrillers of the Seventies, Kidnapped/Rabid Dogs manage to be crime thrillers and dramas of conscience -- unflinching looks at mental cruelty and madness. In their cruelty and grim nature, these two prints share thematic similarities with such exploitation films as The Last Hill on the Left and Aldo Lado's Night Train, but with more craftsmanship. Doc (Maurice Poli), Blade (Aldo Capponi) and Thirty-Two (Luigi Montefiori) attempt a botched daylight robbery. On the run from police, they panic and kidnap 'innocent' bystanders. The majority of the film takes place in an automobile -- an intimate, believable device that encourages and makes more claustrophobic the raging tempers that soon become to sadism. Trying to elude the police, the criminals force Riccardo Cucciolla -- a man desperate to get his child to a hospital -- to drive them to safety.

In Kidnapped/Rabid Dogs, Bava exchanges the fog-laden blue and red fantasy atmospherics of his gothic material for a masterful expose of realism/naturalism. He also abandoned the elegant 'creative kill' sensibilities of the gialli genre. The painfully realistic violence is believable in every sense of the word, captured with the purposeful immediacy -- the shame and dull rage, the unpleasant shock of life. Lacking the poetic rhythms and technical winks that Gialli often depend on to soften their blow, here the violence is real, the anger deadly, the passions uncomfortably understandable. Bava and some outstanding performances (particularly by the criminals) force you to feel the senseless terror and shame, the psychological trauma, and its reverberations.

Perception and how it can be manipulated, subjectivity used as tool and weapon: these are just one of many themes explored in Kidnapped/Rabid Dogs. This is apparent in his handling of several key scenes and characters, such as when Bava hides the identity of one of the kidnapped 'victims' until the shocking ending, and questions the very concept of innocence and guilt. No one is who they seem, and this sense of subversion/doubt adds tension. Bava uses his lens as co-conspirator in his desire to examine the deceitful possibilities hidden within the seemingly innocence of appearances. Kidnapped/Rabid Dogs can be seen -- in both its style of filming and its content -- as Bava showing the world that he could bring his sensibilities to the realm of naturalism with the same artistry with which he had so energetically revitalized the gothic. He certainly embraces a more nihilistic message -- one more depressing than even the moral bankruptcy of Bay of Blood or 8 Dolls for an August Moon. Gone is Bava's lyrical style and almost operatic movement, replaced by a harsh and purposefully crude glimpse into modern urban trash, complete with cursing scumbags and shocking sexuality. One only wishes he had followed this new sensibility into more films.

Which cut of the film is the best or most honest? That depends on your own preferences and tastes, of course. But speaking from a Bava purist point-of-view, the rough cut, represented by Rabid Dogs, is the fullest and most successful version of the story. While Bava never did finish the audio track, and would have probably made more revisions for continuity and pacing, this was at least a direct product of the maestro's vision. Kidnapped, on the other hand, was, as mentioned above, re-cut by Leone. Not only is the score different (and less effective) but the ending is softened/altered, damaging the dramatic impact of the original version. This and additional scenes for padding do nothing but slow down and lesson the impact of the story. Still, it is invaluable to have both cuts on one disc for comparison.

Rabid Dogs is 96 minutes and presented in its proper 1.78 aspect ratio, anamorphically enhanced. Whereas the original Lucertola transfer suffered from several moments of grain and dirt, as well as muted colors, this incarnation is remarkably free from grain and scratches, and the colors are bold and enlivening. Scant print damage is evident, and what little remains is probably due to the storage of the materials or rough condition of the film itself, not resulting from any laziness from Anchor Bay. Kidnapped, the Leone version, is also remarkably free from technical deficiencies. Weighing in at 95 minutes, the movie is treated to a 1.78/16:9 aspect ratio. Print damage is minimal. The transfer is clean and crisp, and the colors bold and realistic, not glossy but toned down to a consistently naturalistic feel.

Now we come to the matter of English Subtitles. Over at Video Watchblog, Bava authority Tim Lucas wrote that there is some slight inconsistency in his commentary. It seems that Lucas offered Anchor Bay the English dialogue he had written originally for the Lucertola disc release. These subs attempted to match the Italian meanings with the harsh spirit/characters of the story, making them more modern. Anchor Bay opted not to use these subs, making some of the 'Lucas Commentary' confusing (not too bad, just a minor inconvenience), as he occasionally refers to his work on the dialogue, and makes mention that the subs are his own work. He asks us to remember that they are not.

Extras for Kidnapped/Rabid Dogs include the usual informative yet personable and unpretentious commentary of Tim Lucas, who explores not only the story on screen but the stories behind the story, including the production's troubled history, Bava's aesthetic goals for the picture, analysis of several key scenes, and many more tidbits. Other extras include the featurette: "End of the Road: Making RABID DOGS and KIDNAPPED," with producer Alfredo Leone and Lamberto Bava, which is the second best feature of the disc, fitting a solid amount of behind-the-scenes information in its brief running time. These are followed by a well written Mario Bava Bio and a host of Bava trailers. Any way you look at it, this release is a wonderful achievement.

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Bava took a somewhat unsure and uncharacteristic step when helming the fragmented Italian sex comedy Four Times In one Night. Perhaps the least successful addition to this set, the film is still enticing, particularly in such fine condition. A departure from his usual fare, this light-hearted comedy of manners provides us with a different type of story against which to measure Bava's other efforts, yet one with many of his stylistic mechanisms firmly in place.

A somewhat meandering sex comedy (all the rage during the period which it was filmed) Four Times in one Night is a Rashomon inspired narrative examining the various interpretations of a single event -- namely, how a young woman's dress was torn on a date. Gianni is an Italian playboy who sees Tine, a young 'innocent.' When they retire to his place, the expected chaos occurs. In classic if cliché fashion, the events of the evening are relayed to the viewer by a handful of characters, including Gianni, Tine, a doorman, and a man in a lab jacket. Along the way, our own judgments and suspicions are called into question, as are our rationales for them.

A carefully blended potion of romance, love, lust, and comedy, this 'slice of life' narrative has several intriguing things to say about the nature of human life. Perception and how it can be manipulated, used as tool and weapon, is the central theme, and Bava's camera celebrates everyday staples of existence with fresh intensity and witty sophistication. While in no way comparable in either narrative ingenuity, theme, or directorial approach to his darker fantasies this light journey into the nature of men and women -- and the games they play with themselves and one another -- is a successful, highly personal vision despite its rather flimsy narrative device and structure. At heart, this drama of varying interpretations of a single event is as much a careful satire and parody of human perception as it is a vivisection of honesty. Bava uses each of his POV characters, particularly the doorman, as a symbol/embodiment of the skewered relationship between spectator and event, action and interpreter. We, like many of them, are distanced from the event, or at the very east witnessing the affair from a distinct vantage point, informed by our own prejudices and histories -- not to mention our own goals in telling the story. We, like the doorman, are forced to see the events from a distance, lending both ambiguity and 'spice' to our method of interpretation. Bava achieves in this film a cinematic definition of the voyeur, asking us to examine which we are, and the relationship between he who does and he who watches. Since he does this in a charming, humorous manner, the whole affair feels refreshingly light -- a romantic evening in the spring, where a certain degree of naughtiness is acceptable, even hoped for.

Four Times In One Night is featured in an 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer free from grain or blemishes. An Italian language track with optional English subs is free from distortion. Unfortunately there are no extras.

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Bava's filmography is an aesthetic history of Italian terror. Within it we can trace the major themes, story lines, and styles of European and modern American horror. From the supernatural Gothic of the genre's appropriately termed 'Golden Period' (where he developed his distinctive visual flair as a cinematographer Riccardo Freda) to the psycho-sexual Giallo murder mysteries that he injected with sexual subtext and delirious violence, Bava was at his best when exploring the night-side of the species. This he often chose to represent with traditional supernatural symbols. Bava's love of folklore was served marvellously well by a technique grounded in the traditional basics -- and challenged/evolved by a personal directorial approach anything but traditional. This is obvious in his very first film, and evident to a lesser extent in Baron Blood (1971) where he uses the camera as an intimate eye, establishing lingering POV shots and subjective camera angles to tell a twisted story of similarly fragmented lives grappling with the supernatural. A remarkably well preserved if occasionally slow moving gothic, Baron Blood is Bava devoted to the mechanics of mood. A strong sense of menace infiltrates practically every frame of this modern potboiler, spilling over from fog-laden shots of mist enshrouded castle walls and gloomy stone interiors of torture chambers to the screaming beauty of the sultry Summers.

The plot for Baron Blood is a somewhat fragmented marriage of traditional folklore motifs and modern sensibilities, all wrapped up in a candy cane confection of a bloody Brothers Grimm fable. Joseph Cotton stars as a resurrected spirit/monster wreaking havoc on the town that condemned him to death, particularly those working within his secluded castle. Peter Kleist (Antonio Cantafora) discovers on a trip to Austria that he is a descendent of the centuries dead Baron Otto Kleist, a monstrous killer who fell victim to a witch's miss-pleasure. Peter and local student Eva (Elke Sommer) evoke the Baron's spirit when they recite an invocation. His corpse, a bloody, scabbed mess wreathed by fog and period clothing is something to behold, as his malevolent plans.

This script's explosive moments of lust and violence are accompanied by undeniable emotional resonance. Generous amounts of skin and blood are mirrored by surprisingly believable dialogue, careful camera compositions, and a self assured directing style. While lacking the primal power of Black Sunday or Kill Baby Kill, this traditional nightmare displays Bava's growing skill at coloring his nightmares with distinctive shadows and mood, and a refined sense of plotting and character development. Bava marries subject to form with skill and energy. This gothic nightmare is embodied in tantalizing explosions of surrealistic imagery, the fantastic, and cold intellect. Telling the story with images instead of words, he dips the screen in the blue of fantasy and the red of violence. So intensely believable is this world of fantasy submerged into the past, it is difficult to tell where the real world ends and cinematic escape begin.

A foundation of fantasy underlies the everyday world, evoking in even the most realistic scenes the tension and phantasmagoria of an adult faerie tale, which, to an extent, is precisely what the movie is - a modern myth or fable of terror, identity, and transformation. Instilling a formulaic genre and plot device with original ideas and a uniquely disquieting style, a lurking shadow of tension and palpable suspense flows beneath the visually thrilling surface action. It isn't so much what Bava does as how, capturing an essence of occult power even when the themes are rooted in physical reality.

Featuring the original music by Stelvio Cipriani, Baron Blood has been given a significantly improved transfer. Better looking than the Image release, the picture is sharp and concise, presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen. Audio is just as pleasing, featured in English Mono. While some hissing is slightly noticeable, the track as a whole is clean and sound equally distributed.

Extras for Baron Blood include still another Commentary by Tim Lucas. The track is insightful and scholarly without giving over to the hum-drum of academia, and it does my heart good to hear him give some love to one of Bava's more maligned pictures. Other features include the original AIP theatrical trailer and radio spots.

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A sexy, stylish, and hallucinatory experience, 5 Dolls For An August Moon has been derided when compared to Bava's other thrillers. A 'whodunit' burrowing freely from both Bava's own Giallo and the mystery genre in general, many scenes also continued to pioneer the body count formula with which many people both blame (and thank) Bava for. Purposefully fragmented, the disjointed sequences and shattered characters all add up to a disquieting experience. As such, it is a worthy testament of Bava's ever growing catalogue of experimental approaches.

Expressionistic camera angles, saturated colors, and coldly elegiac photographic compositions grace this rehash of Ten Little Indians featuring erotically charged Edwige Fenech. The convoluted plot focuses on a group of jet-setting characters who gather on a deserted island owned b a wealthy inventor whose newest creation --- an industrial resin -- some of them are willing to kill for. A motley crew of guests try to convince Gerry Farrell (William Berger) to sell his formula. Add to this money grubbing and capitalist competing a rich number of sultry mistresses and girlfriends and you have a recipe for sin and murder. Soon the greed and shallow behaviour result in murder, and the physical isolation of the island matches the emotional isolation of the guests. Tension and claustrophobia mounts. Bodies fill up in the freezer. Trust among the survivors disintegrates. And, finally, the remaining few houseguests are forced to turn against one another in order to survive and find the culprit.

The Giallo, in general, has courted both controversy and admiration for its unapologetic worship of imagery over content, focusing on violence, sexual intensity, and perversion. Specializing in convoluted plots, psycho sexual imagery, and offbeat characters whose shifting perceptions hold deadly secrets, Giallos evoke the physical horror of corrupted/damaged flesh while celebrating the same. Similarly it evokes emotional terrors of betrayal, the modern world's sense of alienation, and the instinctive fear of loss. Originating as an established art form with his Evil Eye, with this picture, Bava focused here on mistrust, layering a cynical if good humored wink at many of the conventions which he himself invented. While his decision to not show any of the murders on camera is uncharacteristic and weakens the effect, as the story itself isn't strong enough to sinpre great interest or suspense, Bava still manages to make us care about Fenech's character and evokes plenty of gorgeous shots, utilizing his location and female skin.

Five Dolls For An August Moon is featured in a letterboxed 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer. While not crystalline, the visual integrity is admirable, exposing only brief moments of print damage. Colors are shinning and clean. Both English and Italian audio tracks are included, and in fine condition, with no noticeable hissing or interference. Sadly, no extras are included.

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Coming upon the Spaghetti Western craze late in the game, Bava's lone entry in the smoking bullet genre is tame and uninspired. Roy Colt And Winchester Jack lacks the artistry of even Four Times That Night. The director clearly wasn't interested in his work here. This picture lacks the scope and visual magnificence of Sergio Leone's cinema (as well as his several imitators), and doesn't know if it wants to be a comedy or shoot-em-up! Departing from the grim poetry of the elegiac western formula than popular, this problem child was also unable to follow in the trail of the western comedies then taking vogue.

The pot, a mishmash of clumsy satire and adventure, features Halsey as Colt, a mean looking hombre who embarked on an unwitting quest for hidden gold. His partner, Jack (Charles Southwood), accompanies him in some gunplay and sex -- no, not with one another -- along the way. Regrettably, neither are exciting enough to make up for the uneven plot or shlock on display. Perhaps the less said here the better . . .

If the story is limpid and the direction lacking Bava's customary creativity, the transfer for Roy Colt is respectable, featuring a clear picture and bright color schemes. The image is presented in letterboxed 1.85:1. The language track is Mono Italian with English subs. Again, there are no extras.

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While many of the titles in the Mario Bava Box Set (vol 2) had been previously released by Image Entertainment, and Rabid Dogs was released by Anchor Bay earlier in the year, many of these films were not only out of print but feature superior transfers. If this wasn't enough to sell the set, then the wonderfully insightful Lucas commentaries and mouth watering extras should seal the deal. A treasure trove for those without these titles in their collection, the set is also recommended for those who already own the Image editions, as these prints are in practically every way superior. The original language tracks, commentaries, and visual documentation of the films make it worth a double dip. More than just another reissue, this collection presents definitive editions in sterling technological presentations. These impressive transfers give fans ample opportunity to examine Bava's directorial and technical skill as never before, and mark what we can hope is a resurgence in a true artist's career.

Review by William P. Simmons