The Wish List

Being the Easter weekend, a time when many of the boutique blu-ray labels have a sale going on, I finally broke my new year's resolution and spunked way too much cash on films that will probably wind up spending the rest of the year in the unwatched pile. Other than the threat of Casa de Spartan being renamed the Fortress of Solitude if this crazy spending spree ever happens again, it did have me pondering on possible movies I would love to see getting a home format release, so here are five titles that would make my wallet cry even further:

White Slaves of Chinatown (Joseph P. Mawra, 1964)

The first and best of the Olga franchise, White Slaves of Chinatown is up there with the likes of This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and Cannibal Holocaust (1980) as far as fake documentary films go. The spiritual predecessor to the infamous Ilsa movies of the seventies, it's somewhat neglected in this day and age. Audrey Campbell plays the main character Olga Sarno as she tortures abducted women off the New York streets and forces them into a life of prostitution and drug addiction. This mondo style S&M roughie is absolutely hilarious and is just begging for a quality blu-ray release. This has AGFA + Something Weird Video written all over it.

 

Garter Colt (Gian Rocco, 1968)

Whether this film is good or not, beats the hell out me, because I haven't even seen it. However, this obscure spaghetti western has two striking things about it that makes it distinctive from the rest of its peers: the main protagonist is a female, which is rare as hell for a spaghetti western; the other? It's Nicholetta Machiavelli. Yup, one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen. Your humble film freak still gets mesmerised by how smoking hot she looked dressed in a potato sack opposite Burt Reynolds in Sergio Corbucci's Navajo Joe (1966). As far as I'm aware, there hasn't really been a quality English friendly release of Garter Colt and I refuse to watch a 360p rip of it on YouTube, but this looks like something Eureka would release, no question.

Legend of the Werewolf (Freddie Francis, 1975)

Believe it or not, werewolf films are a genuine rarity; great ones are once in a blue moon. Almost wept that one and only time I went to the cinema and watched that horrificly awful sequel An American Werewolf in Paris (1997). Why on earth then, does one of the great ones remain a obscure rarity that never even got a proper remaster for its DVD release let alone on blu-ray. Legend of the Werewolf is a cautionary tale of a young lad falling head over heels for the local Parisian strumpet and the obvious carnage that ensues along the way. Perfect fit for a label like Network to release one day.

The Alex Chandon Collection (1988 - 1998)

In the early nineties, during my carefree days of spending my freetime in a dingy small basement in Camden Town with the staff and fellow patrons of Psychotronic Video, I happened to discover the amateur films of Alex Chandon there. Genuinely thought this North Londoner would end up being the next big name in genre cinema after Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson. His SOV short films, particularly Bad Karma (1991) and Drillbit (1993) were heaps of fun and refreshing alternative to the mainstream blockbuster. Particularly a fan of Pervirella (1997), a homage to the Ray Harryhausen movies of yesteryear, featuring TV stalwarts Mark Lamarr and Jonathan Ross, with cult sirens Eileen Daly and Emily Booth as the titular heroine. Didn't really care for Chandon's work after that period, however. His early films are crying out for a release by an SOV specialist label like Saturn's Core.

The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears (Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani, 2013)

Ask me to explain this film and I honestly wouldn't have the foggiest. It's so surreal, even Professor Brian Cox would categorise it as a Class A head scratcher. After Amer (2009), their first experimental effort which rode the late noughties renaissance wave of giallo cinema, Catte and Forzani's follow-up was an aesthetically beautiful and even more perplexing fever dream which never received a blu-ray release on these shores. It did in other regions, but as far as I'm aware, it lacked any substantial extras. The film is crying out for a lavish release, one that perhaps Arrow Films would fit the bill.

There are loads of others that I'll propably add in a possible future instalment, but this lot are personal examples of movies being neglected by today's boutique labels.