Been *dying* to see what the talk was all about with this German label. Finally decided to order a couple(Sazuma's site has some good prices on them) but I'm stymied...the titles that leap out at me are the ones discussed here, such as Secret Killer, Case of the Scorpion's Tail, or Schoolgirl Killer.

Recommendations? Warnings? Cheaper/better sites to order from?

I own two X-Rated DVDs, CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TALE and THE CAT WITH THE JADE EYES. Both of these are very disappointing in terms of image quality. The films themselves are uncut as far as I can tell, but neither of them look very good, with CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TALE suffering from severe distortion (the image is somewhat cropped on both sides but has been stretched out to maintain a 2.35:1 aspect ratio) and discolourization, whereas THE CAT WITH THE JADE EYES is extremely murky and has a horrible set of German video-generated credits. If you're interested enough in the films, the discs are okay, I suppose, but it's only fair to warn you that, while they have some very interesting titles, their presentation doesn't seem to be all that good. (Then again, I've only seen two titles, so I could be wrong about the rest of the lineup.)

X-Rated Kult DVD have put out several discs which I'm proud to have adorning my shelf in their giant cardboard box covers:

THE DEMONS, DAUGHTER OF DRACULA - These two Jess Franco films represent the post-Soledad, pre-Lina period of his filmography and are quite fabulous, in my opinion. Both feature films look good (except the former has video-generated new titles, don't remember if the latter does).

PAGANINI HORROR - OK, no one, and I mean no one, in any region, will spend any time or money preparing a two-disc special edition of this guilty pleasure...except for X-Rated, who did a good job with this one. The transfer(s) of both versions looks OK, but you get a Luigi Cozzi interview, a commentary and deleted scenes, too! Yowza!

MASSACRE AT CENTRAL HIGH - This is the only decent DVD release of this title to date. It's in fullscreen, but colors look great and the English dub is included.

The Joe D'Amato Caribbean series - ORGASMO NERO, PORNO HOLOCAUST, SESSO NERO - These sleazy sex films will never win any awards, but the tropical atmosphere is great, the women are goodlooking and there are monsters and horror elements in all of them. Word of warning: the English options are strange or non-existent. ORGASMO NERO is in Italian with English subs, PORNO HOLOCAUST and SESSO NERO in German with German subs. Not a problem for me, as I speak German. But the plots are pretty slim anyway, so the language barrier isn't that big a deal.

FURY - In German only, but this is perhaps Laura Gemser's very best PERFORMANCE. Yep, that's right, Black Emanuelle can act. It's a sexual melodrama co-starring Stuart Whitman and Gabriele Tinti. Laura should be proud of her work in this; even though she does provide nudity, fans should enjoy seeing her stretch her acting chops more.

GHOSTHOUSE - This Umberto Lenzi crap-a-thon is pretty dire, but I have it for completist's sake. Lara Wendl looks OK in it (a few pounds heavier after TENEBRE), there is some gore to keep you awake and the "shock" ending had me busting a gut.

IRON FIST ADVENTURES, ESCAPE FROM WOMENS' PRISON, IN THE CAMP OF THE GOLDEN TIGER - These extremely obscure Asian feature films would never see the light of day anywhere else. They're in German or Mandarin with English subs, and X-Rated's Asian Cult Cinema Collection is highly recommended viewing!

KILLER CROCODILE - This is the most recent disc I've picked up from X-Rated. A mega-guilty pleasure, this Fabrizio de Angelis flick has a great giant crocodile monster, stupid American teenagers, and believe it or not, Hollywood has-been Van Johnson flown to the Phillipines to play the local law!!

CONVENT OF SINNERS - Joe D'Amato goes nunsploitation in a less-graphic version of IMAGES OF A CONVENT, basically. Eva Grimaldi looks great here as the persecuted girl who is raped, then shut in a convent where the lesbian sisters give it to her good. Forced German subs, but this is top-drawer smut!

MALADOLESCENZA - Man is this scuzzy! Good luck finding this one, as the mix of adolescent sex and kiddie porn nudity has kept it a major collector's item! Xploited Cinema used to offer it, but dropped it once the controversy set it. 15-year-old Lara Wendel drops her drawers and shares sexual experiences with a young boy (who is seen wrestling a dog in the nude in the OPENING PRE-CREDIT SEQUENCE!). Another blonde cutie pops in for some foolin' around, too. Ugh... It's uncut, though, and worth seeing. It's arthouse meets perverse exploitation.

I must say I'm glad to have the CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL disc, too. DVD Maniacs' review of this praised the video quality, but it's really quite gross. Still, the film itself is a great giallo with a super cast and it's in Italian with English subs.

I've found Tony at Xploited Cinema is the best place to get these cheap.

Tony is the best place to get them from, period. great service and fast! I've recieved all of my titles from him....including some very tastey nunsploitation films and some great horror. I guess around 20 titles in all. if I could, I'd have all of them. many now are rare.

I love those oversized covers. I've got SCHOOLGIRL KILLER, CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TALE (why not an English dub option), LES DEMONS, DAUGHTER OF DRACULA, NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE, EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN (minus the eroticisim - at least in the main feature itself), A VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD (no longer definitive), STRIP NUDE FOR THE KILLER, PAGANINI HORROR (a guilty pleasure - can't get that theme song out of my head), TORSO and D'Amato's CALIGULA.

P.S. How does the GHOSTHOUSE disc look compared to the Imperial VHS? What about the SECRET KILLER (EYEBALL) disc? Has anyone compared it to the Marketing Film release?

Todd and Casey are right, Xploited has the best prices and the fastest shipping (if you're in the states).

Michael M., CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TALE is, as you describe, not in the greatest shape. However, SCHOOLGIRL KILLER looks wonderful--a gorgeous, colorful, uncut widescreen transfer. So as far as presentation and picture quality, I think you have to evaluate X-rated's releases on a title-by-title basis.

I enjoy X Rated kult for the most part, they surprise me with alot of there releases. Still havent gotten the 2 disc CALIGULA 2 (anybody have thoughts on it?). I would not reccomend the RAWHEAD REX dvd ,unless your a huge fan, as it appears to be sourced from cable tv (looks like vhs). A nice little extra with it are teasers for other X kult discs ,but that was about it for that one.

If you like Joe D'Amato, as stated earlier in the thread they put togethor some nice discs of his films. Xploited is outstanding ,of course for these dvds as well as numerous other releases.

"I would not reccomend the RAWHEAD REX dvd ,unless your a huge fan"

If your a huge fan of the film then just read (or reread) the original story and you'll rethink your appreciation of the film.

Sazuma's site actually has this...I checked IMDB and in fact the two actresses were 12 when this was made! :blink: Both born in 65, movie released in 77....

...aside from a disinterest in seeing it, that alone would make me leery of importing it.


Thanks to everyone for the recommendations/warnings.

The picture quality and the extra features are the same on both the Marketing and the x-rated DVDs. Personally I prefer the x-rated coverartwork.

Other recommended titles (in my opinion) are:
- "Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe" One of those spaghetti western/eastern flicks from the early seventies (including english audio)
- "Have a good funeral my friend... Sartana will pay" Gianni Garko as Sartana. Very good picture quality (forced german subtitles on the english audio track)
- "Phantom of death" a.k.a. "Off Balance" from Ruggero Deodato in its uncut version (including english audio)
- "The great alligator" from Sergio Martino. One of my favourite titles and I love the score. (english audio included with "only for sale in Germany.... "subtitles" on the english track"

"Phantom of death" a.k.a. "Off Balance" from Ruggero Deodato in its uncut version (including english audio)

It's been quite a while since I've seen the "Uncut" American VHS tape. Is the German disc longer? I remember seeing scenes in the trailer on the NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE disc that I do not recall seeing before on the tape (or maybe I just don't remember them - I'm not really a fan of the film).

Good question, but unfortunately I have no idea how long the US tape was, as I only knew the movie from my old german VHS tape before the DVD release. And that tape was definitely cut. But the scenes in the trailer are all in the movie on the DVD.

It's a shame MALADOLESCENZA has been deep-sixed as it may have had some good or interesting qualities as an exploitation movie, arthouse oddity, whatever. I suppose that those of us who were curious will probably never know now.

"Still havent gotten the 2 disc CALIGULA 2 (anybody have thoughts on it?)."

The disc looks okay (I haven't seen any other versions but I've heard that the available DVDRs and tapes are not of much better quality). The image is letterboxed but not 16:9. There are Italian, German, and English options. Carlo Maria Cordio's music (some nice orchestral pieces and a really nice Vangelis-sounding synth track - though most of the electronic suspense pieces do not compare to KILLING BIRDS) seems to be differently employed in the Italian and English versions as one can notice that the music changes back and forth in certain scenes whenever there is English dialogue backed by the music.

The 125 minute versions seems complete though it is missing a sequence with Laura Gemser that appears on the Italian "TV" version which is missing all of the hardcore and most of the gore but still contains nudity. This missing scene would seem to be a bit of an oversight since the versions look comparable - the expanded version may even have sourced this shorter version for that scene but for the end of it.

Poor Gabriele Tinti. He suffers a fate similar to the one in BLACK COBRA. He may have survived in EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS and EMANUELLE IN AMERICA but it seems when he gets killed off in Joe D'Amato films, he's right up there with Mariangela Giordano (move over Giovanni Lombardo Radice).

For the record (I haven't seen the film), Xploited does still seem to carry this title:

MALADOLESCENZA at Xploited Cinema

Yes, Xploited Cinema does have MALADOLESCENZA in stock. I e-mailed Tony last night at Xploited and he confirmed to me that he has it in stock, with the choice of one of two covers. I never saw the movie myself, but now I'm sort of curious to check it out.

MALADOLESCENZA at Xploited Cinema

Dean

The one thing I find irritating about the DVD releases (even though I am a most keen fan, having over 25 of their discs!!) is when they include the deleted scenes, such as in their releases of NUNS OF ST ARCHANGEL and THE NUN OF MONZA, they take the cut scenes from the ugliest worst conditioned cassettes out there it seems.

For ST ARCHANGEL it would have been easy enough to use the old Redemption release which had more vivid colors and for MONZA, they surely could have found a nicer conditioned Dutch release. Also the galleries tend to be pretty weak.

But in some cases it is the only way to lay your hands on these releases (for now anyway) - and you have to love the packaging, so I'm not overly critical. Plus some of the covers are really beautiful, and cater to all tastes as they release different versions depending on the "sensibility" of the potential purchaser.

And even though I am based in Europe, I still buy my copies through Tony at Xploited - great guy to deal with :D and also has probably the best prices of all the etailers out there, even those in Europe.

The controversy over Maladolascenza is primarily unwarranted, but as long as it remains hard-to-get, will flower and grow. Nothing is so in demand as that which is banned. It played theaters in America uncut in the 1970s under various titles, but has somehow acquired a dubious pedigree over the ensuing years. I don't know that it ever played in England, but here in (my part of) Europe it's not so shocking. It is very much in the vein of THE NIGHTCOMERS -without adult supervision- and has redeeming qualities, being artfully shot and extremely well acted. So why the controversy? There is a lot of nudity, and all of that nudity is of children. The very thought of children acting as adults whether through language, posturing or implied sexuality is hardly new, but is usually played for laughs, and in this film it is not presented comically, and that's hard for some people to handle. It is also a distinct possibility that a viewer's discomfort lies in the contemplation of the sexual inferences presented herein which invite the viewer to identify sexually with the protagonists. I believe this to be the aim of the film -to confront the viewer with a sardonic glimpse at his or her inner child by presenting an overt representation of the adult as a child. In a typically Jungian environment, the viewer should have no problem viewing the film objectively for what it is: CHILDREN OF PARADISE meets THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (or LORD OF THE FLIES meets SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY on a limited scale). The children don't represent children. They represent nostalgia as distorted by the flawed memory of the adult. Adults don't think in terms of game or play, but contemplate the responsibilities of daily adult life. Playground fascism is an analogy for the loss of innocence, and most children unsupervised engage and challenge their senses through discovery and establish a natural pecking order. This poses the following questions:
"Do we view adolescence as a stepping stone to adulthood, where-in the (pardon the non-pun) "kinks" are worked out resulting in the life path followed to adulthood?"
"Do we view innocence only (or decidedly) in a sexual context?"

Many films pose more questions than they answer, but few films are so confrontational in their
approach. Since all the sexual activity is mimicry, and not actual (the film does not feature insertion of any kind), it would be difficult to define it as pornography. I would never act to promote or defend any form of child exploitation, which is why I point to it's ideology as defense against charges which would misrepresent it. It confronts an individual to question the guilt of their own feelings -whether fleeting or inclined- when recalling the events that establish who we become, not only sexually, but spiritually. Most people are happy to never have to consider such things, and that is their right, but censorship has never prevented any sort of "harmful matter" from finding its audience.
For example, anybody who would fetishize a child would likely find this pretty tame in comparison to what they can probably get their hands on, and in that same respect it is possible that far less explicict material could be used for gratification by someone so inclined. I'm sure that HOME ALONE is possessed by far more pedophiles than MALADOLASCENZA, but it would be absurd to conclude that everyone who owned HOME ALONE had an impure motive. PHAEDON books have recently republished a photographic omnibus on the film's star, Irina Ionesco, feturing several hundred nude photos of her taken at various stages of adolescence and womanhood by her mother, a reknown photographer, and you can probably buy it at Barne's & Noble's. Perhaps there is a double standard between a moving image and a still image, but I don't think it would be too hard to assess that books by Robert Maplethorpe (again available in large chainstores all over the world) contain images far more disturbing than any found in MALADOLASCENZA. Even the writings of people like Sade and Sotos are far more inflamatory. And since so many stores carry them, and evade prosecution or protest, it would seem that society at large feels that artistically these are justified, and worthy of commerce. It would be intersting to see if there would actually be any hubbub at all if it did indeed see a release in the United States. My prediction is that nothing would happen; there are precedents:

1) You can still buy BEAU PERE in the US, which features a similar amount of underaged nudity where-in a teenage girl has a sexual relationship with her step father (which, truth be told, is presented in an almost tasteful manner -if that is at all possible).

2) Both PRETTY BABY and THE BLUE LAGOON were controversial in their day, but now show uncut on television, while SALO, once the subject of prosecution in Florida, is now shown uncut on Bravo.

3) There were no repurcussions amid the release of EMMANUELLE IN AMERICA, a film that features uncut, hard-core pornography, borderline bestiality (as did FREDDY GOT FINGERED), and convincingly shot (but fake) snuff footage.

Everything is judged by context and tone, and the prospect of ban or censorship is determined by the social climate of the territory; we're all aware of successful prosecutions against one art form or another (be it art, film, photography, music or literature) in areas worldwide that have different ideas about what is and isn't appropriate. What is perfectly legal here may be illegal there and vice versa. Does that mean that MALADOLASCENZA should be released everywhere? No. I think it is up to the residents of the territories themselves to decide what is and isn't ok, whether you live in Florence, Florida, Fukuoka or Fleet Street, but I do believe that you should be able to own it if you want it.