{"id":9311,"date":"2014-07-26T02:06:22","date_gmt":"2014-07-26T06:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=9311"},"modified":"2014-07-26T02:11:27","modified_gmt":"2014-07-26T06:11:27","slug":"jess-francos-bloody-moon-other-merry-sexploitation-misadventures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=9311","title":{"rendered":"Jess Franco’s Bloody Moon + other merry sexploitation misadventures"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BloodyMoon_BR\"<\/a>As Severin Films digs into their back catalogue for virgin Blu-ray editions, it’s inevitable the films of Jess Franco would benefit, and Bloody Moon<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>(1981) makes its HD debut this month.<\/p>\n

Written by the film’s production manager, Erich Tomek, Bloody Moon<\/strong> was also a video nasty in Britain when it made its home video debut in the early 80s, and it’s not far-fetched to say the brilliant poster art (ported over by Severin for their DVD and Blu-ray editions) \u00a0pricked the sensitive nerves of censorial tightwads.<\/p>\n

I’ve augmented the review with two other Franco films: the dopey cannibal sleazefest\u00a0Devil Hunter<\/strong> \/ Sexo-Canibal<\/strong><\/a> (1980), also released by Severin and reviewed by moi for Rue Morgue back in 2009; and the sex slave idiocy\u00a0Linda<\/strong> \/ The Story of Linda<\/strong>\/ Orgy of the Nymphomaniacs<\/strong><\/a> (1981), Franco’s other film with writer \/ production manager Tomek.<\/p>\n

* \u00a0 \u00a0* \u00a0 \u00a0*<\/p>\n

\"SolarCrisis1990_poster\"<\/a>Completely aside: CTV news reported Friday of a NASA admission in which had a giant solar flare in 2012 faced our happy Earth, ‘humanity would’ve been in big trouble<\/a>.’<\/p>\n

The footage is eerie, but what I found intriguing is the use of a clip from Richard C. Sarafian’s Solar Crisis<\/strong> (1990), then reportedly the most expensive Japanese sci-fi film, which was recut and released as \u00a0‘an Alan Smithee film.’<\/p>\n

I first learned of the movie when American Cinematographer ran a cover story on Richard Edlund’s fancy visual effects… and then the film vanished, until Vidmark spat out a VHS release. A friend held a longer widescreen laserdisc edition in his hands during a trip to Japan, but that cut and any release in the film’s proper 2.35:1 ration has never appeared on DVD.<\/p>\n

It seems Vidmark (or rather, Lionsgate, which is now part of \u00a0EOne) still owns the rights, but never felt it was worthwhile to release the film beyond a crappy full screen edition, which is bizarre considering the VHS review screener\u00a0sent to critics was widescreen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Why do I bring this up? Because Solar Crisis<\/strong><\/a> is an orphan film that even its Japanese owners show little interest in releasing on DVD or Blu-ray. It makes no sense, and the movie remains a minor Holy Grail, even though I know it’s a mediocre 70s-styled space disaster film headlined by Charlton Heston.<\/p>\n

I may end up reviewing my screener because it seems the film will never arrive in a proper HD edition.<\/p>\n

We all have our guilty pleasures, and this one’s mine.<\/p>\n

Cheers,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A triple-threat of Jess Franco sleaze: reviews of Bloody Moon (1981) on Blu and Devil Hunter (1980) on DVD from Severin Films + Franco’s Linda (1981), and quick thoughts on Solar Crisis, Richard C. Sarafian’s orphan epic sci-fi flick that sort of popped up in a related news report this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9320,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2918,406,2922,2562,2563,2511,2926,2928,2929,2927],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/BloodyMoon_featured_b.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2qb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9311"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9323,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9311\/revisions\/9323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}