Four new upcoming titles on Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro!

Towards the end of this year and into next we have some pretty great and obscure stuff lined up! Check it out:

DANGEROUS CARGO (1977)

This is one where you’ll probably want to take a shower after you watch it. From the degenerate director who brought you TANGO OF PERVERSION and THE WIFE KILLER (both available now on DVD from us!) comes another Hellenic sleaze-fest, DANGEROUS CARGO! DALLAS’ Debbie Shelton stars, in a role she’d probably rather forget, as a woman taken captive when pirates take over a ship carrying weapons and ammunition to the far east. These pirates are very much the grimy 70s kind, and not the fun-loving, 18th century “yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum” variety. Quite a bit of ugly, sweaty, and hairy sex and violence ensues. Ms Shelton gets nude A LOT. And it doesn’t end well for anyone involved.

MM is proud (?) to present the US home video debut of this nasty bit of Greek exploitation, as part of our ongoing exploration of genre films from that neglected country. And yes, this will be on BLU-RAY, god help us all. Keep an eye out for promo teaser trailer sometime in the next couple of months. We hope to unleash this film unto the world around the end of the year or maybe early next. It will likely have a “straight to retail” release, with no ‘red case’ limited edition.

LA PUNITION (1970)

A.K.A. THE PUNISHMENT, is a very 1970s French arthouse/exploitation crossover that pre-dates such hit Euro S&M-themed films as STORY OF O and THE IMAGE. Karin Shubert stars as a prostitute who has failed to please a customer and so finds herself locked in a room by her pimp to receive her “punishment”. Although filled with unpleasant violence and disturbing sex, LA PUNITION is a psychedelic marvel, an “evil gem of a movie” as one IMDB reviewer puts it, a ravishingly visual film made around a decidedly seedy story. This movie is often compared to the 70s films of Alain Robbe-Grillet like EDEN AND AFTER or SLOW SLIDINGS OF PLEASURE, but it hits much harder than those.

Coming to Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro probably sometime early next year from a new 2K restoration from the original negative. Expect a limited “red case” edition of around 500 copies to proceed the standard retail release.

WOMAN CHASING A KILLER BUTTERFLY (1978)

A.K.A. THE GIRL WITH THE BUTTERFLY TATTOO or simply THE KILLER BUTTERFLY (probably the title we’ll use).

Over the years we’ve released some pretty strange movies here at Mondo Macabro. But this might very well be the strangest yet. Directed by Kim Ki-young, director of the original version of THE HOUSEMAID, often called “the best Korean film of all time”, BUTTERFLY is a horror-tinged psychotropic melodrama freak-out about nothing less than death itself and the will to keep living. After a young man survives being poisoned by a girl at a picnic he falls into a deep, suicidal depression. But standing in the way of his desire to kill himself is a Nietzschean bookseller who refuses to die even though he’s killed several times, an ancient mummy who is revived in the form of a beautiful woman who happens to be a cannibal, and an insane anthropologist who wants to keep his daughter alive by getting her laid. And also, of course, butterflies. KILLER BUTTERFLY is the most eccentric work in the filmography of the very eccentric Kim Ki-young, made at time of crisis in the Korean film industry when he was running out of hit movies but not bizarre ideas.

MM is incredibly excited to bring this amazing film to the US for the first time ever in a world-premiere Blu-ray release sporting a new 2K restoration from the original negative and loaded with tons of exclusive extras. Hopefully we’ll have this one available before the end of the year, though early next is possible as well. Expect a ‘red case’ LE followed by a standard version a couple months later.

QUEENS OF EVIL (1970)

And finally, this wonderfully bizarre bit of hippy horror from Italy!

QUEENS OF EVIL stars Ray Lovelock as a freelovin’ dude just tryin’ to get away from it all, who stumbles into a seemingly perfect situation: a very stylish home isolated in the countryside inhabited by three extremely beautiful young ladies (played by Silvia Monti, Evelyn Stewart, and Haydee Politoff) who are totally into him and his free-love ethos. But of course, things don’t go exactly as he would hope, and soon enough things take a bizarre turn into the realms of pagan ritual and witchcraft!

A wonderfully stylized example of late 60s/early 70s counterculture exploitation cinema with lots of artsy touches and an occult horror payoff, it’s a real mystery that QUEENS OF EVIL has never gotten a US release before now. Mondo Macabro is very excited to rectify that sad situation with this Blu-ray release of a new 2k restoration of the film from its original negative. Expect a LE to be unveiled sometime early next year, with a retail edition coming a couple of months later.