Killer Dames: Two Gothic Chillers by Emilio P. Miraglia

[Drucker]

At the height of the Italian giallo boom in the early 1970s, scores of filmmakers turned their hand to crafting their own unique takes on these lurid murder-mystery thrillers. This limited edition double pack features two distinctive offerings by Emilio P. Miraglia, which meld twisty whodunit narratives with gothic chills.

In The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, troubled aristocrat Alan Cunningham (Anthony Steffen, Django the B*stard), haunted by the death of his first wife Evelyn, tries to move on by marrying the seductive Gladys (Marina Malfatti, All the Colours of the Dark). Marital bliss is short-lived, however, as various relatives meet untimely and gruesome deaths, prompting speculation that a vengeful Evelyn has risen from the grave...

Meanwhile, in The Red Queen Kills Seven Times, an age-old family curse hits sisters Kitty (Barbara Bouchet, Milano Calibre 9) and Franziska (Marina Malfatti) following the death of their grandfather Tobias (Rudolf Schündler, The Exorcist, Suspiria). Every hundred years, so the legend goes, the bloodthirsty Red Queen returns and claims seven fresh victims. Was Tobias just the first... and are Kitty and Franziska next?

With both films making their worldwide Blu-ray debuts in stunning new 2K restorations, there has never been a better time to explore these little-seen giallo gems!

CONTENTS

• Limited Edition box set (3000 copies) containing The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave and The Red Queen Kills Seven Times
• Brand new 2K restorations of the films from the original camera negatives
• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
• Original Italian and English soundtracks in mono audio (lossless DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray Discs)
• Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtracks
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
• Limited Edition 60-page booklet containing new writing by James Blackford, Kat Ellinger, Leonard Jacobs and Rachael Nisbet

THE NIGHT EVELYN CAME OUT OF THE GRAVE

• New audio commentary by Troy Howarth
• Exclusive introduction by actress Erika Blanc
• New interview with critic Stephen Thrower
• The Night Erika Came Out of the Grave – exclusive interview with Erika Blanc
• The Whip and the Body – archival interview with Erika Blanc
• Still Rising from the Grave– archival interview with production designer Lorenzo Baraldi
• Original Italian and US theatrical trailers
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx

THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES

• New audio commentary by Alan Jones and Kim Newman
• Exclusive new interview with Sybil Danning
• New interview with critic Stephen Thrower
• Archival introduction by production/costume designer Lorenzo Baraldi
• Dead à Porter – archival interview with Lorenzo Baraldi
• Rounding Up the Usual Suspects – archival interview with actor Marino Masé
• If I Met Emilio Miraglia Today – archival featurette with Erika Blanc, Lorenzo Baraldi and Marino Masé
• My Favorite... Films – archival interview with actress Barbara Bouchet
• Alternative opening
• Original Italian theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Gilles Vranckx

[TMDaines]

I'll likely buy the first.

[domino harvey]

I hope the decor inside the cabin near the end of the Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave is enough to head off any nascent Mod revival in the near future!

Unfortunately I didn't like either of these films, and my track record with Arrow's non-Argento giallos is getting abysmal. Evelyn is the better of the two, though it gets off to a rough start with the (ultimately pointless) terrorizing of a prostitute before it settles into a gothic variation of the standard noir twist-o-rama. I will say this in the film's favor, it compounds its ludicrous twists in the last fifteen minutes with admirable aplomb, even though the whole movie is a wash. The Red Queen Kills Seven Times fares worse, and while it veers closer to horror than its boxmate, it is also far sillier (!) and its twists aren't any smarter but seem worse here. I did enjoy one character whining "Stahp shooting" at a gunman who riddles his companion with bullets, only to completely forget about the entire act seconds later. The lack of causality in both of these films is distractingly annoying and causes both to come off as too flippant to engage with beyond the surface-level (which isn't too impressive to start with!)

[tenia]

my track record with Arrow's non-Argento giallos is getting abysmal.

I'm feeling a little less alone, now. I too haven't enjoyed lots of Arrow's non-Argento gialli, except maybe Blood & Black Lace and Your Vice is a Locked Door.

[Mr Sausage]

Don't feel too bad. Outside of Argento and Bava, there isn't a whole lot to this subgenre. The interesting stuff is few and far between. Arrow hasn't hit on any of my favourites, either (not that there're many of those).

Like Dom, I found Evelyn to be moderately amusing (but a bit cobbled together), and Queen to be tedious.

[ianungstad]

I actually thought both of these films were fairly good. Not in the league of top tier giallo but far better than the soap opera-ish and bland Death Walks Twice set that Domino liked. Killer Dames is silly and full of plot holes but the positives outweigh the negatives in my book. Overall; I'm fine with Arrow's giallo and asian offerings but (especially) the US line...it seems they have difficulty acquiring quality films. Blind buys are more often than not greeted with "such a finely curated edition for this piece of junk?" in this household. I'm also a lover of genre cinema. I don't quite get Arrow.