113 Berserk!

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MichaelB
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113 Berserk!

#1 Post by MichaelB » Thu Oct 11, 2018 5:07 am

Image
(Jim O’Connolly, 1967
Release date: 10 December 2018
Limited Blu-ray Edition (UK Blu-ray premiere)

After the huge success of Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?(1962), Hollywood legend Joan Crawford found herself taking the lead in a series of lurid and sensational horror pictures in her later years – and Berserk was one of the best and most successful.

Crawford stars as a ruthless circus owner who exploits a series of gruesome murders for her own ends... until the killer targets her. Directed by Jim O’Connolly (Valley of Gwangi, Tower of Evil) and co-starring Diana Dors (Yield to the Night, Deep End), Michael Gough (Horror Hospital, Batman) and Judy Geeson (10 Rillington Place, Inseminoid), Berserk is a deranged slice of Great British Grand(Dame) Guignol – a bloody exploitation classic!

INDICATOR LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES:
• High Definition remaster
• Original mono audio
• The BFI interview with Joan Crawford (1956)
• Audio commentary with film historians Lee Gambin and Eloise Ross
• Pamela Hutchinson on Joan Crawford (2018)
• Jonathan Rigby on 'Berserk' (2018): a new appreciation by the author of American Gothic: Six Decades of Classic Horror Cinema
• Didier Chatelain on Herman Cohen (2018): an interview with producer Cohen's assistant and business partner
• Tom Baker's Beyond Belief! VHS Introduction (1997)
• Tom Baker's Beyond Belief! Outtakes (1997)
• Original theatrical trailer
• Image gallery: on-set and promotional photography
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Limited Edition exclusive booklet containing a new essay by Josephine Botting, archival interviews, historic articles, an overview of contemporary critical responses and full film credits
• UK premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited Edition of 3,000 copies
• All extras subject to change

#PHILTD113
BBFC cert: 12
REGION FREE
EAN: 5037899071694

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colinr0380
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Location: Chapel-en-le-Frith, Derbyshire, UK

Re: 113 Berserk!

#2 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Oct 12, 2018 4:44 pm

It is very nice to see the Tom Baker introduction and outtakes on there from the old 1997 "Beyond Belief!" VHS tape. I'm quite nostalgic about that purely because the films in that series, Berserk!, The Mutations (which Tom Baker also stars in, which made his introduction all the better!) and the otherwise relatively unmemorable brain-transplant film The Immortalizer (though these days it is amusing to see it as kind of the cruder version of Get Out!), were some of the first (non-anime) films that I bought during my early months of buying films by mail order!

Berserk! itself is quite interesting. It gets glaringly left out of the British horror period from that recent Feud: Bette and Joan mini-series to get to Crawford's more notorious British horror film for Herman Cohen Productions that followed this, 1970's Trog, quicker (which makes it seem that Crawford is dealing with going to the UK for the first time as well as having to act in a really silly horror film, which is not quite correct when you know that she worked in the UK for the same producer on an earlier, more successful horror film three years before!), but its quite fun in its own right and makes for a good double bill with the other UK circus murder film from the 1960s, Circus of Fear ("Fear...Fear...Fear...Fear..."). Berserk! itself had an early working title of Circus of Blood, but perhaps that was considered too close to the title of the film released just a year prior to stay unchanged. Plus of course Berserk! sounds closer in spirit to Psycho, Homicidal, Strait-Jacket et al!

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MichaelB
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Re: 113 Berserk!

#3 Post by MichaelB » Mon Nov 19, 2018 11:24 am

Final specs:

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MichaelB
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Re: 113 Berserk!

#4 Post by MichaelB » Wed Dec 12, 2018 12:16 am


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MichaelB
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Re: 113 Berserk!

#5 Post by MichaelB » Fri Dec 21, 2018 2:25 pm


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Ovader
Joined: Wed Nov 03, 2004 1:56 am
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Re: 113 Berserk!

#6 Post by Ovader » Fri Dec 21, 2018 7:44 pm

The Beaver review has some spoilers in the images of how some of the characters meet their death. I rather have avoided seeing those samples since I have never seen the film but oh well.

Orlac
Joined: Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:29 am

Re: 113 Berserk!

#7 Post by Orlac » Sat Dec 22, 2018 4:32 am

I remember watching this in 1998 on Channel 4 (followed by Mystery of the Wax Museum!) when I was 12. Like Jonathon Rigby, I have no memory of
SpoilerShow
the musical number with the freaks in the last reel!
It's not a very good film but beats Circus of Fear anyday.

The Tom Baker extra reminds me that we need a BD from someone of The Mutations!

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MichaelB
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Re: 113 Berserk!

#8 Post by MichaelB » Thu Dec 27, 2018 3:55 pm


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