By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Having done full hi-def justice to Alex de la Iglesia and Alejandro Jodorowsky this year, the genre-disc specialist is highlighting the works of another Spanish-language shock auteur.
Severin Films has announced the August 24 Blu-ray releases of five films by Eloy de la Iglesia (no releation to Alex), including a pair of ’70s fright features and a trilogy of teen-crime movies from the early ’80s. The horror films are the “video nasty” CANNIBAL MAN (pictured, a.k.a. WEEK OF THE KILLER and APARTMENT ON THE 13TH FLOOR), in which a slaughterhouse worker accidentally kills someone in a fight and develops a taste for killing, and NO ONE HEARD THE SCREAM, about a woman who witnesses a crime and becomes the perpetrator’s partner in depravity. The juvenile gang dramas, known as THE QUINQUI COLLECTION, are NAVAJEROS, EL PICO and EL PICO 2, highlight the brutality that ran rampant on the streets of post-Franco Spain–and led to the filmmaker’s own downfall.
CANNIBAL MAN will include both the international and extended Spanish versions, newly scanned from the original negatives for the first time ever. NO ONE HEARD THE SCREAM and THE QUINQUI COLLECTION will also be scanned in HD from the original negatives. Special features are:
CANNIBAL MAN
- Exclusive slipcase
- “Cinema At The Margins”: Stephen Thrower and Dr. Shelagh Rowan-Legg on Eloy de la Iglesia
- “The Sleazy And The Strange”: Interview with Carlos Aguilar
- Deleted scenes
- Trailer
NO ONE HEARD THE SCREAM
- “Eloy de la Iglesia And The Spanish Giallo”: An Interview with Film Scholar Dr. Andy Willis
NAVAJEROS
- “José Sacristán on Eloy de la Iglesia”: Interview with Actor José Sacristán
EL PICO
- “Blood In The Streets: The Quinqui Film Phenomenon”: An interview with Quinqui Historians Mery Cuesta and Tom Whittaker
- Trailer
EL PICO 2
- “Queerness, Crime, And The Basque Conflict In The Quinqui Films Of Eloy de la Iglesia”: A Panel with Scholars Alejandro Melero and Paul Julian Smith, Moderated by Evan Purchell of Ask Any Buddy
- Trailer
CANNIBAL and SCREAM will also be issued on DVD; all these discs can now be pre-ordered at the Severin webstore.