law abiding citizen : satans wife : blade of the ripper

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN: Half a century ago, B-movies knew their place in the Hollywood system. They starred second-tier actors, journeyman directors, and sported the sort of outlandish plots that supposed “A-listers” would never stoop to produce. Law Abiding Citizen is an excellent example of that sort of filmmaking methodology, despite the fact that it stars an Oscar winner (Jamie Fox), an action hero (Gerard Butler) and probably cost more to produce than most studios spent in a year in 1956. Butler is a bonafide family man who loses everything during a violent home invasion. Foxx is the hotshot prosecutor who makes a deal and lets one of the bad guys get off with a slap on the wrist. Cut to ten years later. Turns out Butler is a master CIA tactician who’s been plotting his revenge with the sort of attention to detail usually reserved for James Bond super villains and bitter ex-girlfriends. Soon everyone associated with the case is winding up dead…despite the fact that Butler has been put behind bars. Law Abiding Citizen is a particularly vicious movie made up of shades of grey, forcing you to flip flop your sympathies at various points throughout the film. But it’s not a particularly deep one. It wants you to cringe at the excessive violence, puzzle over the plot twists, and clap when everything’s over. No more, no less. Just what every good B-movie is supposed to do. Anchor Bay’s unrated director’s cut ups the gore considerably, so the theatrical version is included in the two-disc Blu-ray, along with a commentary and several featurettes.

SATAN’S WIFE: It should come as no surprise that Satan is a polygamist. After all, only a masochist would want to torture themselves with four wives, all of whom hate and resent him for not being there to help raise the kids he sired during their performance-art / dirty dancing / satanic ritual. But since those kids are demonically-enhanced and destined to conquer the world, I guess he figured child-support would just be overkill. Technically beating The Exorcist and The Omen to the punch (the film is based on a novel from the ‘60s), Italian writer / director Pier Carpi never really pulls together the exploitive, philosophical and satanic elements of his film into anything resembling a coherent narrative. Daria (Lara Wendel) is a rebellious pre-teen who seems well aware of her mother’s past dalliances with the black arts. In fact, she already knows the secret handshake and can burn you with a single touch. Meanwhile, the other parents are running scared of their offspring who’ve developed powers that dwarf their own. The synopsis makes much more sense the Carpi’s tangled mess of has-been movie stars and underage nudity set to the funktastic sound stylings of Stelvio Cipriani. However, the film is a genuine rarity, never appearing on home video during the ‘80s horror heyday. So MYA’s debut should be nice reward for those who spent the last three decades searching for a copy. No extras though and the transfer, which seems to come from a video source, doesn’t hold up well in the dark.

BLADE OF THE RIPPER: Is it blasphemy to say that the early giallos of Sergio Martino have held up far better than those of critical darling Dario Argento’s? Just watch Blade of the Ripper (better known as The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh, released by NoShame films a few years ago) and tell me it’s not true! Unlike Argento, whose illogical nightmares may or may not have been intentional, Martino thrills you in workmanlike fashion, delivering a stylish murder every 20 minutes or so with better acting and better scripts. The one and only Edwige Fenech stars as the wife of a US ambassador who is being stalked by an ex-boyfriend and wooed by a handsome new lover. Meanwhile, a sex maniac is slicing up prostitutes across the city. Could one of the men in her life be the culprit? And what role could her own repressed masochistic tendencies have to play? Blade of the Ripper always keeps your guessing. And, like most giallos, it winds up making little sense. But Martino masterfully directs each sequence with an eye for Welles-ian camera angles and dramatic lighting. It’s sleazy, sexy and bloody satisfying. MYA’s transfer appears to duplicate the old disc, with a photo gallery and trailer. The widescreen image looks fine but, again, suffers during darker scenes.