Sunday 28 December 2008

Guess the giallo

From the French VHS artwork; I've removed the performer credits to make it a bit more challenging:


The Crypt of Madness

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

'The Night Evelyn... etc.'

K H Brown said...

Was it that obvious? The image is somewhat Erika Blanc I guess, or was it the title?

EricNS said...

Yes, that's the VideoBox VHS edition of Emilio Miraglia's "La Notte Che Evelyn Usci Dalla Tomba". This movie was distributed in France also under the name "Holocauste pour une Vierge" (Holocaust for a Virgin!)

French distributor were famous for bastardizing Italian genre movies with absurd titles and out of context artworks. Lucio Fulci's "Non Si Sevizia Un Paperino" became "La Longue Nuit de L'Exorcisme" (The long night of the exorcism), "Una Lucertola Con La Pelle Di Donna " was renamed "Les Salopes Vont en Enfer" (bitches go to hell). Carnimeo's "Perché Quelle Strane Gocce Di Sangue Sul Corpo Di Jennifer? " was transformed into "Les Rendez-vous de Satan" (meetings with satan). and so on...

One artist, Laurent Melki, became famous for his suspicious film illustrations. In the early eighties he was hired by many French or Belgian VHS labels to rejuvenate and disguise what was then considered old crap. His illustrations were always showing something totally different than what was printed on tape. He even admitted in interviews that he rarely saw the movies he was supposed to illustrate!

A few examples of his "masterpieces":

Mario Bava's "A Bay of Blood":
http://www.melki.org/images/baie1.jpg

Lucio Fulci's "A Lizard in a Woman's Skin":
http://www.melki.org/images/venin1.jpg

Lucio Fulci's 'Don't Torture a Duckling":
http://www.luciofulci.fr/images/longuenuitexorcisme.jpg

Massimo Dallamano's "What Have You Done To Solange":
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vZnrP6RKL._SS500_.jpg