Kino Lorber and Redemption Release Jean Rollin’s The Grapes of Death and Night of the Hunted on Blu-ray and DVD
New York, NY – April 17, 2013 – Kino Lorber and Redemption are proud to announce the Blu-ray and DVD releases of two more films by French cult horror filmmaker Jean Rollin: The Grapes of Death and Night of the Hunted.
The films come to Blu-ray and DVD on April 23rd, each with individual SRPs of $29.95 for the Blu-ray edition, and $24.95 for the DVD edition, mastered in HD from the original 35mm negatives. Both come packed with special features.
The Grapes of Death includes an introduction by Jean Rollin; an interview with Jean Rollin, by Patrick Lambert and Frederick Durand (2007, 49 min.), in which Rollin discusses his varied literary influences; a 16-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog; original theatrical trailer and original trailers of other Rollin films.
Night of the Hunted includes an introduction by Jean Rollin; two deleted sex scenes (8 min.); an excerpt of an interview with Jean Rollin by Joshua T. Gravel; a 16-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog; the original theatrical trailer and original trailers of other Rollin films.
Taking leave of the erotic vampire films that had comprised most of his work until then, The Grapes of Death (1978) was Rollin’s first foray into the gore movie. Trading the dreamlike tableaux of negligee-clad vampiresses for scenes of outrageous violence, Rollin finally earned the respect of horror-philes that had so long eluded him.
Night of the Hunted (1980) is another departure for Rollin — a Cronenbergian tale about an amnesiac woman held prisoner in an antiseptic high-rise. In recent years, Night of the Hunted has become embraced by Rollin’s admirers as his most sophisticated film, thanks in large part to a mesmerizing performance by Brigitte Lahaie (Fascination).
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Excerpt of the essay by Tim Lucas:
“The polluted wine produced for a village’s annual Grape Harvest Festival has left all but a few rabid with some chemically- engendered form of zombiism. They may saunter about like sleepwalkers, but these are not the zombies of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968); they are, rather, oozing transmitters of an impassioned insanity that can only be termed anarchy.
It seems an odd boast to make for one title in a plentiful filmography devoted to vampires, ghosts and other undead, but The Grapes of Death (Les Raisins de la mort) is Jean Rollin’s most frightening movie. It was never really the goal of his previous films to frighten, and it is the unsettling, progressively chilling quality of Grapes that makes it unlike anything else in Rollin’s poetical canon. Watching it, one is almost surprised that Rollin would”or could!”direct a film to such a successfully commercial end, but The Grapes of Death unfolds like an ever-expanding nightmare whose noose is drawn all the tighter by the efforts of its young heroine to escape it.” – Tim Lucas
France / 1978 / Color / 90 min. / 1.66:1 / 1920x1080p
Bonus Features
* Mastered in HD from the original 35mm negative
* Introduction by Jean Rollin
* Interview with Jean Rollin, by Patrick Lambert and Frederick Durand (2007, 49 min.), in which Rollin discusses his varied literary influences
* 16-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog
* Original theatrical trailer
* Original trailers of other Rollin films
Excerpt of the essay by Tim Lucas:
“A man driving home late one night nearly hits a beautiful, scantily-clad woman who is running wild in the streets; he takes her back to his apartment, they make love, and he discovers that she has already forgotten where they met. She is rapidly losing her memory, a woman without a past. The amnesiac woman is traced back to a scientific fortress melodramatically known as “The Black Tower,” where people suffering memory and identity loss due to accidental nuclear contamination are being held and treated.
Although Rollin made the film with absolute freedom within his budget, he was forced to race through with absurd time restraints. As a result, Night of the Hunted (La Nuit des traques) is a compromised film, to be sure, but it is a unique and exceptional chapter in Rollin’s filmography. It has a distinctly Cronenbergian feel, that reaches back to Cronenberg’s early experimental short films Stereo (1969) and Crimes of the Future (1970).
The film’s powerfully moving finale is, for my money, the single greatest sequence in Rollin’s entire body of work.” – Tim Lucas
France / 1980 / Color / 91 min. / 1.66:1 / 1920 x 1080p
Bonus Features
* Mastered in HD from the original 35mm negative
* Introduction by Jean Rollin
* Two deleted sex scenes (8 min.)
* Excerpt of an interview with Jean Rollin by Joshua T. Gravel
* 16-page booklet with an essay by Tim Lucas, editor of Video Watchdog
* Original theatrical trailer
* Original trailers of other Rollin films
The Grapes of Death
Director: Jean Rollin
Genre: Horror
Street date: April 23, 2013
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $24.95
Night of the Hunted
Director: Jean Rollin
Genre: Horror
Street date: April 23, 2013
Blu-ray SRP: $29.95
DVD SRP: $24.95
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