Santa Sangre

(aka "Holy Blood" )

directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
Mexico/Italy 1989

Like some Fellini-esque nightmare, this heady mix of circus freaks (a tattooed lady, an exotic midget, sad-faced clowns) and weird religious and hallucinatory imagery (an armless virgin saint, writhing snakes, zombie brides) is pregnant with disturbing psychological undercurrents. Traumatised at an early age by a violent argument between his knife-throwing father (Stockwell) and trapeze-artist mother (Guerra), former child magician Fenix (Axel Jodorowsky), now 20, escapes from an asylum into the outside world. Reunited with his jealous mother, Fenix becomes her 'arms' in a bizarre pantomime act, a role which spills dangerously over into real life...

Excerpt from Time Out review located HERE

Poster

Theatrical Release: November 24, 1989 (Italy)

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DVD Review: Anchor Bay Entertainment - Region 2 - PAL

Big thanks to Daniel Mott for the Review!

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Anchor Bay Entertainment Region 2 - PAL
Runtime	1:58:08 (4% PAL speedup)
Video	1.78:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 7.56 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround)
Subtitles	English, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Anchor Bay Entertainment Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 1.78:1 Edition Details: • Louis Mouchet's La Constellation Jodorowsky (87 minutes) • Biographies • Stills and Poster Gallery • Audio Commentary with Director Alejandro Jodorowsky & Film Journalist Alan Jones • Deleted Scene • Filmed On-Stage Interview with Director Alejandro Jodorowsky • Short Film Echek Directed by Alejandro's son, Adan Jodorowsky • Original UK Press Coverage DVD Release Date: January 26, 2004 Double Keep-Case Chapters 21

Comments

I'm not as overly impressed with this transfer as some other reviews. It's good to see this important film on DVD, but I've got some gripes. There's some edge enhancement, bleeding colors (mainly red) and macro blocking. The 5.1 mix is a bit muffled and the 2.0 is clearly better but still not top notch.

The commentary is interesting but at times it can be hard to understand Jodorowsky even though he speaks in English. Subtitles would be nice. Speaking of them, they're well done in the film. Extras are of varying interestingness and quality - it was fun to see Adan's short film and interesting to hear some more of Jodorowsky's thoughts about his somewhat mysterious masterpiece.

Now I don't want to complain too much - this is an acceptable transfer that looks good most of the time and I'm happy to have the DVD - but there's definitely some room for improvement.

- Daniel Mott

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Screen Captures

[Screenshots resized to 800px wide from 1024px native resolution]

Subtitle Sample