The Demoniaques Blu-ray

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S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

(aka "Demoniacs" or "Curse of the Living Dead" or "Deux vierges pour Satan" or "Strange Things Happen at Night" )

directed by Jean Rollin
France 1974

The 4K UHD of The Demoniacs is reviewed / compared HERE

Tanya (Joelle Coeur) and her team of wreckers lure ships to crash on the rocks in order to scavenge their cargo. One night, they discover two beautiful shipwrecked survivors who they proceed to rape and leave for dead. At the local tavern (festooned with macabre set decoration by Belgian designer Jio Berk of THE NUDE VAMPIRE and DEVIL'S NIGHTMARE), the drunken Captain experiences persecuting visions of the blood-covered girls so Tina leads them back to the scene of the crime only to discover the girls are still alive. They attempt to kill the girls again but they escape to an old abbey where they encounter a clown who introduces to the to a demon who by making love to them (of course) gives them supernatural powers to take vengeance on the wreckers who are already turning on each other out of guilt and paranoia. Although lacking Rollin's trademark naked vampires, DEMONIAQUES is great example of low budget French fantastique cinema. Drawing from serials and throwing in plenty of carnal eroticism, Rollin embodies an unusual story (for him) with elements familiar to his body of work (most notably fusing eroticism with decay which he did most successfully in the later IRON ROSE) with the sometimes naive or overstated (or expressionistic) acting appropriate to the style and atmosphere.

Eric Cotenas

Theatrical Release: 5 December 1974

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

Comparison:

Encore Entertainment - Region 0 - PAL vs. Image Entertainment - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Redemption - Region FREE - Blu-ray

Big thanks to Eric Cotenas for all the DVD Screen Caps!

1) Encore Entertainment - Region 0 - PAL - LEFT

2) Image Entertainment - Region 0 - NTSC - MIDDLE

3) Redemption - Region FREE - Blu-ray - RIGHT

Box Covers			Coming to 4K UHD by Indicator in April 2024:
Distribution	Encore Entertainment Region 0 - PAL	Image Entertainment Region 0 - NTSC	Redemption USA Region FREE - Blu-ray
Runtime	1:31:06 (4% PAL speedup)	1:34:01	1:40:24.529
Video	1.78:1 Original Aspect Ratio 16X9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 5.7 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s	1.64:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.83 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s	1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 40,323,745,788 bytes Feature: 27,416,358,912 bytes Video Bitrate: 24.97 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: Encore Entertainment
Bitrate: Image Entertainment
Audio	French (Dolby Digital 2.0 mono)	French (Dolby Digital 1.0 mono)	LPCM Audio French 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitles	English, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Polish, none	English, none	English, none
Features	Release Information: Studio: Encore Entertainment Aspect Ratio: Widescreen anamorphic - 1.78:1 Edition Details: • DISC TWO: • Selected Scenes Commentary (in English; 48:59) • Interview with Willy Braque (16:9; 12:19) • Theatrical Trailer (16:9; 2:57) • DISC THREE: • Short Film LES PAYS LOINS (16:9; in French with optional English subtitles; 15:42) • Audio Commentary on LES PAYS LOINS (in English) • Deleted Scenes from Demoniaques (4 scenes; 16:9; 17:53) • Slideshow DVD Release Date: 30 August 2005 Digipack in Sleeve Chapters 11	Release Information: Studio: Image Entertainment Aspect Ratio: Widescreen letterboxed - 1.64:1 Edition Details: • Theatrical Trailer (4:3; 3:08) • Behind the Scenes Photos • Production Stills • Publicity Photos • Director Filmography DVD Release Date: 21 September 1999 Amaray Chapters 12	Release Information: Studio: Redemption Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 1080P Dual-layered Blu-ray Disc Size: 40,323,745,788 bytes Feature: 27,416,358,912 bytes Video Bitrate: 24.97 Mbps Codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video Edition Details: • Introduction by Jean Rollin (3:08 in 1080P) • 2 Deleted Sex Scenes (3:37 + 6:41 in 1080i) Outtake Footage (2:07 in 1080P) Interviews with Natalie Perry (1:29) and Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (14:42 in 1080P) • Jean Rollin Trailers for 8 of his films in 1080P • 16-page booklet 'The Cinema of Jean Rollin's Blu-ray Release Date: May 29th, 2012 Standard Blu-ray Case Chapters 10

Comments

The 4K UHD of The Demoniacs is reviewed / compared HERE

NOTE: These Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Redemption - Region FREE - Blu-ray (May 12'): The Redemption Blu-ray version of Demoniacs looks to have a golden/green hue. I admit to be no expert on how this film should look. It seems like a fairly passive image - the US DVD certainly looks boosted beside it. Contrast is muted almost to the point of losing information detail in the background - but, again, perhaps this is how the film was meant to look. While colors are paler, I suspect that they are more true and balanced as the DVDs have some enhancement. There are screen-specific speckles visible on the 1.78 framed image. This is a dual-layered Blu-ray but it does not seem, to me, to be a strong representation.

Audio is lossless in a 2.0 channel stereo - unremarkable but I didn't notice any major flaws. There are optional English subtitles.

Regarding the 6-miniute longer running time: From the Latarnia Forum HERE "...It has the "extra" dialogue scene in the abbey (inexplicably missing from the old Redemption R1 DVD) but it also has an INCREDIBLY long version of the scene where Joelle Coeur masturbates on the beach as the two girls are being raped at the end of the film. This scene is missing entirely from most versions and was presented as a separate "deleted scene" on the Encore release. It just goes on and on. In a couple of shots you can see tourists wandering around in the distance. Still, I can't help but wonder if maybe this IS the "definitive" version. In the old Phil Hardy book, the running time for this movie is listed as 100 minutes, and now (possibly for the first time) it runs exactly that length."

Extras may not eclipse the Encore DVD but there is a 3-minute introduction by Jean Rollin, 2 of the Deleted Sex Scenes (running over 10-minutes in HD), 2-minutes of outtake footage and an interviews with Natalie Perry (1:29) and Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (14:42 in 1080P) as well as Jean Rollin trailers for 8 of his films in 1080P. The package contains a 16-page booklet.

This is very obtuse stuff but right in-line with the other Rollin films I have seen. Very weird, but for Rollin fans - wonderful. This Blu-ray is imperfect but may end up being the best we will ever get. Recommended only for the initiated.

- Gary Tooze

***

ON THE DVDs: Despite the differing aspect ratios, both transfers seem similar vertically (with the Encore disc offering a sliver more info in some instances along the bottom) but the Image disc at times reveals more info on the left while the Encore reveals more picture on the right and sometimes vice versa with only a couple compositions on the Encore revealing more on both sides. It may be that the Encore disc is more subtly stretched horizontally than Encore's 16:9 disc of RAPE OF THE VAMPIRE where the 1.78:1 stretching of the 1.66:1 image (without vertical cropping) resulted in noticeably wider faces in close-up. Neither disc includes the English dub track for the little seen US R-rated release CURSE OF THE LIVING DEAD (not to be confused with the US reissue of Mario Bava's KILL BABY KILL). Image Entertainment's release was mastered from a PAL source but (as the running time reflects) it was correctly converted to NTSC and is progressive with the audio slowed down to the correct speed (the 1:38:12 running time in the bitrate graph includes the Redemption intro and the trailer).

The color saturation of the Encore disc looks bolder than the Image and may be truer to the negative but the Image disc's non-anamorphic Image is still pleasing and the blueness of the sky in the last cap compared to the more realistic-looking sky in the Encore could be intentional. Among the expansive extras on the Encore disc are some slightly more explicit alternate takes (the most explicit of which is watermarked) which had only turned up previously in the Dutch tape release (pre-dating the later release of Rollin's preferred softer cut on tape from Redemption's Dutch arm). According to reviews, the new Redemption USA DVD (B001HSAPX6) is a PAL-NTSC standards conversion but it might be a good value to casual viewers as it also features the deleted scenes and a trailer as extras but the Encore is a true collector's edition.

- Eric Cotenas

Menus
(Encore Entertainment - Region 0 - PAL - LEFT vs. Image Entertainment - Region 0 - NTSC - RIGHT)