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

NOTE: Obsessions is available individually on Blu-ray HERE.

NOTE: Frank and Eva is available individually on Blu-ray HERE and is fully reviewed HERE.

NOTE: Blue Movie is available individually on Blu-ray HERE and is fully reviewed HERE.

NOTE: My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie is available individually on Blu-ray HERE.

ADDITION: Cult Epics Blu-ray (November 2019): In 1965 collaborators Pim de la Parra and Wim Verstappen founded Scorpio Films, a Dutch production company that would make 13 features over the next decade before dissolving in bankruptcy. Scorpio Films is best remembered today for a group of four films that treated their audience like adults with their frank exploration of human sexuality. The journey began with the Martin Scorsese co-written “Obsessions” a psycho-sexual thriller which plays like a low-budget De Palma film from a decade later and anticipated elements of David Lynch’s “Blue Velvet”. Next up is the film that turned de lar Parra and Verstappen into millionaires: “Blue Movie”. The film was notorious for showing its main character’s erection (the first of its kind in Dutch cinema), and was a huge hit throughout Europe and Japan. With a little more financing behind them, the pair moved on to “Frank & Eva”, a dramedy about a couple who can’t live apart or with one another. Finally, when the company was in financial decline they produced the film “My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie”, the story of a pair of anarchic women who take over a farm after murdering an American. All four films are full of nudity (male and female), sex, and pathos. They’re made for adults without apology for their content, and the sort of films that we haven’t seen in North American cinema for many years now.

All four films in this set went through a restoration, with inconsistent results. I’m sure that these films look vastly superior to their pre-reproduction elements and approximate what the films looked like in the theaters, but I also suspect that the image could have been sharper on all four discs. “Obsessions”, the oldest and grainiest of the set, has a pleasing transfer that looks good for its age/production value especially in close-up. The transfer on “Blue Movie” has a bluish hue to it throughout. Like the previous film, it looks best in close-up, but has a noticeable softness in its medium shots. Thankfully, the color coding on “Frank & Eva” seems perfect, but it too has inconsistencies with the strength of the image.* Finally, “My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie” is the most recent of the films, and has the overall strongest transfer. It has a pleasing amount of grain, apt coloring, and looks excellent in close-up.

“Blue Movie”, “Frank & Eva”, and “My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie” all come with DTS-HD Master 2.0 audio tracks, and all sound about the same. The mono on each is about what you would expect from low budget filmmaking in the early-mid 70s, and has clearly been cleaned up by Cult Epics. Nothing on here is going to wow you, but there are also no distracting hisses or pops to take you out of the viewing experience. “Obsessions” is the outlier here with a DD AC3 2.0. While perhaps not as robust as the other films on the disc, I have no doubt that it accurately recreates the audio of the original theatrical release. To put it another way, it’s unimpressive, but more than serviceable.

Director/producer Pim de la Parra is everywhere on these four discs, providing introductions and interviews on “Obsessions” and “Blue Movie”, as well as a feature length audio commentary on “Frank & Eva”. In all of these appearances, de la Parra provides insights into the background of Scorpio films and the production of those films. Producer Dieter Geissler also provides both an introduction and interview on “Obsessions” which go into the history of the company with an emphasis on “Obsessions”. Other interviews include Hugo Metsers Jr., son of the star of “Blue Movie”, and a vintage interview with the film’s director as well. On “My Nights with Susan, Sandra, Olga & Julie” Cult Epics have included three short films: “Joop”, “Joop Strikes Again”, and “Heart Beat Fresco”. While I enjoyed all three, the last of them was the closest to the theme of the box. “Blue Movie” contains a behind the scenes look at the Dutch archive/museum The Eye Film Institute. “Frank & Eva” has a short feature entitled Up Front & Naked: Sex in Dutch Films which brings the film’s star Willeke van Ammelrooy together with contemporary director Eddy Terstall to discuss the subject of erotica in the Netherlands. The final documentary short is a very brief (4:02) look at the history of Scorpio Films on “Obsessions”. Also included are theatrical trailers and poster/photo galleries for all four films, as well as a Sylvia Kristel poster gallery.

None of the films in this set will ever be mistaken for a masterpiece, but I have to admit to enjoying all four films in the set. It used to be possible for filmmakers to make a sexy film for adults. Now in the era where studios want everything to be PG 13, we’re lucky to even get substandard fare like the “Fifty Shades of Gray” trilogy. Thankfully these films have two things that those didn’t. First, they have the courage to wade into frank and explicit material regardless of marketability. Second, they have a brain. These are smart and thoughtful films that tell a good story whether it’s a relationship drama or a thriller about murder. Yes, it’s definitely recommended.

Brian Montgomery