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

ADDITION: Mondo Macabro Blu-ray (April 2020): Mondo Macabro have transferred Umberto Lenzi's An Ideal Place to Kill (aka "Oasis of Fear" or "Un Posto Ideale per Uccidere" or "Dirty Pictures") to Blu-ray. It is advertised as "restored from the original negative, complete and uncut via a new 2k transfer". It's a massive improvement over the past DVDs. The 1080P has beautiful texture, richer colors (look at the red walls of the sex-shop) - including more accurate flesh tones (of which there are a lot!) It is on a single-layered disc with a modest bitrate but it a giant leap over SD.

NOTE: We have added 70 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Mondo Macabro offer DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel tracks (16-bit) in both English or Italian. It is another advancement in the film's audio and very good score by Bruno Lauzi (one of only two feature composition credits - the other being Ermanno Olmi's In the Summertime), sounding deeper. He was more of a singer. Both text and some Italian language in the English version are subtitle translated (see sample below). Mondo Macabro offer optional English subtitles for the entire film or just the Italian (brief language and text) on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Mondo Macabro Blu-ray has an audio commentary by Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson who are at their usual high standards of discussing a variety of facets of the film, cast, director and genre. Howarth mentions the 'twists' in the film that has a few strong giallo themes if they aren't extensive throughout. They discuss the budget (Carlo Pointi), the salacious and pornographic features of the film, the attractive leads - that Ornella Muti (The Most Beautiful Wife) was only 15, body-doubles - and much more. There is also an exclusive interview with director Umberto Lenzi for shy of 24-minutes. He is always good to hear from. There are also four more brief graphic deleted scenes, the original trailer and Mondo Macabro previews.

An Ideal Place to Kill is an interesting, and unconventional, part of the Giallo genre. It's has some exploitation aspects with the frequent nudity, oral sex, pornography etc. but also a decent, sly, murder thriller. The improvement over our old DVDs is reason for celebration and with the commentary it makes this Mondo Macabro Blu-ray an easy recommendation for genre aficionados. 

Gary Tooze

ON THE DVDs (2008): Picture quality-wise, Shameless' transfer of OASIS OF FEAR is not as good as the OOP Alan Young Pictures DVD but that transfer wasn't great in the first place. They likely uses the same master (except for the English credits which appear to be newly created on a textless background of the opening credits montage - actor Umberto Raho is credited twice) as the faded right edge of the frame suggests which might be indicative that this particular Carlo Ponti title has not been well-cared for through the years (or the licensors did not make use of the original negative). Shameless was able to restore one never-before-seen sequence featuring nudity from an Irene Papas body double (the same body double used for the underage Ornella Muti) but the sequence seems unfinished. Since the transfer is derived from the Italian version, it is missing a couple brief scene extensions that appear only in the English version and features an exchange between Ray Lovelock and Ornella Muti's characters that appears only in the Italian version.

Burned-in subtitles are provided both for the Italian-version-only scenes as well as for some exchanges that played in Italian even in the English version (which had optically printed subtitles on English language prints). The composited English language track on the Shameless disc is also missing Lovelock's opening narration which does not have an equivalent on the Italian tracks on the Italian disc. A Shameless Fact Track subtitle commentary is provided and imparts some interesting trivia but is also very jokey about the groovy seventies fashions, "bubble gum" music, and dancing (a similar but more informative track appears on Shameless's disc of BABA YAGA ). A newly-created trailer for the film along with trailers for 6 other Shameless releases are also included. The R2 Italian disc does not feature any extras other than a 5.1 upmix which sounds fuller but not very directional. Despite missing footage and so-so picture quality, the Shameless edition is a good overall presentation of the film (especially for English speaking viewers) but not as impressive as their restorations/special editions of BABA YAGA and FOOTPRINTS.

 - Eric Cotenas