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

ADDITION: Mondo Macabro Blu-ray (August 2020): Mondo Macabro have transferred two 70's French/Belgium risqué flics by director Jean-Louis van Belle sharing a dual-layered Blu-ray; The Lady Kills and Pervertissima. They are cited as being from a "Brand new 2k transfers from film negative, digitally restored". The bitrates are both high and the image quality is quite strong with excellent grain. Both are in the 1.66:1 aspect ratio. There is some teal leaning but it's not overwhelming. The 1080P is relatively clean - very few speckles and no distracting damage. There is occasional depth and I'd say the HD presentations are a success. 

NOTE: We have added 80 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Mondo Macabro use DTS-HD Master dual-mono tracks (24-bit) in the original French language. It seems an advancement in the film's audio related to lossy Dolby with a nostalgic and dated score for The Lady Kills is by Gil Dayvis (his last film credit) and for Pervertissima, Guy Bonnet (his first film credit). There is some electric guitar riffs and it sounds very fitting for these Euro exploitation flics. Mondo Macabro offer optional English subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

The Mondo Macabro Blu-ray offers some extras. Jean Louis Van belle directed a number of striking low budget French movies during the 1960s and 70s including Forbidden Paris, Pervertissima, The Sadist with Red Teeth and The Shadow of One Summer among others. As a supplement, Mondo Macabro has included Sylvain Perret's (as Peter Van Lyris) 1/2 hour documentary "Who is Jean Louis Van Belle?' made in 2010 with Michel Anderson, Michel Barbey, Christophe Bier, Natalie Perrey, Jean-François Rauger, Denyse Roland and Jean-Louis van Belle. It's an excellent overview. We also get 20-minutes worth of Christophe Bier - a connoisseur of pornographic cinema. He is the author of a Dictionary of French Pornographic and Erotic Feature Films in 16 and 35mm, published in 2011 by Serious Publishing and he is here giving us his personal view of the films of Jean Louis van Belle and in particular The Lady Kills (Perverse et docile) and Pervertissima. Following his feature film career, Jean-Louis van Belle worked in industrial films, information films and commercials. Included is a short amusing promo, made in 1983, to promote a well-known umbrella retailer. It was entitled La Parapluies de France. Mondo Macabro include their usual 11-minute trailer of previews that contain images of sex, violence and midget assassins.

I don't recall ever seeing any films by Jean-Louis van Belle. He makes some social commentary - more so in Pervertissima and it reminded me of Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor. The two films, made a year apart, share a few actors, sets and themes (in  The Lady Kills Carole Lebel is even called "Pervertissima" see HERE and her photos can be seen on the wall in the second film.) There is a lot of female skin but it rarely feels overly exploitive - on the contrary - it is expressed reasonably naturally. I liked The Lady Kills (Perverse et docile) a bit more but I found  Maelle Pertuzo in Pervertissima... ummm... more attractive. Overall these attain a level of cohesiveness than I wasn't expecting and the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray provides decent HD presentations and valued extras in the documentary and Christophe Bier's comments. If you are keen on this era of films and their 'taboo' qualities - this is certainly recommended! Trust me you could do a lot worse than The Lady Kills and Pervertissima. Both kept my attention throughout.... even beyond the plentiful Euro-gal T & A. Surprisingly entertaining.

Gary Tooze