Severin Films is throwing a house party! The company revealed cover art and details for two upcoming DVD/Blu-ray bundles that should have fans of cult '70s horror and the UK's notorious “Video Nasties” pretty stoked: The controversial House on Straw Hill and occult whodunit The House of Seven Corpses.
House on Straw Hill (originally titled Exposé) made the headlines following its release by landing on the UK's notorious “Video Nasties” list, joining dozens of other films banned by British censors for their extreme content. While it does have some gory moments, it's been heavily cut mostly due to explicit sex scenes between stars Udo Kier (a horror icon who's starred in Mark of the Devil and Andy Warhol's Dracula and recently Severin's own horror anthology The Theatre Bizarre), Linda Hayden (Blood on Satan's Claw) and '70s UK sex bomb Fiona Richmond. Severin recently obtained the only known original camera negative (stored in a barn, of all places) for this presentation, which makes its uncut DVD/Blu-ray debut. They're also lining up cast and crew interviews and commentary with director James Clarke for the supplements.
The House of Seven Corpses (Rob Zombie borrowed most of the title of this late-nite-TV staple from his youth) stars genre faves John Carradine, John Ireland and Faith Domergue in a gothic thriller about a crew shooting an occult film in a reportedly haunted house. This one also gets a proper scrubbing, with its first-ever HD transfer, sourced from the original vault materials and presented uncut. The extras here include commentary from co-producer Gary Kent & film historian Lars Nilsen, as well as an archive interview with Carradine that has apparently never before appeared on DVD.
Both discs are slated for a June 11th release. More info to come...