17 January, 2018

Stephen Thrower update of NUCLEUS Jess Franco Blu-rays

I copied this from Stephen's 1/17/18 post on FACEBOOK, which details some of the intensive restoration work done on these UK RB releases. I'll be reviewing these at some point and comparing them to the X RATED KULT, REDEMPTION and the US VHS releases.

An update by Stephen Thrower on the new Nucleus UK releases of two Jess Franco horror classics. I'll be reviewing these on my Franco blog in the future.
Stephen Thrower added 3 new photos.
THE EROTIC RITES OF FRANKENSTEIN and THE DEMONS: two peak period Jess Franco movies that no serious fan should be without, now available from Nucleus Films (http://nucleusfilms.com/) and featuring on camera interviews with yours truly! I'd also say that these two films are well worth buying if you're curious about Franco but uncertain about where to start. Some will counsel caution and recommend the slightly more sober and conventional 1960s titles, but to hell with all that. Why not throw caution to the wind and grab these two - they'll give you a fantastic insight into his freewheeling style in the 1970s.
Nucleus majordomo Marc Morris has done a huge amount of extraordinary work restoring THE DEMONS in particular. Here's a list of some of the work he's done which viewers and reviewers may not otherwise be aware of:
1. Incorrect aspect ratios on numerous shots fixed throughout.
2. White line frames removed throughout.
3. The soundtrack was out of synch throughout (sometimes by as much as 6 seconds). Marc has fixed this.
4. The soundtrack was missing audio, and in these scenes had been badly looped. Marc has located audio from alternate sources and replaced the annoying looped audio with correct audio where possible.
5. There was some German dialogue on the French soundtrack, which Marc has replaced with the correct French dialogue.
7. There were numerous instances of actors speaking with no dialogue heard on the soundtrack - now fixed.
8. There were numerous instances of dialogue spoken, with the actors' mouths not moving - now fixed.
9. The dissolve from face freeze frame to skull was completely missing - Marc has added this back.
10. He has also created from scratch an English language master, which is believed to match the original English language export version.
11. German Trailer - On the Kino Blu-ray, this was incorrectly dubbed with random French audio from the movie. This has been replaced with the original German soundtrack.
12. Marc has also corrected the frame rates from 23.976 fps to 24 fps, so if you have exquisitely perfect musical pitch the soundtrack will now match your LP record of Jean-Michel Lorgère's Trafic Pop!
And finally, look out for the startling fx shot included in the French trailer for Erotic Rites of Frankenstein which as far as I can recall doesn't appear in any currently available version of the film. Face-ripping!

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