Laura Gemser is an international cinematic treasure. From her 1974 debut in Free Love and throughout the 80's and into the early 90's Gemser graced a huge swath of Italian exploitation cinema with her presence, and left an undeniable impact after her much too soon retirement. Her most iconic role would be that of Emanuelle in the "Black Emanuelle" series made after the success of the original 1974 Sylvia Kristel starring original. 

     As the Emanuelle character, she would play a journalist who finds herself in a wide variety of situations, and because of the nature of the character, director's would take that character, and Gemser and put them into films of all sorts of genres from straight-forward erotic exploitation to the cannibal and women in prison fare that Severin Films has brought to Blu-ray this month with their Blu-ray releases of Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals and Violence in a Women's Prison.

Violence in a Women's Prison

    Violence in a Women's Prison sees Emanuelle acting as an investigative journalist on behalf of Amnesty International. She is going undercover to try and find out about human rights violations in this countries prisons.  This is no simple observe, and write task for Emanuelle, and she almost immediately finds herself disliked by the guard Rescaut (Franca Stoppi), who takes pleasure in torturing some of the prisoners, and watching others engage in lesbian antics.  Emanuelle's terrible treatment goes from bad to worse, when information gets out that there is a journalist sneaking around the prison, and it is found out to be her.

    I had previously seen Mattei's Women's Prison Massacre (Blade Violent), which it turns out has the same basic plot structure, and was shot concurrently with this film. Needless to say I was surprised to find out that this film was out there, and was sort of like a B-Side (or maybe an A-Side) to Women's Prison Massacre. Mattei really goes all out with this one. There is of course, the usual angry lesbian warden, lesbian sex, and torture, but we have scenes where Emanuelle is basically forced to sleep in solitary with rats, there is lesbian wrestling in feces, and so much more weirdness to go along with it. Basically Mattei really ramps up the trash/nasty quotient here, and fans are all the better for it. Performances across the board are excellent from Gemser as Emanuelle down to Gabriele Tinti as the Doctor with a heart of gold and Lorraine De Selle as the sadistic lingerie loving warden.

    Severin presents Violence in a Women's Prison in a quite decent 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer. The image looks solid, for the most part, detail is fine, colors are muted, but that reflects the overall look of the film, and there is some minor damage to content with. There is a decent grain structure, that becomes more dominant in the film's darker scenes. Audio is handled by a DTS-HD MA mono track in English. Everything here sounds mostly good and balanced. There are a few noticeable pops to contend with but nothing really distracting.  There is an archival interview with Mattei, a new interview with Claudio Fragrasso and Rossella Drudi, and a radio spot.

The Film (4/5)

Audio/Video (3.5/5)

Extras (2/5)

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Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals

    Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals opens with that always ready for a scoop journalist Emanuelle in a hospital mental ward, when a women is viciously attacked, and bitten on her breast. She sneaks back in later that night, and give the bitten woman some "attention" while also getting some photographs. Later on her editor and her go over the photographs, and discover, a tattoo indicating membership of some South American tribe.  Emanuelle sensing a story grabs  Professor Mark Lester (Gabriele Tinti, who else?), and heads down to the Amazon to find the last  cannibals!

    Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals is purely a Joe D'Amato film. where as Violence in a Women's Prison plays in the typical Women in Prison genre, D'Amato blends the porn and erotic films he was known for, and which the Emanuelle character typically belongs, and mixes it into the burgeoning cannibal genre. Oddly, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals was made in 1977, the same year as Deodato's Jungle Holocaust, so the only film that was really popular in this cycle at the time was Lenzi's Man from Deep River, and yet D'Amato's take on the genre feels so much in line with the popular notion of the cannibal film as defined in more popular titles like Cannibal Ferox and Cannibal Holocaust.

    However, the film though it is quite a bit dark in its approach is much lighter than those later films. It has moments like a near lesbian sex scene, interrupted by a cigarette smoking ape that just seem so absurd, that I personally had to love it, and wanted to immediately recommend the film based on that alone.  Obviously, as the film is a cannibal film, it has moments of extreme violence, some sexual, that will put off many viewers, so no matter how much you might love cigarette smoking apes, please keep that in mind. 

    Severin Films presents Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals in a solid 1:78:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer that looks quite solid with colors looking quite natural and detail proving to be reasonably solid for the most part. There are some instances of damage, but they are minor and never a distraction. Audio is handled by DTS-HD mono in English and Italian, both tracks sound fine with score and dialogue coming through clearly. Extras include interviews with Nico Fidenco (Composer), actresses Monika Zanchi and Annamaria Clementi, and actor Donald O'Brien, and an audio interview with Laura Gemser. There is also a theatrical trailer.

    Both Laura Gemser efforts released by Severin Films this month are full of trashy, violent, thrills sure to satisfy fans of Gemser, and of Euro Sleaze cinema. Both films have never looked, nor sounded so good, and both have quite the decent extras slate to HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM ON.

The Film (4/5)

Audio/Video (4/5)

Extras (3.5/5)