The Film (4.5/5 - All the Colors of the Dark, 4/5 - All the Colors of the Giallo)

    Severin Films are absolutely one of my favorite distributors of Blu-ray releases. As a fan of EuroCult and Eurohorror, Severin has always released some of the finest releases in the EuroCult arena with stunning regularity. Over the next month there will be well over 5 releases from Severin, but I decided to single out two their release of Sergio Martino's classic occult themed giallo All the Colors of the Dark, and a trailer compilation of their own creation the massive 3 disc All the Colors of the Giallo.

    All the Colours of the Dark stars giallo goddess Edwige Fenech as Jane. A woman who recently had a  miscarriage, and is now having surrealistic dark visions in her dreams that are carrying over into her real life. Her boyfriend, who is also a doctor prescribes stuff to her that seems to intensify these visions.   Adding to her suffering is the killer from her nightmares that begins appearing to her in real life. In order to help her out, her neighbor Mary, takes her to join a Satanic cult (which I guess helps reduce anxiety?), but that only brings her deeper into her own personal darkness. 

  All the Colours of the Dark blends giallo with the supernatural and surreal to create something wonderfully vivid and bizarre. It is clearly influenced by Rosemary's Baby, but goes off in it's own direction where rationality is thrown out the window, and even after the film is over the reality of the film is definitely in question. Martino creates a solid vision for the film blending stark reality based sequence with wonderful moments of surrealism. Performances are great across the board with Fenech and Hilton doing solid work as per usual.

    All the Colors of the Giallo is structured around 3 discs 2 of which feature excellent trailer compilations. The first disc featuring a 4 hour "Giallothon", and the second focused around the Krimi subgenre, the latter runs 91 minutes.   Tying these all together is a documentary on disc 1 literally called All The Colors of the Giallo by Federico Caddeo that does a nice job of diving into this beloved subgenre of film, giving its history, and a nice in-depth analysis of the genre.

Audio/Video (4/5 - All the Colors of the Dark, 4/5 - All the Colors of the Giallo)

      Severin gives Martino's film a gorgeous new 4k scan that brings out the color and detail of the film like never before.  It is a very natural transfer, and  blows the recent Shameless Blu-ray out of the water by comparison.

    All the Colors of the Giallo is a trickier release to review. The documentary itself looks accurate to what I imagine the natural look is. However, I have a feeling many viewers will buy this one for the trailer compilations on disc 1 and 2, and for the most part those transfers look very good, though quality differs between trailer for obvious reasons.   I did note some minor banding issues with a few of the trailers, but for the most part everything looks solid and pleasing to the eye.

    Audio for All The Colors of the Dark is handled by 2 mono tracks in English and Italian that sound quite excellent with crisp and clear dialogue and score.  All the Colors of the Giallo features an Italian mono track for disc 1 and German mono for disc 2. With the different source materials audio quality shifts from one moment to the next ,but overall sounds quite solid.

Extras (5/5 - Dark 5/5)

    All the Colors of the Dark has the 88 minute U.S. version  as a main extra, there are also interviews with Martino, screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi, and another with George Hilton.  The highlight of the extras is a commentary track by Martino biographer Kat Ellinger who goes wonderfully in depth on this film.   The first 2500 copies also includes a CD soundtrack.

    All the Colors of the Giallo is a bit harder to review on the extras side.   I think technically the documentary is the feature and the giallo trailers are extras. With that in mind the disc gets a 5 star review for the over the top amount of trailers on the set.   However, there is a lot more to this set than trailers. We get an interview with John Martin, editor of the Giallo Pages, and another with Marcus Stiglegger on the Krimi side of things. There is also a third disc of giallo soundtrack cues.   However, my favorite extra is the hugely indepth 4 hour commentary track on the Giallothon compilation by Kat Ellinger, where she gives brief, but deep analysis of each film.

Overall

    Severin Films knocks it out of the park with their Blu-ray releases All the Colors of the Dark, and All the Colors of the Giallo. Everything looks and sound great, and they are loaded up with extras. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.