Directed by: José Ramón Larraz
Country: GB / Belgium, 1974
Color / 1.66:1 widescreen
Language: English
Running Time: 92 minutes + Extras
Other titles: The Blood Virgin
Region: All
RED BOX LIMITED EDITION! 1000 numbered copies!
Due to an unforseen error with our supplier, the red cases for this edition are unfortunately emblazoned with the 'Playstation' logo. These are the same cases we have used in the past, with this one difference. Sadly, there are no cases on hand in bulk that do not have this error. We apologize, and hope that this does not dissuade you from purchasing what we feel is one of the strongest Blu-ray packages of 2016.
A dark and haunting study in psychological horror, Symptoms takes us deep into the twisted mind of a damaged girl.
Helen, who lives alone, invites her new friend Ann to stay with her in a lonely house, lost in the English countryside. The house, the woods that surround it and the figures fleetingly glimpsed through its windows, all seem imbued with a deep sense of mystery. Helen appears to be hiding a secret and the more Ann tries to uncover it, the deeper she is pulled into its dark heart.
Symptoms was the official UK entry to the Cannes film festival in 1974 and was highly praised at the time. Subsequently the film sank into obscurity and was recently listed as one of the UK's top 75 "lost films". This release, taken from the original negative and fully restored, brings this quiet masterpiece back into view, where it can now be appreciated as one of the most underrated films of the 1970s.
Special Features:
- Brand new HD transfer from film negative
- On Vampyres and Other Symptoms - documentary directed by Celia Novis (74 minutes)
- From Barcelona to Tunbridge Wells - 1999 Eurotika! TV documentary on director Larraz (24 minutes)
- An Interview with editor Brian Smedley-Aston (17 minutes)
- An Interview with Angela Pleasence (10 minutes)
- An Interview with Lorna Heilbron (18 minutes)
- Theatrical trailer
- Newly commissioned cover art by Gilles Vranckx
- Mondo Macabro previews
Exclusive to this Limited Edition:
- Larraz on Larraz - Bonus DVD featuring a two-hour long archival interview with José Ramón Larraz. Conducted in the late '90s and used as the basis for the Larraz episode of UK TV show Eurotika! (included as an extra on the main disc), the majority of this career-spanning interview has never been seen before.
- Something is About to Happen - Exclusive booklet featuring a brand new essay from Writer/Critic Samm Deighan - Samm is the editor of the Satanic Pandemonium blog, co-host of the Daughters of Darkness podcast, and the assistant web editor for excellent horror magazine Diabolique. She has contributed to Fangoria, Paracinema, and the book Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s, and is currently writing a book about WWII and cult cinema.
Cast:
Angela Pleasence, Peter Vaughan, Lorna Heilbron, Nancy Nevinson, Ronald O’Neill, Marie-Paule Mailleux, Michael Grady, Raymond Huntley.
