Today brings two films for which Savant had high hopes, and was kind of disappointed; I can at least say that both are quality transfers:

Anchor Bay does another beautiful job on a Hammer title with To the Devil a Daughter, a horror film with some reputation but mostly kept popular by fan-boy slobbering over Nastassja Kinski's full frontal nudity. Desperation and company cluelessness might be responsible for the lurid, trashy tone; Anchor Bay's transfer and extras (including a docu with a Chris Lee interview) are up to their high standard.

Vanguard Cinema brings a good number of interesting Latin American titles to DVD, but Tarea, o de como la pornografia salvo del tedio y mejoró la economía de la familia Partida, aka Homework is a soft-porn stunt picture that promises deep insights and delivers a rather cheap gag instead. 99% of the picture is shot from one camera angle, a gimmick that works better than it should, until we realize the only reason we're sticking around is to wait for things to get steamy.

To the Devil a Daughter is the second-to-last major horror film released in the Fall genre rush; the only outstanding title I wanted to review is Synapse's promising Castle of Blood. What kinds of upcoming product get Savant's motor running? Well, there's Ruscico's long, long War and Peace; Image's Mauvaise Graine (Billy Wilder's French movie); Anchor Bay's Hell is a City, The Frightened City and The Criminal; Artisan's The Hit; Criterion's Solaris and Contempt; Paramount's The Duellists, Sunset Blvd. and Serpico, Columbia's Fat City; and MGM's Miami Blues and The Thief of Bagdad. Add to that titles suggested by DVDTalk's Geoffrey Kleinman, and we should have a pretty good pre-Christmas rush. Glenn Erickson