THE PRINCE OF TERROR
Color, 1989, 91 mins. 50 secs.
Directed by Lamberto Bava
Starring Tomas Arana, Carole André, David Brandon, Joyce Pitti, Ulisse Minervini

THE MAN WHO WOULDN'T DIE
Color, 1989, 95 mins.
Directed by Lamberto Bava
Starring Kevin Van Hoven, Martine Brochard, Gino Concari, Lino Salemme, Igor Zalewsky, Stefano Molinari, Peter Pitsch

SCHOOL OF FEAR
Color, 1989, 100 mins. 17 secs.
Directed by Lamberto Bava
Starring Alessandra Acciai, Jean Hebert, Stefano De Sandro, Morena Turchi, Daria Nicolodi

EYE WITNESS
Color, 1989, 99 mins. 54 secs.
Directed by Lamberto Bava
Starring Barbara Cupisti, Stefano Davanzati, Alessio Orano, Giuseppe Pianvati, Mary Sellers, Francesco Casale
Severin Films (Blu-ray) (US R0 HD) / WS (1.66:1) (16:9)

As many Italian filmmakers scrambled to find ways to keep making films when the industry almost entirely moved over to TV late in the '80s, Lamberto Bava managed to stay very busy turning out a string of entertaining films for the small screen. First came a quartet of films in the Brivido Giallo series which all managed to get distribution outside of Italy including multiple home video releases. Less fortunate was another four-film series, Alta tensione (or High Tension), which ended up getting shelved for years and remained impossible to see in any kind of watchable edition even when bootlegs started turning up pulled from tapes sent around to distributors. All of them were completed in 1989, but it was a long, long haul until they finally got the treatment they deserved in 2025 as a Blu-ray set from Severin Films that fills a very important gap in late '80s Italian genre history.

First up in The Prince of Terror, that title refers to the nickname given to legendary Romanian-born horror director and golf aficionado Vincent Omen (The Church's Arana) who is currently involved in a public relations feud with his regular screenwriter, Paul (Stagefright's Brandon). At his country home he enjoys a tranquil life with his wife, Betty (Yor: The Hunter from the Future's André), and their volatile daughter, Susan (Pitti). Following a small dinner party at their home, the evening is disrupted by macabre occurrences like blood gushing out of the toilet and a very nasty (but thankfully very fake-looking) fate for the family dog. Then the house is invaded by a bug-eyed, knife-wielding weirdo (Minervini), setting the stage for a string of horrific twists and reversals all ultimately connected to Vincent's most recent project. It's really best going into this one as cold as possible since the exact nature of the horror here -- supernatural, home invasion, mind games, or something else entirely -- is left undetermined until the absolutely outrageous final ten minutes. Arana (who also starred in Bava's Body Puzzle) and Brandon (from Bava's Delirium) are clearly having a lot of fun here bouncing off each other, and the house itself with a central circular hallway is a terrific setting for what amounts to a five-character chamber piece. Several names behind the camera make big contributions here with Sergio Stivaletti unleashing some fun makeup effects (especially in the fakeout opening scene and the big finale) and Simon Boswell (Demons 2) brought on again to handle scoring duties for all four films in the series. You also get a nice cameo from The Ogre's Virginia Bryant early on as a journalist, while André does fine in a mostly one-note part and Minervini goes very, very hammy for reasons that don't become clear until halfway through. The one bum note is Pitti cast in a role clearly written for someone at least a decade younger, but that's easy to overlook.

The one film in the set with a prior home video history of any kind via a DVD from Mya Communications (though given their track record, God knows how legitimate it was), The Prince of Terror was shot in English but was only seen dubbed in Italian until the Blu-ray release. Like the other films in the set, the new 2K scan looks terrific and is up to par with other recent Italian genre presentations. Both the English and Italian DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono tracks are included with optional English-translated or SDH subtitles, which also applies to the other three films here. It's worth noting that the opening sequence in the camper is presented with natural color timing versus the blue day-for-night version on the earlier DVD, but it makes more sense here given the revelation we find out which doesn't require a massive switch in aesthetic. An audio commentary by Troy Howarth and this writer is included which can't be evaluated here, obviously, but will hopefully prove worth a listen. In "The Adventure of Anfri" (16m46s), Bava chats about the production company behind the series co-founded with Andrea Piazzesi, the connections to his films made in America, the decision to shoot these films in 35mm, the delay in these films getting to the public, and his issues with the High Tension title. Then in "We Call Him Maestro" (17m52s), Bava goes into this film in particular including the collaboration with screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti going back to Shock, the concept behind the opening, the intended international appeal by using live English-language sound for the three leads, and his thoughts on the actors and the final result.

Next up in The Man Who Wouldn't Die, a bandaged young man in a hospital gradually pieces together the circumstances that brought him there-- and he's deathly afraid of being left alone. The setup then unfolds involving a gang of thieves including Fabrizio (The House of Clocks' Van Hoven), Giannetto (Massacre's Concari), and Tito (Demons' Salemme), recruited by Madame Janaud (Eyeball's Brochard) to steal some valuable art during a home robbery. The plan goes wrong almost immediately thanks to Gainnetto's violent streak against the homeowners which leaves him left for dead in the woods. The aftermath sets off a chain of violence committed by a black-gloved killer, with the obligatory multiple twists involved. For the first hour this plays like a fairly straightforward crime thriller; in fact, the short story it's based on by crime writer Giogio Scerbanenco intended to be filmed in the early '70s by Mario Bava in a mode presumably similar to Rabid Dogs. The younger Bava handles the material well enough here with a nice Euro-crime vibe and some gory kill scenes including a standout bathroom attack reminiscent of A Blade in the Dark. Like that film, this one is full of unsympathetic characters which makes the giallo-style body count in the final stretch satisfying to watch. Extra points for the (maybe intentionally) hilarious climax involving a speeding car with characters repeatedly yelling "You whore!" and "The painting!"

Unlike the prior film, this one was shot without any live sound but with the actors speaking English, more or less, and dubbed later either way. Both the usual Italian and previously unreleased English tracks are included here (DTS-HD 2.0 mono with optional English-translated or SDH subs), and the scan is leagues better than anything before with excellent detail. As with the other titles in the set, the opening and closing credits are all the English-language versions. In "The Scerbanenco Touch" (22m17s), Bava discusses his attachment to the short story, the varying degrees of evil among the characters determined by social class, the lessons he learned from his dad and Avati, and the methods he used to select the cast members. "Stephen King Italian Style" (15m24s) features screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti and Bava separately chronicling their friendship and sometimes very fraught working relationship, with a strong focus on their creative process that reached an apex together with Demons.

Disc three brings us to School of Fear, essentially an Italian take on Unman, Wittering and Zigo as PTSD-addled teacher Diana (Acciai) arrives to teach at an upper class boarding school run by Daria Nicolodi -- which should be a tip-off right away that something is off. Her predecessor died by crashing through a still-broken window, and the choir-singing students seem to be engaged in some kind of creepy long-form game that might be murderous. Originally entitled Il gioko (or The Joke) in Italian and bearing no connection to the previous West German thriller School of Fear, this is a crazy one complete with a creepy monster kid lurking around, a traumatic assault scene involving a Donald Duck mask, vandalism involving Pier Paolo Pasolini, an uncomfortable romantic subplot involving the local police detective (Hebert), and lots of skulking around the spooky school at night with macabre clues popping up all over the place.

Though it's the least explicit film of the bunch and probably could have made it to TV with minimal trims, School of Fear works up a strong sense of atmosphere that would make it a solid co-feature with something like Phenomena or Aenigma (despite having no real supernatural content). Boswell's score is arguably his best of the quartet here with a creepy, delicate touch that works nicely; it's no wonder that this disc also comes with a soundtrack CD spanning Bava and Boswell's work together including numerous previously unreleased tracks from this film, The Man Who Wouldn't Die, and The Mask of Satan, plus some CD premiere cues from Delirium. One really nice inclusion here is the track "Red Sun" from Demons 2, which was originally called "Sally's Garage" on the rare Japanese CD decades ago and hasn't been seen since. One of the highlights of that score, it's great to have back in circulation at last compared to the vastly inferior track of the same title included on the current Demons 2 soundtrack making the rounds. As for the film itself, it looks great here and is the one that definitely plays better in its Italian version since the dubbing on all of the kids is far more natural and effective. Try both and see which one you prefer though. In "The Tale of Evil Children" (18m15s), Bava chats about the killer kid idea going back to his father's Kill, Baby! Kill!, the script by Roberto Gandus, Pupi Avati, and Sacchetti, the bullying experiences in his own life that lingered here, the sequence he feels is one of the best he ever shot, and the filming in Livorno. In "Play the Game" (9m45s), Gandus is interviewed about being brought on by Avati, the influence of Hitchcock's Rope and a shocking real-life incident in Italy, and the issues he had with a rewrite done after him. Finally in "When Bava Met Boswell" (31m56s), the composer goes into his days working composing in Italy and his memories of working on these films getting inspiration from Bava's inventive nature on limited finances with The Mask of Satan being among his favorites.

Finally we get to disc four with Eyewitness, the one bona fide giallo in the set and quite a fun, unusual one at that. Here Stagefright's Barbara Cupisti stars as Elisa, a blind woman hanging around a department store near closing time with Karl (Painvati) so they can do a little shoplifting. When Karl slips out for a minute, she ends up "witnessing" the murder of a secretary by her boss (Lisa and the Devil's Orano) which makes her a key asset for the local police. That includes the petulant inspector (Davanzati) who seems to have some romantic intentions, but that gets sidelines by all the people in the vicinity who keep getting killed off in an attempt to cover up the crime. Everything eventually leads to a very sexually liberated home for the disabled where Elisa has to make a final stand for her life.

A very strong showcase for Cupisti, this one surprisingly qualifies as the sleaziest film of the bunch with a large amount of nudity for a made-for-TV film and a very skeevy villain in Orano. There's really no murder mystery angle here since we see the killer right at the beginning, but the unusual cat-and-mouse structure still keeps you on your toes with a nice twist on the usual woman in peril formula. Bava certainly knew his way around a giallo by this point with this one falling in between Delirium and Body Puzzle, and it doesn't suffer by comparison at all. Don't miss that last ten minutes either, which is a real jaw dropper you'll never believe. It's been a tough one to appreciate until now though since available copies were very, very poor quality, so the Blu-ray goes a long way to making it appreciable as a solid entry in Bava's '80s filmography and a nice way to round out the series. The previously buried English track is preferable here as it fits the spoken language, but the Italian works quite well, too; both sound fine here with the usual subtitle options. A new commentary by Howarth and myself is also included but can't be reviewed here. In "The Last Giallo" (15m42s), Bava discusses the origins of the film with Andrea Piazzesi, his interest in the strengths of different kinds of physical diversity throughout his films, other contributors to the screenplay, the location scouting, Cupisti's strength as a thespian, and his admiration for actress Mary Sellers (another Stagefright vet). Finally in "Love Is Blind" (12m26s), Cupisti discusses her background in dance, her early acting days with Michele Soavi, her positive experience working with Bava, her vain attempts to see this film, and the reason she decided to step away from acting.

Reviewed on October 6, 2025