Stephen Romano Presents Shock Festival

Bloody Earth Pictures

R1 3 DVD Set

Stephen Romano is an artist and author obsessed with cult, grindhouse and genre cinema. Since his youth he has created his own unique genre cinema posters for films he wished had been made but never were. These posters took on a life of their own and gave birth to the alternate universe documented in Shock Festival (IDW 2008), a book which includes not only his stunning art, but a stories where faux films, directors and characters are weaved together into a B movie extravaganza. There are over 100 movies and a slew of filmmaker and actors who never existed, all documented in incredible detail.

As a companion to the book, but also just enjoyable by itself, this three DVD Shock Festival is every cult cine aficionados dream.

The DVD collection includes three DVDs packed with over seven hours of the most bizarre exploitation, horror and B Grade cinema trailers you will ever see. They have been nicely restored with improved picture quality and excellent sound.

The first DVD opens with a series of faux trailers based on tales from the book. They are rip-roaring fun and can also be viewed with a commentary by Stephen Romero. The second reel is an awesome series of exploitation trailers. Some of the films are so utterly insane that it is hard to believe they are real when the faux titles based on Shock Festival are not !

The second DVD opens with a horror trailer marathon which offers everything from Giallo and gore to cult and classic horror. It then follows with the TV Spectacular which are quite amazing TV trailers with commentaries by Stephen Romano and Uncle Creepy.

We are then treated to a selection of trailers from Independent International Pictures with Sam Sherman including a very informative interview with him on his work in B grade and cult cinema, from advertising and promoting genre cinema to making it. The third reel on this DVD is a new gallery of Shock Festival posters with accompanying music.

The third DVD opens a new world of trailers, that of radio spots and music. It is a veritable goldmine of over 300 radio spots remastered from rare original vinyl records. The mp3’s are high quality and encoded with images of the films. There is also a rather neat tribute score from Mars Deadhouse Music.

The package also include an informative full colour insert booklet and poster.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No.1 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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