The Devil’s Honey – 88 Films (Blu-ray)

Theatrical Release Date: Italy, 1986
Director: Lucio Fulci|
Writers: Jaime Jesús Balcázar, Lucio Fulci, Ludovica Marineo, Sergio Partou, Vincenzo Salviani
Cast: Brett Halsey, Corinne Clery, Blanca Marsillach, Stefano Madia, Paula Molina, Bernard Seray

Release Date: May 18th, 2020
Approximate running time: 82 Minutes 49 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen / 1080 Progressive / MPEG-4 AVC
Rating: 18 (UK)
Sound: LPCM Mono Italian, LPCM Mono English
Subtitles: English
Region Coding: Region Free
Retail Price: £14.99 (UK)

"Brett Halsey (A Cat in the Brain, Four Times That Night) plays a brilliant surgeon who, when distracted by personal problems, accidentally causes a patient to die in surgery. Determined to avenge this, the man's grief-crazed former lover kidnaps the doc and undertakes a very kinky type of vengeance – there's no safe word here..." - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 4.5/5

Here’s the information provided about this release's transfer, "2K Scan from Original Vault Materials. Exclusive dust and scratch Restoration carried out in the UK."

The Devil’s Honey comes on a 50 GB dual layer Blu-ray.

Disc Size: 40.2 GB

Feature: 24.2 GB

Though The Devil’s Honey had been previously released on Blu-ray by Severin Films, that transfer left room for improvement. This new transfer from 88 Films greatly improves image clarity; grain has been handled better; compression looks stronger; and it also appears that some extra cleanup was done for this transfer.

Audio: 4/5 (LPCM Mono Italian) 3.75/5 (LPCM Mono English)

This release comes with two audio options, a LPCM mono mix in Italian and a LPCM mono mix in English. Both audio mixes are in great shape; dialog comes through clearly, everything sounds balanced, and ambient sounds and the score are well-represented. This release includes removable English subtitles that are a direct translation of the Italian language track rather than dub-titles like the subtitles used by Severin Films for their Blu-ray release.

Extras:

Extras for this release include a slipcover (limited to first pressing), reversible cover art, a theatrical trailer (2 minutes 40 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), alternate English language opening credits and closing under the title Dangerous Obsession (6 minutes 33 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), Italian language opening and closing titles (3 minutes 7 seconds, Dolby Digital mono Italian, no subtitles), an audio essay by Troy Howarth author of Splintered Visions – Lucio Fulci And His Films titled Fulci’s Honey (16 minutes 56 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an interview with author Stephen Thrower author of Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci (21 minutes 44 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an interview with composer Claudio Natili titled The Devil’s Sax (9 minutes 51 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with burnt-in English subtitles), an interview with producer Vincenzo Salviani titled Producing Honey (13 minutes 22 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with burnt-in English subtitles), an interview with actress Corinne Cléry titled Wild Flower (12 minutes 13 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with burnt-in English subtitles), an interview with actor Brett Halsey titled The Devil’s Halsey (17 minutes 26 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles) and an audio commentary with film historian Samm Deighan.

Summary:

The Devil’s Honey was co-written and directed by Lucio Fulci, who is primarily known for his gore films like The Beyond and Zombie and thrillers like Don’t Torture a Duckling and A Woman in a Lizard’s Skin. Though there have been erotic undertones in many of his films. Outside of a handful of erotica/comedy hybrids like The Eroticist, Dracula in the Provinces, and My Sister in Law, he rarely ventured into the erotica genre.

The Devil’s Honey is a story about two lovers, Johnny, an up-and-coming musician, and Jessica, his girlfriend. The film establishes early on that they have a very psychic relationship that is frequently tumultuous. Johnny rides around Jessica on his motorcycle one day after a lover's spat to prove his undying love for her. This event leads to him hitting his head really hard on a rock, which leads to his seeing a doctor named Wendell Simpson, a prominent brain surgeon. Doctor Simpson, the surgeon called in to operate on Johnny, was also going through his own turbulent relationship woes with his wife, Caroline. Unable to focus, Johnny dies during the operation. This is when The Devil’s Honey shifts away from its blatantly overt use of erotica into themes more geared towards revenge. Jessica kidnaps Doctor Simpson, whom she then proceeds to put through a series of grueling punishments. Not wanting him to die until he has suffered to her liking, she even gives him mouth-to-mouth in one scene to revive him after he nearly drowns.

Though revenge is the modus operandi of the latter half of the film, this does not mean that The Devil’s Honey has abandoned its erotic overtones that dominate the opening part of the film. In fact, during the bulk of the time that the Jessica Simpson character is torturing the Doctor Simpson character, she is either topless or fully nude. Visually, The Devil's Honey demonstrates that director Lucio Fulci was always able to create interesting compositions and set pieces despite a limited budget or material.

The Devil’s Honey’s strongest asset is its editing. The Devil’s Honey editor Vincenzo Tomassi worked with director Lucio Fulci a total of sixteen times, beginning with The Eroticist and ending with Voices from Beyond. Also, The Devil’s Honey does a great job filling in the backstory of Johnny and Jessica through a series of flashbacks.

The Devil’s Honey features a few familiar faces: Brett Halsey in the role of Doctor Simpson (Four Times That Night), in his first collaboration with Lucio Fulci, and Corinne Clery (Hitch Hike) in the role of the doctor’s wife Caroline. The Devil’s Honey’s most memorable performance comes from Blanca Marsillach in the role of Jessica, the girlfriend of the musician who tragically dies. That being said, as good as her performance in The Devil's Honey is, it only highlights how bad Stefano Madia's performance as Johnny is. In the end, The Devil's Honey is a late-career Lucio Fulci film that demonstrated what he was capable of producing when given adequate resources and a compelling story to work with.

The Devil’s Honey gets an excellent release from 88 Films that comes with a strong audio/video presentation and a wealth of informative extras, highly recommended.

Written by Michael Den Boer