The Devil’s Honey – Severin Films (4k UHD/Blu-ray Combo)

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 28th, 2024
Approximate Running Time: 82 Minutes 48 Seconds
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen / 2160 Progressive / HEVC / H.265 / HDR10
Rating: NR
Sound: DTS-HD Mono Italian, DTS-HD Mono English
Subtitles: English, English SDH
Region Coding: Region Free (4K UHD), Region A (Blu-ray)
Retail Price: $44.95

"a young woman who abducts and subjects a doctor she holds responsible for the death of her boyfriend and subjects him to unspeakable acts!" - synopsis provided by the distributor

Video: 4.5/5 (4K UHD, Blu-ray)

Here’s the information provided about this release's transfer, “now scanned in 4K from the original negative.”

The Devil’s Honey comes on a 66 GB dual layer 4K UHD.

Disc Size: 61.4 GB

Feature: 59.7 GB

This transfer is a marked improvement over Severin’s 2017 Blu-ray, and it looks similar to the source that 88 Films used for their 2020 Blu-ray release. The colors look correct, the black levels are strong, the compression is very good, and the image always looks organic. That said, though The Devil’s Honey has a soft focus, image clarity is generally strong.

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

Disc Size: 41.1 GB

Feature: 24.9 GB

The Blu-ray uses the same source as the 4K UHD does for its transfer.

Audio: 4.25/5 (DTS-HD Mono Italian) 3.75/5 (DTS-HD Mono English)

This release comes with two audio options, a DTS-HD mono mix in Italian and a DTS-HD 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. That said, the Italian language track sounds more robust than the English language track. Included are removable English subtitles for the Italian language track and removable English SDH for the English language track.

Extras:

Extras on the 4K UHD disc include a theatrical trailer (2 minutes 46 seconds, DTS-HD mono with text in English).

Extras on the Blu-ray disc include a theatrical trailer (2 minutes 46 seconds, DTS-HD mono with text in English), an alternate opening (6 minutes 23 seconds, Dolby Digital mono English, no subtitles), an audio essay titled Fulci's Honey by Troy Howarth, author of Splintered Visions: Lucio Fulci and His Films (16 minutes 56 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival interview with Stephen Thrower, author of Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci (21 minutes 44 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival interview with composer Claudio Natili titled The Devil’s Sax (9 minutes 51 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with burnt-in English subtitles), an archival interview with producer Vincenzo Salviani titled Producing Honey (13 minutes 22 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with burnt-in English subtitles), an archival interview with actress Corinne Cléry titled Wild Flower (12 minutes 13 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with burnt-in English subtitles), an archival interview with actor Brett Halsey titled The Devil’s Halsey (17 minutes 26 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles), an archival audio interview with director Lucio Fulci by Michele Romagnoli (6 minutes 28 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo Italian with removable English subtitles), and an interview with actress Blanca Marsillach titled Sax, Lies and Videotape (14 minutes 36 seconds, Dolby Digital stereo English, no subtitles).

Other extras include reversible cover art.

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 Severin Films that comes with a solid audio/video presentation and a wealth of informative extras, highly recommended.

Note about the 4K screenshots: It is not possible to make Dolby Vision or HDR10 screenshots that faithfully match the experience of watching a film in motion on a TV. Instead of not having any screenshots, all of the 4K screenshots are m2ts taken with a VLC player and lossless PNGs.

Written by Michael Den Boer