Severin Films is "coming to get you" with their Blu-ray of Sergio Martino's giallo ALL THE COLOURS OF THE DARK.

Ever since a car accident in which she lost her unborn child, Jane Harrison (Edwige Fenech, PHANTOM OF DEATH) has been having surreal nightmares of her mother's murder by a stiletto-wielding man with intense blue eyes (Ivan Rassimov, THE MAN FROM DEEP RIVER), and her sexual relationship with sympathetic boyfriend Richard (George Hilton, DINNER WITH A VAMPIRE) has been suffering because of it. When the man starts appearing in her waking life, Jane is unable to convince her boyfriend, her sister Barbara (Susan Scott, DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT), or her sister's therapist (Jorge Rigaud, EYEBALL) that he is real. As she starts to believe she is going mad, her new neighbor Mary (Marina Malfatti, THE RED QUEEN KILLS SEVEN TIMES) takes her to an English country house and inducts her into a Satanic coven. Blood-drinking and group sex with pale-faced hippies has a rejuvenating effect on her sex life with Richard, but her hallucinatory visions of her stalker become more real and more violent, forcing her to return to the cult where she learns from the leader of the cult (Julian Ugarte, FANGS OF THE LIVING DEAD) that she can only be free from her own fears by freeing a willing Mary of her existence by death.

Opening with a wildly surreal nightmare sequence, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK has more in common with ROSEMARY'S BABY and REPULSION than director Sergio Martino's previous gialli THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH which launched the giallo "it couple" of Fenech and Hilton who were, respectively, the mistress of Martino's producer brother Luciano and a cousin of the brothers by marriage. While a pregnant Fenech had to bow out of the immediate follow-up THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL (replaced by Anita Strindberg with whom she would co-star in Martino's subsequent YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY), she resumes her role of terrorized heroine to stalker Rassimov and lover Hilton in a more twisty scenario that, of course, turns out to be window dressing covering up a more conventional plot. There is, however, much to savor from druggy hallucinations, a frequently nude Fenech, and a supporting cast of the usual suspects that also includes Luciano Pigozzi (WEREWOLF IN A GIRLS DORMITORY) and Maria Cumani Quasimodo (THE HOUSE OF WITCHCRAFT). Giancarlo Ferrando's Techniscope cinematography is no less effective for the cliché use of wide angle distortions while the scoring of Bruno Nicolai (EUGENIE) features a memorably psychedelic theme for the witches' sabbath with sitar and choral voices courtesy of Alessandro Alessandroni (THE KILLER NUN) and a more romantic theme with vocalizing by Edda dell'Orso (some of the score would be recycled for Dick Randall's trashier giallo THE FRENCH SEX MURDERS). The country house seen in the film is Wykehurst Place, also featured in THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE and DEMONS OF THE MIND.

Released stateside as THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU by Sam Sherman's Indepednent-International in a version that trimmed the opening nightmare and a few short sequences, some theaters dispensed with the final reel leading to the implication that Scotland Yard was part of the cult (this was reportedly how I-I's TV version DEMONS OF THE DEAD ended). When Sherman launched his Super Video line in the early 1980s, he released the film as DAY OF THE MANIAC with the ending restored but the film transferred in a confusing panned-and-scanned transfer. The first official English-friendly edition came out in Germany from Marketing Film in a non-anamorphic letterboxed 2.35:1 widescreen transfer at the dawn of the DVD format. An improved but still imperfect anamorphic edition followed from Shriek Show in the states with English and Italian tracks as well as English subtitles. Both versions featured the English export title ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK while Shriek Show also included the American THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU opening credits in widescreen.

Severin's Blu-ray was beat out of the gate by X-Rated Kult Video's German combo edition which was not English-friendly and Shameless' Region B British Blu-ray. Both were derived from a new scan of Spanish materials with Spanish opening and closing credits. While that transfer looked a bit sickly yellowish, it was a big improvement over the DVDs; however, Severin's new 4K-mastered 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray reveals just how much more could be improved. Without the sickly yellows, the skintones looked more naturalistic apart from the pale cultists. Detail in close-ups is enhanced, with not only Rassimov's blue contacts more evident (you can see his real color just along the outer edge) and the make-up around his eyes in the dream sequence to distinguish his identity from the waking life version. English and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono tracks are offered along with English SDH subtitles for the English track and English subtitles for the Italian.

The most-anticipated extra announced with this set is the inclusion of the "alternate US cut" THEY'RE COMING TO GET YOU (87:16), and it is present but in rougher shape. Seemingly derived from the original tape master before Super Video's imposition of a video burn title (the film appeared on VHS under its US title in Canada from Vogue Video), the standard-definition image features the American title sequence animated by Bob LeBar while the image itself is framed at 1.78:1, still cropped on the sides but unsqueezing the image from the panned-and-scanned tape. It is watchable but only of interest to see the Independent-International title sequence.

The Shameless Blu-ray featured an audio commentary by Diabolique Magazine editors Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan, but Severin has commissioned a new commentary by Ellinger which is fortuitous as it comes after the publication of her book "All the Colors of Sergio Martino" from Arrow Books. She spends less time commenting on the onscreen action apart from major sequences like the opening dream, focusing instead on the ways in which Sergio Martino as a jobbing director had more freedom than Dario Argento to do something different with each of his gialli, also drawing comparisons between the film and the other "Satanic panic"-tinged gialli like SHORT NIGHT OF THE GLASS DOLLS, THE PERFUME OF THE LADY IN BLACK, and TRAGEDY AT THE VILLA ALEXANDER as well as the giallo's German genre predecessor the krimi with the supernatural as window dressing for an inheritance plot. As with FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION, she connects the female-focused giallo to melodramas and gothic fiction. Ellinger seemed unfamiliar with Fenech's video interviews for NoShame's giallo releases on previous track but seems to have caught up here in researching the Martino book (also noting Martino's own recent autobiography). She also makes some amusing observations like Malfatti being the equivalent of a "female Ivan Rassimov" in the shiftiness of her roles in giallo films, how Hilton's measured performance is necessitated by the ambiguity of his character, and notes the presence in the opening nightmare of actress Dominique Boschero who had co-starred with Giancarlo Giannini in screenwriter Gastaldi's directorial effort LIBIDO.

"Color My Nightmare" (40:16) is a new interview with director Martino in which he recalls wanting to do something more aesthetically different and surreal than his previous two gialli, and how the Italian distributors and audiences did not get the surreal turns which were cut from the Italian version (although not the export version or the Italian source used for the cassette releases). He attributes credit to Gastaldi for his contribution while revealing that the dream sequence was his influence, just as the serial murderer subplot was his innovation for THE STRANGE VICE OF MRS. WARDH. "Last of the Mohicans" (18:12) is an interview with screenwriter Gastaldi who recalls meeting Luciano Martino through screenwriting partner Ugo Guerra (THE WHIP AND THE BODY), concedes that Sergio Martino embellished their films' visual elements, and also recalls how he and Luciano fell out briefly when he was hired to work for Sergio Leone (MY NAME IS NOBODY). "Giallo is the Color" (31:57) is an interview with actor Hilton with some asides by Italian horror expert Antonio Tentori (DRACULA 3D). Hilton discusses his beginnings on TV and the stage in Uruguay, arriving in Milan in 1962 and becoming a spaghetti western star, meeting Luciano Martino, and his introduction to Fenech. In between Hilton's recollections of the beginnings of his giallo period and his reflections on the cast, Tentori appears in cutaways to discuss the film and Hilton's performance in it. These bits are interesting but seem less like padding for the Hilton interview than the Tentori piece was too short. The disc closes with the film's international theatrical trailer (3:02), the U.S. theatrical trailer (2:40), and a U.S. TV spot (0:32).