MONDO FREUDO/MONDO BIZARRO: MORE MONDO

As I said in my review of ECCO/THE FORBIDDEN (also just released by Severin) “a genre began with the release of a “documentary” called MONDO CANE. This 1962 Italian documentary was made for shock value. It consisted of a series of travelogues that featured various cultural practices from around the world and was intended to stun audiences in the Western world. It did just that and made a ton of money doing so. It also spawned a series of imitations that more often than not used the word “mondo” to pull customers into theaters.”

Both ECCO and THE FORBIDDEN were features that cashed in on the genre from the producer/director/distributor team of Lee Frost and Bob Cresse. Taking in enough money to realize they had a good thing going they kept at it with these two films, MONDO FREUDO and MONDO BIZARRO.

The first of these two films featured here is MONDO FREUDO and he dips back into the same film footage that got him here to begin with offering not much more than the same thing all over again. But since people were willing to dish out money to see these films it didn’t matter. They were still considered shocking and taboo at the time. This film features things like Tijuana hookers, more strippers, more devil worshippers and British prostitutes. The thing is by this time it seems they had less real footage to sift through and shot more of it than ever. So much of it is staged as to make you wonder who would have believed this was real. Then again maybe the testosterone fueled male at the time wasn’t worried about that as long as there was plenty of exposed female flesh to behold and there is plenty of that, timid by today’s standards though. Still it makes for an interesting discussion when one witnesses the truly sexist way women are viewed here with the way they are treated today. I for one am glad we’ve moved forward.

MONDO BIZARRO presents more of the same with little variation. This time around we get to glimpse a Bahamian voodoo ceremony involving chicken blood, a Japanese massage parlor where little happens, a Nazi theater in Germany that features a woman in a swastika sporting G string and ends with an Arab slave auction that is so ridiculously fake it’s sad.

But as I said before there was a market for these movies when they came out until it eventually died. It pops up once more now and then (remember the FACES OF DEATH films?) but for the most part it was the early ones that people remember. Now fans can own copies of them brought out by Severin and done so with care.

To begin with the films are scanned in 4k resolution from the original film negatives found in the Something Weird 35mm vault. They also feature several interesting extras including an audio commentary track by Johnny Legend and Eric Caidin, “The Cadaver Is Infinity: Bob Cresse, Lee Frost and the Birth of American Mondo” an interview with Chris Poggiali and trailers for both films.

While I’m not a fan of these films I do see the need to have them available not just for the fans who love them but as a piece of history as well. Not all movies will be GONE WITH THE WIND but then again not all movies will be PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE either. But all of them need to be preserved for historical reasons and that makes these films being available a joy. That Severin has done so with the amount of care they have makes them just that more worth having for fans.

Click here to order.