Evil Judgement (BLU-RAY)

Aspiring young dancer Janet is desperate to leave her dead-end waitressing job - so, after a fight with her sleazy boyfriend Dino, and with the encouragement of her friend April, she decides to try her hand at prostitution. The two women set off to spend the night with one of April’s regular clients, a strange older man named Ron who lives in a vast, secluded old mansion. But before proceedings can get underway, the house is plunged into darkness and a razor-wielding assailant brutally slashes the throats of both Ron and April. Waking up the next day in a hospital bed, Janet attempts to relate the horrific events to grizzled Detective Armstrong, who dismisses her story as a drug-induced hallucination. However, as the mutilated corpses continue to pile up - and Armstrong continues to ignore the obvious - Janet and Dino attempt to uncover the truth, only to find themselves thrust into a nightmarish maze of murder, madness, and diabolical conspiracies. One of the lesser-known productions to benefit from Canada’s tax incentive heyday, Claudio Castravelli’s EVIL JUDGMENT is a twisty-turny thriller inspired in equal parts by the contemporary slasher movie boom and the stylistic giallo offerings of the likes of Dario Argento - complete with menacing blue hue lighting and a razor-wielding, black-gloved killer. Filled to the brim with gloriously gushy throat slashings courtesy of future Academy Award-winning make-up artist Michèle Burke (Bram Stoker’s Dracula), EVIL JUDGMENT arrives in its Blu-ray world premiere, restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative by the slash-happy folks at Vinegar Syndrome, and complete with a judicious array of revelatory new bonus features which shed light on this long-overlooked Canuxploitation classic.