DVD: Lamberto Bava's THE TORTURER, w/ Elena Bouryka, Simone Corrente, Emilio De Marchi, Carla Cassola, Eleonora Sannibale, Valeria Cramerotti, María Blanco-Fafián, Martina Micozzi, Daniela Giorgini, & Alissa Huzar

General Video Recording s.r.l. (GVR) is scheduled to release Lamberto Bava's The Torturer - a.k.a. "Il torturatore" - on DVD (PSV7603; PAL, region 2, in Italian) in Italy on April 11th, under its Flamingo Video label; the DVD is being distributed by Cecchi Gori Home Video s.r.l. (CGHV).

The screenplay for The Torturer was written by Diego Cestino and Andrea Valentini in collaboration with Bava, apparently based on a story by Dardano Sacchetti, Luciano Martino, and Michele Massimo Tarantini. The movie's cast includes Elena Bouryka, Simone Corrente, Emilio De Marchi, Carla Cassola, Eleonora Sannibale, Valeria Cramerotti, María Blanco-Fafián (a.k.a. María Blanco), Martina Micozzi, Daniela Giorgini, and Alissa Huzar.

Here's a synopsis for The Torturer from the website of the Courmayeur Noir in Festival: "Hoping to become famous, Ginette, a young actress, auditions for Alex Scerba, a rather eccentric director notorious for his outrageous, unrestrained films and his constant search for the ultimate shock effect. During the auditions Ginette falls for Alex and the two start going out together. From certain unequivocal clues, Ginette comes to realize that her best friend Marzia, who disappeared several days before without leaving a trace, also auditioned for Scerba. ¶ In the same place, other young women are auditioning for a mysterious personage whose face and identity are both concealed. Three of these girls, desperate to become actresses, are subjected to a crazy screening process characterized by insane, depraved tortures. ¶ These two very modern tales, linked by the story line of a delirious, troubled mind, play themselves out over a brief period of time only to end up entwined one with the other in the grand finale. ¶ Ginette investigates her friend's disappearance and sneaks into the Scerba villa, where Alex's elderly, mentally disturbed mother, stepfather and taciturn foreign maid live. Could Marzia have been in the villa before disappearing? And who is the mysterious Torturer who delights in provoking young women, in placing them in extreme situations and then in filming the agony of their death throes and the subsequent decomposition of their bodies? ¶ Terrified, Ginette attempts to escape from Alex's villa only to fall into the hands of the Torturer."

For more information on The Torturer, see Twitch's third, second, and first articles on it.

Bava's other recent/upcoming movies include Ghost Son.

Cecchi Gori Home Video: The Torturer
Cecchi Gori Home Video: The Torturer: Technical info
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED
The Torturer promo sheet (104 KB JPEG)
The Torturer still (692 KB JPEG)
Elena Bouryka's 'wardrobe malfunction' on Bla Bla Bla (downloadable 4.9 MB AVI file)
Elena Bouryka's hot weather forecast on Bla Bla Bla, etc. (downloadable 6.7 MB AVI file)