Review of 'Gialli, Guns and Gore: The Brutal Films of Darren Ward' Box Set from Treasured Films

Review of ‘Gialli, Guns and Gore: The Brutal Films of Darren Ward’ Box Set from Treasured Films

Gialli, Guns and Gore: The Brutal Films of Darren Ward cover artwork

I don’t think that Darren Ward needs an introduction on Severed Cinema. We’ve reviewed all of his major releases, and he’s had two interviews (see both interviews — The Violent and Gun Loving World of Darren Ward and Part II) so it’s with great pleasure to review his complete boxset, Gialli, Guns and Gore: The Brutal Films of Darren Ward which has come out courtesy of the lovely chaps at Treasured Films.

There’s no point in reviewing the actual films themselves as they’ve all been featured on here as I stated prior so when needed I’ll simply just link the older review.

What I will write about will be the tons of extras plus all of his early ventures into VHS film making land per disc.

Aside from the booklet which accompanies this mega release (31-pages of funky info plus pics) we start with Sudden Fury (see Sudden Fury review) his first big epic violent release and this one broke a lot of new grounds for the UK straight to video market along with Razor Blade Smile by Jake West and Alex Chandon’s Pervirella, as all three emerged around the same time.

The commentary is quite valuable to those who like to listen to them. Darren with Walker himself talking about locations, actors, make up (including working off photos of real burn victims) budget limitations, but how they made the film look bigger, the two and a half years it took to film, and why.

Additional to the commentary we have a 12-years-on feature, just over 30 minutes of interviews with the cast. There’s also a quick chat with Darren as he discusses his love of movies, his start in film, David Warbeck and more.

Sudden Fury also showcases a 47-minute behind the scenes FX special which is fucking amazing.

Now, onto the early films on this disc — Bitter Vengeance is the original Sudden Fury. It’s gory, bleak, brutal, and has incredible action set pieces for such a micro budget that showed just what Darren and his team were capable of from the start. It runs at 17-minutes and has lots of Hong Kong heroic bloodshed influences.

Blue Fear is a Gialli short, a subject that Darren returned to recently. Black gloves and a sharp knife. Darren also shows his acting skills as Stephen, a lad who witnesses a murder. At over an hour in length, it’s almost feature length. Quite an achievement. Great soundtrack plus nice Argento style lighting.

Paura Il Diavolo (which featured in the pages of the old UK magazine, In the Flesh) has a lot of Italian vibes. This is a horror film. I’m not spoiling anything, but I will say this is the most fun so far. Carefully building, demons, possession, includes a brilliant manifestation sequence, it totally needs a remake or sequel, or requel or whatever.

A Day of Violence (see A Day of Violence review) is the second heavy duty monster in this set. Absolutely the darkest in the trilogy, which has scenes so sadistic some may want to look away, but your eyes don’t want to, you become hooked! Once again, we have Darren and Walker on commentary. They discuss locations, cast members, reasons for certain scenes plus much more.

We have a making of featurette and it’s predominantly taking a cast of Giovanni Lombardo Radice’s upper torso for a scene which we also see executed as a behind the scenes. There’s a discussion about the character, Hopper, and more scenes of brutality. This is essential for budding film makers, well, those who wish to make gory violent epics.

We follow up with a Giovanni Lombardo Radice interview. We have his reaction to seeing A Day of Violence. He is so friendly and happy, and he says nothing negative apart from the blood as he isn’t a fan of gore.

Then we continue our talk with Darren for about 13-minutes, he explains the genesis and creation, how it became a decent sized hit, and, aside from a brief fire sequence, everything is practical FX.

After deleted scenes we get Nightmares, with Nick (Walker) Rendell as a serial killer who’s haunted by the ghosts of his victims. This is so similar to The Ugly which is a good thing. Genuinely Nightmares is a mini masterpiece. I usually hate people speaking directly to the camera in a film, but this actually works well.

Darren also talks about Nightmares and the unfilmed zombie film which would have starred Ian McCulloch.

So finally, we get to his guns and bloodshed epic, Beyond Fury (see Beyond Fury review), which is a sequel to Sudden Fury. This is a genuine grand scale beast which has as much excitement and crazy over the top blood as you could wish for.

The commentary of course is Darren and Nick. They take us through all the trials and tribulations, the sets, the construction of Beyond Fury, which incidentally took a long time, the cast (hey, I get a mention in my main scene), and much more.

Gialli, Guns and Gore has making of stuff, rehearsals with Giovanni, Dan Van Hussan, then a big damn talk – 35-minutes, because Beyond Fury is the big fucking daddy of this set. Again, we go through how long it took, and how the unfinished film won awards, plus bizarrely who was originally cast as Walker. A few legendary names spring up for the original choice of other characters. They aimed for a Euro look, not drab, using colours well, and it goes into how the scenes were set up.

Afterwards, comes Darren’s latest short, Passion (see Lust, Blood, and Blades: Darren Ward’s ‘Passion’ Delivers Brutal Beauty in a Giallo-Inspired Nightmare) and this looks crisp on Blu-ray.

Gialli, Guns and Gore is a core entry to anyone’s collection. Lovers of gangster flicks — whether UK, USA, or the old school European — will lap this set up.

Well done Treasured Films on this one. The packaging and art are spot on, the sound is perfect, and the visuals (they’ve even attempted to tidy up the old stuff a bit) needs to be seen to be appreciated, especially Beyond Fury.

Gialli, Guns and Gore: The Brutal Films of Darren Ward (Limited Edition Blu-ray Boxset) is available from Treasured Films.