Shameless Screen Entertainment - One (and a bit) Year On

It's been over a year now since the launch of Shameless Screen Entertainment and since then there have been 17 releases, with Oasis of Fear as the latest. When they announced themselves, they said they would be a "highly visible pulp-inspired in-your-face exploitation brand of discovery offering up carefully picked vile, evil, gore-soaked, demented, disturbing, deranged, naked flesh-filled, flesh-ripping, depraved, tormenting movies that will delight horror and exploitation fans." They've lived up to this claim with some really memorable films - some deliciously trashy, some poor and some genuinely good Giallo films.

The horror genre has been in something of a rut in recent years with the excellent releases such as The Orphanage and [ REC ] being largely overwhelmed by the glut of soulless remakes, boring sequels and the 'torture porn' flicks. You may have noted that both of those are non-English titles, doesn't that tell you something? The most impressive English language horror that can think of that had a major release was Eden Lake, though low budget fair like Mum & Dad got decent notices on the festival circuit. Anyway, I digress, whatever the artistic merits of the Shameless releases, they are an oasis in the desert of disappointing horror; they find innovative and distinctive horrors and thrillers, some of which have never been released in the UK on any format, let alone DVD.

In their bright yellow cases (Giallo is Italian for yellow, so fitting), the Shameless releases stand out amongst all the black uniformity on the shelves. In addition to the unique (in horror at least) yellow cases, they have double sided sleeves with an alternate cover on the inside so you choose which one you want. As I said, they're currently up to #17 so the picture below is out of date but it show's there's clearly a market for these niche titles and they'll look good on your shelf.

If you're a horror fan and you haven't yet discovered these releases of great titles from European cinema, check them out - the films and DVDs are getting better as they go on. I don't want to come across like a publicist or a shameless fanboy as I'm neither but they offer something different and put in the effort that comes with love of these films - if they're not completely uncut, they're as close as they are going to be and the cut scenes are available on their website. Speaking of which, they are one of the few distributors I know of that have forums on their site where you can discuss previous/upcoming releases and give them ideas for films you want to see released on DVD.


The collection, at present, consists of:

01 - New York Ripper
02 - Phantom of Death
03 - Killer Nun
04 - Torso
05 - Venus in Furs
06 - The Black Cat
07 - Flavia the Heretic
08 - Manhattan Baby
09 - Night Train Murders
10 - The Frightened Woman
11 - My Dear Killer
12 - Ratman
13 - What Have They Done To Your Daughters?
14 - Who Saw Her Die?
15 - The Designated Victim
16 - Strip Nude For Your Killer
17 - Oasis of Fear
18 - Watch Me When I Kill! (released 26/01/2009)
19 - Baba Yaga: Reloaded (released 23/02/2009)