L arcano incantatore 1996 576p DVD x265 hevc 10bit AC3 5.1-HeVK

Arcane Sorcerer (1996) aka L'arcano incantatore, directed by Pupi Avati, encoded in 10 bit HEVC with AC3 passthrough sound, including original Italian theatrical 5.1, Italian stereo, and English subtitles.

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115564/

Video encoded in two-pass 3 Mbps x265 10bit with the veryslow preset for archive quality image. AC3 audio passed through from DVD image.

Text subtitles converted to SRT.

Note : I've had this one on my radar for a while, ever since Guillermo del Toro recommended it as one of his favorites on Twitter, and I realized it was by Pupi Avati, who gave us the very creepy and original Zeder. Since no BluRay seems to be forthcoming, I've encoded this from a (pretty decent quality) PAL anamorphic DVD. It's a nice little atmospheric period horror about black magic, deception, and ill-fated oaths in 16th century Italy, and it is indeed quite good.

Seminarian Giacomo is forced to flee Bologna after having impregnated a girl and inducing her to having an abortion. He's promised employment if he will take a blood oath to an old woman, who sends him to be the assistant of an excommunicated monsignor who dedicates himself to the study of the occult, and whose previous assistant, Nerio, died in unclear circumstances. As he gets more involved in his employer's esoteric research, however, it seems that there may be more to his work than meets the eye, and he's become involved in a complex plot.

As mentioned, there are sadly no BluRay releases of this film, but this anamorphic PAL DVD is not bad quality for what it is, with good color and contrast, reasonably sharp for its resolution, although there's no grain retained. 5.1 and stereo tracks sound pretty good too.

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