Digi-Schlock: TRUE STORY OF A WOMAN IN JAIL: CONTINUES and ZOOM IN: SEX APARTMENTS (Impulse DVD's)

Pay attention, fans of exploitation cinema: Impulse Pictures' Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection line is quickly becoming the event of the year in this arena.  As past Schlockmania reviews of this series should reveal, the films Impulse is releasing under this banner not only deliver the sexploitation goods but do so with impressive production values and a high levels of deviant imagination.  The third installment of this series, which includes the domestic DVD debuts of True Story Of A Woman In Jail: Continues and Zoom In: Sex Apartments, prove that they are maintaining a high standard of technical quality.An important part of the appeal with this line of DVD's is the quality of the production.  Fans of this material have spent years subsisting on low-quality dupes taken from old VHS versions and trying to puzzle their way through untranslated foreign-market discs.  These Impulse editions go back to first-generation materials to create gorgeous new high-definition masters.  The films retain their age-specific look but have a clarity and levels of color unimaginable from those old VHS dupes.  Better yet, there are freshly-translated English subtitles that are easy to read.As is the style with this series, extras are limited.  The main item for each disc is a booklet with a set of new liner notes by Jasper Sharp, who wrote the highly-regarded chronicle of Japanese pink films, Behind The Pink Curtain.  His notes place each film into a specific historical context: for example, True Story's notes define it as an example of the "jitsuroku" (true record) trend  as well as a representation of how Nikkatsu's roman porno films became tougher and grittier as the 1970's moved into their second half.The notes for Zoom In describe the bizarre Zoom Up series that spawned it and its close stylistic relationship with the giallo film (it also amusingly takes the time to challenge and correct past descriptions of the film by debunked pink film "expert," Thomas Weisser). The Zoom In disc also features that film's wild trailer, which shows how much of a challenge it was to sell this bizarre film to anyone, much less pink film fans.There are no other extras to speak of on these discs but, given the rarity of this material and the reasonable pricing, that doesn't matter.  These films are smut par excellence, the kind of thing any exploitation film adventurer will want to have in their collection.  To have this kind of outré material treated with such care is a luxury in itself - and like the other films in Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection, both True Story Of A Woman In Jail: Continues and Zoom In: Sex Apartments deserve a place in the collections of any self-respecting devotee of this material.To read Schlockmania's film review of True Story Of A Woman In Jail: Continues, click here.To read Schlockmania's film review of Zoom In: Sex Apartments, click here.