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Mad Foxes: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Cauldron Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (18th October 2025). |
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The Film
 Man about town Hal (Conquest's José Gras) takes Babsy (El Pico's Andrea Albani) for a night out to celebrate her eighteenth birthday. When Nazi bikers mock his Stingray, Hal gets into a race with them and sends one of them ass over handlebars into an early grave. After a night of carefree partying, Hal and Babsy are attacked by the bikers who beat Hal and rape Babsy. After getting out of the hospital, Hal asks a favor of his karate instructor friend Linus (director Paul Grau) who beat up the gang and castrate their leader (Peter Saunders). After the gang's replacement leader Stiletto (Blue Rita's Eric Falk) tosses a live grenade into the middle of Linus' dojo, they track down Hal who manages to escape. On his way to his family's home in the countryside, Hal picks up hitchhiker Lilly (Laura Premica) for some bathtub rumpy pumpy, horseback riding, duck hunting, and wine tasting while the bikers massacre his parents and the help; whereupon, Hal finally reaches his limit and goes on the offensive. A variation on the vigilante film produced by an uncredited Erwin C. Dietrich and seemingly shot in Spain to allow for the Swiss filmmakers to indulge in a biker Nazi fetishism, Mad Foxes is a nutty experience that is too cartoon-ish to disturb in spite of copious gore and sexual violence (it is surprising that Troma did not pick this up even if it would have been hacked up for an R-rating and they would have kept recycling that video master on DVD for years). Running just eighty minutes, what could have been a lean and mean exploitation flick makes several odd choices in emphasis and pacing – including a two minute-long swing dance routine – and most of all an incredibly unlikable protagonist. Euro horror fans might recognize Gras as the "Robert O'Neal" the no-nonsense soldier cliché Mike London from Hell of the Living Dead where he is infinitely preferable to his lead here who comes across as smarmy rather than charismatic – and particularly nerdy in the English dub – and supremely unlikable. He thinks nothing of drag-racing with bikers in Nazi regalia resulting in one of them getting killed, falls into bed with a stewardess while Babsy is still recovering in the hospital, leaves her sleeping in his bed to get away when the bikers storm his apartment building – as well as being seemingly ignorant of the consequences for his karate friends of siccing them on the bikers – goes home to see his parents with murderous bikers in pursuit, picks up Lilly and introduces her to his parents without seeming to realize that his distinctive car might lead the bikers to more of his loved ones. In any other universe, Gras' Hal would be the jerk who either gets his flashy car wrecked by the hero or the first act catalyst instigating an attack on other characters from which the hero or heroes would emerge; he kind of is the latter but the film keeps insisting on him being the hero as he goes from shallow playboy to pampered son of wealthy parents who wears hunting pink to go horseback riding. There are shootings, stabbings, explosions, eviscerations, and castrations as well as considerably more male full frontal nudity than female – Falk could always be depended in his Dietrich and Dietrich-produced Jess Franco films to drop trou but here as in Rolls Royce Baby he is karate-kicking in the buff (which makes sense that he is able to put up a fight with the karate gang which includes his buddy Roman Huber who also popped up regularly in Dietrich softcore and hardcore films). Apart from a pair of cool songs by Krokus, the score is credited to "E. Flat" which seems to be a pseudonym for Dietrich-regular Walter Baumgartner since the score cues include several recycled tracks like his title theme for the aforementioned Rolls Royce Baby during the disc sequence. 
Video
Unreleased theatrically in the United States, Mad Foxes was accessible north of the border where it was subtitled "Stingray 2" as a pseudo-sequel to the 1978 film although completeness varied by the province with the Ontario tape losing about six minutes (the U.K. pre-cert was also severely cut, but that was because it was sourced from a British cinema print which had already been cut for an X-certificate). The film's international rights wound up with Dietrich, and he put out an English-friendly anamorphic widescreen DVD in Switzerland which he later upgraded to Blu-ray with 5.1 upmixes of the English and German dubs and a German-language audio commentary. A more affordable but barebones DVD came from Full Moon in the U.S. as part of their deal with Dietrich. Cauldron Films' 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 widescreen Dolby Vision 4K UltraHD and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray was released earlier this year as a limited edition available from their own site and DiabolikDVD. For contractual reasons, they could only ship this edition to the U.S. and Canada but their standard edition – which seems identical to the limited edition with the same hard slipcase and foldout poster – can presumably be shipped wider through general retailers willing to overlook that stipulation. The film has always looked relatively good on disc due to the well-lit and colorful photography but standard definition did not do a few gauzier scenes like the apartment sex scene any favors. We have not seen the earlier HD master but the 4K remaster from the original camera negative is stunning and makes one hope that the Dietrich-directed erotic titles and the Dietrich-produced Jess Franco titles will get a similar remaster rather than recycling the older masters again. Several interiors consist of deep focus locked down but occasionally-panning camera and bright lighting with some occasional diffusion of various degrees while the color scheme boast eye-popping colors and bloodshed. Some of the exteriors seem to have been grabbed quickly and they obviously could not afford to wreck so many bikes or cars so some focus lag and higher grain from underexposure as well as lens flares from the sun and neon lights zipping past is organic to the original photography. The aforementioned apartment sex scene looks the worst because of how heavy the on-camera diffusion is, and it is a strange choice since none of the other sex scenes use this for moodiness (an outdoor sex scene does have some light diffusion but this is part of the overall seventies and eighties approach to shooting with newer, sharper lenses and faster film stocks that cinematographers worldwide adapted to different degrees). 
Audio
Audio options include the English dub in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 mono as well as the Spanish dub in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 – presumably the German dub has been held back by the licensor for a German or Austrian 4K edition – along with English SDH subtitles for the English track and English subtitles for the Spanish track (in which Hal is called Tony). The Spanish track is overall preferable due to the louder music and effects track and the superior dubbing – the English dub is perfectly serviceable for every performer but Gras whose character sounds simultaneously smug and whiny but a bit more debonair in Spanish (Gras does not dub himself) – but the subtitled clips in the extras reveal that the German dub sometimes differs substantially from either the English or Spanish (although presumably the names on the English dub are derived from the German). 
Extras
The 4K disc includes the feature in Dolby Vision with the aforementioned audio and subtitle options along with an audio commentary by film critics Nanni Cobretti and Merlyn Roberts in which they attribute certain glaring weaknesses of the story to a "too many cooks" situation in the writing as well as perhaps a combining of other half-realized projects (with Cobretti also pointing out that while the swing dancing part of the nightclub sequence might have been shot in Switzerland later, the opening scene of dancers appears to come from a film a decade older). They also note that apart from the existing extras – from which they reveal that the swastikas on the biker clothing were only visible in interior scene and vanished during outdoor scenes and the origin of the "Neufeld" Stingray – there is little documentation about the film or much about director Grau who had previously worked on crew in Dietrich productions and only directed one other film, as well as noting that while some Spanish film veterans are part of the supporting cast, most of the bikers and other leads did little else; although they do note that Albani got a heroine addiction along with her co-star on Eloy de la Iglesia's El Pico films and died of AIDS complications (the director also got hooked) as well as some background on Krokus. They can no more than this reviewer get past the unlikable nature of the protagonist but also suggest that the disconnect he seems to feel in relation to earlier events may be a structural issue of the production rather than a deliberate character flaw. Of the karate material, they suggest that Grau's onscreen role suggests he had an interest in marital arts but lacked the experience to choreograph or film it in an effective fashion.  The Blu-ray disc features the film in SDR 1080p, the same audio and subtitle options, the commentary, and all of the edition's video extras starting with "The Untold Story of Robert O'Neal" (46:18), an interview with actor Gras who discusses his desire to be an actor as a teenager and to try to find a way to Los Angeles, running away to Barcelona, taking acting classes, and landing some early small roles before family issues caused him to take a six year break. Once he caught the acting bug again, he signed with a Barcelona talent agent and Hell of the Living Dead was one of his first larger roles – causing friction with another actor who thought he was getting more close-ups – his recollections of working with the Italian directors and his Spanish co-stars, and playing a werewolf in a full body suit in Lucio Fulci's Conquest. Of Mad Foxes, he describes Grau as peculiar and acknowledges the weaknesses of his performance but also notes that Grau encouraged a lot of improvisation that did not translate well to screen. Gras also discusses his subsequent projects including Depravación and his dislike of the erotic phase of Spanish film production in the early eighties (along with the addition of porn inserts to the Italian version) and some of his more prestigious projects while averring that he gave up acting because he was not getting the sort of dramatic leads he wanted to play. A pair of extras are ported from the German Blu-ray including "Erwin and the Foxes" (22:30) featuring Dietrich and actors Falk and Hans R. Walthard (Six Swedes in Ibiza) approaching him with a concept that could be tailored to Dietrich's desire to make something like the aforementioned Stingray and how the final results differed from the script. Dietrich does not really criticize Grau so much as note that he would have done things differently and stuck to the script, but also reveals that he found the film unwatchable back then but finds it comical now. Falk recalls that the film rescued him from having to fight with real Hell's Angels in his job back then as a bouncer while Sigg recalls his character and seems to prefer it as his debut rather than his earlier role in Dietrich's women-in-prison film Island Women. Falk is very forthcoming about his adventures including touring Spanish brothels and getting gonorrhea not from one of the prostitutes but from his buddy who had it before sleeping with the same women. Falk also discusses his "horsepower vibrator" technique in the film while Dietrich ribs him about his long-gestating book and his "sex formula." "Mad Eric" (8:50) is another interview with actor Eric Falk looking at footage from the film and enjoying his death scene. Also exclusive to this release is "Nazi Fox Bikers Must Die" (19:50), a video essay by Troy Howarth who couches the film within the context of various trends including Nazisploitation, the biker film, the vigilante film, and the rape-revenge film along and in the context of Dietrich's sexploitation filmography as producer and director. The disc also includes an image gallery and the theatrical trailer (3:27). 
Packaging
Like the Cauldron/DiabolikDVD-exclusive edition, this limited edition includes the same rigid slipcase with artwork by Justin Coffee and foldout poster.
Overall
A variation on the vigilante film, Mad Foxes is a nutty experience that is too cartoon-ish to disturb in spite of copious gore and sexual violence.
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