The Mondo subgenre is one of the more unusual sides of exploitation filmmaking. It became popular after the surprise success of 1962’s Mondo Cane. The films are usually “documentaries” of strange things around the world with the aim of being shocking. Most of these films happen to be fake with less than conviving dramatized footage. The biggest “thrills” were seeing bizarre sex acts and cultural rituals from around the world. But thanks to random videos on the internet and more polish (and real) documentaries, the Mondo film is an odd time capsule of yesteryear’s sleaze.

Severin films have now partnered up with Something Weird Video to release some of their backlogs onto remastered Blu-ray. Mondo Balordo (1964) is one of the more popular mondo movies thanks to the English dubbed version having narration by the great Boris Karloff. As an added bonus, the Blu-ray comes with another mondo related movie, The 1960 Italian travel film The Orientals. The individual films are off-balanced at best, but as a package deal, it’s an unusual double bill of weirdness. 

Boris Karloff hosts Mondo Balordo through a loose series of connections. It’s a globe-hopping series of events, but most of the oddities come from Italy. The tone is mostly hands off with not much judgment expect for a few minor moments when it feels like it may turn into a right wing scare film. Most of this comes from the, even in the 60s, racist language when discussing Africa and Asia. 

Thankfully most of the footage is silly and full of fun “bad taste”. The dwarf singer, the lesbian parties, the piss hair dye, and a goofy drag show are all fun to watch. My favorite part was seeing the behind the scenes footage of some Peplum films. Most are campy and light-hearted. The only hard to watch scene involves some injured dogs. Had to fast forward through that. The best part is Karloff’s charming narration. He seems so calm as he says outrageous and witty comments like “Her job requires her to get along without a sweater, or anything else for that matter”. 

The second film is hardly even a mondo movie. The Orientals is a travel picture that looks at relationships throughout Asia and parts of Africa. It feels like one of IFD’s Ninja films of the 1980s, as the footage looks like it was taken from a series of films with the loosest connections. There is not as much to say since it’s a passable but fun little drama. The best part is seeing some of the random drama in Japan and Hong Kong. 

Severin’s Blu-ray gives Mondo Balordo the star treatment with a handsome new transfer. The print has some damage but overall the 1080p HD transfer is well done with bright colors. The Crown International logo is vivid with its hot pink look. The focus is also well defined with no HDR issues. The Orientals on the other hand look spotty with a DVD-R transfer at best. Parts look like it was ripped directly from a VHS. There are English subtitles included for Mondo Balordo. The English Mono is well mixed in both films with no hiss or pops. The only extra is a trailer for Mondo Balordo.

Karloff fans will have a blast with this Mondo oddity. Recommended.

Directed by- Robert Bianchi Montero, Romolo Marcellini

Cast- Boris Karloff

Country of Origin- Italy

Discs- 1

Distributor- Severin

Reviewer- Tyler Miller