We Kill for Love goes in search of the forgotten world of the direct-to-video erotic thriller, an American film genre that once dominated late night cable television and the shelves of neighborhood video stores. Balancing film art with scholarship, it pulls back the curtain to reveal the heart and soul of a forgotten and often maligned film movement.

For in-depth thoughts on We Kill for Love, please see my colleague Andre Couture’s review from its original debut here.

Video Quality

We Kill for Love arrives on Blu-Ray featuring a strong transfer with a variety of material in mostly stable quality. Interview segments are well composed and look incredibly clear with natural skin tones and subtle facial features observable. The movie clips presented seem to be the best versions that were available when the documentary was produced, with most of them looking pleasant if not a little dated. The baseline transfer of the feature itself and everything within it looks as technically excellent as you would hope for in high definition. Yellow Veil Pictures has seemingly delivered a formidable encode with room to breathe where we can avoid any compression artifacts. This transfer is a win for fans in all respects.

Audio Quality

This Blu-Ray disc comes with a DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio track that provides this film with a consistent presentation. This is mostly a clip showcase with talking heads abound, so dialogue is the focus right up front in the center channel. Environmental sounds from the clips and the score make the soundscape feel a bit more open, but overall the experience is more reserved. The movie clips maintain their quality pretty well even if it is a slightly more contained experience than watching the same scene within the context of the film. This audio track is not breaking any new ground, but you get all of the information clearly. There are optional English SDH subtitles provided.

Special Features

Audio Commentary: The film is provided with a unique commentary track which is constructed in segments. The track begins and ends with thoughts from director Anthony Penta, who gives you some insights into what drew him to the subject matter and what led to the creation of this work. In between these bookends, there are what is essentially three audio essays from film historians — “Danger” by Travis Woods, “Women, Gothic, Romance” By Samm Deighan, and “Erotic, Soft Core” by Douglas Keesey — in which the historians may occasionally tie their thoughts into something shown on screen, but they are largely diving into their terrific supplemental history on different facets of the genre as a whole. This is a fantastic complement to the feature.

Deleted Scenes and Interviews: The disc provides a good amount of unused footage including interviews with many of the industry veterans who discuss topics such as the mechanics of crafting a love scene, the benefits of having an intimacy coordinator to protect the talent and the creative vision, scoring these movies, the legacy of the genre and more.

- Love Scenes (9:34)

- Intimacy Coordinator (5:16)

- The Audience (5:39)

- The Sound of Sex (6:21)

- Return (7:42)

- Film Fandom (2:19)

Booklet: This release contains a booklet featuring the essay “Generation XXX: The Precarious Existence of the Erotic Thriller in the Age of the Internet” by writer and Director of Operation at OCN Distribution Justin LaLiberty, plus “The History of the Phrase Erotic Thriller” by director Anthony Penta. Both of these pieces are terrific and add a lot of additional benefit to this release.

Final Thoughts

We Kill for Love is a substantial feat of research that turns over countless stones to get you to the truth of the somewhat forgotten genre of direct-to-video erotic thrillers. Director Anthony Penta has created something that is especially helpful to newcomers, as he balances the factual history with the entertaining new interviews admirably. Devotees of the genre may find omissions to gripe about, but by and large this mammoth documentary covers a lot of important and engaging ground. We wish there could have been some more culturally diverse insights included, and the movie struggles to justify its runtime in some of its more extraneous detours, but by and large, this delivers what you would want from such a deep dive. Yellow Veil Pictures has provided a Blu-Ray set with an excellent A/V presentation along with a solid set of special features. Whether you are an interested novice to the genre or a rabid fan, there is a lot to gain from this. Recommended

We Kill for Love is currently available to purchase on Standard Edition Blu-Ray or with a Limited Edition Slipcover exclusively through Vinegar Syndrome.

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.

Disclaimer: Yellow Veil Pictures and OCN Distribution have supplied a copy of this set free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.