Severin Films have just announced what looks set to be one of the most ridiculously ambitious physical media releases ever put together.

Titled Morbid Pleasures, this mammoth 12-disc Blu-ray set attempts to chart the evolution of macabre entertainment from the literal birth of cinema right through to modern splatter, packing in more than 80 hours of content and over 60 films spanning 1895 to 2025.

At the centre of the whole thing is David Gregory’s feature documentary Theatre of Horrors: The Sordid Story of Paris’ Grand Guignol. Gregory takes a deep look at the infamous French theatre of blood, its cultural legacy, and the career of Paula Maxa, the legendary stage performer who became known as The Most Assassinated Woman in the World.

But Morbid Pleasures isn’t just concerned with old celluloid. The collection traces the connections between early theatrical shock tactics, classic genre cinema and modern shock culture, with filmmakers including Fred Paul, Maurice Tourneur, Robert Hossein and Vernon Sewell getting their own attention along the way.

It also looks at the Grand Guignol’s influence on true crime and theatrical heavy metal, with brand new interviews from Alice Cooper, GWAR and the W.A.S.P. Rack Girls.

For the silent film obsessives, the collection also digs up rare and long-lost silent shorts, paired with newly commissioned scores from Steven Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees, David J of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, and Stephen Thrower of Coil, alongside acclaimed accompanists Neil Brand and Michael D. Mortilla.

And because apparently twelve Blu-ray discs weren’t enough, the box comes with a 350-page full-colour book titled Blood, Sweat & Sperm: The Visceral Horrors of The Grand Guignol, featuring writings and historical material from André Breton, Aleister Crowley, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Richard J. Hand and Paula Maxa herself.

Finally, for those who get in quick, Disc 12 is a strictly limited-edition bonus disc featuring a double-bill of theatrical sleaze: Herschell Gordon Lewis’s landmark 1970 original The Wizard of Gore alongside Jeremy Kasten’s long-out-of-print 2007 remake starring Crispin Glover, Jeffrey Combs and Brad Dourif.

Frankly, this thing sounds fucking enormous.