As typical 
as an '80s monster movie gets, the Italian-Spanish co-production Panic feels exactly like something designed to be rented on VHS by horror fans grabbing anything in an oversized box. The ploy worked, and a lot of consumers were confronted with an awkwardly dubbed, very ragged slice of drive-in nonsense with enough gore to pass a slow evening. Italian horror buffs were especially glad to see two familiar faces from Lucio Fulci films, David Warbeck (The Beyond, The Black Cat) and Janet Agren (City of the Living Dead) turning up as the leads, though the quality level here is... a little different.
as he goes after random citizens including altar boys. Meanwhile the intrepid and amusingly named Captain Kirk (Warbeck) is hot on the monster's path and trying to stop the military from launching a preemptive strike against the entire village. 
The English dub (even Warbeck doesn't get to use his own voice) is one of the crazier of the period, especially when it comes to the more sex-starved characters, and at least it's a bit of a change of pace from the slasher films and supernatural gore epics around the same year. Not necessarily a better change, mind you, but it is oddly endearing. Director Tonino Ricci never rose above standard gun for hire status, starting off well enough with the intriguing giallo Cross Current and spending much of his career with waterlogged action-horror hybrids like Night of the Sharks, Encounters in the Deep, and Cave of the Sharks. He doesn't show much artistic flair here either, though he does toss in a few colorful lighting effects now and then (including a nicely shot showdown between Warbeck and the creature) and shows a mild knack for suspense when some of the townspeople end up being cornered. 
Barely released in American theaters, Panic was given a very aggressive VHS release from Gorgon Video with a very, very muddy transfer that rendered all of the night scenes completely indecipherable. That same transfer was later yanked for one of Mill Creek's cheap horror multi-film packs, but adding crunchy, insufficient compression on top just made things worse. The 2018 release on Blu-ray from Code Red could only go up in terms of quality, and the results here are pretty good for a very low-budget Italian '80s horror film. It's not a slick-looking film by any means, but you can finally see what's going on 
in the numerous dark scenes and the colors have some nice punch during the scenes with more stylized lighting. It appears the film was shot at 1.66:1 as presented here and then slightly cropped for home video, though the compositions and soft matting of the end credits indicate it was protected to be shown at 1.85:1 without losing anything substantial. Both the usual English dub and the Italian track (also dubbed, of course) are included with optional English dubtitles, which are pretty useless for the Italian track which has added narration at the beginning and other differences. Not surprisingly, the tone of the Italian track is a bit more serious and professional, though whether that's a good thing is entirely up to you. Extras include bonus trailers for Fury of the Wolfman, The Mummy's Revenge, Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, and Black Cobra.
Vinegar Syndrome upgraded the film to UHD -- yes, really! -- with a fresh scan from the 16mm original camera negative, plus a remastered Blu-ray featuring new bonus features. The Blu-ray looks similar to the earlier one in terms of framing and color timing, while the UHD has more detail, finer resolved film grain (and there's a lot of it), and most significantly, richer and more impressive colors with the flesh tones and reds getting a particular boost in the HDR-compatible Dolby Vision grading. The 
English and Italian tracks are included in DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono with optional, newly-translated English subtitles, which are way more accurate here and reflect the narration in the Italian version. It's also worth noting that some VHS version slugged some of the Marcello Giombini score over the main titles, which were apparently intended to be silent (in the English and Italian versions) and, as with the prior Blu-ray, are presented that way here. It also runs about 20 seconds longer here with a little less element damage around the middle of the film. A new commentary track by Eugenio Ercolani and Troy Howarth does a thorough job of covering Ricci's career, the film's pluses and minuses, the score, the stars' careers, the shooting schedule and very low budget, and lots more. In "The Core of the Monster" (23m45s), effects artist and actor Roberto Ricci (the director's son) chats about doing a slew of different jobs on the film sets, learning from Paolo Ricci as well, troubleshooting logistical challenges involving firearms and other props, shooting in Spain during Franco's reign, and creating things like killer crocodiles. In "Latex Memories" (18m24s), make-up artist Adriano Carboni looks back at his own attraction to effects and horror films, the tricks of making monsters with very limited means, the material you need to create grisly pustules, and coming up through the Italian film industry in his twenties under makeshift teachers like the Riccis. Finally in "Monster Kids: The Heritage of Tonino Ricci and Rino Carboni" (24m54s,) Roberto Ricci and Adriano Carboni talk about being brought into filmmaking by their dads, their thoughts on their filmographies, the advances in creating latex effects ranging from wounds to bald caps that really kicked in around the '60s, the unorthodox work schedules, and the fraternal attitude on sets at the time. The English-language Panic main and end titles are also included.Vinegar Syndrome (UHD)
Vinegar Syndrome (Blu-ray)
Code Red (Blu-ray)
