Customer Reviews

Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

Here's another great collection of public domain movies! Don't expect perfect, mint versions. These are movies that are available (although, some are not available anywhere else but this set) in a zillion different versions from tons of companies at ridiculously ranging prices! Why pay for packaging?? THE CHILLING 50 MOVIE PACK is for mature audiences as it contains lots of blood and nudity. Here's the rundown: DEATH RAGE- Yul Brynner (West World) is a retired hitman who returns to his trade in order to find the man who murdered his brother. This one also has a beautiful blonde stripper in it! MEMORIAL VALLEY MASSACRE- A wildman is preying on a group of hideously annoying campers. You'll cheer him on! Watch for the wet T-shirt dance in the rainstorm! MEDUSA- George Hamilton (Love At First Bite) is a crazy guy who owes a loan shark (Cameron Mitchell) a lot of money. Someone even crazier than George is killing people! Not bad. DEADTIME STORIES- A good old fashioned horror anthology loosely based on fairy tales. I like this one! SCREAM BLOODY MURDER- A madman goes on a killing spree in this completely bonkers gore flick! Very bloody and disturbing! Don't let granny or the tikes watch! THE BELL FROM HELL- A man is released from an asylum and gets a job at a slaughterhouse. This one's gruesome, with a TEXAS CHAINSAW vibe at the end! METAMORPHOSIS- A decent monster flick up until the silly finale. I suggest skipping the last 5 minutes or so. NAKED MASSACRE- Another shocker like SCREAM BLOODY MURDER! NAKED MASSACRE takes the Richard Speck case and moves it from Chicago to Belfast Ireland! The killer is a sadistic, remorseless rapist. I hate rape scenes, and this one's got 'em! Originally titled BORN FOR HELL (a nod to Speck's "Born To Raise Hell" tattoo), I would definitely keep granny far from this one too! HAUNTS- May Britt is a lonely woman who lives on a farm. Her small town is plagued by a stalking murderer. Is it her weird uncle (Cameron Mitchell)? I like this one, though it runs a bit long at the end. CHRISTMAS EVIL- The classic yuletide murder and mayhem film! Brandon Maggart is a guy who works at a toy factory. He snaps around Christmas time, dresses as Saint Nick, and checks that list! DRILLER KILLER- Abel Ferrara is a struggling artist with a problem. He lives with two gorgeous babes in an apartment. Unfortunately, a loud, obnoxious punk band just moved in directly beneath them! Sleep deprivation drives our hero nuts. He buys an electrical outlet belt he sees on TV, plugs in his drill, and goes on nightly hunting trips through times square! Bloody and twisted! Watch for the gal-pal shower scene! HORROR EXPRESS- Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are scientific rivals who must team up to defeat an alien being that boils people's brains in their skulls! Telly Savalas makes an appearance near the end. Very good! THE SNAKE PEOPLE- Boris Karloff stars in this voodoo epic with zombies, cannibal women, and the ever-lovely Tongalele dancing her way into our hearts! Oh yeah! SISTERS OF DEATH- A girl is accidentally killed in a sorority hazing ritual. Years later, the gals who were there are summoned to a "reunion". They arrive at the big mansion, surrounded by a 10-foot electric fence, and actually stay! Brainless! Still, not too awful. WAR OF THE ROBOTS- An italian space opera with goofy guys in even goofier outfits as "robots". Dumb but fun. OASIS OF THE ZOMBIES- Not exactly Romero or Fulci, yet has a certain charm. Some college kids set out to find a treasure of WWII gold, guarded by nazi zombies! OK. THE WITCHES' MOUNTAIN- This one's stone-cold-boring! I barely made it to the finish! A photogragher and a girl he just met venture into the mountains where nothing really happens! Witches play a small role indeed! The ending is good, but hardly worth the misery of the rest of the movie! DEEP RED- Argento's classic! Don't expect anamorphic treatment! A man witnesses a murder and simply must solve it. Lots of twists and cool death scenes! THE REVENGE OF DOCTOR X- Written by Ed Wood, it's too bad he didn't direct this dull pile of ofal! A mad scientist sets out to prove that man evolved from plant-life (!). He succeeds in creating a plant man with venus flytrap feet! I kid you not! BAD TASTE- Yep, Peter Jackson's first movie! Jackson made this in his spare time with family and friends! It's a gore masterpiece! Cannibalistic aliens try to turn earth into a free-range farm for human meat! Can Jackson and his cohorts save us? Yepper! VIRUS- Glenn Ford is the president as the world is wiped out by a super-flu bug! Only an arctic outpost remains uninfected. Doom and gloom abound! THE MILPITAS MONSTER- Horrid. However, it was acually made by highschool students! So, worth at least a peak. FUNERAL HOME- A fairly good PSYCHO-type flick. A woman goes to live w/ her grandma in a renovated funeral parlor, now a bed and breakfast! Death ensues. LADY FRANKENSTEIN- The drop-dead gorgeous daughter of Frankenstein decides to make her own creature, using the brain of dad's assistant in the hunky bod of the groundskeeper! Nudity ensues! SILENT NIGHT, BLOODY NIGHT- Another holiday murder flick! A madman escapes from the bin just in time to cause panic in a small town. Nice twist ending and gallons of blood! PANIC- Another mad scientist turns himself into a murderous monster on the loose! Edited and flat! MESSIAH OF EVIL- One of my favorite movies! A woman trying to find her father is drawn into a zombie holocaust! The scenes in the grocery store and movie theatre are unforgettable! Elisha Cook jr. (House On Haunted Hill), Royal Dano, and Anitra Ford (Invasion Of The Bee Girls / Graveyard Tramps) are memorable. THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER- There's a monster loose in an old castle! ok. CATHY'S CURSE- A little girl is possessed by her evil, vengeful aunt! Extremely low-budget schlocker that has many high points, like the creepy doll! THE ALPHA INCIDENT- A deadly viral weapon is unleashed at a train depot in hillbilly land! Dull to the point of causing amnesia! THE DEMONS OF LUDLOW- A haunted piano attempts to destroy a town. "Demons" in frilly clothes murder people. Yikes! THE COLD- Quite possibly,the worst movie ever made! AKA: THE GAME, this flaming pile of dogfudge is about 3 old gazillionaires who give people money to spend a week in their "hauted" resort. It tries to be funny, but fails badly. HANDS OF A STRANGER- A famous pianist loses his hands in an accident. A brilliant surgeon replaces the hands w/ those of a murdered gangster. This sends the piano-man into a murdering rampage! Watch for Sally Kellerman (M*A*S*H) in a tiny role. GOTHIC- Lord Byron throws a bash with Mary Shelly and company. They all get stoned on laudnum, causing a night of hallucinatory horrors! Ken Russell's at his whacked-out best! MAN IN THE ATTIC- Jack Palance takes a room in a quiet London boarding house. Is he the notorious Ripper? I like this one too! THE DEMON- A vile, seemingly faceless killer is stalking victims! Can psychic Cameron Mitchell help catch him? Violence and nudity throughout. CRYPT OF THE LIVING DEAD- Watch out! The queen of the vampires is awake! She's beautiful and can turn into a wolf! Andrew Prine is the man who unleashes her and must try and stop her! Pretty good. TRACK OF THE MOONBEAST- A guy gets hit in the head by a meteor and turns into a lizardman! Pretty stupid! THE GHOST- Barbara Steele plots to kill her husband, only to be double-crossed! Ms. Steele is always grrrreat! JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER- Frankenstein's daughter sets up shop in the old west! Following the family tradition, she must create a monster. Enter Cal Bolder as Frank Clayton, a musclebound gunslinger and side-kick of Jesse James! He soon becomes a mindless slave! This movie could easily have been 30-45 minutes shorter without losing any "suspense". DR. TARR'S TORTURE DUNGEON- A man visits an insane asylum to observe the doctor's new method of treating patients, only to find that the patients have taken over the asylum! ok. THE BLOODY BROOD- My copy had GOD TOLD ME TO instead. People are commiting mass murder with their only explanation being the title phrase! Excellent! HOUSE OF THE DEAD- Another horror anthology! 3 stories told in a mortuary! good. SLASHED DREAMS- Robert Englund plays a gentle, nice guy in this silly, new-agey, "feelings" movie! Don't let the title fool you! There's a rape scene, but ths is NOT a revenge flick! Yuck! A BUCKET OF BLOOD- Dick Miller is a busboy in a beatnick coffeehouse. He stumbles into a career as an artist after covering a dead cat in clay. Let's just say that he needs bigger subjects for his art! A Corman classic! HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND- Scantilly clad babes run around screaming a lot! Oh yeah! THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT- Like watching a home movie! Endless narration and nature scenes! Boredom incarnate! THE DEVIL'S HAND- Loopy devil-worshippers gather new people through visions and voodoo-dolls! Silly but fun. I BURY THE LIVING- Richard Boone works at a cemetery where a mystical bulletin board has the power of life and death! Good. DRIVE-IN MASSACRE- A sword-wielding maniac slaughters patrons at a drive-in theatre. Pretty gory for it's day! ok. Well, there you have it folks! This collection's a keeper! The price is unbeatable!...

I have a particular fondness for what might be referred to as 'public domain material'; films/TV shows that are either un-licensable or not currently licensed & pretty much fair game for anyone to do what they like with. And I must say that for the dollar cost these 50 Movie Packs by Mill Creek & Treeline Films are usually worth taking a gamble on -- for about $.50 cents a movie you are bound to find something worth watching more than once, and this box set is probably their best collection to date.

There literally is something for everyone on here: Giant rampaging monster movies (MILPITAS MONSTER, TRACK OF THE MOON BEAST), cult Euro horror (WITCHES MOUNTAIN, THE BLANCHILLE MONSTER), urban slashers (DRILLER KILLER, DRIVE-IN MASSACRE), 80s teen oriented trash (DEADTIME STORIES, FUNERAL HOME, MEMORIAL VALLEY MASSACRE), a classic Euro crime/revenge thriller (DEATH RAGE), some genuine classics from American horror (SILENT NIGHT BLOODY NIGHT, MESSIAH OF EVIL), even some stuff completely out of left field that sort of defy description (HORROR OF SPIDER ISLAND, REVENGE OF DR. X, PANIC, THE COLD) and will command multiple viewings. Something which cannot be said of say, the new KING KONG DVD. Heck, you even get Mr. Jackson's BAD TASTE, an aptly named film that is ten times more imaginative, clever and endearing even if a bit primative compared to what his computer programmers can whip up. Anyone else had enough of that junk? Well here are 50 movies that don't use any CGI and some are actually very well made, even if the DVDs aren't.

And while the print quality is uniformly poor -- most are old fullframe home video or television prints -- the content is so diverse and some of it so utterly obscure that they sort of transcend the "bargain bin" nature of the collection and makes the box set a very rewarding investment for those who like to see stuff that might be a bit more obscure than what you can find on Netflix: This box set marks the first ever DVD pressing of WITCHES MOUNTAIN, the 85 minute print of SILENT NIGHT BLOODY NIGHT is the most complete version currently described (most run 83 minutes, including the old VHS versions), nobody else seems to have TRACK OF THE MOONBEAST or THE MILPITAS MONSTER, and who can resist stuff like THE REVENGE OF DR. X, DEADTIME STORIES (with all of the nudity, sleaze & gore), DRIVE-IN MASSACRE and Alfonse Brescia's WAR OF THE ROBOTS?

One other thought, which is that these sets kind of represent the future of this medium of public domain collections. The packaging is bare-bones, two movies per side on 12 double sided DVDs, cardboard sleeves for the discs inside of a larger carton, and so much material to sample & choose from that if a movie stinks, let it. Just move on to another title and let fate take you where it will. For $.50 cents apiece the movies are allowed to stink and the DVD transfers be somewhat sub-par: The collection very easily pays for itself just by being so darn watchable. I highly recommend taking a chance, and Mill Creek did a wonderful follow up with their '5O DRIVE-IN CLASSICS' collection too. Someone working there knows what they are doing.

Unbelievable. OK, I'm amazed that five pages of reviews focus on the cost vs the number of titles (must be Mill Creek employees that started that trend), or the quality of the movies. This is a 50-movie budget boxset...do people really expect A-grade films and become disappointed to find mostly B-movies and worse? Yes, folks...a 50-movie budget box is going to be packed with a mix of bombs and sleepers. The quality is going to also be mixed because these are public domain films and the sources are always going to vary. These details should be a given, and yet they are noted endlessly as if they are revelations and buyers should find this information unusual.

So as I waded through 47 reviews looking for some piece of unique information -- in this case, does Mill Creek pop their logo up throughout the film -- not a mention of this useful detail. Some even called the set Mill Creek's best compilation yet. I gritted my teeth and added it to my cart. I also knew that I was spinning the roulette wheel since Mill Creek have this disconcerting habit of releasing their sets with multiple versions, causing confusion when buyers purchase the set only to find that the movie they bought the set for is on an alternate version. Charming. In the software world, updated versions use version numbers, but even though Mill Creek update the box and discs, they can't be bothered to note a difference anywhere in the packaging so buyers have to play guesswork as all versions are lumped together here. Charming.

Those logos you see in the bottom corner of the screen are known in the industry as a "bug", which is ironic. And every fifteen minutes, you get to see Mill Creek's gaudy, non-translucent, obtrusive logo fade in, strike the pose, divert your attention away from the movie, then finally fade away until the next scheduled interval. Charming. That's the type of thing you expect from free TV, not something you pay for -- regardless of the cost per title. Would you buy a barrel of spoiled tomatoes just because the individual cost of each is mere pennies? Of course not. I like to pull out my movies, pop them up on the bigscreen for a cinema-style experience with my friends to simulate a theatrical showing. How is this possible when some little company is compelled to advertise themselves constantly, to remind you that this purchase you made came from them. It did serve the purpose for me, as that ugly logo is all I remember when I see this set on the shelf. I have several other Mill Creek sets that this does not occur on, and before writing this review, I had a whole bunch more ready to buy. Mind you, none of them are in my cart now. Nor will anything released by this company find its way into my cart. (I said that previously after this occured on their Cult Classics collection, but I was unwittingly lured in by the fact that the bug wasn't mentioned in any of the reviews...please note these things in your reviews folks, otherwise the practice will continue or get worse!)

These films are public domain. With a little diligence, I could have downloaded all fifty of them and that would be perfectly legal. And that is what I will do with the other titles that I would have gladly paid for before experiencing this transgression from yet another careless publisher. A response from Mill Creek? Yeah, assuming this review doesn't get buried on the last page, you'll see "This review was not helpful" numbers since, after all, why would informing potential buyers about the quality of the package be something consumers would have a problem with? Am I being a negative creep, a hater? Nope...just letting the public know what they are paying for (or not.) If none of these details bother you, then purchase away. If they do, let Mill Creek know by saving your hard-earned money or spending it with companies that don't expect you to pay for shameless self-promotion.

I purchasing this set with the intent of watching Deadtime Stories since I remember it as a kid. I noticed when I got the set in the mail that it was not on the set. I Looked at the picture provided from Amazon and it shows Deadtime Stories on the bottom right however mine shows Horror Express in it's place. I have also noticed that the "50 MOVIE PACK" red box is located on the left as here is shows it on the right. So there are two versions of this set. So for people looking for the Deadtime Stories version make sure it says it on the bottom like the picture Amazon has, but if you order it from Amazon you won't get it. Sucks big time, oh well.

To all fans of blood-by-the-bucket cinema, monsters, ghouls and gore:
The CHILLING CLASSICS 50 MOVIE PACK was made JUST for you! These drive-in theater spectaculars are certain to amaze, the "special effects" dazzle, and the bizarre stories keep you entertained for many a day. Watch 'em with someone you'd love to squeeze when things get gruesome.

The averaged-out rating for this box set was determined from data gathered at a film-intensive website. User polling numbers (on a 1 to 10 scale) rate CHILLING CLASSICS at: 4.2.


The alphabetized program list below includes individual poll scores, original theatrical titles (where indicated), country of origin (if other than USA), years of release and prominent actors for each film.


(3.9) The Alpha Incident (1978) - Stafford Morgan/John F. Goff/Ralph Meeker (in support)
(6.7) Bad Taste (New Zealand-1987) - Terry Potter/Peter Jackson
(6.1) A Bell From Hell (Spain/France-1973) - Renaud Verley/Viveca Lindfors
(5.1) The Blancheville Monster ("Horror") (Italy/Spain-1963) - Gerard Tichy/Joan Hills
(4.5) The Bloody Brood (Canada/USA-1959) - Jack Betts/Barbara Lord/Peter Falk
(6.8) A Bucket Of Blood (1959) - Dick MillerBarboura Morris/Ed Nelson (in support)
(3.8) Cathy's Curse (France/Canada-1977) - Alan Scarfe/Beverly Murray
(4.0) Christmas Evil ("You Better Watch Out") (1980) - Brandon Maggart/Jeffrey DeMunn
(2.2) The Cold ("The Game") (1984) - Tom Blair/Carol Perry
(4.3) Crypt Of The Living Dead (USA/Spain-1973) - Andrew Prine/Patty Shepard/Mark Damon
(3.0) Deadtime Stories (1986) - Scott Valentine/Nicole Picard
(5.1) Death Rage (Italy-1976) - Yul Brynner/Martin Balsam
(7.8) Deep Red (Italy-1975) - David Hemmings/Daria Nicolodi
(3.3) The Demon (S Africa/Netherlands-1979) - Jennifer Holmes/Cameron Mitchell
(3.4) The Demons Of Ludlow (1983) - Paul Von Hausen/Stephanie Cushna
(4.4) The Devil's Hand (1962) - Linda Christian/Robert Alda
(4.4) Driller Killer (1979) - Abel Ferrara/Carolyn Marz
(1.7) Drive-In Massacre (1976) - Bruce Kimball/Adam Lawrence
(4.4) Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon ("Mansion Of Madness") (Mexico-1972) - Claudio Brook/Ellen Sherman
(5.3) Funeral Home (Canada-1980) - Kate Hawtrey/Lesleh Donaldson
(5.5) The Ghost (Italy-1963) - Barbara Steele/Peter Baldwin
(5.3) Gothic (UK-1986) - Gabriel Byrne/Julian Sands/Natasha Richardson
(5.2) Hands Of A Stranger (1962) - Paul Lukather/Joan Harvey/Sally Kellerman (minor role)
(4.8) Haunts (1977) - May Britt/Cameron Mitchell/Aldo Ray
(6.2) Horror Express (UK/Spain-1973) - Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing
(2.2) Horrors Of Spider Island (W Ger/Yugoslavia-1960) - Alexander D'Arcy/Barbara Valentin
(4.6) House Of The Dead ("Alien Zone") (1978) - John Ericson/Ivor Francis
(6.2) I Bury The Living (1958) - Richard Boone/Theodore Bikel
(2.3) Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966) - John Lupton/Narda Onyx
(4.6) Lady Frankenstein (Italy-1971) - Joseph Cotten/Rosalba Neri
(3.9) The Legend Of Big Foot (1976) - Ivan Marx/Peggy Marx
(5.8) Man In The Attic (1953) - Jack Palance/Constance Smith/Francis Bavier
(2.7) Medusa (UK/Greece-1973) - George Hamilton/Cameron Mitchell
(3.0) Memorial Valley Massacre (1988) - John Kerry/Mark Mears/Cameron Mitchell (in support)
(6.0) Messiah Of Evil ("Dead People") (1973) - Michael Greer/Royal Dano/Elisha Cook Jr. (in support)
(3.3) Metamorphosis (Italy/USA-1990) - Gene LeBrock/Catherine Baranov
(2.4) The Milpitas Monster (1975) - Paul Frees/Douglas Hagdohl/'Crazy George' Henderson
(5.3) Naked Massacre ("Born For Hell") (W Ger/Canada/France/Itly-1976) - Mathieu Carrière/Debra Berger
(2.3) Oasis Of The Zombies (France-1983) - Manuel Gelin/Jeff Montgomery
(3.2) Panic (Italy/Spain-1976) - David Warbeck/Janet Agren
(2.5) Revenge Of Doctor X ("The Double Garden") (USA/Japan-1970) - James Craig/James Yagi
(3.4) Scream Bloody Murder (1973) - Fred Holbert/Leigh Mitchell
(5.0) Silent Night, Bloody Night (1974) - Patrick O'Neal/James Patterson/John Carradine (in support)
(4.2) Sisters Of Death (1977) - Arthur Franz/Claudia Jennings
(3.3) Slashed Dreams (1975) - Peter Hooten/Robert Englund/Rudy Vallee/James Keach
(2.7) The Snake People (Mexico/USA-1971) - Boris Karloff/Julissa
(2.3) Track Of The Moon Beast (1976) - Chase Cordell/Leigh Drake
(6.4) Virus (Japan-1980) - George Kennedy/Bo Svenson/Edward James Olmos (minor role)
(2.4) War Of The Robots (1978) - Antonio Sabato/Yanti Somer
(3.4) The Witches' Mountain (Spain-1972) - Patty Shepard/Cihangir Gaffari

My first introduction to these 50 movie packs was the great Horror Classics set, which had older movies from the 20s to the 60s. This one has more titles from the 60s through the 80s. These are more drive-in type movies. We've glot lots of explotation goodness here. The set as a few stink bombs, like House of the Dead and The Cold, but it has more than enough great moives to make it a good deal. Heck, at justa bout 28 cents per movie, you can't gripe too much. Now, when I say it has some great movies, you must be a fan of these kinds of movies in order to get full enjoyment out of them. If you are the kind of person who spent their youth going to the video store on Friday night, renting splatter movies and Italian horror classics, this is for you. If your view of horror begins and ends with Scream and Final Destination, you might be let down.
Some stand outs here are;

Deep Red
Virus
Bad Taste (Peter Jackson's AWESOME first movie)
Messiah of Evil
Funeral Home
Devil Times 5
Werewolf in a Girls Dormitory (sp)
Silent Night Bloodey Night
Lady Frankenstein
Death Rage (not horror, but bad-A** action movie)

If you love renting old, cheasy movies and hate Blockbuster, because they never have the good old stuff, get this set. I don't have Drive-In Classics yet, but it looks good. Also, if you like the older, late night Chiller Theatre type stuff like me, look into the Horror classics set as well. I also have the Sci-Fi set, which looks good, but I haven't watched it. yet.

One world of caution. The titles on these sets seem to change a little, depending on when you get them. The set I have doesn't match exactly the titles listed her on Amazon, which doesn't mach exactly the list ont he company's web site. Most of the titles are the same, but some seem to come and go.

Chilling Classics is a collection of 50 horror movies that have only one thing in common: they are all public domain and as such it is possible for them to be presented in highly affordable collections. I paid $21.99 for my set and that comes down to about 44 cents per movie. The way that movie tickets cost nowadays, you really cannot complain about this collection.

Anyways, here is how I rate the movies in Chilling Classics:


Great:


A Bucket of Blood
Bad Taste
Deep Red
The Driller Killer
Horror Express
I Bury the Living
I Eat your Skin
Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter
Scream Bloody Murder
Silent Night, Bloody Night
Sisters of Death
The Snake People
Virus
Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory

Good:

The Alpha Incident
The Bell from Hell
The Blancheville Monster
The Bloody Brood
Cathy's Curse
The Cold
Death Rage
The Demon
The Demon of Ludlow
Devil Times Five
The Devil's Hand
Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon
Drive-in Massacre
Funeral Home
The Ghost
Gothic
Hands of a Stranger
Haunts
The House of the Dead
Man in the Attic
Medusa
Messiah of Evil
Metamorphosis
Panic
The Revenge of Dr. X
Slashed Dreams
Track of the Moon Beast
War of the Robots
The Witch's Mountain


Bad:

Crypt of the Living Dead
Horrors of Spider Island
The Legend of Bigfoot
Memorial Valley Massacre
Naked Massacre
Oasis of the Zombie

Overall, a very good collection that is well worth your time and money.

There are some definate stinkers in "Chilling Classics." However, the low price of this collection, coupled with the good movies (some of which are quite obscure) that are included make up for the dross. Here are my reviews of those films in the collection I award 3.5 Stars or better to.

"A Bucket of Blood"
Starring: Dick Miller, Barboura Morris, Antony Carbone, and Julian Burton
Director: Roger Corman

Walter (Miller), the dorky, put-upon busboy at the beatnik hangout Yellow Door Cafe, wants desperately to be an artist--both so he can impress his beautiful coworker Carla (Morris) and receive the sort of attention and adulations that are heaped nightly upon Maxwell Brock (Burton), a poet who performs regularly at the club. After he accidentially kills his neighbor's cat, he hits upon the perfect medium for his creative expression--he covers dead bodies with clay and presents them as sculptures. Soon, people are dying to his models.

"A Bucket of Blood" is a dark comedy where a talentless loner, desperate for acceptance, goes to extremes to fit in. Its events and messages can be interperted in many ways--as commentary on what passes for "art"; as a statement about the downsides of societal pressures to fit in, even among supposedly accepting counter-cultures; that the one constant in life is hypocracy; or perhaps even all of these--or the viewer can just switch off the brain and watch Walter's quest for acknowledgement spin out of control.

The general structure, story, and even the types of characters, of "A Bucket of Blood" is similar to Corman's later "The Little Shop of Horrors", but the story is more tightly focused, the humor sharper, and the actors' performances more restrained. Where "The Little Shop of Horrors" was a broadbased spoof, "A Bucket of Blood" keeps its attention on beatniks, artists, and wannabes. The main characters are virtually identical, and they even come to similar final fates, but Walter emerges as a far more sinister and evil character than Seymour, and the climactic moment in "Bucket" is more impactful (where it was just goofy in "Shop".

The camerawork and lighting of this film are near perfect. Yes, this is a low-buget film, and the sets are simple and shabby, but Corman uses a wide range of filmmaking techniques that heighten the drama and horror toward the end of the film, and they greatly enhance the pitch-black comedy when Walter's boss (Carbone) is reacting in the background while Walter is showing his latest creation to him and Carla, after the boss has realized how the sculptures are being created. In fact, during the chase scene toward the end of the film, I found myself wondering if many modern filmmakers should be forced to watch this movie to see how to properly apply the tools of their trade.

The actors are also universally excellent, with great comedic talent shown all-around, from the pair of doped-out beatniks who wander through the scenes spouting hilarious nonsense; to Carbone, as the demanding boss who finds respect and fear for his busboy; to Morris, Walter's kindhearted coworker and target of his affections; to Burton, as the blowhard, psuedo-intellectual poet; to Miller, who, in his only starring role, puts on a spectacular show as a dork who turns into a homicidal maniac because of a hunger for acceptance. Miller does a fine job of going from goofy to menacing, but still maintaining a comic tone.

"A Bucket of Blood" is a successful movie by any measure, and I think lovers of black comedy will get a tremendous kick out of it. Personally, I wish I'd seen it sooner, because I suspect it's going to be one of those films I'll be watching once a year or so from now on.



"The Bloody Brood"
Starring: Peter Falk, Jack Betts, Barbara Lord, Robert Christie, and Ron Hartmann
Director: Julian Roffmann

A small-time hood and drug dealer (Falk) becomes enamoured with the beatnik lifestyle and with nihilism. He concocts the murder of a messenger boy, as a sort of performance art piece to show how meaningless life and death are. However, he didn't count on the boy's brother (Betts) who is willing to go to any length to find the killer.

"The Bloody Brood" is a lowkey crime drama set against the backdrop of beatnik clubs and parties. It's a rare film in that it doesn't paint the counter-culture as inherently corrupt and evil, but instead shows outsiders coming in and ruining it, such as Falk's gangster character Niko, and his spineless partner-in-murder, Francis (Hartmann). Instead, the film shows the true beatniks to be into harmless "kicks", and as young people who feel alienated from society, such as Ellie Brook (Lord).

The star of this film is, in every way, Peter Falk. He plays his character with a sense of quiet menace that commands the attention of the viewers. It's easy to see how Niko manages to become the center of the beatnik group--it's not just his money, his access to party-pads, or his ability to spin pop-culture nihilistic philosophical discussions out of the tinnest of logic threads... it's his charisma. And Falk shows a charisma in this role as I've never seen him display in any other role. (And it's not that he is the only good actor in the film--everyone in the cast maes a good account of themselves.)

The film is also well photgraphed, taking full advantage of the black-and-white medium, as well as the beatnik settings. I found it interesting how the only soundtrack present was whatever music might be playing at a club or a party, but that this music still underscored the drama tremendously.


"Deep Red" (aka "The Deep Red Hatchet Murders" and "The Hatchet Murders")
Starring: David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, and Gabriele Lavia
Director: Dario Argento

Pianist Marcus Daly (Hemmings) witnesses the brutal murder of a famous psychic, and then teams up with Gianna Brezzi, a feisty woman reporter (Nicolodi) to find the killer. Soon, they find themselves stalked by the deadly, seemingly omnicient murderer who is willing to end numerous lives to protect a number of dark secrets.

"Deep Red" is a detective thriller crossed with a slasherflick (and it's definately one of the precursor films to the slasher genre), with hints of a ghost movie tossed in for good measure. Although it's easy for a movie with so many different genre elements all simmering in the same pot to dissolve into a hideous, gooey mass, director and co-writer Argento manages to stir the many elements into a fabulous goulash of gore, mystery, and plot-twists that are actually suprising to the viewer.

This is far from a perfect movie. It's got some pacing problems--any viewer paying attention will know that a character who is pegged as the killer at one point in the film can't possibly be the killer, and Marcus should realize it too long before he does--and the storyline is unneccesarily muddy at a couple of points, but there are enough chills, gory kills, and well-executed twists to more than make up for these weaknesses. (The thread of Marcus trying to remember some half-seen clue at the crime scene, one that he thinks might unlock the entire mystery, is a great device that keeps the viewer engaged... and the kills scenes will sate any gore-hounds out there.)


"Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon" (aka "The Mansion of Madness")
Starring: Claudio Brook, Arturo Hansel, David Silva, and Monica Serna
Director: Juan Lopez Moctezuma

Gaston (Hansel) visits a remote mental hospital and finds a bizarre place where the chief doctor (Brook) has instituted the very unsual approach to curing mental illnesses described in "The System of Dr. Tarr."

"The Mansion of Madness" is based on one of Edgar Allen Poe's creepiest stories, "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether", and unlike so many films supposedly based on Poe's works, the originating story is still at the heart of this film. However, "The Mansion of Madness" is far bigger than the story, and far creepier. The insanity that permeates the sprawling mental hospital--which seems to be the size of a small city--and the haunted woods that surrounds it, is felt in every second of the film... and along with that madness is an ever-growing sense of surreal horror and dread.

This is probably one of the creepiest and strangest movies I've ever seen. If you like offbeat, low-key horror movies, I think you'll enjoy this one. (It drags at a couple of places, and Gaston has got to be one of the densest people on the planet that he doesn't realize that something is wrong with the asylum AND his host, but the good far outweighs the bad here.)


"Funeral Home"
Kay Hawtrey, Lesley Donaldson, Dean Garbett, and Barry Morse
Director: William Fruet

Teenaged Heather (Donaldson) goes to spend the summer helping her grandmother (Hawtrey) convert the defunct funeral home once operated by her long-vanished grandfather into a bed-and-breakfast so the old lady can make ends meet. While Heather discovers summer romance in the idyllic small Canadian town, she also discovers dark secrets.

"Funeral Home" is a thoroughly predictable low-budget horror movie that's part suspense flick and part slasher flick, but which owes more to "Psycho" than "Friday the Thirteenth". However, the fact that it's crystal clear where the movie is going to end up some 15-20 minutes in--and that it never deviates from its predictable course--is a completely forgiveable flaw due to the great skill with which the movie is paced and filmed, and the all-around decent performances given by the actors, as they portray their mostly likeable characters.

I also greatly appreciated the realistic aspects of this film. It breaks with the long-standing horror film convention that teens are either boozed-up sex-hounds or ultra-shy dorks with no social lives. Heather, Rick (Garbett), and the other teen characters in the film are far closer to what real average teenagers are like, and this helps make the movie seem even creepier when the horror kicks in. With characters painted as more real than is typical in a movie like this, the horror feels that much more realistic. (That said, I don't quite buy the killer and the backdrop for the murders.)

This is no materpiece, but it's got genuine chills and a number of unique aspects that make it worth seeing for those with a keen interest in the horror genre.


"Gothic"
Starring: Gabriel Byrne, Natasha Richardson, Julian Sands, Myriam Cyr, and Timothy Spall
Director: Ken Russell

Eccentric poet Lord Byron (Byrne) invites a young prodigy Percy Shelly and his fiance Mary Wollstonecraft (Sands and Richardson), along with her halfsister Claire Claremont (Cyr) to spend a weekend with him and his personal doctor, Polidori (Spall), at his isolated estate. After an evening of reading ghost stories, drinking wine enhanced with Laudenum (a hallucinagenic), and an impromptu seance, these members of the cream of the Age of Enlightenment's intellectual crop find themselves trapped in an ever worsening spiral of confusion and terror. Is it just the drugs, or did the seance call forth an evil spirit which is now tormenting them?

"Gothic" is a stylish, extremely creepy movie. There are very few fillms I've seen that manage to transfer the dread and fear felt by the characters as the fillm unfolds to me, but this is one of them. Although it starts out feeling like "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" set in a rambling castle and performed by effeminate people in puffy shirts and bad hairdos, this movie soon turns into one of the most bizarre and terrifying films I've ever seen. Much of it unfolds seemingly at random, with the threads occassionally coming briefly together but invariably seperating into a chaotic mess again.

While I would usually find this to be a flaw, it is something that works with great effect here.

The film has an odd tone to it from the very first arrival of Shelly and the girls at Byron's estate, and that oddness kicks into fullfledged horror movie mode when the characters start reading ghost stories to each other. At that point, the passage of time, and the very nature of reality, the house, and those in it start to change. As a thunderous rainstorm batters the manor house, Byron, Shelly, Polidori, Mary, and Claire all seem to be drawn into ghost stories, and singly or together, they all experience one of more hallmarks of such tales, ranging from apparent possisions to hallucinations of all kinds.

In fact, while "Gothic" is not a movie about a huanted house, it should serve as required viewing for anyone who is thinking about making a haunted house movie. The way the house becomes a character unto itself as the film unfolds, the various torments the character's experience, the possessions... they're all haunted-house standards, and they're all handled with far greater skill than in the vast majority of movies that deal specifically with hauntings.

A great deal of the film's success can be credited to Gabriel Byrne. He gives a wonderfully varied performance as the twisted poet Byron, but he is also portraying the one character who remains stable throughout the fillm. Byron stars out as an unbalanced character--swinging from capricious, to sensitive, to menacingly insane, sometimes all within the space of a few minutes--but as the other characters come increasingly unglued, Byron emerges as the closest thing there is to a stable hold on reality. Whether in the dying light of a spring afternoon, or in the deepest part of a nightmare-made-real, Byrne's Byron is unchanged... and this contributes to the viewer's sense of unease; the abnormal has become the closet thing to normal, anywhere. Byrne, however, is merely a point man for an excellent cast. All the principles are great (Cyr is genuinly creepy after she's possessed (?)), and given the length of some of the shots and the difficulty of the dialogue delivered during them, I don't think this was an easy movie to star in.

Although the amazing use of Byron can also be credited to the script, there are some issues with the script as well--mostly relating to where the line between what's a dream and what's reality in the film is found. However, I may be overcritical on this point, because once "Gothic" gets going, the terror and disorientation builds and builds to such a degree that reality and drug-soaked nightmare and which is which really doesn't matter. And the way you can see the works of Mary Wollstonecraft-Shelly and Percy Shelly (and almost certainly also that of Dr. Polidori, although I've not read his book "The Vampyre", so I can't say) echoed throughout in dialogue and situations

This film is one scary ride, featuring fine performances from all its actors, and led by a director that deploys every tool in his filmmaking arsenal with great skill and artistry. It's a film worth seeing if you enjoy well-made horror flicks and experimental films. (Oh... and I suppose I should touch on what many reviewers seem to think is a selling point. The film supposedly chronicles the one night that gave rise to Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein", Shelly's best poems, and Polidori's "The Vampyre". While this is an interesting aspect of the film--and it's one that raises even more questions about where the line between reality and nightmare exists in the movie, and if perhaps Byron and his guests did, in fact, rouse some evil spirit that night--it's not one that felt was so all-fire important to the movie. It helps to know who the characters are, but one doesn't need a BA in English to "get it.")


"I Bury the Living"
Starring: Richard Boone, Theodore Bikel, and Peggy Mauer
Director: Albert Band

When Robert Kraft (Boone) takes his turn as chairman of the town's cemetary (a duty that all of the leading citizens eventually end up with), he approaches the job in a blase fashion. What does it matter if he marks vacant (yet spoken-for) grave sites with white pins and occupied graves with black pins on the large map in the chairman's office? Well, it matters a great deal, because Kraft discovers that when he inserts a black pin in a vacant grave, its owner is soon killed so as to make the map accurate.

"I Bury the Living" is a fabulously atmospheric little horror film that captures the best elements of a Hichcock film and a Rod Serling-scripted episode of "The Twilight Zone." Although the script is a bit weak at times--some characters seem to be here for no reason other than someone thought they should be, because they are traditional genre standards, such as the Love Interest and Scoop-Hungry Reporter--the way it and the director manage to evoke a growing sense of dread, and the way the twist ending is set up and implimented are expertly done. I also love the way the map of the cemetary becomes a character unto itself as the film progresses.

This is another one of those overlooked gems that's worth a look by horror fans and mordern filmmakers. Yes, it plays a lot like a "Twilight Zone" episode, but it can show all those people out there producing brainless horror movies what can be done with just one room--the best and spookiest parts of the film happens entirely in Kraft's little office on the cemetary grounds.


"Messiah of Evil" (aka "Dead Peoiple" and "The Second Coming")
Starring: Marianna Hill, Michael Greer, Joy Bang, and Elisha Cook, Jr.
Director: Willard Hyuck

Arletta (Hill) arrives in the small coastal town where her father dissapeared. She moves into his house while attempting to learn his fate, but finds the locals unwilling to talk to her. She soon meets up with Thom (Greer) who is a collector of modern legends and folk-tales, and of women... and after they learn of the town's gruesome history from a broken-down, crazed drunk (Cook), they discover the town's history is repeating itself: The townsfolk turning into flesh-eating zombies. With this nightmare-curse claim the visitors as well?

"Messiah of Evil" is a different sort of horror film and a different sort of zombie movie. It's a nightmare-like tale of a small town that's consumed by a curse of a completely unknown (and therefore unstoppable) origin, and as the movie progresses, it becomes more and more dreamlike in its quality. (From the African-American albino and his pick-up truck full of corpses as Arletta is arriving in the doomed town of Point Dune, through Toni (Bang) going to see a movie theater where the marquee reads "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye" and is subsequently surrounded by townie zombies that gradually fill the auditorium around her as she is absorbed by the film, to Thom and Aerletta's final desperate escape attempts, the film is full of hazy symbology and a sense of ever-increasing dread.)

The technical aspects of the film are iffy--the lighting and camerawork and editing all seem a bit on the weak side--but there are plenty of inventive visuals that work on many levels, the staging of the scenes, the sets, and, most importantly, the performances of every actor in the film are top-notch. It is the acting that really clinches the dreamy, nightmarish sense that hovers over the entire film. This is horror movie that needs the vieweer's attention to work, but it also rewards the viewer plenty who gives it.

"Messiah of Evil" is one of those films that for whatever reason has fallen into obscurity and which is one those wonderful surprises that lurk inside those massive DVD movie packs, like "Chilling Classics", which is where I discovered it. It's the sort of movie that makes such sets worth buying, and that makes up for some of the other offerings included. In fact, "Messiah of Evil" would be deserving of an 8-rating, if not for the fact that it takes the dreamlike quality that its creators managed to imbue it with just a little too far. I don't necssarily need a story to be wrapped up nicely at the end, but I don't want to have a sense that the filmmakers didn't really know themselves what the source of the evil in the movie was, or perhaps even how to effectively end their movie. At the end of this one, I felt that a little of both might well have been the case.

However, the not-quite-pulled-off end of this film isn't as damaging to the overall experience as it often is. Everything leading up to it is so well done that this film is one of several good reasons for spending money on the "Chilling Classics" 50-movie pack.

[...]

I've only watched about half of these films, but half might be enough. This set, like it's companion "Horror Classics", is a little less than the packaging and the titles might promise. Don't misunderstand though; it's still worth the low Amazon price for so many movies and hours of campy entertainment, just don't expect a lot of actual chills or fifty scary movies; you'll be disappointed as some of the movies fall more into the mystery or murder catagory.

Whereas "Horror Classics" tended towards the black and white B movies of the 40's, 50's, and 60's, this pack leans more towards the color B movies of the 60's, 70's, and 80's. There's a distinct difference. Not being around for those old black and whites, I couldn't tell you if they were meant to be truly scary, but now, they're just charming and intriguing as a terrific glimpse into cinema's past. The movies in this set, on the other hand, seem to take themselves a little more seriously, but fail miserably anyway leaving them neither scary nor charming. They're more often just kind of annoying. And there are a lot more very poorly-dubbed foreign films in this pack as well. There are some definite gems, and again, it's all a matter of taste.

One film in particular that makes this set worth the price is The Legend of Bigfoot. I'm still trying to cope with my mundane life after viewing this film. It plays out like a bad Disney made-for-television live-action wildlife film of the late sixties or early seventies, but it has even less point, a more annoying narrator, and an absolutely unbelievable ending. Most of this rambling 92 minute feature is crammed full of non-sequitur animal and nature shots from which the narrator draws absurd conclusions about the habits and whereabouts of Bigfoot.

At one point in his horribly cost-ineffective quest that takes him from the north, to the south, then back again to the far north of the country, he runs over a squirrel. The next seven minutes of film are spent on the squirrel's little surviving friend dragging him off the road and chewing his head for nuts. When a vulture passes overhead (more random stock footage, no doubt), the little carnivorous survivor scampers off the road and hides. From this drawn-out sequence of rodent on rodent head-eating, the narrator somehow concludes that Bigfoot must also be like the squirrel and withdraw when danger is near (danger apparently being inept aging trackers with crazy theories).

Be sure to stick around when later in the film, the narrator and his wife actually SEE, with their own eyes and a Super8 camera, the bright flashing eyes of Bigfoot on the sparse tundra of the Artic. That or it might just be a 1968 International Scout, I'm not quite sure, but then, neither were they. They ran away. And you definitely won't want to miss the ending when the narrator, mustering all his lifelong tracking abilities, sits perfectly still to be rewarded with not one, but several, coincidentally short Bigfeet all milling about aimlessly in the forest not twenty feet from him and his (apparently) soundless camera. Absolutely startling.

With this kind of solid and obvious proof, I'm quite shocked that, thirty years later, we don't all live hand in hand with our hairy brethren. I've got a spare room. Why doesn't Bigfoot come live with me? Oh, that's right. Because after listening to the narrator jump from one idea to the next, each with more incredulity in his voice than the last, Bigfoot assumes all humans are absolutely inane.

Buy this set!

Some of the transfers in this set aren't great, but you know what?
This box set is equivalent to finding 50 movies at a yard sale for about .50 cents apiece! It doesn't matter what the movie quality is like, at this point, it's a steal!
Some friends and I watched 'Memorial Valley Massacre' together and had a great time. In fact, I laughed more watching that film than I have during some 'comedies' distributed by Hollywood recently...
And if you don't have a copy of Bad Taste (good VHS-like transfer by the way) and Dario Argento's Deep Red in your collection, snag this set now!