Product Details

• Actors: Trish Van Devere, Donald Pleasance, Walter Stocker, Audrey Caire, Rod Lauren
• Directors: Various
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: August 12, 2008
• Run Time: 647 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0019D3DF6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,431 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Drive-In Cult Classics, Vol. 2" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

The Madmen of Mandoras

Less than an hour after famed American neurobiologist, John Coleman, addresses a conference on the deadliest nerve gas ever developed, he vanishes. At the same time, on a small island called Mandoras in the Caribbean, a group of fanatics from Nazi Germany has carried out a secret experiment after WWII to give eternal life to the brain of Adolf Hitler. Unfortunately, the brain is giving orders that this deadly gas is to be used to take over the world. In possession of a clue, the professor s daughter and his son-in-law find their way to Mandoras. Can they find her father and stop these madmen before they take over the world? This new edition has been mastered from the original negative, and it has never looked so good. Starring Walter Stocker, Audrey Caire, Carlos Rivas, and Marshall Reed. Not Rated 74 Minutes 1963 B&W

They Saved Hitler s Brain

Despite bearing a 1963 copyright, They Saved Hitler's Brain" was released years later on television after the 1963 film, The Madmen of Mandoras , was combined with new footage of "CID" agents, Vic and Toni. Not Rated 91 Minutes 1963 B&W

Terrified

Buried Alive... How much shock can the human brain endure before it cracks! A college psychology student, intent on writing a term paper on how much terror the human mind can endure, learns his answers first-hand as he finds himself the target of a mysterious, hooded killer. Starring Rod Lauren and Steve Drexel. Not Rated 85 Minutes 1963 B&W

Bloodlust!

The amazing tale of a crazed doctor living on a tropical island, who seeks to surpass the thrill of hunting the world's most dangerous animals by stalking and murdering people instead! Starring Wilton Graff and Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch). Not Rated 68 Minutes 1961 B&W

The Creeping Terror

A newlywed couple's honeymoon is interrupted when an alien spaceship lands near their home in Angel County, California. Starring Vic Savage and Shannon O Neal. Not Rated 75 Minutes - 1964 B&W

Terrified

Buried Alive... How much shock can the human brain endure before it cracks! A college psychology student, intent on writing a term paper on how much terror the human mind can endure, learns his answers first-hand as he finds himself the target of a mysterious, hooded killer. Starring Rod Lauren and Steve Drexel. Not Rated 85 Minutes 1963 B&W

Bloodlust!

The amazing tale of a crazed doctor living on a tropical island, who seeks to surpass the thrill of hunting the world's most dangerous animals by stalking and murdering people instead! Starring Wilton Graff and Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch). Not Rated 68 Minutes 1961 B&W

The Creeping Terror

A newlywed couple's honeymoon is interrupted when an alien spaceship lands near their home in Angel County, California. Starring Vic Savage and Shannon O Neal. Not Rated 75 Minutes - 1964 B&W

The Devil s Hand

Rick Turner is haunted by strange dreams of a beautiful woman. When he and his fiancé visit a local doll shop, he is surprised to encounter a doll that looks just like his mystery woman. He is also surprised to discover that the owner of the shop has a doll that resembles his fiancé. Rick soon finds himself involved with a satanic cult that causes the life of his fiancé to slowly fade away. Starring Robert Alda and Neil Hamilton. Not Rated 71 Minutes 1962 - B&W

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Mid-Century Cheese, March 11, 2010

By 

Robert I. Hedges - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Drive-In Cult Classics, Vol. 2 (DVD)

"Drive-In Cult Classics Volume Two" is a marked improvement on the first volume in the series and features eight films that range from laughable ("The Creeping Terror") to modestly creepy ("Terrified"). All of these films are in the camp-as-high-art genre, and I recommend the set to connoisseurs of B-movies everywhere.

I started off with "They Saved Hitler's Brain", a cinematic travesty made over a decade or so by two different sets of people, starring two different sets of actors. What could possibly go wrong? The basis for the film is the very short 1963 feature "The Madmen of Mandoras", which was apparently shot years earlier and shelved for a while. In the late 1960s (1968 seems the most agreed upon date), some television brain trust wanted to broadcast "The Madmen of Mandoras", but it was too short to fit in a traditional movie time slot. They hired some film school students to shoot additional wraparound footage to boost the running time. The result is one of the most jarring viewing experiences in cinema history, and ranks up there with the very best of Ed Wood or Ray Dennis Steckler for enjoyable camp viewing.

The film opens with the newly shot footage of a smarmy male and a voluptuous female CID agent arguing and engaging in possibly the worst banter in film history. The acting and writing will both make you cringe; the good news is you frequently can't hear what's being said over the loud background music. It seems that the CID is investigating the death of a scientist who was working on the G-Gas project. The dead scientist knew of the antidote, and they discover that Dr. John Coleman another brilliant scientist, has been kidnapped and taken to the South American country of Mandoras.

The G-Gas plot sort of devolves into a "Wild, Wild World of Batwoman" pursuit of evildoers, with the movie going on to feature crazy Nazis planning to take over the world, Hitler's head in a jar (who the cast refers to as "Mr. H") yelling orders in German, a brain dead kidnapping and murder subplot, lots of stock footage, a supremely annoying and pathetic romance subplot, ridiculously inept car chases, doublecrosses, gunplay, explosions, a fire, and Hitler's head melting. Everything is here but the kitchen sink, and that may be here too, just too grainy and out of focus to see.

For someone who adores nonsensical B-movies, "They Saved Hitler's Brain" is a film to marvel at, and I particularly recommend watching it back to back with "The Madmen of Mandoras", conveniently located on the flip side of the DVD.

I really should have watched "The Madmen of Mandoras" first, as it was the earlier of the two films made, and is a much more cogently produced picture. The version here is a new transfer, and looks very good compared with most other films of similar vintage. I started with "They Saved Hitler's Brain" simply because I had seen it before, but "Madmen of Mandoras" was new to me. It has most of the same elements, but is markedly improved over "They Saved Hitler's Brain" for two essential reasons: it is much shorter, and it doesn't have the atrocious CID storyline or actors cluttering up the plot. The film still has plenty of annoying features, notably the little sister subplot (she is the most annoying character in the non-CID version of the film by a mile). From the dumber-than-rocks department, the main characters at one point dump a body in a phone booth in broad daylight; of course they didn't realize he had been shot either, despite sitting in a car next to him. Much like the glorious Ed Wood spectacle "Plan Nine From Outer Space", there are lots of day-versus-night shots, and other marks of schizophrenically idiosyncratic filmmaking techniques on display here. I liked it much more than "They Saved Hitler's Brain", but it's still a laugh-a-minute cheesefest.

"Bloodlust" is yet another retelling of "The Most Dangerous Game", Robert Reed and his inane friends stumble through terrible dialogue and the jungle attempting to evade Dr. Albert Balleau (Wilton Graff) and his henchmen who are dressed like Bastille guards.

Seeing a young Robert Reed is entertaining, but the rest of the cast is perfectly annoying, especially when the two girls have conversations like "May I say it just once more please?"..."What?"..."I'm scared!" The frolicking foursome (and the boat captain) are not terribly ingenious, and in one hilarious scene come up with the worst bluff ever in the history of motion pictures. After thrilling plotpoints such as a clambake, leeches in the quicksand, and taxidermy using a vat of acid, you'll be surprised that when the film is over it's only been 68 minutes long: it will feel like a lot longer.

There are certainly worse movies from the early 1960's, but I didn't need yet another retelling of a story I was first made to read in middle school. The script is terrible and the dialogue and stilted delivery made a potentially gripping early horror movie much less than it should have been. For horror completeists, this is worth seeing once, everyone else can move along.

"The Devil's Hand" is a obscure movie about devil worship in middle income America. It gets two stars for unintentional hilarity and brevity. The quick version is that an ordinary man, Rick Turner (Robert Alda), gives up his entire existence (including his fiancée) when ensnared in a Satanic cult by a witch via thought projection. Early in the film this manifests itself by having him mysteriously drawn to a weird doll shop. It turns out that Frank Lamont, the man who runs this shop, is also the "High Executioner" of the cult and holds rituals and human sacrifices in the stockroom in back. It will not surprise you to see Alda's fiancée (well, ex-fiancée by the end of the film) Donna (Ariadna Welter) as the surprise human sacrifice in the gripping conclusion. There is actually nothing here that will surprise you, as the plot is predictably straightforward right through the end, 71 long minutes after it started.

You might think that this would be a captivating subject for a film, and indeed it could be. Here, though, it isn't for two primary reasons: first, Alda has no issues giving himself over to "Gamba" (as the devil-god is known); second, the film is a showcase for congas and bongos as well as interpretative voodoo dancing. These two ingredients skewer any interest in whatever else may be going on in the film.

Watch for Neil Hamilton (Commissioner Gordon on the "Batman" series) as Frank Lamont in as good of a performance as could be expected given the material, and Bruno VeSota, who many will no doubt remember as Seltzer from the Jerry Warren classic "The Wild, Wild World of Batwoman." While it featured ultra-annoying music, terrible dream sequences, and a ridiculous plot, "The Devil's Hand" still wins for brevity and an utterly ridiculous concept.

"The Creeping Terror" is an all-time B-movie favorite, easily as ridiculous as anything that Ed Wood ever came up with, although with worse production values. The filming was apparently marred by cast and crew departures and numerous technical issues, including loss of the soundtrack, requiring the spliced together monstrosity to be narrated to achieve a modicum of coherence. The first monster disappeared during filming, and a replacement monster was, if anything, even more ridiculous. The monster in question is a giant shag carpet from outer space who comes to Earth to eat coeds, interrupting a honeymoon and causing much horror and hilarity in its wake. This is one of the greatest of all B-movies, and I cannot emphasize how wonderful this film is.

"Land of the Minotaur" is a 1977 Greek production starring Donald Pleasence as Father Roache, a priest who knows how to deal with an ancient, evil Minotaur monster dwelling in a picturesque Greek town. The film also stars Peter Cushing as the very picture of evil; unbelievably Cushing appeared the very same year in "Star Wars", also as (surprise!) the personification of evil. The movie starts with a former pupil of Roache's coming to visit and do some archeological exploration with some friends. Roache is welcoming (yet creepy) and cautions the explorers about the area, helpfully translating an inscription over a passage they go through as "Those who enter the forbidden chambers of the Minotaur must die". Pleasance is the same character he is in every movie, even though here he's the good guy. As the evil plot unfolds, Pleasence brings a detective friend of his from New York to help clear up the situation, although I can't fathom why: he is generally clueless and spends most of the film whining how religious Pleasence is. (He's a priest, remember?).

For a supernatural plot complete with guys in black hoods, sacrifices, chases, private investigators, ancient rituals, how could this be so...boring? The pace is absolutely slug-like, and with Pleasence as a good priest and Cushing as the priest of the Minotaur, there's never any doubt that the film is heading for a cataclysmic battle which will be won with the old crucifix ploy. The film has some atmospheric moments, but is more ponderous than scary.

"Terrified" is an early psychological thriller that features plain awful acting and absolutely terrible audio. It's frequently hard to understand what's being said, but the plot is fairly straightforward: a college student is writing a term paper on terror, and decides to go undercover and finds himself the target of a lunatic killer in an old abandoned town at night. The premise is wholly implausible: two teens want to go visit an old wino ("Crazy Bill") in a ghost town at midnight to "ask him a question". They go to the town and discover an extremely creepy cemetery. While the premise and acting may be sub par, the lighting and the cemetery and ghost town sets are excellent, really... Read more ›

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great old drive in classics....almost......., January 8, 2009

By 

Thin Timmy "Bela Drake" (New Orleans, La.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Drive-In Cult Classics, Vol. 2 (DVD)

This set is worth the price for The Hearse

& Land of the Mantou with Cushing & Pleasance.

The Devils Hand is a great twilight zone type

movie with Alda. Very well made & acted & pretty

good script of vodoo devil dolls. not bad. Bloodlust

is also pretty good remake of Most Dangerous Game &

with Brady Bunch dad! pretty good. The others are

pretty awful not worth watching but for the $9 I paid

I think 4 movies were worth admission.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creeping Terror better than I expected, May 27, 2011

By 

The Graeme - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Drive-In Cult Classics, Vol. 2 (DVD)

I bought this collection to get 'The Creeping Terror', a film I've never seen but reputed to be one of the worst ever made. Well, yes & no. The basic plot idea is good, unique for the time, but not explained till the very end. The director tries hard, lots of monster point of view shots somewhat ruined by the victim's tendency to just stand there and gape in horror (when they could easily run away). The Creeping Terror is rather charming, though if you don't like slugs you might actually be a bit creeped out. The front is upright, containing some guy with his feet (disguised as psuedopods) kicking out from under the 'skirt' as he clomps along, the bulk of the monster's body billowing out behind him in a bumpy undulating train held up by perhaps two or three crouching people. Lots and lots of shots of it in broad daylight too. Why watch this film? It's delightful. Nobody is a trained actor. It's fun watching local townspeople and/or investors in the film doing their best to follow directions. The dance sequence is hilarious, all those lanky teenagers twisting up a storm and looking energetic but idiotic in the extreme. And the infantry tactics employed by the soldiers attacking the monster is beyond idiotic, totally inept. And the lovers lane sequence where the monster sucks people out of cars while a not too bright guy watches puffing on his pipe contentedly. Ed Wood Jr. would be envious. I consider this film highly entertaining. I enjoyed every moment of it. On a technical note the image is watchable, a bit washed out at times, but acceptable.