Customer Reviews

Fright Pack: Walking Dead

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You get 6 movies,Hell of the Living Dead,Dead Heat,Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, House by the Cemetary, City of the Living Dead and Nightmare city.

The reason I brought this set is because I didnt have "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie", plus I didnt have Dead Heat. I figured If i was to buy both on DVD it would be about the same price as the set so I did, I will just have to seel the doubles I have of the rest no big deal.

Anyway I wont go into great detail about every movie but If you are to buy each one individually It will probably run you close $80 or so and for the price of this set its a must to get and I cant believe the price, they could have released "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" for $20-$25 its self.

If anything just buy this set for City of the living dead, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie and Hell of the Living Dead ( which is good not great but a decent Zombie flick with a nice amount of gore). As for House by the cemetary is good as well,not great but an ok addition to this collection of discs, but I didnt like Dead Heat at all and I dont like Nightamre city, they both suck, IMO.


Let sleeping corpses lie its the best out of them all it drags and gets slow a bit but be patient the zombies are great and the gore is there and it actaully gives you a very creepy feeling and does bring a nice feel of horror, a well done flick. Get this box set its worth it as a die hard fan of Zombie Cinema and NYR Hockey : ), its worth having.

These are my ratings for the following six (6) movies out of five (5) stars: HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD, City of the Living Dead, The House By The Cemetery, Nightmare City, Let the Sleeping Corpses Lie, and Dead Heat. All God save me please.......from these flesh-eating zombies!!!!

HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD (1984)- 3.5 -Directed by Bruno Mattei, After a chemical leak at the Hope Centre in Papua New Guinea (an organisation devoted to feeding underdeveloped countries) turns its staff into flesh-eating zombies, a four-man commando squad led by Mike London are sent to investigate. They run into a TV news crew led by celebrity reporter Lea, who are after the same story, but when they discover that the entire country has been overrun by zombies, what are the chances of them getting the message across? Unlike most zombie films, this actually tries to make a serious point - that if we don't feed the Third World, they'll come and feed on us!

City of the Living Dead (1983)- 4.0 -Directed by Lucio Fulci, In the small New England town of Dunwich, a priest commits suicide by hanging himself in the church cemetary which somehow opens the gates of hell allowing the dead to rise. Peter, a New York City reporter, teams up with a young psychic, named Mary, to travel to the town where they team up with another couple, psychiatrist Jerry and patient Sandra, to find a way to close the gates before All Saints Day or the dead all over the world will rise up and kill the living.

The House By The Cemetery (1984)- 3.5 -Directed by Lucio Fulci, A deranged killer lives in the basement of an old mansion and pops out occasionally to commit grisly murders that include be-headings, ripped throats, and stabbings with a fireplace poker. The killer needs fresh body parts to rejuvenate his cells. He also has maggots for blood.

Nightmare City (1983)- 3.5 -Director: Umberto Lenzi, Airplane exposed to radiation crash lands. Out of the wreckage, blood drinking zombies emerge armed with knives, guns and teeth! They go on a rampage slicing, dicing, and biting thier way across the italian countryside.

Let the Sleeping Corpses Lie (1975)- 3.5 -Directed by Jorge Grau, A cop chases two young people visiting the English countryside, suspecting them of a local murder; unbeknownst to him, the real culprits are the living dead, brought to life with a thirst for human flesh by radiation being used by area farmers as a pesticide alternative. Is one of the best zombie shockers of the 1970s, this Spanish-Italian coproduction (also known as The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue and Don't Open the Window, among other titles) is a real international affair. Inspired by George Romero's genre-shattering American hit Night of the Living Dead, it was shot in England by a Spanish director with a largely British cast, and supplemented by Spanish zombies and American character actor Arthur Kennedy as a bitter Irish police detective (with only a hint of a brogue). He's investigating a sudden rash of violent murders (the work of Satanists, he's convinced) and closes in on a pair of newcomers to the sleepy Northern England town, longhaired antique dealer Ray Lovelock and his nervous traveling companion Christine Galbó. Only they know the real culprits: newly deceased corpses, revived by agricultural experiments in ultrasonic radiation that are also turning newborns into vicious little monsters. Director Jorge Grau delivers all the stumbling zombies and gory flesh feasts you could hope for in a 1974 movie, but more importantly he creates the rare zombie thriller that manages to be both scary and smartly done. Some of the twists are a bit more far-fetched than others (why does dabbing blood on the eyes of long-dead cadavers magically bring them to life, and how would a zombie even know to try?), but it's a minor quibble in the face of the startling blood frenzy and Grau's satisfying dark dramatic twists. The DVD also features an introduction and a 20-minute interview with Grau ("I hope you will suffer profoundly," he jokes in the opening), as well as a gallery of posters and stills, TV ads, and radio spots. -Sean Axmaker

Dead Heat (1988)- 1 -Directed by Mark Goldblatt, Roger Mortis and Doug Bigelow are cops that are chasing crooks that are dead serious about crime. Or should I say they are chasing dead crooks perpetrating serious crimes? Seems some nutcase has learned how to bring back the dead and is sending them on crime sprees. Now these indestructable goons are in the way of officers Mortis and Bigelow. To even things up, when Mortis is killed (in the line of duty, of course) he gets a jump start from the Resurrection machine and takes the fight to the zombie bad guys.

Four (4) of the movies that I just named off for you and rated are 100% completely Uncut, Uncensored and Unrated in Remastered Anamorphic Widescreen (for the best picture quality) and they are HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD, City of the Living Dead, The House By The Cemetery, and Nightmare City.

These movies are a great collection to anyone's horror collection and to any fan of Euro-Horror movies. This is the best deal for all of these movies together in a walking dead bear case design, that also includes a walking strap for you can take your movies with you were ever you go. This one deal that you cannot pass up.

Anchor Bay made Fright Packs containing six movies looking like beer. The different packs are Devil Made Me Do It(The Antichrist, The Church, Hell Night, Fear No Evil, Curse of the Devil, To the Devil a Daughter), Man's Worst Friends(Rats, Zoltan, Cat O' Nine Tails, Slugs, The Black Cat, Parasite), Campy Classics(Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Transylvania 6-5000, Return to Horror High, Sleepaway Camp, Vamp) and Walking Dead(City of the Living Dead, Nightmare City, House by the Cemetery, Hell of the Living Dead, Let Sleeping Corpses Lie, Dead Heat). The only pack in print as of now is Campy Classics. The other packs have some films now either on Blue Underground, other distributors, or thoroughly discontinued as of now.

I purchased a used Walking Dead Fright Pack since the price was right and the opportunity was rare. Again the Walking Dead pack is out of print but only five out of the six movies or beers contained are discontinued by Anchor Bay. The only loss from the pack was House by the Cemetery because I already have House by the Cemetery. However, the gain is the other House by the Cemetery I have is a public domain version by Diamond Entertainment. That version is inferior to Anchor Bay's House by the Cemetery. I'll explain more later.

I'll review the six beers in this pack. Some were very intoxicating by the gore content by volume. Anchor Bay does say on the pack "Enjoy responsibly..." Note that gore is not always the merrier to enjoy each beer.

The Beers:

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD: Brewed by master Lucio Fulci. A medium(Catriona MacColl) channels a priest who hangs himself in a isolated New England town. The medium dies by sheer fright. A reporter(Christopher George) is writing on the story for the paper but when he visits the medium's partially buried grave, the buried medium mysteriously gains consciousness. After the reporter opens the coffin and releases the medium, she reveals the suicidal priest opened the gates of hell and he's back from the dead. The priest is killing the living by his deadly psychokinetic stares or one-handed scalpings thus recruiting them as demonic zombies with similar telepathy. Others in the film are Giovanni Lombardo Radice as the town's ill-fated pervert, Janet Agren as a psychiatric client, and Carlo De Mejo as the town psychiatrist. CITY was the weakest in Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy but not necessarily in a bad way. CITY's plot and literary elements were too unclear. The ending style was a first for me and I hated it. CITY is one of those open to interpretation films that doesn't have enough clues for an interpretation. However, the scares and shocks are good and the movie is worth watching again to search for more clues. The gore is over the top and nauseating. The purge scene was hard to watch. I had to mute it halfway so I'd stop gagging. Beware because gorehounds only. 3 and a half stars/Five! 75 percent gore content by volume, goes down quezzy.

NIGHTMARE CITY: Umberto Lenzi made this zombie movie though he denies the creatures were zombies but whatever. A military plane does an emergency landing at an airport and the passengers from the plane start killing people. A reporter(Hugo Stiglitz) catches the shock on camera but is barred from reporting it. The reporter and his wife are on the run after it's too late for the living to be aware of the dead on time. The movie is blamed as being a Dawn of the Dead(1978) ripoff but actually not at all or very little. Where is the mall? Where is the SWAT team? Since when did DotD zombies run, jump, and hide? Since when did DotD zombies use bladed instruments with surgical precision and shoot with dead-aim? NIGHTMARE CITY may have Dawn of the Dead inspirations but it shouldn't be labeled as a strong and direct ripoff. NIGHTMARE CITY is a fun, energenic, and under-rated movie with some flaws. The gore was plentiful but overfaked mostly. The gore looked cheap as if comical and the blood in some scenes looked worthy of ridicule. The gore scene in the basement was very brutal and realistic. The makeup was awful. The masks were cheap and improperly concealed. Do I recommend it? Yes, but for gorehounds, Lenzi lovers, and zombiholics. 3.8 stars/5! 70 percent gore content by volume, goes down smooth.

HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY: Again with another Fulci brew. A family moves into a New England fixer-upper. The patriarch(Paolo Malco) is a researcher and the wife(Catriona MacColl) is a housewife. Though we know the house hides an unseen murderer, the son(Giovanni Frezza) begins a friendship with a girl's friendly spirit who tells him to leave at once but his parents are skeptical. HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY is better than CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD and about as good as The Beyond. HOUSE is not all too clear as well and hard to interpret but the clues are the easiest to understand compared to The Beyond and CITY. The movie is clearly a ripoff or homage to The Shining and The Amityville Horror because of the writing guy, his housewife, telepathic son, and previous owner who committed homicide/suicide. Not as gory as CITY and The Beyond but still one of Fulci's goriest films. Not for everyone. The Anchor Bay and Blue Underground versions of HOUSE are better than the Diamond Entertainment version. The Diamond version is missing the extras and the graphics are less restored. The Diamond version is decently restored and uncut/uncensored but the Anchor Bay and Blue Underground versions are better in extras and graphics. Four and a half/Five! 70 percent gore content by volume, goes down in-between.

DEAD HEAT: A horror-comedy cop buddy beer with Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo. Roger Mortis(Treat Williams) and Doug Bigelow(Joe Piscopo) are a team of loose cannon detectives. Roger plays by the book but resorts to vigilantism when the book isn't working and Doug is a wiseguy who has his own book. Roger and Doug go against orders and eccentrically stop an armed robbery. The robbers turn out to be previously dead, even had past autopsies before the robbery. The detectives go to a chemical company that manufacture a suspect chemical found in the robbers. The two find and are attacked by a creature. Roger is hit and falls in a activated decompression chamber thus killed. Doug and Roger's ex-girlfriend coroner reanimate Roger back to life. Roger denies being dead but realizes he's decomposing. Roger and Doug must find the creator of the machine before he completely decomposes. DEAD HEAT is a very funny movie. Joe Piscopo's sarcastic humor is endless. Darren McGavin plays a lead, aged Vicent Price has a small but over-publicized role, and short appearence by Toru Tanaka. Good movie to watch with friends. Four/Five! 6 percent gore content by volume, goes down flat and watered down(not in bad way).

LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE(The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue): A Spanish brew inspired by Night of the Living Dead. Two travellers George and Edna(Ray Lovelock and Christine Galbo) are passing through rural England. George finds a prototype machine being used to kill insects using invisible waves. George wonders what it could do to humans. The dead are coming to life and killing people. George and Edna are suspects to the killings and are being pursued by a detective(Arthur Kennedy) who'll stop at nothing. LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE is very atmospheric. Very dark and spooky. Don't look for a total zombie armageddon with social policy thrown out. Not much zombies compared to other zombie movies because throughout the movie, it's only the beginning and only localized. Four and (3/4)/5 stars! 40 percent gore content by volume, goes down in-between.

HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD: Bruno Mattei's brew that tastes too much like Dawn of the Dead. A chemical leak at a plant kills the workers but the workers get back up and kill. Meanwhile, a SWAT team infiltrates a building with hostages being held by environmental extremists. The SWAT team eliminate the threat and are put on a new mission. The SWAT team go to Papa New Guinea and encounter a woman and a cameraman being attacked by zombies at a Christian mission. The woman is an anthropologist and goes to a tribe but zombies attack. The group are looking for the chemical plant for answers and survivers. This movie was ridiculous. It was one of the cheesiest and most unoriginal stuff. The movie is a ripoff of Dawn of the Dead. A woman and her cameraman boyfriend. The SWAT team wear blue suits(same ones). A daredevil SWAT member(sound familiar?). Same exact score from Dawn of the Dead(not kidding). Aside from ripoff, HELL has stock footage from mondo films. Showing animals and gruesome footage like field dressing and strange burial rites. The gore is way over the top. The gore was carefully crafted and well done. The last gore set piece is shocking and graphic. Is the movie bad? YES, it is but the movie wasn't meant to be good and it is still fun to watch. Bruno Mattei will remind you as if he's an Italian Ed Wood. Three and three-quarters/Five stars! 85 percent gore content by volume, goes down quezzy and potent.

I love my Fright Pack and the beers, I mean movies. I was glad to get six movies in the box set because the price is half what the movies would cost in total seperately.

All right movies for the money, nothing special. I like Zombie movies, so the six pack was pretty good deal.

This is the fourth set in Anchor Bay's "Fright Pack" collection, no doubt meant to clear their warehouse of old inventory. The savings are passed on to viewers like you, but is it even worth the purchase? Here is my humble rundown:

LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE: Meant to cash in on the success of George Romero's original "Night of the Living Dead", this film is similar in tone, yet with it's own approach and style which score it points for not taking the easy route. This film was a Spanish production, although the majority of the actors appear to be British and speak (albeit poorly dubbed) English. The plot involves a young woman traveling across the British countryside, en route to admit her heroine junkie sister into an institution. After an automotive mishap, she finds herself traveling with a young art dealer when the dead inexplicably being crawling from their tombs. This ties into recent test runs of a new machine by the department of agriculture meant to rid to county of crop infestation. Story wise, this film is the most coherent in the set. The ending, while run of the mill in recent horror films, was fairly satisfying for a movie over thirty years old. The transfer is quite good, with the exception of grain throughout the movie, but for a low budget production it's quite forgivable. Also known by the title "Don't Open the Window", among many others, "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" is a slow moving little chiller that is of better quality then the title suggests. Special features include an interview with the director (in Spanish with English subtitles), poster and photo galleries (featuring ads with a topless woman with back to camera -- false advertising at it's greatest!), and radio spots.

HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD: Total exploitation garbage that tried to ride on the backs of "Dawn of the Dead" and "Zombie" for the gore hound dollar. This is film making at it's poorest -- blood and guts do not an enjoyable movie make. The "story" features a newswoman and a gang of SWAT members (sound familiar?) traveling in New Guinea where the living dead are attacking the local tribesman. This setting allows the busty newswoman to strip down and paint her breasts before approaching the natives. We get what looks like National Geographic footage of a tribal funeral spliced in with reaction shots from the actors to convince the viewer that the crew had actually traveled all the way to the jungle. It's really tasteless (even for a zombie flick) and goes well beyond the "so bad it's good" mantra. It passed good and went back to bad again. The dubbing is atrocious and they even had the nerve to use parts of Goblin's score for "Dawn of the Dead". I hate the fact that even the smallest part of that masterpiece of a zombie film was recycled for this trash. As for gore, we get a couple unconvincingly inspired bits, including a cat jumping out of a woman's stomach and a tongue being ripped out. Special features include a trailer, as well as a brief interview with the director where he states that he doesn't even like his own films. If the director is unhappy with it, why should anyone else bother! Despite the fact that Quentin Tarantino apparently enjoys this movie, this is one title that Anchor Bay should have left in video obscurity. Only the truest of gore hounds would rank it high on their list.

HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY: I've seen four of Lucio Fulci's films to date and this one was certainly my favorite. Most fans cite "The Beyond" as his "masterpiece" or "Zombie" as his most accessible, but this one just worked for me. Like his other horror films, this one is slow and disjointed, but I thought it created a very effective mood. Maybe it's the whole boogeyman in the basement aspect, but this one was the easiest to sit through for me. The story centers on a young couple and their son as they relocate to New England so the husband can pick up the research of a colleague who hanged himself. The house they move to was the former home of one Dr. Freudstein and his wife. Mystery surrounds the house and it's former owner and the family begins to experience strange phenomena, which would cause most people to go running for the hills, but this being a Fulci film, they are smiling and happy in the following scene. Despite it's flaws, this was the most satisfying of the films I've viewed. I think it might be the presence of Katherine MacColl that keeps drawing me back. She certainly evokes more from to the viewer than the stone-faced Tisa Farrow in "Zombie" (a film I find to be vastly over-rated) As is the theme with these titles, the dubbing is poor, especially for the young boy. It appears they used a woman for the voice-over and it comes off a little cartoon-ish. Special features include theatrical trailers and a tv spot.

DEAD HEAT: This is definitely the odd man out in the set. For one, it's more of a comedy and it probably won't appeal to the type of guys who hunt down all these obscure foreign B-movies for one or two gore scenes. This one is a product of Hollywood and it shows. Still, it's not a bad little movie and one I probably would have enjoyed as a kid. The story follows two buddy cops who are attempting to track down the source for why a string of criminals are immune to bullets. There search leads them to a pharmaceuticals lab where one of the cops is killed and brought back to life using a "resurrection machine" (it's not explained in any greater detail than that). He's up and walking, but his body continues to rot as he and his partner continue the search for who is behind this whole operation. Will he be able to save the day before his limbs start rotting off? You'll have to wait and see. This DVD has the best special features of the set, including commentary from the director, featurettes, trailer, deleted scenes and more. The quality of the movie is not as good as I would have hoped for a "Divimax" release and the sound is about as good as a VHS. Never the less, it can be pretty enjoyable if you're in the right mood. Look for cameos by the late Vincent Price and "Kolchak" himself, Darren McGavin.

CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD: Probably the weakest Fulci film I've come across (and that's saying a lot) "City of the Living Dead" is largely disjointed and moves at a clunky pace. The basic plot involves a young psychic who has a vision of a preacher hanging himself in a cemetery, apparently causing one of the "seven gates to hell" to be opened in the small town of Dunwich. The majority of the movie is just people in the town talking of strange occurrence, inter-cut with scenes of the psychic and a detective traveling to the town to close the gate before "all hell breaks loose". The movie is punctuated throughout with bits of poorly done gore (a woman spitting out animal intestines, for example) and some halfway decent zombie make-up. The atmosphere is sometimes effective and the fact that it almost entirely takes place at night doesn't hurt either. Still, the dubbing is somewhat poor, despite the fact that most of the actors are speaking English. The transfer has a fair amount of grain and unlike some of Fulci's other films, this one is presented in the "matted" 1.85:1 ratio, as apposed to 2.35:1, which I felt added to the look of films such as "Zombie" and the "The Beyond". In all, this is a flawed, if not watchable, horror movie that feels more like a ghost story with gore that a full on gut-chomping zombie fest. Also, it must be said that the ending is totally stupid and makes no sense. I read that it was the result of a drunken conversation with Fulci and the editor. Sort of a "Wouldn't it be funny if..." Be prepared.

NIGHTMARE CITY: I really don't have much to say about this one. It's easily the second worst of the set, but it didn't elicit the venomous reaction I had to "Hell of the Living Dead". I found it to be dull and tedious to sit through. In fact, I never had the urge to finish it. It begins as a reporter is arriving at an airport to greet a government official, but the plane apparently had been exposed to some sort of radiation and when the hatch opens up, mutated zombies (with heavy fire arms, no less!) come running down the platform. The make-up on these guys are pretty awful. I believe they were going for the look of tumors or something because the head loses shape under all the prosthetics. The result looks like a bunch of psychos running around with meatballs for heads. That was a big hindrance in my taking this one seriously, but I think it was around the time we got 5 minutes of "Solid Gold" type dancers prancing around a televison station in front of the cameras before a newswoman made the interruption that there was a national emergency that I'd gotten my fill of "Nightmare City". I skimmed through the rest until I got to the end. After watching it, I'm glad I saved myself from sitting through the remaining hour. Special features include a theatrical trailer and a retrospective featurette, which I didn't even bother with. Again the dubbing on this one is poor, which seems to be a pattern with these Italian releases.

In closing, I would not recommend any of these films to your average person off the street. There is certainly a niche audience for titles like these, and for them this set would be a great value. I'm not sorry I made this purchase, but "Hell of the Living Dead" and "Nightmare City" went right in the junk bin. Totally unworthy of my valuable shelf space. The rest were mildly enjoyable, but given the chance I'd think twice before actually purchasing them. "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie" was the real gem for me, but even so, it's not perfect. It would be a great movie to catch on AMC late at night when you can't sleep. The other three were worth watching, but I don't think they will be getting frequent viewing in my horror collection. Still, Anchor Bay has put together a very affordable collection, although it's easy to see why they had so many of these titles still unsold. At such a low price, you can forgive the fact that they threw in a couple duds. It is possible to get this set for under $20. If your like me and you've never seen any of these films before, you'll want to avoid paying retail. For what I paid, I don't feel cheated. With Anchor Bay you know your getting the best quality available and all of these films have been anamorphically enhanced.

.... is all i can say, when i bought this box set (from a seller on amazon) it was 30 bucks, shipping and all... how many of these did anchor bay produce? now using google i can only find 5 copies of it for sale, 4 of which are here on amazon.. for 80.00!!!

i will say this, even though the price has raised significantly, 80.00 is still a good bargain for this box.

Anchor Bay brings us some Divimax HD transfers of some old 80's and 90's zombie flicks, of the goriest kind. One of which is "Dead Heat" which i havent thought about SINCE the 80's, but is a welcome addition to my dvd collection, i mean, an 80's, comedy, buddy-cop, zombie movie?! sign me up.

Honestly the hilight of the box set is Lucio Fulci's "City of the living dead" one of my most favorite fulci movies of all time..

But honestly, if you were to buy any of these movies individually, IF! you could even find them they would easily be 22.00 a pop. so buy this one while you can kiddies, itll make for a good zombie movie marathon.