Customer Reviews

Vincent Price Collection Boxed Set [VHS]

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Let me tell ya Vincent fans,,,,,,,,,,,these two movies rock. House on Haunted Hill deals with the arrival of visitors to...you guessed it...a Haunted House. Like the old time horror/suspence movies in the past, the fx aren't the best but who cares. Vincent is great as the "oh i didn't know that was going to happen" host.

BUT

The movie that will really turn your crank is the second one, "Last Man On Earth". My favorite movie from my favorite book. The screneplay is from a book titled "I Am Legend" written by Richard Matheson and published in 1954. This book rules. You have to read it. It's available here on Amazon.com. You may remember another movie taken from the book called "Omega Man" with Charleton Heston. "The Last Man On Earth" is three times the movie. It is an on-the-cheap Italian release (in English) but the black and white tones make it that much better. Shadows play a real part in the nuance of the film and make you feel you are as lonley as Morgan is. There are more than a few "jump out at you" spots that you don't know are coming. Follow Morgan as he hunts the undead, live with him in his lonliness as he locks himself in his home while the undead call him outside to play and cry for not just him but all humanity at the end.

Seriously, you need to see these movies. There will never be another Vincent Price. He was ................ "The Last Man On Earth."

The collection of movies contained in this set is great. I am a big Price fan. However, when I received my set I was very disappointed when I found that "The House on Haunted Hill" was blank. I decided to watch the "Last Man on Earth" and the tape stopped - about 5 minutes before the end... very frustrating. Customer service was friendly and told me they would replace the set. Of course that was about a month ago.

In summary, the set has some of my favorite Price movies but, don't be in a hurry for it. I originally ordered back in early October (for Halloween) and did not received it until November. I am still waiting on the replacement set.

This DVD by Diamond Entertainment is actually quite good for what little I paid ... I first saw HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL when I was very young and it scared the daylights out of me then. Now however it does appear somewhat campy, but this film's storyline is much better than that ludicrous remake. Price plays the wealthy man who rents the HOUSE from Elisha Cook who inherits the HOUSE after his sister-in-law hacks his brother to death (some of the ghosts supposedly haunting the place). However the story involves more mystery and murder than mayhem. Had the producers of the remake stayed with the original storyline they might have stayed longer at the box office. The better of the two films on this DVD is THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, the first version of the Richard Matheson novel I AM LEGEND. This movie despite its foreign cast and inexpensive production values is far superior to the Charleton Heston OMEGA MAN. LAST is much closer to the novel and Price actually gives a great performance as a rather sad and lonely man whose only existence now is to rid the world of a plague of the undead rendered so by a devastating disease (interesting when you think of the AIDS virus or the current Asian viral pneumonia that can't be cured). Saved by a vampire bat bite years earlier Price is left immune and the last man on earth (???). The book upon which this movie was based was written in 1954 long before we knew of the Vampire LeStat. It weaves science fiction and horror into a rather interesting story.

"House on Haunted Hill" is my favorite movie of all time, so I am sure I am a little biased. This DVD of "House on Haunted Hill" is amazing! I own the VHS version and the picture quality of the DVD is FAR superior. On the VHS, I can barely make out the names in the credits because they are so blurry, on the DVD everything is crystal clear. As for the film itself, Vincent Price plays an eccentric, wealthy businessman who throws a haunted house party. Perfect for staying up late and watching with the lights off. My favorite aspects of the film are the witty dialogue and clever plot twists. I won't give anything away because the surprise is the best part!

As for "Last Man on Earth," the picture quality is more like VHS for this being a DVD. Don't expect a clear, sharp picture. However, I found this to be a bargain .... In my opinion, this film is also classic. Vincent Price plays this vampire-hunter with a chilling calm that haunts you long after the film is over. This film is similar in tone to "The Night of the Living Dead."

To sum it up? Two classics for under ...? You can't beat that!

It doesn't get much better than this twin-bill of Vincent Price classics. I consider The House on Haunted Hill to be one of the best haunted house movies ever made. The effects may seem somewhat silly to modern audiences, but the simplest frights are often the most effective. The plot itself is gratifyingly complex and twisted, and the ending is by no means disappointing. Anyone with an interest in the horror genre should find this Vincent Price gem to be quite a hoot. Then there's The Last Man on Earth, which is one of the best horror movies ever made, period.

As a jaded modern horror fan, I can't say The House on Haunted Hill really scared me, but I daresay that if you put a couple of hundred people inside a modern movie theatre and showed this film to them, you would get some delightful screams and jumps out of your audience. A movie such as this belongs in black and white, and the whole mood is appropriately creepy. The director left almost nothing out: creaking doors, apparitions, secret rooms, screams (almost so many they become annoying), skeletons, thunder and lightning, organ music, moments of total darkness, a pit of acid, and - of course - Vincent Price.

Mr. Loren (Price) is an eccentric man of wealth throwing a haunted house party for his fourth wife (who is as anxious to kill him as he is to kill her). He promises to pay $10,000 to anyone who can make it through the night. Five strangers make up the party guests - a former test pilot, a society newspaper columnist, a psychiatrist, an unassuming, vulnerable young lady, and the house's owner, who keeps going on and on about the murders that took place there. Naturally, weird things start to happen, and then all of the party goers find themselves locked in the house prematurely with no hope of escape until morning. Naturally, rather than stay together, the houseguests end up wandering around on their own, and the impressionable young lady is especially traumatized throughout the evening by what she sees and experiences. There are games afoot, the full extent of which are not revealed until the ending of the film. In its original theatrical release, the ever so fiendish director William Castle had a skeleton rigged inside each theater that would appear above the audience's heads at the appropriate time - I would love to have experienced that.

The Last Man on Earth is based on Richard Matheson's incredible novel I Am Legend, in my opinion the second best vampire novel ever written. Price plays Morgan, a man left completely alone in the world by a plague that wiped out the rest of the population, including his wife and young daughter, three years earlier. The virus behind the plague was a vampiric bacillus, so all of the people who died and were not destroyed by fire have come back as vampires. Luckily for Morgan, the vampires are quite weak and simple-minded, for they attack his fortified home every night in an effort to get in and kill him. By day, Morgan goes out hunting the walking nightmares and driving stakes through their hearts, but there are so many that the project seems almost useless. Midway through the movie, we are treated to a pretty extended set of flashbacks to the early days of the virus and the deaths of Morgan's wife and daughter. Toward the end, Morgan is shocked to find a woman wandering outside during the day, the first human being he has seen in three years. He takes her home with him and thus sets the stage for the movie's memorable climax.

Obviously, Vincent Price carries this movie on his own back, given the fact that the vast majority of the action takes place around him and no one else. He plays things rather subtly for the most part, which I found quite effective. His memories make him laugh sometimes, but Price's signature laugh evolves quite effectively into sobs of anger and frustration. The most poignant moments of the film, in my opinion, come when Morgan finds a dog outside his house, the first living creature he has seen in three years. The dog initially runs away from him in fear, but the suffering creature eventually comes back. Morgan cleans him and fixes up his wounds, but the new friendship he exults over soon becomes just another tragedy. The movie doesn't dwell on the dog episode nearly so much as Matheson does in his novel, and for this I am grateful because I find it heartbreaking. The little dog gives an incredible performance, but as is so often the case the canine actor does not even merit a mention in the credits.

The Last Man on Earth really is a remarkably good movie and really showcases the immense acting abilities of Vincent Price. I wish it would have delved into the science of the virus much more intensely than it did; the scientific aspects of Matheson's story are what make it such a phenomenally good vampire novel. The script writers did take some liberties with the concluding scenes, but it is really for the best because the novel's conclusion would not have worked in this medium without the audience being given a much more penetrating look into the minds and motives of the characters involved. Some might find the movie creepy, but there is really nothing here that will disturb the timid viewer-the camera never actually shows any of the gruesome acts that tend to be committed by human beings against vampires and vice versa. Somber and depressing as it can be, The Last Man on Earth is the type of distinguished horror movie that should appeal in some way to just about everyone.

The 3 stars on this review do not reflect on the quality of these movies. House on Haunted Hill is far superior to the technically rich remake. Last Man on Earth has Vincent Price in his best role, and one that Charlton Heston couldn't duplicate in the "Omega Man" remake. If you can find either one of these movies on a different DVD, get them...

Both of these movies, but especially Last Man on Earth deserve better care than the manufacturer gave them on this DVD. Last Man on Earth is made from a umpteenth generation copy of the film that is so scratchy I was wondering in the beginning if I was watching someone's old 8 mm home movies. House on Haunted Hill is somewhat better, but you'd think that the owners of these movies would try to redigitalize, and fix the scratches and other physical flaws of these movies.

Furthermore, the soundtracks of these movies sound more that they were recorded through an old sock. It's really unfortunate that a better effort was not made to preserve these movies so those in the future could appreciate their real value as movie fun, rather than look at them as old used, and worthless, relics.

Since no attempt was made to upgrade the look and sound of these movies, I cannot recommend the purchase of them. However, if you can find a copy that was redigitalized, the soundtrack remastered, and the images fixed, get them in a heartbeat, these are great movies.

Having already owned the Warner copy of the original House on Haunted Hill, I purchased this DVD for The Last Man on Earth. The movie is based on the story "I am Legend" by famed horror writer Richard Matheson. Genre favorite Vincent Price plays a scientist who believes he may be the lone survivor of a world wide plague that has transformed everyone into vampires. Price plays the part of the man tormented by his loneliness perfectly. By day he hunts the sleeping undead, and by night he is tormented by them as they pound on his home as the lead vampire constantly calling to him: "Morgan, come out Morgan". Very creepy.

The DVD I purchased is the 2001 widescreen release from Diamond Entertainment. It is identified by the red banner across the top marked "Widescreen Edition". The film transfer is far from perfect, but as another reviewer said this is the only widescreen transfer I know of on DVD. The picture and sound are not all that bad. It looks just as good if not slightly better than versions that air on cable from time to time. This gem represents classic horror at its best. The DVD is bargain priced and the movie is a must for classic horror libraries. I highly recommend securing a copy before it disappears from the shelves. Hopefully this movie will get better DVD treatment in the future, but at least you'll have a copy of this fine film until that happens.

Just a quick note...Diamond DVD released this double bill in 2000 on a double sided disc which features a nearly full screen version of "Last Man on Earth"...BUT they rereleased it in 2001 on a dual layered disc with a very good 2.35 widescreen transfer! Woo Hoo! In addition to the dual layer /2001 info on the back, the new versions says "WIDESCREEN EDITION" in a red band across the top of the dvd. GOOD LUCK!

The quality of House on Haunted Hill is good. However, The print of The Last Man on Earth is so bad I can't even find the words to explain it clearly. Anyway, since it's the only DVD of The Last Man on Earth available for sale, there is really no choice if you want the movie.

For the price, this disc is worth getting for House on Haunted Hill if for nothing else. As I've mentioned, the quality of House on Haunted Hill is quite good. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum on one disc!

I bought this dvd for its Vincent Price/House on Haunted Hill aspect. I was VERY impressed with Last Man On Earth. It's a sci-fi horror classic that I never get sick of watching. To be fair, the dvd transfer is pretty bad and grainy, but it's a cheap dvd. I cannot say enough about Last Man on Earth, it's the best dvd I've bought in months.