TV discs this week: Addams Family Vol. 3, Bones S2; Charmed the Final Season; Charmed The Complete Series Pack; Fraggle Rock S3; Grey’s Anatomy S3; I Dream of Jeannie S4; Las Vegas S4; Masada (Miniseries); McHale’s Navy S2; Prime Suspect 7: The Final Act; Smallville S6; Two & a Half Men S1;
Now, the deluge:
MGM’s beloved Midnite Movie line was halted after they were acquired by Sony. Now, just in time for Halloween, they have resumed with a not a bang, but a boom. It’s good to see it up and running again, and now, even better, the Fox studio is putting out films under the same imprint. These offer generally excellent presentations of often very obscure films in budget double-bill discs. That’s right, each set offers two movies for discs you can generally buy for not much more than ten bucks. So, hello, Fox, and welcome back, MGM.
Oh, and MGM? WHERE THE HELL IS OUR GREEN SLIME DVD?!! (Yes, we’re never satisfied.)
Here are the MGM double bills:
RETURN OF DRACULA/THE VAMPIRE A pair of ’50s independent horrors, featuring new hi-def transfers (!!). The former is a nifty, rare Dracula movie made in between the Universal and Hammer periods. Modeled on Hitchcock’s Shadow of the Doubt (one of his best movies), it brings Dracula into the (then) modern day as he travels to America. The Vampire, meanwhile, boasts a sci-fi twist involving a pill that makes one, well, a vampire.
THE BEAST WITH A MILLION EYES/PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES (new hi-def transfer for PHANTOM) features an early Roger Corman “classic,” which like many of his ’50s sci-fiers offers some degree of narrative sophistication to make up for its incredibly threadbare budget. Plus, the briefly seen beastie was designed by Paul Blaisdel. Phantom is pretty bad, and even cheaper, maybe; but amusing.
PHARAOH’S CURSE/CURSE OF THE FACELESS MAN Two very obscure ’50s mummy movies, although the latter, if my childhood memories serve, does have points of interest. For instance, the ‘mummy’ is actually a victim of the Pompai eruption, and covered with a coat of lava rather than bandages. Maybe a rental rather than a buy if you’re not a completeist, but seeing two rarities like this available in great transfers for a cheap price is exactly what the Midnite Movie imprint is about..
THE BEAST WITHIN/THE BAT PEOPLE The former is a gory, ’80s alien monster movie with an impressive b-movie cast (Ronnie Cox, Bibi Besch, R. G. Armstrong, L.Q. Jones), the latter a sadly very boring ’70s man-into-monster flick, once featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
KONGA/YONGARY, MONSTER FROM THE DEEP Two foreign giant monster movies, one a Brit giant gorilla deal that isn’t half bad, the latter a fairly amusing Korean Godzilla knock-off.
Meanwhile, MGM will offer solo discs of the chilling Vincent Price historical horror flick WITCHFINDER GENERAL (complete with a commentary by the producer and lead actor), the slasher flick The Burning, Scarecrows, and the long-awaited Bert I. Gordon cheese classic THE FOOD OF THE GODS.
These are the Fox offerings:
TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972)/VAULT OF HORROR (1973) are two fondly remembered anthology flicks adapted from EC horror comics, much like HBO’s later TV show based on the same comic. Great Brit horror casts, including Peter Cushing, Tom Baker, Denholm Elliott, Terry-Thomas, Joan Collins, Ian Hendry and Patrick Magee.
CHOSEN SURVIVORS/THE EARTH DIES SCREAMING The first features a group trapped underground following a nuclear war, who find themselves menaced by bats and other dangers. The latter, directed by Terence Fisher, features an astronaut who returns to find Earth devastated and depopulated by killer robots. It sounds quite a lot like 1954’s Target Earth.
DEVILS OF DARKNESS/WITCHCRAFT (1964, starring Lon Chaney Jr.). The former is, apparently, a Brit ’60s vampire cult film, and the latter is, unsurprisingly, a witch movie.
BLUEPRINT FOR MURDER/MAN IN THE ATTIC are not horror movies. The former, from 1953, is a murder tale starring Joseph Cotten. The second, more marketable, is a Jack the Ripper movie starring Jack Palance. It’s based on the same book that inspired the somewhat better known The Lodger (see below).
GORILLA AT LARGE/MYSTERY AT MONSTER ISLAND I saw a clip of Gorilla at Large, a ’50s ape on the loose film starring Cameron Mitchell (of course it does) and Raymond Burr*, on the Beyond the Planet of the Apes DVD, and it LOOKED GORGEOUS. I hope this is from the same print, and it looks campy and a half. The latter, I *think*, is a Spanish film from 1981, making it a weird co-feature with Gorilla, and a purportedly awful Lost World sort of thing. This “stars” Terence Stamp and Peter Cushing, who of course actually provide short cameos.
[*Shot in 3-D, Gorilla features a weirdly prestige cast, including also Lee J. Cobb, Anne Bancroft, and a young Lee Marvin.]THE HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN/THE MEPHISTO WALTZ. Two flicks from the ’70s. House involves a killer knocking off people stranded in a mansion, and the latter, rather better known, stars Alan Alda (really) as a concert pianist caught up in Satanic shenanigans. That one has another great cast: Jacqueline Bisset, Barbara Parkins, Bradford Dillman, William Windom and Curd Jurgens.
Two box sets this week are of interest. The Fly Collection offers the 1958 The Fly and its first sequel, Return of the Fly, but while those have been out on DVD before, the third movie, Curse of the Fly (a much more downbeat film) was never even seen on video tape. Meanwhile, a four disc offers bonus materials like documentaries, etc.
MGM also boxes a bunch of previously released Vincent Price movies along with the new The Witchfinder General as The Vincent Price Collection. One price also gets you Theatre of Blood, Twice Told Tales, Madhouse, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again and Twice Told Tales, along with a bonus disc of documentaries and such. If somehow you don’t already own any of those, well, you can’t go wrong with that.
Arabian Adventure Christopher Lee in a shoddy fantasy film that hoped to cash in the Star Wars craze.
Cheezy Action Trailers: Coming attraction trailers for Morgan The Pirate, Journey To The Lost City, Sandokan The Great, Sword Of Sherwood Forest, Hell On Devil’s Island, Jungle Flight, Mobambo, Tropic Zone, King Solomon’s Mines, Naked Africa, Tarzan’s Fight For Life, Virgin Sacrifice, Native Girl And The Slaver, Tarzan And The Great River, Manhunt In The African Jungle, Perils Of Nyoka, Two Sane Nuts, Watusi, Shark Reef and more… Turns out there’s a whole line of these trailer collections, just check Amazon.com under “Cheezy”
City Limits Typically bad ’80s urban post-apocalypse flick, memorably bashed on MST3K. Yes, the one where Robbie Benson is the bad guy.
DOA: Dead or Alive Another action flick made from a video game. Never even heard of this one.
Don’t Look in the Attic ’80s Italian slasher knock-off.
Dr. Jekyll’s Dungeon of Death Dr. Jekyll’s grandson and, uh, kung fu stuff, apparently.
Drive-In Massacre A serial killer DOES mess with Texas in this 1976 slasher flick written by George “Buck” Flowers (!).
Film Crew: Wild Woman of Wongo The former MST3K boys take on their third project.
From Beyond: Special Edition Loaded for bear, two-disc uncut version of Gordon’s Lovecraft flick.
House on Hooter Hill A nudie parody of the William Castle / Vincent Price classic. Well, you don’t see that every week.
The Lost World: Special Edition finally releases Irwin Allen’s generally awful but fondly remembered ’60s remake, along with the zillion’s release of the classic silent version. I’d stick with the Kino release if that’s the film you want, but otherwise, hey, two for one price.
Omen IV: The Awakening While for the audience, it’s more like The Ensleepening. Made for TV sequel.
Pirates of Ghost Island Made for video movie about ghostly pirates. Supposed to suck.
Return of the Living Dead: Special Edition 2-disc loaded edition with, one hopes, a longer cut of the cemetery dance.
Superbug Secret Agent One of the West German movies from the ’70s that featured a Herbie the Love Bug knock-off.
Tom & Jerry Spotlight Collection #3 Third major set of the classic theatrical Tom & Jerry cartoons. If you’re even *thinking* of getting this, you’d better already have bought that Popeye collection.
Welcome to the Grindhouse: Don’t Answer the Phone / Prime Evil ’80s sleeze horror double bill, one a slasher flick, the other about devil worship.
White Dog Sam Fuller’s genuinely controversial, much-banned film about a dog trained to attack only black people finally comes to DVD.
