Video Update on Cheap Media Blasters DVDs and Some Other Finds...

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Here's a video of my finds after hitting a couple FYEs and a Suncoast yesterday. In summation, price check...

Some quick thoughts on Zombie Death House (Death House) (1987)

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A down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran (Dennis Cole) working as a driver gets framed for murder by a mafia boss (Anthony Franciosa) for resisting to kill an innocent man. After a paid-off trial resulting in a sentence of death, the vet is sent to prison and begins to witness fellow inmates mysteriously becoming blindingly animalistic and gravely ill. It soon becomes apparent a government contractor (John Saxon) paid off a guard to secretly inject an experimental serum into prisoners to see if they could survive being turned into unthinking war machines of extreme strength. Eventually, everyone in the compound is accidently infected with a trace of the sickness and must fight for freedom and an antibody after the prison is placed under armed quarantine.

Ultimately, the identity crisis this quickie helmed by legendary character actor John Saxon suffers is more interesting than the resulting feature. True to their name; the film's distributor, Action International Pictures, was primarily known for their cheap action with a side order of tits n' ass output. So oddly, considering how robust the horror video market was, AIP decided to grace this action/horror mishmash with this totally generic VHS cover seen over at VHS-Ploitation. With such a bland cover, it's not hard to see how Death House became so obscure and why Retromedia decided to change both the cover and title for their DVD seen above.

This conflict runs deep into the film itself. Judging by this unconfirmed factoid on the IMDB, Saxon may have not originally intended to include much of any horror aspects into Death House but was forced to by producers. This would explain why the feature rests firmly as an action drama with just a few scenes of mild raging "zombie" prisoner carnage. The problem is, these fleeting tidbits are kinda cool and wake the film up temporarily, and you're compelled to keep sitting there just to see if the next zombo kill will be bloodier (prepare for disappointment).

The whole idea of crazed, rotting inmates vs. non-crazed mates vs. soldiers never comes near the greatness of the images that conjure in your head while watching, and as the last reel commences you've found its been a "watchable" waste of time and concept. Although Death House is quite fleet of foot and manages to cover its meager twists well while Saxon's direction doesn't particularly stand out from the army of other bargain video wonders from the era. Ehh, not worth going out of your way to see...

YouTube Video: Yesterday's Flea Market DVD Finds

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Locally, it's been slim picking on the VHS front, but as usual cheap DVDs are always plentiful...

    

The Devil's Rejects "Work-in-Progress" Shootout Scene

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Here's that Devil's Rejects clip I referred to being on Saw's bonus disc in my DVD finds video below. It's the opening shootout abbreviated of several shots with not quite "finished" sound effects and score. With the sound not matching the full version, I'm assuming this sequence was provided while the editing was still being tweaked. The final version of the shootout has considerably better tension and pacing.

YouTube Vid: Some Horror & Cult DVD Finds...

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This morning's flea market bounty...

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New Video: A few new Japanese Horror VHS Grabs...

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New Video: Some Tips on Collecting Japanese VHS Tapes

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This turned out to be a great deal!

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Once Upon a Time in the West's "Missing" Snippets

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I just uploaded some clips from the Italian version of Sergio Leone's western masterpiece, Once Upon a Time in the West (C'era una volta il West). What makes this version special is a healthy number of either totally new, extended, or alternate shots from Paramount's "International Version" DVD and Blu-ray. Unfortunately the last one, depicting broken harmonica notes playing over Frank stumbling instead of silence after the climatic showdown, was blocked by MovieClips. All eight others can be viewed with descriptions about what's different through this playlist.

Another wild Japanese trailer I ran across...

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Sorry, had to upload this!

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Bruce Campbell yucking it up with Kim's Krypt...

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Short clip of Bruce Campbell in Kim's Krypt's mini-haunted attraction at Horrorfind Weekend 2001 at the BWI Marriott in Baltimore, MD. This is from that year's Kim's Krypt Haunted Attraction compilation VHS. The last ten or so minutes has Kim more-or-less bothering the celebrities that attended. Sorry about the quality, but it's neat to share since it's a scarce tape to those not living in the area...

Video: This Weekend's Swap Meet Haul...

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Dug out my working CED player for this quick clip...

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Video: Swap Meet VHS Haul

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Video: Weekend LaserDisc Haul

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Video: This Morning's Swap Meet Finds

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Decent haul this morning after a rocky start... 

Video: A Video Enthusiast's Plea...

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Video: This Morning's Swap Meet Finds

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