Friday the 13th: Part Argh - A Misframed Beginning

Reported via HorrorDigitals' review/comparison, it would appear yesterday's new DVD and Blu-ray releases of the uncut version of Friday the 13th feature a zoomed-in transfer compared to the two prior U.S. DVDs. A damn shame and another strike against a film (well, entire series) that Paramount always seems to never get right on home video in one way or another.

I dug up my Thai DVD from Warner which represents the very first uncut release on DVD (in '03) just to compare the framing with two shots from HorrorDigital's review above:



Yep, Paramount's new releases are from Warner's source, you heard it here first. Knowing this, I'm not as upset, sometimes international cuts feature different framing. Still disappointing yes, but not enough for me to grab the Blu-ray eventually.

* "Props" to the Film Talk forum for bringing the misframing to my attention!

Satan's Blade Sharpened

A few nights back I waded through fifteen bids to come out on top with a copy of Galaxy's VHS of 1984's Satan's Blade on eBay. Surprisingly I wrenched it from the hands of other bidders and spat upon their crying eyes while manically laughing for under $20 shipped. The Galaxy (a branch of Mogul) edition is one of the rarer videos of the film which also saw distribution through Prism and a cheapo EP-speed tape via Starmaker.

Check out Bleeding Skull's review, which sold me on tracking it down in the first place.



* The cover is meant to have that odd white border for some reason.

Contagion (1987)

Directed by Karl Zwicky
90 Minutes / Sony Home Video / Unmatted Full Frame

A man (Mark) traveling home at night tries to help a woman being assaulted on a desolate, tree-lined road. He encounters a band of nomads, but soon after escapes and stumbles upon a mansion in the middle of the woods. Two beautiful women and English Hugh Hefner-like investor inhabit the manor. The group push Mark to become one of them and he gradually becomes obsessed with the allures they present. As Mark's wife desperately attempts to figure out what's happening, he begins to hear disembodied voices and resorts to murder to erase all in his past.

This is a hard film to peg down hailing from Australia with a title that makes no sense. The allusions to Kubrick's The Shining are obvious, even going as far to feature an opening aerial shot of a car traveling a forested road and recreating its own take on the famous axed door scene. It also mixes in elements of a sexual thriller and a bit of the slashfest conventions of the day. There are a few holes in the plot, but the film really tries to construct something interesting from the mish-mash and generally succeeds. Zwicky employs many tricks in his direction, from slo-mo, awkward angles, and Raimi-esqe chase sequences. Worth tracking down cheap, but of course it's no replacement for the classic it looks up to.

Film: 6/10
VHS Video: 4.5/10 (blurry)
VHS Sound: 6/10 (decent, nothing more)

If You Were Young: Rage

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Today I received a VHS of Dennis Donnelly's 1978 ode to the final death nell of Cameron Mitchell's career proper, The Toolbox Murders, from Amazon's Marketplace for $4.98. The seller remarked it was the United Entertainment VHS in "Used - Very Good" condition. This is what I was presented with:



Now, I'm not that hard to please when it comes to the condition of the tapes I buy, but this is total shit. First off, the cover is grossly cut up wantonly shearing off words. It's also ripped and stained. The tape itself is marked up, missing its original spine label (if it had one), and it's not even rewound. To top it off it's not the United Entertainment VHS, it's from VCI being distributed through United Entertainment. The real United VHS:



Despite it being "only" $5, this is the worst tape I've received by mail up to this point. Here's the seller, having already unleashed the fury upon him. It's not worth it to me to seek a refund, but I'm tired of such dishonest sellers. Though that's not to say there aren't plenty of great Marketplace sellers offering exactly what they describe.

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Warlock Mooned

Wowza, just an update on an earlier entry, $114.38 / 15 Bids.

Someone done bought the farm.

The Alchemist (1984)

Directed by Charles Band (aka "James Amante")
84 Minutes /Lightning Video VHS / Unmatted Full Frame

Robert Ginty as a cursed man whose immortal and doomed to prowl the nights as a beast. The story starts in 1871 and then flashes to 1955, where a women named Lenora is mysteriously drawn to the mountains where Ginty lives in hiding with an elderly woman. Lenora, along with a hitchhiker she picks up, discover hell's minions will arrive in our dimension at twilight to stalk her. Can she and her guy friend with shoulder pads survive the night? What makes Ginty so "meh" in everything he's in? Do you even care?!?

Well, the biggest complaint about this film is the time it wastes--especially during the first half. Get this: Lenora picks up the hitcher, drives for awhile, kicks him out, gets the car stuck, he helps her, she drives off, he sits for awhile, she drives back, picks him back up, and we're finally back...to more freakin' driving. That's a good fifteen minutes and it's the kind of padding that makes you go absolutely batshit. Things pick up later, but by then it's a bit too late. Also a few what seem like key plot elements aren't really explored in any detail. The film has some blood, chair jumpers, and bald demons dudes wearing human clothes with Spock ears. It's not terrible, but it's pure "watch once and file away" material.

Film: 4.5/10
VHS Video: 7/10 (bright with good color)
VHS Sound: 4/10 (snap, crackle, pop)

I could run...is it right to run?

Video City Productions: The Adventure Begins

Video City Productions was small indie video distributor best known for their (few) Horror and Exploitation releases in the mid-'80s. I haven't been able to track down any at reasonable prices yet. The artwork on these is the best VHS art I've seen thus far, seemingly able to perfectly capture the "essence" of a given title.

Their release of Jungle Holocaust has so much grue on the front that from a distance it looks like a photo of plated SpaghettiOs with the title sprawled across in spattery red. Nightmare in Blood's artwork (seen here) blows away the DVD's art. For the life of me I can't remember the title, but they released a Naziploitation flick featuring a well-painted cover depicting a woman in a beautiful dress on a staircase at a Nazi gala. I don't believe the IMDB lists the film in the above link. To top off the geekgasm, the majority of these were in big soft plastic clamshell cases.

Simply the kind of stuff that sticks to your hand demanding you take it home. Unfortunately, their output tends to command top dollar ($50+) on eBay. So it's a bit of a fight to find them, but I'll keep trying. Hell, I'd be beaming just to nab one in decent condition.

Here's SS Hell Camp (Beast in Heat) and Slavers:



Also Subversive's Freakmaker / Gardener double bill from the ever excellent Xploited Cinema arrived today. For some odd reason, these two individually sell for $18-22 each.

The Battle of China (1944)

This interesting piece of U.S. government produced propaganda is available on the Internet, directed by Frank Capra. The film takes special note of Japanese wartime atrocities.



Interestingly, the MPI VHS I found today has its "packaging and cover design" copyrighted to Maljack Productions, the company behind Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Thought that was out of left field.

* Cool to see embedded videos work!

Auntie Lee's Meat Pies

I haven't cracked the plastic, but according to the comments on the IMDB and Cold Fusion, it's not very good at all. But look at that zany cast, how could be not be unintentional comedy gold?!?

Oddly, there's a large picture of John Bloom as J.B. Briggs on the back with a big pull quote:



He has nothing to do with the movie otherwise, judging by his "don't blame me, the check cleared" smirk, he probably knew it was a stinker.

Okay, enough about a movie I haven't even watched yet.

BTW, I'm rooting for the Cardinals tonight!

Geez...

Was quite interested in this eBay listing. Ehhh, not anymore. What made this one explode, it was $3.56 yesterday, is probably the fact it has a full ten additional minutes of footage compared to Shriek Show's much maligned DVD.

Swap Meet Finds

Dig, dig, deep...for your soul.

DVD:

Sister Street Fighter Collection
Deported Women of the SS Special Section / Escape from Women's Prison - WIP Double Feature
Dubbed & Dangerous 1 & 2
A Night to Dismember (12 Sub Rosa indie feature set)
Skinned Alive (4 feature set)

VHS:

Medusa (1973)
Mania: Episodes in Terror (1986)
Auntie Lee's Meat Pies (1992)
Bare Knuckles (1977)
The Alchemist (1984)
The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb (1995)
The Battle of China: Assault on the Great Wall (1944)
Scanners (1981)
Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (freebie)



Books:

A Pictorial History of Horror Movies by Denis Gifford
VCR Trouble Shooting & Repair: Second Edition by Robert Brenner

A Pictorial History of Horror Movies is a great youngster-geared coffee table-sized book regarding the golden age of Horror from 1973. Wonderfully packed with hundreds of B/W stills along with a few full color pages scattered throughout. The book is completely oblivious to the massive shift the genre would soon incur after its publication, primarily focusing on the works of Karloff, Chaney, Lugosi, Cushing, Lee, and Price...with a chapter on Godzilla and King Kong of course. The conclusion offers an amusing look at the "new blood", such odd picks as Eyes Without a Face, Blood Beast Terror, and The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus. Though a large still of a bloodied woman with an axe buried in her head from 1966's The Black Cat contained within last pages seems to foretell the impeding change entirely on its own.

Just Some VHS Art...

That I really like. Don't have any of these yet.

Changes and Such

Still playing around with all the settings and layout options. I'm surprised by the versatility the site offers to make your blog your blog.

Damn, February already.

Outbid!

Well, you can't win 'em all. An apparently "very rare" Australian VHS of Fright Night Part 2 in a coffin-shaped case just sold on eBay for $36. I knew I should have went higher, but $35 is really the tops I'll pay for a single tape. Still, it's one that got away...



On the bright side, at least I now know such awesomeness exists and I have a few other choice tapes I'm current watching.

Snagged this yesterday, the Premiere Entertainment VHS of The Nightmare Never Ends (Cataclysm) (1980):

Invitation to Hell...ish DVD

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I just received Sarcophilous Films' Invitation to Hell / The Last Night DVD Double Bill a few days back after pre-ordering weeks ago. The standard unsigned edition, #88 out of a limit of 1,000 for $25 + s/h. Crushing disappointment ensued. Despite Sarcophilous Films making the DVD out to be an A #1 effort via their pretty website, the transfers of both features are truly horrendous.

Both transfers are plagued with artifacts, combing, print damage, and worse yet The Last Night is obviously from a shitty VHS source. I'd recommend checking out the dollar store Invitation to Hell DVD versions to see if you like the film first. I honestly doubt they could look any worse than what we see here. Big fans need only apply (the extras are solid at least) to Sarcophilous's questionable maiden voyage into the land of digital.

Invitation to Hell (16:9, interlaced) (click to enlarge)

The Last Night (16:9, interlaced) (click to enlarge)

We Are The Monster Squad!

I can't really say anything new about this well-deserving cult classic. I believe it to be a better film than Dekker's previous Night of the Creeps, despite the absence of the man himself Tom Atkins. The chemistry between the child actors is excellent and the entire film doesn't look down upon its core audience of children. Assuming they're smart enough to follow the arcs and get the comedy held within. The budget limitations do show themselves a bit. The corner cutting done to push the story along is evident. Though the zeal and energy the film contains makes up for any such slight incontinence. Not to the mention the monsters just look great.

It's a damn shame Dekker has all but vanished as a director, only going on to do an episode of the Robocop series. His two film features show an eye for composition not only in the frame, but also in concept. I guess two excellent '80s chestnuts are better than nothing...still those memories of staying up late to see these reside in my most cherished of childhood.