Horror Movie Pack, Vol. 2 [2 Discs]

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

A star-studded volume of old and new horror classics! Includes The Terror (Jack Nicholson, Boris Karloff. 1963/81 min/NR), Night of the Living Dead (Russell Streiner, Judith O'Dea. 1968/90 min/NR), House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price. 1959/75 min/NR), The Satanic Rites of Dracula (Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing. 1973/87 min/R), The Devil Bat (Bela Lugosi. 1940/72 min/NR) and The Bat (Vincent Price, Agnes Moorehead. 1959/80 min/NR). 2 DVDs. Color/fullscreen.

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 3
• Audio: Dolby Digital Stereo
• Screen: Color

AWARDS

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1999

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Cast:

  
       Bela Lugosi - Dr. Paul Carruthers
       Agnes Moorehead - Cornelia Van Gorder
       Dave "Tex" O'Brien - Johnny Layton
       Alan Marshal - Dr. David Trent
       Carolyn Craig - Nora Manning
       Donald Kerr - "One Shot" McGuire
       Darla Hood - Judy Hollender
       Gene O'Donnell - Don Morton
       Alan Baldwin - Tommy Heath
       John Ellis - Roy Heath
       Arthur Q. Bryan - Joe McGinty
       Hal Price - Chief Wilkins
       John Davidson - Prof. Raines
       Billy Griffith - Coroner
       Wallace Rairdon - Walter King
       Barbara Yu Ling - Chin Yang

• Director:

  George A. Romero, Jean Yarbrough, Roger Corman, Alan Gibson, William Castle, Rosemary Horvath, Crane Wilbur

• Producer:

  Karl Hardman, Russ Streiner, Jack Gallagher, Susan Olney, Francis Ford Coppola, Roger Corman, Alan Gibson, Roy Skeggs, William Castle, C.J. Tevlin

• Screen Story:

  George A. Romero

• Screenwriter:

  George A. Romero, John A. Russo

• Screen Story:

  George Bricker

• Screenwriter:

  John T. Neville, Leo Gordon, Roger Corman, Jack Hill, Don Houghton, Robb White, Crane Wilbur

• Play Author:

  Avery Hopwood, Mary Roberts Rinehart

• Cinematographer:

  George A. Romero, Arthur Martineli, John M. Nickolaus, Jr., Alfred Taylor, Brian Probyn, Carl Guthrie, Joseph Biroc

• Musical Direction/Supervision:

  David Chudnow

• Composer (Music Score):

  Ronald Stein, John Cacavas, Von Dexter, Louis Forbes

• Musical Arrangement:

  Louis Forbes

• Composer (Music Score):

  Alvino Rey

• Editor:

  George A. Romero, Holbrook Todd, Chris Barnes, Roy Livingston, William Austin

• Production Designer:

  Vincent Survinski

• Art Director:

  Paul Palmentola, Daniel Haller, Lionel Couch, Dave Milton

• Associate Producer:

  Guy V. Thayer, Jr., Don Houghton

• Executive Producer:

  Barry Sandrew

• Set Designer:

  Harry Reif

• Costume Designer:

  Marjorie D. Corso

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Farrell Redd, Claude Hitchcock

• Makeup:

  Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Kiva Hoffman

• Special Effects:

  Tony Pantanello, Regis Survinski

• Production Manager:

  Melville de Lay

• Technical Director:

  David D. Martin

• Production Director:

  Jane Huizenga, Jane Huzienga

• Presented by:

  Johnny Legend

REVIEWS:

• As a cinematic experience, The Terror is third-rate at best, a long-winded fable that limps in circles, too haphazard to be great art and not outrageous enough to be great trash. Still, the true student of B-movie mythology may want to spend an hour with it anyway, notorious as the film is for being one of low-budget director Roger Corman's classic rush jobs. After wrapping up his humorous horror free-for-all The Raven early, Corman had two extra days left of Boris Karloff's contract that he was loathe to waste. So, instead of tearing down the sets, Karloff was walked through a series of hastily prepared scenes with co-stars Jack Nicholson and Richard Miller. Corman then subcontracted the direction of remaining exteriors and connecting sequences to various assistants, including Francis Ford Coppola and future cult filmmakers Jack Hill and Monte Hellman, with even Nicholson helming a few shots. With more directors than some omnibus films and no time for a proper script, The Terror was bound to baffle, and its slippery story eventually becomes too sluggish to bother deciphering. While the film is worth little more than an amusing anecdote in Corman's colorful legend, he got lots of mileage out of this patchwork monster. Five years later, Corman again found himself owed two days' work by Karloff, so neophyte director Peter Bogdanovich was offered 20 minutes worth of footage from The Terror to use if he could incorporate it into a new feature for the horror icon. The result was the taut, fascinating Targets, which cast Karloff as an aging horror star whose personal appearance at a drive-in is interrupted by a deranged sniper; of course, The Terror is the program onscreen during the mayhem. Corman productions continued to cannibalize chunks of The Terror in years to come, usually in self-referential spoofs like the silly but enjoyable 1976 comedy Hollywood Boulevard, which featured Richard Miller relaxing at a drive-in and enjoying his own performance from 13 years earlier. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi
• Cinema showman William Castle's best films are imbued with an infectious sense of mischief that overcomes deficiencies, and House on Haunted Hill is no exception. An excellent vehicle for star Vincent Price and one of Castle's most beloved concoctions, this lightweight ghost story is lots of fun even without the director's trademark theater gimmicks. Price is in prime form, alternating between pure ham and quiet subtlety, able to express a macabre notion simply by arching an eyebrow. Co-star Elisha Cook Jr. has only one task here, to look shell-shocked and mutter predictions of doom, and he performs it with twitchy, sweaty aplomb. The rest of the cast is serviceable, with only ingenue Carolyn Craig standing out via her shrill shrieks and stilted line readings. Castle directs House on Haunted Hill to be spooky rather than frightening, with floating skeletons and flickering candlelight, but a few ghastly images of acid baths and hanged women slide in for the E.C. Comics crowd. Campy and creepy in equal measures, House on Haunted Hill deserves its status as a horror classic. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi
• Despite the title and the presence of horror-meister Vincent Price, The Bat is actually a murder mystery rather than a horror film. While it's all done in a by-the-numbers manner, there's more than enough here to entertain whodunit fans. Those looking for deep meaning or surprising characterization will need to look elsewhere; the plot takes center stage in The Bat, and surprises are relegated to its many twists and turns. Fortunately, the screenplay is very well structured, if a trifle confusing, and while it's "scare quotient" may be fairly low, it does keep the viewer interested. Crane Wilbur's direction is fairly static, although he does make effective visual use of the deep dark shadows that are part and parcel of these "old dark house" stories. He also gives his cast free rein, allowing Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead to take the performing ball and run away with it. They're frequently over-the-top and occasionally campy, but so committed to what they're doing that they create a palpable sense of fun. The supporting cast is not as impressive, ranging from adequate to poor. Despite the efforts of the stars, the film lags in many places; the mechanical nature of the script and Wilbur's insufficiently imaginative direction drag it down. Still, The Bat is a diverting way to spend a stormy evening at home. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi
• When George A. Romero, a Pittsburgh-based director of TV commercials and industrial films, persuaded a few buddies to pitch in some money for a case of film stock so that he could shoot a zombie movie on the weekends, he had no idea that he would forever change the American horror movie. With his first effort, Romero shattered the rules of the horror genre; Night of the Living Dead retained many of the iconic elements of the traditional horror movie, but without the emotional buffering of most films that preceded it. In this film, the good guys didn't win, the monsters became only more powerful, the authority figures protecting us were both dangerous and inept, the source of the contagion was both unexplained and unstoppable, and, as friends and families were pitted against each other, no one got away unscathed. The early films of Herschell Gordon Lewis predated it in putting graphic gore on screen, but while Blood Feast and Two Thousand Maniacs seemed almost comical in their candy-colored carnage, Night's stark black-and-white images of zombies feeding on their human victims possessed a blunt and troubling realism that broke new, stomach-churning ground. And while Night's political allegories are more subtle than those of such later Romero films as The Crazies and Dawn of the Dead, its open distrust of authority and depiction of society on the verge of collapse certainly mark it as a film of the Vietnam era; the grim fate of Duane Jones, the film's sole heroic figure and only African-American, had added resonance with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X fresh in the minds of most Americans. At a time when most horror movies took the tack that fear could be fun, Night of the Living Dead offered terror without a spoonful of sugar, and the genre would never be the same again. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi