MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

The perfect host for a perfect collection of creepy treats is none other than the Mistress of Darkness herself…Elvira! This great six-pack of goose-bump-giving horror flicks includes House on Haunted Hill (Vincent Price, Richard Long. 1959/75 min.), Night of the Living Dead (Duane Jones. 1968/96 min.), The Little Shop of Horrors (Jackie Joseph. 70 min.), The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (Jason Evers. 1962/85 min.), Dementia 13 (William Campbell. 1963/75 min.) and Carnival of Souls (Candace Hilligoss. 1962/78 min.). 3 DVDs. B&w-color/NR.

DVD FEATURES:

• Number of Discs: 3
• Screen: Black and White

AWARDS

• Library of Congress

•     Won U.S. National Film Registry - 1999

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Roger Corman, George A. Romero, William Castle, Rosemary Horvath, Joseph Green, Herk Harvey, Francis Ford Coppola

• Producer:

  Roger Corman, Karl Hardman, Russ Streiner, William Castle, Rex Carlton, Herk Harvey, Robert Wright Campbell, Charles Hannawalt

• Screenwriter:

  Charles B. Griffith

• Screen Story:

  George A. Romero

• Screenwriter:

  George A. Romero, John A. Russo, Robb White, Rex Carlton

• Screen Story:

  Joseph Green

• Screenwriter:

  Joseph Green, John Clifford, Francis Ford Coppola

• Cinematographer:

  Arch R. Dalzell, George A. Romero, Carl Guthrie, Stephen Hajinal, Maurice Prather, Charles Hannawalt

• Composer (Music Score):

  Fred Katz, Von Dexter, Abe Barker, Tony Restaino, Gene Moore, Ronald Stein

• Editor:

  Marshall Neilan, Jr., George A. Romero, Roy Livingston, Leonard Anderson, Bill de Jarnette, Dan Palmquist, Mort Tubor, Stewart O'Brien

• Production Designer:

  Vincent Survinski

• Art Director:

  Daniel Haller, Dave Milton, Paul Fanning, Albert J. Locatelli

• Associate Producer:

  Mort Landberg

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Philip Mitchell, Emil Kolisch, Robert E. Lessner

• Makeup:

  Harry Thomas, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, George Fiala

• Special Effects:

  Tony Pantanello, Regis Survinski, Byron Baer

• First Assistant Director:

  Anthony LaMarca

• Production Manager:

  Alford H. Lessner

• Technical Director:

  David D. Martin

• Production Director:

  Jane Huizenga

• Additional Dialogue:

  Doris Brent

• Properties:

  Walter, Pluff, Jr.

• Script Supervisor:

  Eva Blair

• Gaffer:

  Vincent Delaney

• Grip:

  John Haupt, Jr.

REVIEWS:

• Roger Corman is a man with a Midas touch -- that's the only way to explain Little Shop of Horrors, a 1960 ultra-low budget horror movie/detective film satire that yielded a hit off-Broadway musical and a multi-million-dollar film version more than 20 years later. Corman had carved a niche for himself on Hollywood's Poverty Row as a producer-director of low-budget horror movies, mostly in association with American-International Pictures, which also specialized in teen exploitation titles, of which Corman did a few as well (Teenage Caveman, etc.). By 1960, the cycle had run its course, and one of the products was Little Shop of Horrors, which satirized the teen horror exploitation film, as well as various other elements of popular culture. Jonathan Haze's Seymour Krelboin is a delightful satire of the kind of nebbishy hero that Jerry Lewis was making millions out of playing at the time, and the two cops hunting for the "skid row killer" were a dig at Jack Webb's then-popular police shows and movies, most notably Dragnet. Corman's secret was to play it all -- the comedy, the cop sequences, the sight gags -- even more deadpan than Webb's work, so that the jokes were in the past once people tried to figure out what they had just seen. This was a style of comedy later perfected by the makers of Airplane and Police Squad and its offshoot, The Naked Gun movies, but Little Shop of Horrors is where it started; the ethnic jokes alone are a foot deep, and they slide past so fast that one has to watch the movie more than once just to catch them. It was a style of comedy that no one had done for movies before, and it took the rest of Hollywood 20 years to catch up -- just about the time that kids who knew Little Shop of Horrors were starting to make movies themselves. ~ Bruce Eder, 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
• Hokey, overwrought, and poorly paced, this venerable creature feature still commands a sizable following on the basis of its campy, low-grade special effects, its T&A exploitation, and its many pseudo-philosophical soliloquies. Virginia Leith gives a spiteful, glamorous performance that's limited to the neck up for most of the film. God only knows how someone without a windpipe would be able to talk, but oh, how she does. Swathed in bandages, soaking in a tray of serum, she hisses epithets and makes pronouncements about Nature, Injustice, and Evil while co-star Jason Evers trawls the city's houses of ill repute looking for a babe with a killer enough bod to provide his sweetie-pie with a new lease on life. A fixture of Saturday-afternoon horror matinees, the film often has its more flimsily clothed moments excised on TV. Seen complete on video or DVD, the picture's horror elements may seem like just an excuse to show scantily clad ladies of the night showing off their wares and getting into catfights. The finale does, however, provide some fairly effective monster makeup and some lurid bits of grisly mayhem. For some viewers, the most horrifying moment may come when Evers tapes Leith's mouth shut to keep her from talking. Never fear, feminists -- the blowhard doctor gets what's coming to him, and this collection of macabre male fantasies ends with the sinister laughter of its put-upon title character. ~ Brian J. Dillard, 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
• In the 1960s, there were dozens of regional filmmakers cranking out low-budget horror and sci-fi pictures, but while most of them were hoping to become the next Roger Corman or William Castle, Herk Harvey obviously had something more grand in mind. Kansas-based Harvey fancied himself an artist, and if his only feature, Carnival of Souls, is more than a bit pretentious, it's also strong and stylish enough to support his ambitions -- Carnival of Souls has a look and feel decidedly different than that of any horror movie of its time. Concerning itself with a woman caught in a spiritual netherworld between life and death, Carnival of Souls has a cool, slightly forbidding tone and a desolate beauty in its visual style that stands apart from most B-horror pics of the period (or A-horror pics, for that matter), and the icy emotional remove of leading lady Candace Hilligoss suggests a character out of Ingmar Bergman rather than the usual screaming damsel being chased by monsters who graced drive-in screens of the period. Harvey's years in industrial filmmaking certainly served him well while making Carnival of Souls, which looks surprisingly glossy and distinctive given its shoestring budget, and if some of the material seems just a shade overdone, more than enough of it hits the target (especially the slightly surreal dance of the ghouls, and Hilligoss' panicky final reel) to make one wish Harvey had been able to make a few more features before retreating back to movies about proper classroom etiquette. Carnival of Souls is that rare cult movie that truly deserves its reputation; while the film is available on home video from a number of sources thanks to its public domain status, the double-disc Criterion Collection DVD is certainly the best way to go, offering a pristine transfer that makes the most of the film's excellent camera work, and plenty of bonus features which tell you everything you might want to know about the making of Carnival of Souls, its locations, and the career of Herk Harvey. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi