Still busy as ever, I hardly ever have time to do updates and reviews. You may well ask, "But CHIM, you are not doing Trades these days, you must have tons of time?"
Nothing could be further from the truth. When I was Trading, I'd be copying a movie I've seen a bazillion times and instead of paying attention to it, I'd be on this here computer. Now, I'm still getting about the same amount of new movies, but now I'm giving them my undivided attention.
For example, this weeks MOVIE OF THE WEEK, or rather Movies, was a little DVD Box-set, I picked up from the kats over at HK-Flix. I recently did a trade for six tapes. It cost me about $10 for the tapes, about $10 to ship them, plus about 9 hours use of my VCRs. This Box-set hase 10 movies (DVDs no less) and cost me a mere $21 (shipping included). A perfect example of how it's getting much better to buy than to trade.
This weeks MOVIE OF THE WEEK is:

TALES OF TERROR





So it's a box set and it has 10 movies on double sided DVDs. It's from the good folks over at Brentwood Home Video who have made it their comitment to make DVDs affordable. They have a number of other box-sets including 5 other Horror and Sci-Fi 10 movie sets. I surely intend to own them all before too long.

The down point is the movies are not the best tranfers to DVD I've ever seen. In fact, the picture quality is comparable to to a VHS (but then they are never going to degrade any worse, like VHS tapes do). No extra effort seems to have been made to re-master any of the movies, and extras are limited to scene access and the odd bio. They are like the DVDs you get out of the $6.88 bin at Walmart. But when the price works out to less than $2.50 per movie, what are you bitchin about, you couldn't get VHS tapes for that.

SO what movies do you get with this? For the price you are probably not expecting much...but hell, I was surprised. Out of the ten, I all ready had three on VHS, but still, I'd trade any VHS tape I have plus $2.50 for a DVD version. In this case, I now have both, so now I can lend the VHS versions to the in-laws or the neighbours and not worry whether they come back not. The other seven, were decent enough movies, maybe not exactly 'cult classics' but a definate plus to the collection. In order, here are the movies:

DEEP RED, THE HATCHET MURDERS
A real whiz-bang classic to start us off. This was the first Dario Argento movie I ever saw so many years ago. An English pianist gets wrapped up in a murder mystery. Plenty creepy and violent in the Argento style. You can't call yourself an Argento fan unless you have seen this. Probably the best movie in this set.



CHRISTMAS EVIL
Another classic and holiday favourite of mine; perhaps second only to Black Christmas as my all time favourite Xmas Horror flick. This kid who loves Christmas is mentally scarred when he discovers not only that Santa is not real, but that Santa is his dad and likes to go down on his mom under the Xmas tree. He grows up living only for Xmas and even works in a toy factory. But, the hypocrisy and cynicism of the world cause him to snap one Xmas eve.

...

WEB OF THE SPIDER
This is basically a 1970 remake of Castle of Blood (1964). In fact, it follows Castle of Blood pretty much scene for scene. I'd actually been looking for this movie ever since I read the tagline for it:

Based on Edgar Allen Poe's "Night of the Living Dead"

You see, I was unaware that Poe had written "Night of the Living Dead". Actually, this is not a bad movie and does have Klaus Kinski as Edgar Allen Poe and although Poe is only in the movie maybe 10 minutes, a Bio of Klaus Kinski is included in the extras.



CIRCUS OF FEAR
A mediocre British crime drama. A group of professional criminals rob a bank car and kill a guard and are traced to a travelling circus. Not really suckin', but not particularly interesting either, especailly considering it takes place at a circus, which usually means creepy in most movies, and also considering it stars Christopher Lee. Probably my least favourite in the set.



HOUSE ON THE EDGE OF THE PARK
Yet another classic, this one being Ruggero Deodato's (of Cannibal Holocaust fame) contribution to the rape-revenge 'house' genre of movies. It even has David Hess from 'Last House on the Left' playing a similiar role. He is a rapist/killer who works as a mechanic. When he gets himself and his dimwitted buddy invited to a house party by some rich snobby types whose car he fixes, all hell breaks loose. But it seems more is going on at this party than meets the eye.

...

MESSIAH OF EVIL
I don't know how I managed to miss this one. It was really quit surprising. Basically a 1970's B-grade Zombie movie with a touch of mystery/horror that is almost Lovecraftian. A girl searches for her missing father in a strange town where the inhabitants are turning into zombies which await the coming of a Dark Messiah. The movie is a bit uneven, but overall I liked it. Definately worth the watch. The most surprising movie in this set.



DIE,SISTER,DIE
Another surprise! This murder mystery involves a suicidal woman whose brother hires a nurse to car for her. The brother, however, doesn't really want his sister to hang around and so picks a nurse who he thinks might be willing to look the other way next time she try's to snuff it. Although it seemed obvious, to me at least, what was really going on and I guessed at the ending long before it came, this movie was actually rather well done for its time. Reminded me of early seventies Made-for-TV mystery movies.



LADY FRANKENSTEIN
A pretty cool movie in the Hammer tradition, although not a hammer film but rather a Italian film made to look hammer-like. Dr. Frankenstein is killed by his monster, which continues to rampage around the country-side. His eager-beaver daughter takes over with some experiments of her own. As the monster takes revenge on the grave-robbers who sold the good doctor the body parts to make him, Frankensteins daughter plans to put the brain of the good doctors trusted assistant, whose mind she loves, into the body of a muscular servant for whom she lusts. For some reason though, the movie ends rather abruptly...

...

THE WEREWOLF AND THE VAMPIRE WOMEN
Also known as 'the Werewolf Versus Vampire Women' this is a Paul Naschy classic. Naschy, once again plays his werewolf character, this time revived by an idiot coroner. He meets up with a couple college girls in search of the tomb of a Vampire Countess. Of course, they idiotically revive her and so the werewolf and the Vampiress eventually have a showdown.

...

SISTERS OF DEATH
This movie shows you just how dumb all-girl secret society girls can be. First off, they kill a girl in one of those dumbass initiation rituals. Then years later the 5 girls responsible meet for a reunion at an undisclosed location and nobody bothers to even ask who organized it. They they jump in a car with two horny odd-job guys to go to said undisclosed location. No big surprise when they find they are trapped inside the electric fence surrounded estate of the father of the girl they killed. Oh well!

Like I said, for the price, this was an awesome value. I got mine over at HK-Flix which is the lowest price I have seen, but they also have it over at AMAZON for slightly more.