Category: Horror

Nosferatu

Nosferatu on VHS. Movie starring Max Schreck, Alexander Granach. Directed by F.W. Murnau. 1922.

The Original Dracula Masterpiece

Nosferatu VHS box cover

From the VHS box:

This silent film masterpiece, designed by Albin Grau and directed by F.W. Murnau, one of the three (with Fritz Lang and Ernest Lubitsch) masters of the German cinema, is an adaptation of Bram Stocker’s classic novel Dracula.

In the 1830’s, Hutter, the young clerk of a real estate agent, leaves his wife Nina in order to conduct the sale of some property with the mysterious Count Orlock (Noferatu) in Transylvania. He falls in the clutches of the Count but escapes. Leaving his castle with a number of earth-filled coffins, the Count travels by ship to Bremen. The entire crew of the ship dies, and when it arrives in a port a swarm of rats descends upon the city. Meanwhile, Hutter has returned to Nina with his tale of the Count. She resolves to destroy the vampire by keeping him at her bedside until sunrise, when the sun’s rays will destroy the monster’s body.

Murnau’s inspired editing, lighting and direction and the performance by Max Schreck as the vampire with taloned fingers, long pointy ears and jerky walk makes NOSFERATU a true “Symphony of Horror.”

Bonus back cover scan:

Continue reading “Nosferatu”

Slugs

Slugs VHS box cover art. Movie starring Michael Garfield, Kim Terry, Philip MacHale, Concha Cuetos. Directed by J.P. Simon (Juan Piquer Simón). 1988.

Slugs VHS front box cover art. 1988 movie starring Michael Garfield, Kim Terry, Philip MacHale, Concha Cuetos. Directed by J.P. Simon.
They Slime. They Ooze. They Kill.

From the VHS box cover:

Unusually large slugs in the garden. Partially eaten corpses. And the ghastly death of a young couple amid thousands of slime trails. All are gruesome pieces of a horrifying puzzle — a puzzle whose solution can mean only one thing. Carnivorous slugs are killing the people of Ashton!

An investigation by Health Inspector Mike Brady yields startling results. Long-buried toxic waste is causing a mutation in common garden slugs, turning them into a rapidly growing population of man-eating monsters. And if Brady’s theory holds up, it is only a matter of time before Ashton is completely consumed by the slimy horde.

With time running out, and with no help from the skeptical authorities, Mike takes matters into his own hands. Armed with a special toxin, he struggles in a desperate, last-ditch effort to save Ashton from a slime wasteland!

Bonus back cover scan:

Continue reading “Slugs”

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies on VHS. Starring Cash Flagg (RDS), Carolyn Brandt, Brett O'Hara, Atlas King, Madison Clarke, Jack Brady, Erin Enyo. Directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. 1964.

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies on VHS. Starring Cash Flagg (RDS), Carolyn Brandt, Brett O’Hara, Atlas King, Madison Clarke, Jack Brady, Erin Enyo. Directed by Ray Dennis Steckler. 1964.

From the VHS box cover:

SEE: The dancing girls of the carnival murdered by the incredible night creatures of the midway!
SEE: The hunchback of the midway fight a duel of death with the mixed-up zombies!
SEE: THE FIRST MONSTER MUSICAL!

A sinister gypsy fortune-teller named Madame Estrella, with the help of her sleazy sister Carmelita (a stripper) and her grossly disfigured hunchback servant Ortega, victimize innocent people who come to the midway. They scorch their victims with acid, thereby making them look like hideous monsters. Estrella then locks them in cages like abused pets. Anyone who discovers their secret must die a brutal death!

The film is packed with action, songs and dancing, including the popular ‘Mixed-up Zombie Stomp!’

Bonus scan with Ray Dennis Steckler autograph:

Ray Dennis Steckler autograph from The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies VHS movie box



It Conquered The World

It Conquered The World on VHS video. Movie starring Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, Lee Van Cleef. Directed by Roger Corman. 1956.

It Conquered The World on VHS video. Movie starring Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, Lee Van Cleef. Directed by Roger Corman. 1956.

From the VHS box:

Every man its prisoner… Every woman its slave!

It was part plant and all monster, with crustacean arms and chainsaw teeth. Humanity had never seen anything like it. But whatever it was, It Conquered the World!

Producer-director Roger Corman tapped into the Red Scare of the ’50s with this harrowing tale of a vege-alien from Venus who can bend human minds to his evil will. The terror begins when the monster makes contact with a well-meaning American scientist (Lee Van Cleef, the spaghetti-western star who here packs a microscope instead of a six-gun). The scientist guides the monster to earth… but regrets his hospitality when the newcomer sends out hordes of bats whose bites reduce the townsfolk to zombies.

Peter Graves and Beverly Garland are among those who battle back in this top sci-fi thriller that critic Leonard Maltin calls “well acted… one of Corman’s best.” A creepy monster, blood-sucking bats, screaming victims and earnest men of science: now that’s a Drive-In Classic!

Not found on DVD. It Conquered the World on VHS or DVD-R? Be careful ordering this one.

You know you want the poster: IT CONQUERED THE WORLD *1SH MOVIE POSTER


It

Stephen King's It on VHS video. Starring Richard Thomas, Tim Reid, Annette O'Toole, Tim Curry, Richard Masur, John Ritter, Harry Anderson, Dennis Christopher. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. 1990.

Stephen King’s It on VHS video. Starring Richard Thomas, Tim Reid, Annette O’Toole, Tim Curry, Richard Masur, John Ritter, Harry Anderson, Dennis Christopher. Directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. 1990.

From the VHS box:

Your every fear — all in one deadly enemy.

It can be anything. A fanged monster that won’t stay on the movie screen. Something ominous lurking in the basement. No matter what your biggest fear is, no one knows It better than Stephen King.

Based on the King Of Horror’s 1986 bestseller, It is a jittery, jolting excursion into personal fear. A malevolent force in a small New England town takes the shape of a clown, but It is not clowning around. Instead, It terrifies youngsters with their innermost fears, bringing some to their untimely doom — until a group of wily neighborhood kids fight back. Thirty years later the evil resurfaces: meaner, angrier, deadlier. And the friends who vividly remember the terrors of their youth reunite to make a desperate stand against It.

DVD upgrade: Stephen King, IT!

It by Stephen King: It

Jaws of Satan

Jaws of Satan on VHS video. Starring Fritz Weaver, Gretchen Corbett, Jon Korkes. Directed by Bob Claver. 1981.

Jaws of Satan on VHS video. Starring Fritz Weaver, Gretchen Corbett, Jon Korkes. Directed by Bob Claver. 1981.

From the box:

Something you wouldn’t dare to imagine… is alive.

In this supernatural thriller, Father Thomas Farrow is a small town priest whose family was cursed many years ago for persecuting the Druids.

Now, after these many years, the ancient curse comes back to life in the form of a huge and deadly king cobra, which turns out to be the embodiment of Satan. Father Farrow’s town soon suffers from a series of fatal snake attacks, which are hushed up by the mayor and local business people in order to preserve the valuable tourist trade.

Farrow, whose faith is shaken to the core, decides that he must personally lead the fight against this intruder from hell. Aiding in his struggle are a famous reptile expert and the town’s leading doctor.

Be prepared for a chilling battle with unknown dangers from another time, another world!

Available on VHS: Jaws of Satan [VHS]

Not found on DVD.

Listed, but not currently available, on Amazon Instant Video: Jaws of Satan



Strangeland

Dee Snider's StrangeLand on VHS. Starring Kevin Gage, Elizabeth Peña, Brett Harrelson, Robert Englund, Linda Cardellini, Dee Snider. Written by Dee Snider. Directed by John Pieplow. 1998.

Dee Snider’s StrangeLand on VHS. Starring Kevin Gage, Elizabeth Peña, Brett Harrelson, Robert Englund, Linda Cardellini, Dee Snider. Written by Dee Snider. Directed by John Pieplow. 1998.

From the box:

Let The Ritual Begin

[obscured by label]… the glow of the screen illuminates his heavily pierced tattoo-stained face as his fingers dance nimbly across the keyboard… searching, hunting.

His computer handle is Captain Howdy, and he surfs the local chat rooms for young female prey. Girls like Genevieve and Tiana, who mysteriously vanish after an online conversation with the cunning cyber-predator. Detective Mike Gage has a personal stake in the case–Genevieve is his daughter.

When Tiana’s corpse — tortured, pierced and scarred — is discovered in the river, Gage realizes that time is running out for Genevieve. Taking sadistic delight is Gage’s desperation, Captain Howdy sends the detective a series of taunting e-mails. challenging him to a deadly online game of cat and house, and drawing him into his “modern primitive” world — a strangle land of fetish bars, S&M, body modification and goth-rock.

DVD upgrade: StrangeLand

Twisted Sister: Big Hits & Nasty Cuts: Best of

Dee Snider on Dee Snider: Shut Up and Give Me the Mic




The Haunted Palace

The Haunted Palace on VHS. Sealed. Starring Vincent Price, Debra Paget, Lon Chaney Jr. Named after the poem by Edgar Allen Poe and based on the story "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" by H.P. Lovecraft. Directed by Roger Corman. 1963.

The Haunted Palace on VHS. Starring Vincent Price, Debra Paget, Lon Chaney Jr. Named after the poem by Edgar Allen Poe and based on the story “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” by H.P. Lovecraft. Directed by Roger Corman. 1963.

From the sealed VHS box:

A Warlock’s Home Is His Castle… Forever!

A perversely evil 18th century warlock who — after placing a curse on the village women, resulting in a progeny of mutant children — is burned by the townspeople at the stake. A century after the human barbecue, the warlock’s great, great grandson returns to the family castle where he falls under Gramps’ ghost’s spell… beginning the evil all over again!

DVD Upgrade: The Haunted Palace & The Tower of London (Midnite Movies Double Feature)

Poe: Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems

Lovecraft: The Case of Charles Dexter Ward




Bride of the Monster

Bride of the Monster on VHS. Starring Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Tony McCoy, Loretta King, Harvey B. Dunn. Directed by Edward D. Wood Jr. 1955.

Bride of the Monster on VHS. Starring Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Tony McCoy, Loretta King, Harvey B. Dunn. Directed by Edward D. Wood Jr. 1955.

From the VHS box:

It’ll Make Your Skin Crawl!

Bela Lugosi is featured in his last speaking role as a mad scientist who tries to harness atomic energy into the creation of super beings. Together with his sidekick slave Lobo he finds a willing bride for his monster (sensitively portrayed by a rubber octopus found rotting on a back lot, without its motor) in the person of a nosey girl reporter.

Good eventually defeats evil in a hysterical chase through the marshes as Lugosi (or his stand in, looking nothing like Lugosi) is eaten alive by his own “monster.”

There are loads of laughs in store as you watch Lugosi literally wrapping the octopus’ tentacles around him, vainly trying to give the impression of life to an otherwise flabby, inactive stage prop.

The film was financed by cattle rancher Donald McCoy under two conditions: 1) that his son Tony would star in the movie and 2) that Wood would make a powerful anti-nuke statement with the film. The results of this “deal” make the movie much more hilarious, keeping the Wood legacy of stiff acting and endless pontification continuing.

DVD upgrade: Bride of the Monster

More Ed Wood: The Ed Wood Box (Glen or Glenda / Jail Bait / Bride of the Monster / Plan 9 from Outer Space / Night of the Ghouls / The Haunted World of Ed Wood)

Most Ed Wood: Ed Wood’s Dirty Movies




Warlock: The Armageddon

Warlock: The Armageddon on VHS. Horror fantasy movie starring Julian Sands, Chris Young, Paula Marshall. Directed by Anthony Hickox. 1993.

Warlock: The Armageddon on VHS. Starring Julian Sands, Chris Young, Paula Marshall. Directed by Anthony Hickox. 1993.

From the VHS box:

When he comes… all Hell breaks loose.

He’s back and meaner than ever! Satan’s only son, the “Warlock,” is plotting even greater mayhem in this spine-tingling, pulse pounding shocker! The Warlock’s single goal is to free his father from the fiery chains that imprison him and unleash Satan’s wrath upon the world. The only ones who can prevent complete world destruction are two warriors who alone possess the supernatural powers to challenge the Warlock… and stop the inevitable Armageddon. they must outsmart and defeat the Warlock before the prophesied eclipse, sending Satan and his son back to Hell.

DVD upgrade: Warlock: The Armageddon