The Terror / The Little Shop of Horrors

Rating:
Summary: The Terror Never Looked Better!
Review: Hats off to Marengo Films out of Dalles, Texas! They continue to restore classic Horror movies that I grew up watching in the 60's on late night TV. Their version of The Terror is wonderful.
The film is one of my all time favorites with Karloff. Avoid the cheap versions of this film, not to metion they also included The Little Shop of Horrors!!!

Rating:
Summary: Roger COrman's FIlms With Jack Nicholson
Review: There is something to be said for "B" films. "B" films are always those low budget, unknown actor filled, wildly unpredictable scripted and often poorly photographed films that no one goes to see but watch either on late-night TV or rent for their scary parties.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORROS is a film that had bad acting, bad photography and a bad plot. Technically, Audrey Jr. is kind of interesting, As you know by now, this film was adapted into another film of the same title and turned into a musical. That film is wonderful. It is a fantasy. This one is a joke. Always taking itself too seriously for its own good. (What was Roger Corman thinking?)

THE TERROR is no exception. This is the film that features a very young and very energetic Jack Nicholson. Obviously early in his career, but what stands out is his performance against the ever horrific Boris Karlof. The plot is strange, the locations are inconsistent and the overall performances just short of college graduates - but the film has an eerie fun to it. Jack is trying really hard to act. (You can tell.)

The DVD extras include a commercial for driving safely, fresh popcorn in the lobby, goneria and two cartoons like they used to show in the fifties before a movie. There is one short of Superman and one short with Popeye. They are quite cute. There is even a commercial for Cheerios as advertised by the original Munsters (Fred Gwen and Yvonne Dicarlo). If you have so much money and want to spend it wastefully - get this DVD. It's fun in a sick way.

Rating:
Summary: The Terror never looked worse!
Review: This review is not about the movies themselves (The Terror/Little Shop of Horrors), just a warning about this Marengo double-feature DVD. This was my first purchase of a Marengo Films DVD and it will definitely be my last. Ignore the five-star review below (!?!), the source prints on this disc are of VERY poor quality. Typical dupey, faded, contrasty, scratchy, blemished, no-detail public domain junk. Well, Little Shop of Horrors doesn't look atrocious, merely extremely sub-par. GoodTimes' excellent edition blows this one right off the map at half the price (grab it while you can!). As for The Terror, which I mainly bought this disc for, I cued up my VHS copy, recorded off of AMC a year or so ago, and even the tape blows the Marengo DVD away! The color saturation, color balance, contrast, and detail of the videotape handily demolish the miserable excuse for a source print on this disc. The shadow detail in particular is massively filled in on the DVD: the blood drops on the floor in the opening scenes are all but invisible and entire pieces of furniture are swallowed up in the murk!! Unbelievable. It even looks worse than the public-TV-taped PD VHS copy I replaced with the AMC version. Don't waste your money on this disc, I'm sorry I did. At least it looks like it's going out of print, a blessing for movie fans everywhere.