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The Killer Shrews/I Bury the Living

The Killer Shrews/I Bury the Living

List Price: $11.98
Your Price: $10.78
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great low budget turkey - lots of laughs!
Review: "Wa(t)ch ou(t) for the killer shoes!" says the actress who can't pronounce her "r"'s or her "t"'s in this fun packed B fossil. There is much here to enjoy for bad movie lovers: the co-pilot of the boat who is such an offensive African-American stereotype that even racists would roll their eyes, the actress who has so many speech defects that she is sometimes unintelligible ("don' you evah wonduh abou' the many unusual dings around heah? The shews, my accen(t)?"), the absurd shrews who are nothing but dogs with silly masks on them, the studly lead actor with bad skin who has the best line in the movie when the scientist, relieved that the shrews are no longer a danger, states that we still need to worry about overpopulation. Our manly hero grabs the heroine, plants a wet one on her and says, "oh, I don't think I'll worry about overpopulation for a while" (maybe not, but make sure your kids get a good speech therapist if the heroine is going to be their mother!). This is everything a low budget horror movie should be. The disc also contains a Gumby movie, trailers, and another B movie. Lots of fun!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A bargain! Pass this up at your own risk!
Review: If you've gone so far as to look this one up, you may as well take my word for it and purchase it before they're all gone. It's that simple.

OK, no one expects Ingmar Bergman when we're talking about "The Killer Shrews", and the good folks at MST had *their* take on it. It *is* silly - the "shrews" are dogs with rubber fangs and carpet remnants glued on - heck, you can even see some of them wagging their tails. But still, this is the good old-fashioned cheese: no pretensions, no frills, and prime material for your own riffing (or to wax nostalgic over, recalling some rainy Saturday afternoon when you were stuck with this or watching professional bowling....)

And to continue in the MST mode, you get a "Gumby" feature - the very same "robot" feature that we saw on MST! (Sigh - I would have preferred a different "Gumby", or better yet, how about a "Bosko"?)

But the treat on this disc is "I Bury The Living" - a "waste no time" thriller starring Richard Boone (looking a LOT like a poor man's Vincent Price here) as the reluctant chairman of the local cemetary. Poor man finds out about 15 minutes after being sworn in that when he sticks a black pin (indicating deceased) into a map of the cemetary's plots (instead of a white one, indicating "lot purchased"), well, the owner is going to buy the farm, and darned soon, too. Neat, uncomplicated, fast-moving: "Twilight Zone" would have been proud to have this one.

The transfers? THAT'S the surprise - they're pretty good! Oh, sure, "I Bury The Living" has some dark spots, but I'm willing to wager that the original print looks like that. "Shrews" is just as good, even if the movie is kid stuff.

So - trailers, a cartoon, and two decent (well, let's say "watchable", ok?) old-tyme "Creature Features" for about a ten-spot. That's about the best bargain I've seen in a LONG time. I can't speak for the other "Double Features", but this one is a "best buy".

Now, if we could only get "Angry Red Planet" and "Journey to the Seventh Planet" on one of these things.....

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: FUN DVD's and the Power Of Cheese
Review: OH THE POWER OF CHEESE!

I love schlock! I can't help it, I just do. I have several of these Killer Creature Double Features and I think that they are great. The whole drive-in motif and the cartoon intermissions are really fabulous.

The Killer Shrews is a good way to see James Best (remember Roscoe P. Coltraine from the Dukes Of Hazzard?) Well, this is Roscoe, only MUCH younger. The Shrews (poor dogs dressed up with fangs and long hair) are a stitch.

I Bury The Living is a surprisingly good movie and not as schlocky as The Killer Shrews.

I like watching films of this nature and these DVD's are a steal! Yes, the quality isn't there, but who..[cares]! The lines and poor sound actually ADD to the whole experience. For those of you who are HARD CORE DVD lovers, this is bad news for you . But I think that the [bad] quality is great. It's like listening to an old LP on a turntable...

To view all of the Killer Creature Double Features, just do a search under : MADACY

They are the distributor of these gems....Keep em' coming Madacy!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: FUN DVD's and the Power Of Cheese
Review: OH THE POWER OF CHEESE!

I love schlock! I can't help it, I just do. I have several of these Killer Creature Double Features and I think that they are great. The whole drive-in motif and the cartoon intermissions are really fabulous.

The Killer Shrews is a good way to see James Best (remember Roscoe P. Coltraine from the Dukes Of Hazzard?) Well, this is Roscoe, only MUCH younger. The Shrews (poor dogs dressed up with fangs and long hair) are a stitch.

I Bury The Living is a surprisingly good movie and not as schlocky as The Killer Shrews.

I like watching films of this nature and these DVD's are a steal! Yes, the quality isn't there, but who..[cares]! The lines and poor sound actually ADD to the whole experience. For those of you who are HARD CORE DVD lovers, this is bad news for you . But I think that the [bad] quality is great. It's like listening to an old LP on a turntable...

To view all of the Killer Creature Double Features, just do a search under : MADACY

They are the distributor of these gems....Keep em' coming Madacy!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I Bury The Living getting bottom billing? I don't think so.
Review: This transfer of I Bury The Living is OK, if a bit dark and contrasty. It is nowhere near archival quality, but there's nothing in this particular transfer to destroy the experience.

The films basic plot involves a man's discovery that people seem to die every time he marks their plot with a black pin on the caretaker's map of a cemetary. Richard Boone is memorable as the inheritor of the position of cemetary caretaker. Boone was notable among actors of the '50s for being able to generate deadpan credibility without being either too Method on the one hand or too Jack Webb on the other. And although it is jarring at first, after a couple of viewings, even Theodore Bikel's thick and near-vaudevillian Scottish brogue may grow on you.

I Bury The Living is really about the ordeal the Boone character undergoes through his encounter with The Unknown. The dis-ease the film achieves with minimal means is impressive. The score suffuses every frame with a subtly eerie mood, and for film history buffs, the fx may at times make the film feel like a flashback, believe it or not, to German Expressionist cinema of the 20s.

Recommended. This is definitely not just another 50s drive-in flick. Director Albert Band made one other thoughtful late 50s moodstudy --usually bundled in TV movie packages as a horror film, too-- entitled Face of Fire, based on a short story Stephen Crane. Find that if you can. (As for The Killer Shrews, which shares this DVD and inexplicably has top of the box billing, it IS pretty much just another 50s drive-in flick. But we won't dwell on it.)


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