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Rating: 
Summary: The Darker Side of Romance
Review: "The Darker Side of Romance," within the anthology of "Curse of the Dead," is authentic, intelligent, and incredibly thrilling. I anxiously await future films of the director, Tom Madigan.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Stuff!
Review: ...each movie earns 3 (3 1/2 tops). However, if you're looking for a way to increase your collection of B, independent, exploitation, and/or drive-in movies or you're trying to impress some guy/gal with your eclectic taste in cinema, then you'd be interested to know that... CURSE OF THE DEAD contains LUKAS' CHILD (1993), MURDER MANSION (1972), NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR (1974), IT HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN (1973), LEGACY OF BLOOD (1971), DARKER SIDE OF ROMANCE (2002), FRANKENSTEIN'S GREAT-AUNT TILLIE (1984), MANSION OF MADNESS (1972), GHOST GUNFIGHTER (1972) and SORORITY HOUSE VAMPIRES FROM HELL (1998)
Rating:
Summary: great bang for your buck
Review: ...each movie earns 3 (3 1/2 tops). However, if you're looking for a way to increase your collection of B, independent, exploitation, and/or drive-in movies or you're trying to impress some guy/gal with your eclectic taste in cinema, then you'd be interested to know that... CURSE OF THE DEAD contains LUKAS' CHILD (1993), MURDER MANSION (1972), NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR (1974), IT HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN (1973), LEGACY OF BLOOD (1971), DARKER SIDE OF ROMANCE (2002), FRANKENSTEIN'S GREAT-AUNT TILLIE (1984), MANSION OF MADNESS (1972), GHOST GUNFIGHTER (1972) and SORORITY HOUSE VAMPIRES FROM HELL (1998)
Rating:
Summary: Schlocky Horror Picture Show...
Review: CURSE OF THE DEAD is a mixed bag of tricks. It can basically be split into two catagories: Old horror movies from the dustbin of history (those fab 1970s) and New micro-budget indies. I'll tackle the old ones first. MURDER MANSION concerns a group of people trapped in an old mansion during a thick fog. Not much action or suspense, just a lot of gabbing and posturing. The "twist" ending barely holds together and isn't all that shocking anyway. NIGHT OF BLOODY HORROR "stars" a young, impossibly thin Gerald McRaney as a crazy guy with a horrid shrew for a mother (sort of a low-grade version of Psycho). Women are popping up dead and McRaney's character is the prime suspect. I like this one. Enough weirdness to balance out the silly parts. IT HAPPENED AT NIGHTMARE INN concerns two lunatic sisters (Veronica and Margot) who run a small inn, where they sit in judgement of the wanton female visitors. They decide to start killing the women for their sins in hideous ways. This one's my personal favorite of the collection! LEGACY OF BLOOD has John Carradine as a cranky old man, who "dies". His useless offspring arrive at his mansion to hear the reading of the will, only to find out that daddy has a completely different idea of what they each deserve! Faith Demergue and Jeff Morrow (both from This Island Earth) play lecherous heirs in this "old dark house" type flick. Two other characters stand out though. Frank (John Russell) as the family chauffeur who has a lamp in his room made out of a nazi soldier he killed, is priceless! And Johnny, an Elvis lookalike who "freaks out" a lot and moans while out-emoting William Shatner! This one's not bad. This brings us to FRANKENSTEIN'S GREAT AUNT TILLIE. Do not let the fantastic title fool you! This is one dreadfully long, dull movie! Even a be-wigged Donald Pleasance and mute Zsa Zsa Gabor can't de-stink this runover skunk! Terrible! MANSION OF MADNESS is another toilet raft. Some escaped convicts take over an insane asylum and pose as doctors and such. Sounds interesting, right? Nope. It's a miserable experiment in tedium and audience abuse! Loosely based on Poe's Doctor Tarr story, MOM is one inept feature! Now, let's move on to the indies. LUKAS' CHILD ain't bad! Women are disappearing and winding up in jail cells in a dungeon far beneath hollywood, where they are forced to wear lingerie and wait to be eaten by "the child", a demon in the cell down the hall. Lots of nudity and goofiness for all! DARKER SIDE OF ROMANCE is about a budding serial killer who falls in love with a beautiful gal. Can they make their relationship work? Of course not! OK. GHOST GUNFIGHTER has a cowboy ghosty killing folks with a big knife. Most of the action takes place in an all-too-clean ghosttown. Not too awful, I suppose. SORORITY HOUSE VAMPIRES FROM HELL is a film that must be seen to be bereaved! A demon lord from hell arrives on earth (in his UFO) to take over by ...??? OK, never mind! This is a movie that must've been made by drunken college guys, who stole a camera and convinced their girlfriends to take their clothes off! If huge breasts banging around are your cup of tea, then this is a masterpiece! Plotless and idiotic, yet I keep watching it over and over! Well, there you have it. CURSE OF THE DEAD is pretty good, especially if you love sooper-dooper cheese like I do...
Rating:
Summary: Curse of the Dead
Review: I haven't had a chance to review all of these yet, but love this collection of independent films. Some good first-time film makers. The Darker Side of Romance has some great shots and an interesting psychological twist. Nice work for an amateur.
Rating:
Summary: Good Stuff!
Review: I love these collections! Great mix of obscure 70's horror films mixed with some really cool independent stuff! Be sure to add this set to your cult collection!
Rating:
Summary: B-Movies at their BEST!!
Review: I love this kind of collection! Take the old forgotten B-horror and mix in newer even MORE OBSCURE B-horror and you got something to play in the background that's a hoot!
Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting Collection
Review: I really liked this collection because it had some movies that were totally independent and you can tell, some fresh ideas and fearless storytelling. What a blast!!
Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting Collection
Review: I really liked this collection because it had some movies that were totally independent and you can tell, some fresh ideas and fearless storytelling. What a blast!!
Rating: 
Summary: Cursed indeed
Review: OK, I had mixed feelings about the movies on this set, which is true with any of these cheap Brentwood 10-movie packs...but the clincher here was the movie that was screwed up and wouldn't play!! I mean, come on, everyone who buys these things does it for the value: you can't beat the price. But when you take out one movie from the equation, add that to the inevitable suckiness of some of the other movies... then you start feeling a little ripped off. Anyway, here we go:
Lukas' Child: Light on the blood, heavy on the T & A. Horrible, porno-quality acting. The title on the screen was different but I don't remember what it was (see below for explanation). Entertaining in an "Up All Night" kind of way, if there was some gore it would have been cool.
Murder Mansion: I deserve the bonehead of the year award here: trying to get the movie out of the case, I split in in half!!! HAHAHA Anyway I'll give it the benefit of the doubt...other reviewers said it sucked but I usually disagree with most reviewers here anyway. Lukas' Child was on the other side of the disc, so that's that...
Night of Bloody Horror: As with all the movies here, any hardcore gorehound will be disappointed. However, if you like 70's horror with no budget, this is actually pretty cool, and bloody for its time. A guy released from an insane asylum after 13 years is suspected of killing some women. Really cheesy visual effects add to the fun, it looks like something that should have been released by Z-movie gods Something Weird actually.
It Happened at Nightmare Inn: European, Spanish I think. Two weird sisters run the inn of the title and mete out their own brand of justice. Looks like a sex scene was cut out at one point, I'd like to see a restored version if one indeed exists. Not bad at all.
Legacy of Blood: Best movie of the set (or at least the eight I was able to watch). John Carradine leaves a will regarding his surviving relatives and staff, if they can live another 7 days they can split a bunch of his money. The catch is, they all have to live together on his estate. Needless to say, this results in a bunch of deaths, which are very creative, especially for the early 70's.
Darker Side of Romance: Shot on video, runs about an hour. Looks like a student film, would have been pretty cool seeing it in a production class, but watching it for entertainment...uh...
Frankenstein's Great Aunt Tillie: One of the worst ever. What is Donald Pleasence doing in this film? Ridiculous British comedy that barely features the monster of the title at all, and when they do show him he's a blue-green Crayola color. They never stop talking in this movie: they just blah blah blah the asinine dialogue to death, which, by the way, you can barely hear due to the crappy sound, that's supposed to be funny and sexy all at the same time. Please kill me now.
Mansion of Madness: I got as far as the onscreen title, "Edgar Allan Poe's Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon" then the screen split up into a bunch of green pixel squares which would not go away. The really sad thing is, I think I would have liked this one since it promised 70's torture and sex. 10 movie value pack my ass.
Ghost Gunfighter: Another shot on video one, the box said it was from 1972 but it looked more like 1992. Started out with a great gory beginning, didn't really measure up though after that. Had its own idiotic charm, dumb people get lost in a car going to Mexico and end up in a haunted ghost town.
Sorority House Vampires From Hell: Best of the shot on video movies in the set. I don't usually like video, can you tell?? Anyway, lots of skin, almost softcore porn here with a wicked sense of humor. That was the saving grace: they didn't take anything seriously, and the dumb jokes actually work most of the time. A cult classic of the future.
So that's it...again this review is tainted by the fact that I had no chance to see one of the films, but in my opinion you should at least be able to watch a movie and THEN decide it's crap...In that respect it's not worth it.
If you are lucky enough to get one where all the movies worked then it might be decent for horror completists. If you're hell-bent on buying a 10-movie set from Brentwood, start with Tales of Terror or Ancient Evil first, then work your way up...at least there's less fast-food video "movies" included on those two.
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