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The Show:
The Monster Club and Synery Entertainment have teamed up
once again for a second volume of classic (and not so classic) SF and
horror
movie trailers: Festival of
Fright 2. Like
the first volume (read my review of that disc here)
this disc presents an hour and 15
minutes of B-movie trailers that are often more fun to watch than the
features
themselves. While this set has some
great promotional films, the presentation is marred by a watermark
that's
present throughout that's sure to turn off some fans of old-time horror.
Highlights from this volume include the Hammer films, Brides
of Dracula, Curse of Frankenstein,
and Taste the Blood of Dracula as
well as so-bad-their-good films like I
Was a Teenage Frankenstein and the unbelievable Jesse
James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter. The
best of this bunch however are the trailers
with over-the-top descriptions of the horror contained in the films. There's some great purple prose in these
things. Some of my favorites:
"Here the dead rise
from their tombs once a year to repeat their hideous crimes of murder
and
passion!" - Murder and passion huh? I
wonder if it's a tough choice for them?
"...transforming a young girl's love into terrifying
bloodlust!"
"Death is a plaything when you're caught in the Devil's Hand"
"See the most sensual and sadistic slaughter the west ever
witnessed and the most shock-filled look at raw brutality you will ever
see."
- Oh where to start... what the heck is
sensual slaughter?? And 'See the ...you
will ever see' classic.
There are many more great lines in this collection.
Fans of hokey films will have a field day.
Like the previous volume, some of these have splices and missing
short segment. Others trailers end
abruptly though they seem complete. This
isn't a huge problem, but it does mar the presentation.
The trailers included in this collection are:
Anatomy of a Psychic (an extended preview, this one runs 2 ½
minutes!)
Atom Age Vampire
Blood Creature warning bell for those of that are faint of
heart
Blood of Dracula
Bloodlust
Brides of Dracula
Castle of Blood
The Creature from the Haunted Sea
Curse of Frankenstein
The Devil's Hand
The Five Bloody Graves
Hatchet for a Honeymoon
I Bury the Living
Killer Shrews
Lady Frankenstein
Monstroid
Nightmare Castle
Phantom from Space
Screaming Skull
Taste the Blood of Dracula
Tormented
The Werewolf vs. Vampire Woman
What's the Matter with Helen
Whoever Slew Auntie Roo
Kiss of the Vampire
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein
Jesse James Meets Frankensteins Daughter
The Hypnotic Eye
The Curse of the Werewolf
Horror of Dracula
The Premature Burial
The Giant Gilla Monster
The Giant Claw
Dracula Has Risen from
the Grave
The Devils Partner
The Beast from Haunted Cave
She
Konga
Circus of Horrors
The DVD:
Audio:
The two channel mono soundtrack is fine. There's
some background noise present in some
of the trailers but the dialog is usually clear and easy to understand. Nothing to write home about, but not bad
either.
Video:
These trailers are presented with a 1.33: 1 aspect
ratio. That's the original ratio for a
lion's share of the trailers, though a few are pan and scan jobs while
others preserve
the OAR but are non-anamorphic and letterboxed.
Everything presented on this disc is in the public domain and
none of it
has been restored. The quality
varies but
is generally acceptable. Most, if not
all, of these suffer from spots and scratches, sometimes excessively. The images are generally soft, the contrast
is sometimes poor, the colors are usually faded, and the level of
detail isn't
spectacular. Some heavy handed edge
enhancement is present in some scenes too.
Even with that, these are all watchable and some of them look
quite
nice. While this disc won't win any
awards the trailers are all watchable and the vast majority is much
better than
that.
The bad news about this volume is that, unlike volume one,
there is a "Synergy Entertainment" watermark overlaid on all of the
trailers. The mark is light, but it
still mars the presentation which wasn't spectacular to begin with.
Extras:
Like the first volume, this one also has an optional "scary
music" audio track. Selecting this option
plays somewhat eerie synthesizer music over the trailers instead of the
original audio. That would make it
nice
to play it this way during a Halloween party.
This volume also features two old time radio shows, The
Creaking Door and The Strange Dr. Weird.
These are both unrestored and the audio isn't perfect. There are snaps and pops and the dialog is a
bit muddled in parts, but they're both fun to listen to.
This was a nice bonus to include.
Final Thoughts:
This was a fun disc, though the watermark really started to
bother me after a while. Even with that
I'll give the disc a light Recommendation
as these trailers are just too much fun to pass up. |
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