From Beyond The Grave (1973):

The last of the now famous anthology film's from England's Amicus Studios, From Beyond The Grave finds director Kevin Connor in the director's seat - a first for Amicus - but also sees the return of Peter Cushing who they'd previously used in films such as Asylum and Tales From The Crypt. Cushing plays the owner of a London antiques shop called Temptations Ltd., and his scenes serve as the spine of the film. Whenever a customer comes in and makes a purchase, we follow that customer to see what happens to them. First up is a man named Edward Charlton (David Warner) who brings home a massive old mirror. When he decides to hold a séance in his house, he soon finds out that this mirror serves as a prison for a demon and that thanks to his occult ritual, this demon has now been unleashed and Edward is responsible for feeding him. The second story follows Christopher Lowe (Ian Bannen) who shoplifts an old war medal from the store. Once back on the city streets Christopher befriends a street merchant named Jim (Donald Pleasance) who just so happens to be a veteran. Christopher is intrigued by Jim's foxy daughter (Angela Pleasance) and the marital problems he's encountering at home only serve to make her all the more appealing. What Christopher doesn't know is that Jim and his daughter have a very strange past, one that is about to come back with a vengeance. The third story follows a man named Reggie (Ian Carmichael) who scams the store by switching the price tag on a tobacco box he buys. When he takes the train home, a strange woman named Madame Orloff (Margaret Leighton) tells him he has an elemental on his shoulder, an invisible parasite. He thinks the woman is insane until he gets home and the elemental starts harassing his wife, causing Reggie to acquire Madame Orloff's services in getting rid of the new pest. The fourth and final story finds a man named William (Ian Ogilvy) purchasing a strange old door from the shop. He takes it home and uses it on his closet but finds that periodically it opens to reveal an old sorcerer who has a habit of coming out of the closet in hopes of stealing the soul of William's wife!

While the third story is played with tongue placed firmly in cheek, the other three tales are played completely straight and are done fairly effectively. Cushing makes a great host for the film, playing his part with sinister class, and fun performances from Pleasance, Warner and Ogilvy all help bring some charm to the film. The cinematography is classy and slick from start to finish and the film relies more on atmosphere and clever dialogue than on shocks or gore and the film is paced so well that it's hard to believe this was Connor's directorial debut.

Someone's Watching Me (1978):

This made-for-TV movie from John Carpenter follows Leigh (Lauren Hutton) who has just bought herself an apartment in the heart of Los Angeles and found herself a job as a station manager at one of the local TV channels. Soon she starts getting strange phone calls from a man she doesn't know. Initially these calls come only at work but soon she's getting them at home. Making matters worse is the fact that strange, random gifts are being delivered right to her doorstep and periodically the lights in her apartment flicker. Leigh is obviously starting to grow concerned with these events and a discussion with one of her co-workers, Sophie (Adrienne Barbeau), raises the idea of calling the police but there's only one problem - Leigh hasn't been threatened and she doesn't know whose behind all of this making it difficult to bring in the fuzz. Soon enough, Leigh meets a man called Paul (David Birney) while out at a local bar one night. They soon begin a romance but the calls and the gifts continue. Obviously someone is still watching Leigh...

Very obviously influenced by Hitchcock films like Rear Window, Carpenter shoots the film in such a way that the audience is put in the place of the voyeur. The camera, like the telescope used in the film, lets us peer in on Leigh's life the same way that the antagonist spies on her. It's a subtle trick and one we've seen used a few times before but Carpenter plays his hand well and manages to create some genuine suspense using clever camera tricks, strong pacing and good acting. There's very little exploitative content here, not much in the way of sex or violence, but there are moments in the film that definitely show what Carpenter was capable of even early on in his career.

Eyes Of A Stranger (1980):

Directed by Ken Wiederhorn,, this one follow Jane Harris (Lauren Tewes), a Miami news reporter who takes it upon herself to expose a serial rapist/murderer who is currently terrorizing women around the city at random. Unfortunately for her, the tirades she delivers on air attract the killer's attention and before you know it she's receiving some rather unsettling phone calls. This inspires Jane, who lives with her deaf/mute sister, Tracy (Jennifer Jason Leigh in her feature film debut) to do some investigating on her own. After piecing together a few clues, Jane comes to the realization that the killer might actually be Stanley (John Di Santi), the portly middle-aged man who lives a few apartments over from her. As Jane, despite her boyfriend's pleadings, decides to prove that Stanley is the killer, the killer starts closing in on her and on Tracy as the tension mounts and Jane finds herself racing to save her sister before it's too late.

Like Someone's Watching Me, this film also borrows pretty heavily from Rear Window with elements of Wait Until Dark, When A Stranger Calls, and Black Christmas thrown in for good measure. Where Carpenter's film relied on atmosphere and clever camerawork, however, Wiederhorn's movie goes for the throat with a few surprisingly bloody murder set pieces (courtesy of Tom Savini) and some nasty sexual violence. It should be noted that the version of the film contained in this set is the full-strength, uncut version and roughly thirteen seconds of gore that was taken out of the R-rated cut of the film has been put back in.

The Hand (1981):

An earlier directorial effort from Oliver Stone, The Hand features Academy Award winning actor Michael Caine in the lead role! Caine plays Jonathon Lansdale, an artist who makes his living drawing comics strips. One night while driving, he and his wife (Andrea Marcovicci) get into an argument and, distracted, he winds up in a collision with a truck. The accident severs the hand that Lansdale uses to draw, thus ending his career and ruining his life. This accident, coupled with the marital issues that he's dealing with, put the guy in a very dark place, made worse when a replacement artist is brought in to fill his shoes. Soon, things start to get strange, as the replacement's artists work is sabotaged. Jonathon moves to the country to teach an illustration class and begins having an affair with one of his students, Stella (Annie McEnroe), but is also plagued by strange dreams involving a severed hand and a ring. Periodically Jonathon will have a complete black out, when he wakes up it looks like he's created some amazing pieces of art, like he used to do before the accident. Jonathon isn't sure if he's going insane or not as his hand starts becoming more and more prominent in his life, and with his wife and son coming to visit soon, he finds himself in a bit of a strange predicament... particularly when people around him start turning up dead!

The Hand is far from a great film but it's certainly an enjoyable one. Caine does very well in the lead role, playing the tortured artist who is quite obviously losing his mind (or is he?) effectively without coming across as too hammy or chewing any more scenery than absolutely necessary. It would have been easy for him to go over the top but he's fairly restrained here and actually quite believable despite the rather ridiculous premise. The special effects, courtesy of none other than Stan Winston and Carlo Rambaldi, are a little dated in that the severed hand is obviously a prosthetic but they add to the picture's retro charm and the film winds up, oddly enough, feeling very much like an old E.C. comic book story come to life.

Deadly Friend (1986):

One of Wes Craven's goofiest films, Deadly Friend is at least interesting in a 'hey look who it is!' kind of way. Paul (Matthew Laborteaux) is a super genius teenager who has been accepted at a university level neuroscience program. He and his mother, Jeannie (Anne Twomey), move into a new neighborhood to be close to the school where Paul has to learn to make new friends and adjust to school life. Thankfully, Paul has a friend on his side in the form of a big, dopey robot that he's named BB. Paul soon buddies up with Tom (Michael Sharrett) and falls for the cute girl next door, Samantha (Kristy Swanson). Things get crazy one night when Samantha's drunken loser of a dad, Harry (Richard Marcus), knocks her out and puts her in a coma. As Samantha lies on her deathbed, Paul figures he can sneak into the hospital and through some impromptu brain surgery save her life even if it means taking her brain back to a 'BB' like stage where she'll have to learn all over again. It works, but Paul doesn't realize that something is wrong with BB's brain but he sure finds that out soon enough when the re-animated Samantha starts going nuts and killing off a few neighborhood villains, highlighted by the scene where she destroys Anne Ramsey's (yes, the woman from Throw Momma From The Train head with a basketball.

If the idea of Kristy Swanson coming back to life as a killer robot sounds a little retarded, you're not far off the mark. The premise is bad, the script is horribly written, the dialogue completely contrived and the BB robot is completely annoying. The whole thing is so far fetched that it's simply impossible to suspend our disbelief that far and as such, we don't wind up caring about anyone in the film. That said, what keeps the film from being a total waste of time is its inventive and explosive kill scenes (the basketball scene... my God.... it's brilliant!) and the sheer stupidity of the whole project. The film winds up an entertaining and fabulous disaster. Hardly a high note in Craven's career, but a fun time killer with some neat gore.

Dr. Giggles (1992):

The last film in the set stars Larry Drake (of L.A. Law and Darkman fame) as Dr. Evan Randall, a surgeon with a mental disorder and an unnerving laugh, who has recently escape from the insane asylum and gone on a bit of a murder spree killing off a few other doctors on his way to the small town of Moorehigh. Evan grew up there and his father was the town doctor before he passed away. One of the residents of Moorehigh is Jennifer (Holly Marie Combs), a teenage girl with a heart condition whose father (Cliff DeYoung) has just asked his girlfriend Tamara (Michelle Johnson) to move in with the two of them. She and her boyfriend Max (Glenn Quinn) are on their way to a party up in the hills to blow off some steam. Some of the kids start talking about the legend of Dr. Randall and before you know it, a few of the more daring members of the group are on their way to his house to explore, completely unaware that he's not dead at all and is in fact living in the very house they've set their sights on. What Jennifer and a few local cops know, however, is that Evan is not going to just let things lie - he's going to come back and finish the job and, as is his way, he's going to remove their hearts!

Dr. Giggles doesn't really bring anything new to the table - we've seen horror movies about deranged doctors for decades now - but it does entertain despite the obvious, groan-inducing puns and bad jokes. The film is obviously borrowing heavily from the likes of Freddy from the Nightmare On Elm Street films in this department. While the film certainly plays by the established rules of the slasher sub-genre, there are enough decent kills and quirky laughs that even if it doesn't reinvent the wheel, it's at least an entertaining and gory little movie with some good jump scares and a fun, over the top performance from Drake.

Warner Brothers' Twisted Terror Collection offers an eccentric and varied selection of the studio's b-movie catalogue titles in one handy and reasonably priced package. If the extras are light, the quality is at least pretty decent and having the uncut versions of Deadly Friend and Eyes Of A Stranger is a nice touch. Not an essential purchase but one that horror movie fans can definitely consider recommended.