The DVD:
When last we visited Rhino's raiding of the Crown International Pictures catalog of crud, we determined that interspersed amongst all the devil worship, black magic witchery and edited for television trauma, a great deal of crap was being hurled at the small screen. All magnificent monkey analogies aside, it was near impossible to decipher the horror from the horrid with all the filmic feces being flung. Well, thanks to Horrible Horrors Vol. 2, we have another entire schema of scat to wallow through and worry about. Indeed, spending any amount of time with the eight ersatz-embarrassments offered on this double-sided two DVD set is enough to render you dumb and dumber. You can actually feel the gray matter in your noggin spasm, dry up and blow away as each one of these motion picture purgatives works its colon cleansing magic on your mid-brain. About the only way to measure how mind-numbing and IQ lowering these films really are is to apply a new, more mentality based analogy to the level of incompetence presented, weighing whether you'll have control of your faculties, or just your basic motor skills, once you've undertaken this box of tainted terrors. Therefore, the scale used will move from passable ("Pseudo-Savant"), through the intermediate catastrophes of poor ("Chuckleheaded"), awful ("Intellectually Inert") and near disastrous ("Inbred Retard"), finally ending up in the bottom on the cretinous cask with completely horrible ("Brain Dead Breech Baby"). Hopefully, this range or repugnance will warn you away from a permanent cerebellum meltdown, as each film here has such cranium cracking capacity. Let's start with:

Disc 1, Side 1 Don't Answer the Phone (1980)
Director: Robert Hammer
Level of Stupidity: Brain Dead Breach Baby
Scariest Thing in the Film: Actor Nicholas Worth admiring his shirtless girth in the mirror.
Plot: Beefy ex-Vietnam veteran Kirk Smith makes a living as a porn photographer, a career that apparently doesn't sit too well with his psyche. Right next to his reverse cowgirl setup is a crazy shrine, complete with oversized crucifix and telltale red candle. Roaming LA in his outdated muscle car, he picks up chicks under the guise of breaking them into the business. Well, he does break them, but it's their necks, not their résumés, that gets the crack at the big time. After strangling them, Smith does unseemly, disturbing things to the bodies before leaving them to be located by the baffled police. After each killing, he returns home to worship at his alter and stare at himself lifting weights. Oh yeah, and every once in a while, he calls radio talk show shrink Dr. Lindsay Gail, pretending that he is a Mexican mental case named Raoul. The befuddled fuzz need to catch this creep before he bench presses himself into the serial killer record books – or decides to take his sacrosanct vendetta out on the dopey brain doctor herself.

Granted, the slasher genre is not the most original motion picture product. The parameters are pretty pat: Weirdo whacks out, grabs any number of kitchen and/or garden implements and begins his reign of garroting, usually because of something sexual in his past. Well, this faux Fat Guy Goes Nutzoid is no different from those formulaic facets, except director Robert Hammer wants to give his Voorhees a religious/risqué background in which to fluff up the motive. Kirk Smith is a fleshpeddler by day, a Jesus freak by night and a random strangler the rest of the time. Indeed, Hammer spends so much time with Smith – in the guise of the powerful, portly Nicholas Worth - that it occasionally feels like we're watching a one man show. Worth really chews up the scenery – which may explain his ever-increasing bulk throughout the course of the narrative – blubbering like a beached beluga as he holds imaginary conversations with himself, his dead dad and his personal Savior. Everything else about the movie – the murders, the Abbott and Costello style cops, the smut subplot – feels tacked on to this crude character study about a maniac making mental mudpies in his personality pants. So why does this film deserve such a low rating when all it is really guilty of is being too self-important to play in the insane slayer sandpit? Well, Rhino has decided to rip out all the sex, nudity and gore. This is the edited version of Don't Answer the Phone, and the censorship strategy renders a great percentage of the movie incomprehensible. Shots from other sections are repeated, the attacks make no sense, and even a romantic subplot is scuttled thanks to the callous cutting. It's interesting to note that Smith's death is partially intact (we see a torrent of blood pouring out of his crotch. Go figure) but as for the rest of this routine Ripper flick, we get none of the clear-cut sanguine satisfaction we desire.

Terrified (1962)
Director: Lew Landers
Level of Stupidity: Inbred Retard
Scariest Thing in the Film: Tracey Olsen's Zombie debutante performance.
Plot: Young Marge has a lot of tragedy in her life. Her mother was killed in an auto accident. Her father was murdered by an unknown assailant. And recently her brother was buried alive in cement and barely made it out in one piece. He survived, but his brain is now officially registered with the endangered species branch of the US Government. The police, when looking for suspects, thought her boyfriend, Ken, looked like a ripe Ed Gein wannabe. But after thorough questioning, he was cleared. Now, a masked killer is running cars off the road and slaughtering drunken caretakers – well, only ONE inebriated groundskeeper - and the local teens decide to solve the mystery, Scooby-Doo style. So naturally, they end up in the city's local ghost town (everybody has one, right?) and get tormented by the hooded horror. It will take the cops, and a rather pat ending, to find out who the maniac really is, and why all paths seem to lead to Marge.

Terrified is an odd experiment in suspense. Trying to match the more simple scares of the 50s and 60s horror film with a minor amount of cinematic invention means that folks will either flock to this fiasco or see it for the suck and jive it really is. Playing like it was edited in real time (we start with a couple nearly run off the road and wind up at what seems like 3 hours later with a police showdown) and using the longest game of lame cat and mouse ever recorded on celluloid, a good subtitle for the movie would be The Neverending Chase Scene. When Ken arrives at the ghost town (which everyone in the film treats like it was the local Dairy Queen, or A&W Root Beer Stand) he meets up with the killer. This is 25 minutes into an 80-minute film. The next 55 minutes are literally him being pursued by the cackling, crazed killer through moldy mockups of whorehouses, saloons and jails. The result is a ridiculous roller coaster of ersatz thrills and mind numbing chills. Poor director Lew Landers (an old Hollywood pro who made a minor name for himself with several off-brand B-movies) tries to liven up the lunkheadedness with a couple of clever conceits (the burying in cement is a nice touch, as is the near drowning in a basement) but it is all for naught. It takes the police so long to arrive at the scene of the crime that we're lucky that more of the cast don't buy the farm at this spooky Six Gun Territory. Our killer would have bagged his limit before the sheriff could hike up his britches. What starts out with promise quickly withers and dies as our fright fest turns into a foot race between a smartly dressed slasher (which should give you a clue right away as to who the murderer is) and a brooding method mook. Add in the constantly disconnected Tracy Olsen, who plays Marge like she's just been smacked across the head with a 2x4, and any hope this film had of monochrome mystery just fizzles like a wet fart.

Disc 1, Side 2 Blood of Dracula's Castle
Director: Al Adamson
Level of Stupidity: Brain Dead Breach Baby
Scariest Thing in the Film: The moronic oversized Mango.
Plot: While taking photos of his less than fetching wench Liz over at Marineland, shutterbug Glen Cannon gets a telegram (how Western Union knew he was there is anyone's guess). Turns out, his rich uncle died, and left him all his...castle. Unfortunately, this desert fortress is currently occupied by Count and Countess Townsend, which apparently is the English translation of the traditional, Transylvanian moniker, "Dracula". They've lived in the palace for eons and don't feel like moving. Our blood-sucking squatters also rely on a gaggle of goofy servants to do their bidding. Valet George makes sure to deliver a fresh glass of blood every night. Mongoloid manservant Mango is in charge of claret procurement. He kidnaps young girls and keeps them locked in the basement, kind of like a wicked wine cellar. Then there is Johnny, a homicidal maniac that the Townsends are quite attached to. After escaping from prison, John instantly goes on a massive killing spree, murdering several people in an effort to get some grub. When Glen and Liz show up to dispossess the renters, our non-vacating vamps spring into action. They decide to sacrifice a girl to Luna, the moon demon, and force the new landlords into signing over the house to them. How terrifying.

Ever have one of those days where it seems time has just decided to stand still? Nothing gets accomplished, you barely feel alive, and minutes seem to drag like an oversized garbage bag loaded with beaver dung on the way to the curbside. Well, multiply that feeling by 50, add in the irritating sensation of dull, witless dialogue bouncing off the inside of your ear canal and then imagine the whole magilla marred by endless moments of meaningless motion picture drivel, and you'll be about one quarter of the way to the dullness dripping from every frame of Al Adamson's Blood of Dracula's Castle. Featuring characters we instantly despise, a completely illogical plot and enough static acting to give Freddie Prinze, Jr., J-Lo and her ex-beau Ben a run for their roteness, this is a vampire movie that is so stupid that it even takes the neck-biting fun out of the narrative. Yep, instead of sucking on napes and relishing the rich gooey goodness, these monotonous members of the living dead have their sanguine repast delivered to them in wine glasses (how gauche!). The resulting 83 minutes of toxic tedium is enough to send you into an instant mood swing of exasperation and aggravation. Those with a tendency toward self-mutilation or suicide should avoid this landfill of a film, just to be on the safe side. There is NOTHING here to even remotely recommend. Our model in the unmaking, Liz, is so dog ugly that even the monsters avoid her touch. Glen, her good for nothing boyfriend responds to emergencies by crawling into the "pre-natal" position. And all the while, John Carradine is standing around, proving that there was never a single moment in his life where he wasn't 103 years old. Supposedly creepy but playing more like a bad paranormal landlord/tenant episode of The People's Court, this is one turd of a title that stops the space/time continuum dead in its progressive tracks.

Nightmare in Wax (1969)
Director: Bud Townsend
Level of Stupidity: Inbred Retard
Scariest Thing in the Film: Cameron Mitchell's loving, longing look at a spare tire.
Plot: A once-famous Hollywood make-up man, Vincent Renard, is horribly disfigured in an argument with a studio head. But instead of calling the police or pressing charges, our mutilated dude decides to work at a wax museum (this happened a lot in the late 60s, apparently). Using a very convoluted system of personal revenge, he kidnaps everyone who's a friend or associate of his one-time ladylove Marie Morgan, and shoots them up with some funky formula he created. The potion renders the people paralyzed, and Renard passes off the stiffs as exhibits in his waxworks. But his latest victim is causing him concern. Boy toy Tony Deen was Marie's fiancé and the glamour gal is all broken up about it. The disappearance has even got the police and studio chief Max Black interested (Max, by the by, is the guy who fudged up Vincent's face). Maria contacts her ex-paramour and requests a favor. She wants the lifelike head of Tony that Vince is "crafting" in his workshop. Little does she know that there is more to this bust than meets the eye (or suspends the disbelief).

Wax museums are pretty spooky places, for lots of reasons – none of which are explored in this paltry piece of paraffin poop. Instead of focusing in on the twitching death nerve wish of Cameron Mitchell's pissed off pancake makeup man, we spend far too much time with twisted tycoon Max Black and 'how did she ever become a famous superstar' Marie Morgan. Indeed, the love quadrangle between Max, Marie, Tony and Mitchell's Vincent is the main reason for why all this ridiculousness exists. There is a small amount of promise in the premise (Max flings a drink at Vincent while he's lighting up, causing the character to flame on like a pair of children's pajamas. Kind of has a nice, nasty nuance to it) and Vincent's zombies as tourist attractions concept is pretty clever. But we never really get to the meat of the massacre. Subplots constantly circumvent the scares (there's a director who wants to use the museum for a movie and a pair of perturbed cops who could not find a clue if one leapt up into their laps) and Mitchell's modus operandi seems suspect at best. If we are to follow his fact pattern all the way through, he appears to be on a killing-filled vendetta against everyone at Paragonamount Fox Studios. Yet if this is all about love and loss, well, he seems to be doing pretty well for a guy with baby vomit on his face (the effects in this film are definitely special...ed!). After all, our scarred lothario gets the most fetching female at the go-go club to pitch woo with - though what she has in stacked staples can't quite compensate for her lack of a brain cell. Indeed, the dumb as a doorstop dancer is one of the highlights of this otherwise routine fright flick. Her blank, barely intelligible blathering is the best thing about this crackpot candle saga. The realm of wax may be truly terrifying, but this Nightmare treats it more like a caustic career move. How odd.

Disc 2, Side 1 The Crater Lake Monster (1977)
Director: William Stromberg
Level of Stupidity: Pseudo Savant
Scariest Thing in the Film: The quasi-homosexual love affair between Arnie and Mitch
Plot: Crater Lake is located in one of those quaint little places where technology and crime have both taken a permanent vacation. It's the kind of community populated by pipe smoking doctors, gruff but lovable good ole boy sheriffs and constantly bonding hillbillies. So when a meteor lands smack dab in the middle of the lagoon, it disrupts the long dormant sleep of Loch Ness's American cousin – Bessie. And this dino is P.O'ed! Taking random bites out of the tourists and snacking on anything that comes within 50ft of its watery abode, this archeological throwback has a tapeworm the size of a redwood and just can't stop snacking. Recognizing that a man-eating monster could be bad for their vacation destination, the town decides to destroy the beast. But first, they have to get past Arnie and Mitch, a couple of flannel wearing "friends" who squabble like an old married couple (not that this is the only thing they do like a pair of newlyweds). Since their "bate and tacle" business is in the toilet – all thanks to the prehistoric predator – they want a little recoup on their inbred investment. And the flipper finned beast is their ticket to 'welth and ritches'.

Now this is more like it. A good old-fashioned monster movie, rendered in good old-fashioned B-movie mannerisms by good old-fashioned stop motion animation. The Crater Lake Monster will remind film fans of such unimaginable mung as The Valley of Gwangi and Dinosaurus! It's 'miniature creatures against a static backdrop' delightfulness is too infectious for words (in both the good and bad connotation of said word). This film is just filled with unintentionally hilarious plot points. A mangy looking guy robs a liquor store, killing two people, all for a $4.95 bottle of Crown Royal. We then IGNORE the double homicide for 15 minutes until the murderer mysteriously arrives in Crater Lake (you just know he's destined for a little amphibious justice). An archeologist and his wife take up the first ten minutes of the movie discussing the importance of their recent find in an old mine shaft. Yet once our star beastie shows up, they're tossed in the storytelling toilet until the final 10 minutes (call then befuddled bookends). Throughout, a couple of kooks named Arnie and Mitch kavetch, ogle the local waitresses, and wrestle in a blatant showing of incredibly latent tendencies. Their will be several times when you'll want these unwashed sons of the soil to get a room, but once you see what their house looks like, you'll realize what a bad idea such a suggestion really is. Director Stromberg just tosses all this silliness together like a seaweed salad and hopes it comes out okay in the translation. And for the most part, he's right. This film is a farce, a bizarre amalgamation of crappy comedy and half-assed creature effects. Still, the result is pure bad movie cheese. Of all the destined for the dumpster drivel in this set, The Crater Lake Monster is strangely satisfying. Even Charles B. Pierce can't say that about his Boggy Creek crap.

Stanley (1972)
Director: William Grefe
Level of Stupidity: Pseudo-Savant
Scariest Thing in the Film: Alex Rocco in swim trunks. **Shudder**
Plot: Tim is a Seminole Indian living in and off the swamps since returning from Vietnam. The isolation and the indigenous life in the Everglades are his only friends, and Tim likes it that way. He is especially fond of Stanley, his pet rattlesnake. Out of the hundreds of bayou buddies he keeps, Stan's the man...err, serpent, and the two are inseparable. When animal skin clothing manufacturer Thompkins proposes Tim help supply his company with scaly samples, old wounds are opened WIDE (apparently, Thompkins men "accidentally" killed Tim's father). So, when one of the mangy mogul's snake skinner goons kills Stanley's "wife" and "children", Tim is determined to see that reptile justice is done. With the help of good old Stan the rattler, Tim gets even with Thompkins, his contract creeps, and a stripper and her husband who have a strange, snake-beheading act as part of a flesh feast floor show. And when Thompkins's daughter sees Tim in action, she too must be silenced. But Stanley is not interested in harming the innocent, and this makes his Seminole master very confused...and crazed

In interviews and commentary tracks, William Grefe consistently sites Stanley as his favorite of all his films. And looking over this auteur's oeuvre with such sensationally insane titles as Sting of Death (featuring a killer jellyfish man!), Death Curse of Tartu (witch doctor death from beyond the grave) and The Hooked Generation (dopes take drugs and do crimes), that's saying a bad movie mouthful. Still, when compared to those aforementioned affectations to awkwardness, Stanley is quite sensible. This is your typical revenge film – ala Willard – mixed with a smidgen of the sentimental – ala Ben. Indeed, Stanley cribs quite a bit from the mad rat movies of the early 70s, mixing a message of animal tolerance with human horribleness to justify all the retribution. And with such visually repugnant villains as Alex Rocco (Moe Green has gone to seed!), Steve Alaimo (a man with aperfect last name) and the shady Sidney Calvin as a crocked nightclub owner (giving Rocco a run for his bad boxer shorts money) Tim's rationale for retribution seems right on track. Actor Chris Robinson can't actually convince us of his character's Native American heritage (he looks like he fell into a vat of bronzer), but he sure is some manner of snake handler. And charmer. His scenes with the reptiles, monologuing his way into a further mental mire are priceless. And the serpent stripper act is just too circus geek for words. Stanley does have its dull parts, and Grefe is far too much in love with the swamps to pass up an opportunity to travelogue. So unless you adore bathing beauty shots of brackish water, you'll think the scenery gets far too much screen time. Never so strange as to become full out camp, but not serious enough to remove the odor of oddness, Stanley is indeed a peculiar pickle. If you could buy Willard's rodent roundelay, you'll slither up to Stanley's fork-tongued terror.

Disc 2, Side 2 Blood Mania (1962)
Director: Robert Vincent O'Neill
Level of Stupidity: Inbred Retard
Scariest Thing in the Film: FAR TOO MUCH MAN ASS!!!
Plot: Ridgley Watermann is a rich old coot with a bum ticker and an even more freeloading family. Youngest daughter Gail is in New York with her matronly "woman friend" and LA-locked offspring Vicki is snooping around like she smells a codicil in the works. Apparently not long for this world - this according to studly Dr. Craig Cooper - Ridgley is doing his best tired tyrant routine. Indeed, everyone in this tainted triangle has problems. Vicki is a psycho who offers sex to anyone within walking distance (including a befuddled pool boy) while her fearsome father is just one angina attack away from an eternity in Hell (perhaps it has something to do with his dreams of raping his own children). Cooper, on the other hand, owes a blackmailer blood money because the crook caught some snaps of the doc de-fetusing femmes, pre-Roe vs. Wade. It would take a miracle, or the untimely death of a wealthy asshole, to straighten out this mess. And wouldn't you know it, our fallible physician has the prescription for a post-mortem pay-off.

No stopover at the Horrible Horrors Hall of Shame would be complete without a repeat visit by everyone's favorite buttcrack flasher Peter Campbell. Last seen proving that there really is such a thing as being both atonal and atalented, as the loser lounge singer in Point of Terror, Pete has tossed aside his Mohair suits and electric boots for the button down (but usually pants off) role of Dr. Craig "Take Two of Me and Ball Me in the Morning" Cooper. About as effective a medico as he was a musician (both prove equally unskilled with their instruments), Pete is rather low-key in this ersatz erotic thriller about greed and goofy nurses. Director Robert Vincent O'Neill (who made the far better The Psycho Lover) is trying for one of those old-fashioned potboilers where everyone has issues and motive is rich and ripe. But his cast constantly lets him down, dragging the narrative away from suspense and into the stillborn every chance they get. Campbell is one of the main offenders, unable to convince us of his bedside – or in bed – manner. But Petey gets a run for his repugnant money in the completely insane performance of Arell Blanton as "The Blackmailer". Giving what has to be the most mannered, ill-considered performance ever by an actor playing a super sleazeball, this 'thinks he's dashing dufus' mispronounces his lines, makes up new words at will and basically swaggers like someone swiped his backbone. He's so hopelessly dopey you can't wait for him to make another smug, onscreen appearance. The rest of the cast is just as unhinged. Maria De Aragon (who supposedly was Greedo – uncredited – in Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope. Go figure) forgets what accent she is trying to hide – French, Canadian or both – as she stumbles along as our nutty nympho. As Kate, the late-in-life lesbian, Jacqueline Dalya is a stitch, delivering her dagger filled dialogue with a strident, studio system severity. And as Nurse Turner, Leslie Simms is a stick figure in search of a sex change. Together they keep Blood Mania from ever being serious. Instead, this is dumbness on a dangerous scale.

The Devil's Hand (1962)
Director: William J. Hole, Jr.
Level of Stupidity: Chuckleheaded
Scariest Thing in the Film: Robert Alda's incredibly odd hairstyle
Plot: Rick Turner and Donna Trent are engaged to be married. Everything seems to be going along swimmingly with their pre-nuptial planning except for one tiny detail: Rick is dreaming – every night – about a seductive blond. One evening, he gets a weird psychic booty call and finds himself wandering near a doll shop. He spies a figurine that looks just like his girlfriend, so the couple stop in the following day to check it out. The proprietor knows him right away, and says the toy that he ordered is ready. No, it is not a replica of his fiancé; it's an imitation of the slinky blond – someone named Bianca Milan. Rick is flummoxed. He's never been in the store before, and he definitely didn't order any doll – blow up or otherwise. Turns out that Rick has fallen into a voodoo cult, whose varied members worship an evil demon called Gamba. Bianca, the night vision vamp herself, is a participant in the paranormal, and she wants Rick all to herself. Thankfully, the merchant behind the handmade mannequins is the ruler of the sick sect. And he has a few Santeria tricks up his sleeve to make the match happen.

Strange, off-kilter and just a slight bit asinine, The Devil's Hand has a lot of promise as it begins its plot puzzle. The set up is particularly potent, with demonic dolls, unanswered questions and uncontrollable night terrors abounding (though why Alda is so scared about a lovely lady giving him the 'come hither' from the Great Beyond is anyone's guess). As the High Holy Priest of Precarious Purgatory, Francis Lamont, Neil Hamilton (far more famous as the original TV Batman's Commissioner Gordon) really turns on the smarm. He registers both sinister and sissified with his 'each word perfectly pronounced' performance. Robert Alda does a decent job of making us believe he is enchanted, but it may just be that he has gas. An why there is even a question as to whom to fall for; the mystery woman Bianca (a peroxided pet named Linda Christian) or the future fishwife Donna (the plain Jane Ariadna Welter) is some manner of male-oriented ambiguity. There are way too many Afro-centric dance numbers to keep one comfortable (apparently director Hole thought that every evil ritual has to have its own bongo-player and members of the Dance Company of Harlem as backup), and yet The Devil's Hand is a pretty good film. It moves along at a quick pace, never really stopping or stalling for petty elements like characterization or cleverness to get in the way. The ending feels rushed, trying to wrap up far too many issues in ten minutes than the narrative could barely maintain, but overall, there is a little fun and the smallest smidgen of fear to be had here. Maybe it's the black and white working its shadow and light enchantment on the viewer, or Hamilton's sedate seriousness, but somehow The Devil's Hand isn't half bad. Just remember, that also means it is not half-good.

With its second volume of video store vomit, Horrible Horrors manages an extremely disconcerting cinematic schizophrenia. On the one hand, heinous examples of no-fun editing and who-cares filmmaking hampers movies like Blood Mania, Nightmare in Wax and Don't Answer the Phone. And for every atrocity like Blood of Dracula's Castle, there's a middling reminder of past possibilities, like Terrified. Heck, there are even the almost acceptable entries like The Crater Lake Monster, The Devil's Hand, or Stanley to compel you to consume. So the quandary becomes a quagmire as you figure out how to approach an overall commendation. The bad films here are just as infuriating, sometimes worse, than those stinking up Horrible Horrors Vol.1. Yet it's hard to say if that first set has anything as imminently watchable as Grefe's snake soap opera or Stromberg's pissed off puppet dinosaur shtick. Stool for scat, this compilation of compost has some really rarified butt clots (damn you Al Adamson). Besides, most of these movies really push the definitional limits of the fright film. Dracula is just a dumb comedy that forgot the jokes, Crater Lake is more sea chantey than scary and Blood Mania misses the macabre mark by a good carnal mile. Sure, if you use the broadest interpretation of terror possible, each and every entry here fits the bogus bill, in one way or another. But overall, Rhino's reconstitution of the Crown International Pictures catalog is perfectly awful. Horrible Horrors is just that: terrible films, dreadfully handled.

The Video:
If there is one area of massive improvement over Volume 1 in this dueling octet of offal, it's in the transfer arena. The following films all contain images and/or prints that are more than admirable: Blood Mania (looking exactly like the lewd 70s TV movie it plays as), The Crater Lake Monster (bright and shiny, with lots of monster details), The Devil's Hand (boffo black and white) and Terrified (equally effective monochrome magic). Both of the films on Disc 1, Side 2 - Dracula and Wax - have age and color correctness issues, yet still present passable digital displays. But the overwhelming winner of the vilest video ever on a DVD award goes to Don't Answer the Phone, not only for it's highly censored content, but for its complete lack of visible contrasts. Stanley looks bad, but was made on the cheap, so some cinematic skittishness is excusable – even if the presentation looks like a 8th generation video dub (Something Weird Video would have treated the title with respect). No, Phone is the home theater loser here, an overly dark, murky and muddled print that is almost unintelligible in its desire to keep you from seeing anything gratuitous or gory. Of all the 1.33:1 full screen visuals here, Kurt Smith's narcissistic non-slasher story is the worst.

The Audio:
It was said before but it bares repeating: unless you long for the days when Phil Specter's wall of sound mixes ruled the radio airwaves (or when the partially deaf Brian Wilson devised his teenage symphonies to God) you won't get worked up over the Dolby Digital Mono soundtracks that accompany these films. Most are audibly sound, while others present the kind of tinny, hissy horrors that DVD was supposed to avoid/improve. There does seem to be more production issues with this set than in Horrible Horrors Vol. 1. Either in the initial recording or in the terrible reproduction, we experience a lot of missed dialogue, line and/or word drop out and some noticeable distortion in several of the soundtracks. How a real life company like Rhino can think this manner of binary bullspit is acceptable is a mystery not even Memorex could figure out.

Extras:
Like the amusement value of most of the movies here, Rhino offers nothing in the way of bonus material. And while one could harp like a hypocrite that something like Blood Mania deserves the typical DVD treatment, that's an argument best left for a couple of decades on a desert island. Maybe a trailer or two could have been included, but the fact that there is no added content for these films is not surprising at all. The movies themselves lack any real substance to begin with.

Final Thoughts:
A great many of us spent some of the best times of our lives sitting in front of the television screen, mouth crammed full of over-processed cakes and candies, waiting with sugar-laced breath for Creature Features or Shock Theater to make its usual Saturday night appearance. And as the credits for the evening's creaky cinematic stinker from the 50s or 60s unspooled, we giggled with glee over what the production company name suggested: from Universal's old school monster goodness to AIP and Corman's ultra low budget fun. But just like the label Sun International (Chariots of the Gods or The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams, anyone?), Crown International Pictures promised something it could never really deliver. There was always disappointment at the end of your snack-jag night in front of the TV set when CIP was around. So why release its baneful back canon? Why, Rhino, why? Perhaps it's just a test, a chance to sample the sale-ability waters. Maybe the company wants to gauge the nostalgia-fueled fervor people will show over Crown's cracked movies before opening up the vaults and unveiling the long lost gems in their collection. Could be that, just like Mother Hubbard, or Bad Ronald, when Rhino did open the grade-Z warehouse, not only was the cupboard bare, but it was also infested with odiferous dreck. Whatever the release reasoning, Horrible Horrors Vol. 2 is a tad better than Vol. 1, which is a lot like saying cow flops are better than pig poots. You're either gonna stink or be uber-stupid after wallowing through all 16 cesspools to bad moviemaking presented on these DVDs.

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