while in the midst of a giant gay hug of joy?
This is from newsarama:
VINCENT PRICE: MGM SCREAM LEGENDS COLLECTION (MGM) (8 DVDs)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Dr. Phibes Rises Again
Madhouse
Tales of Terror
Theater of Blood
Twice Told Tales
Vincent Price Disc of Horrors
Witchfinder General
THE FLY COLLECTION (Fox) (4 DVDs)
Halloween is just around the corner, and who better to usher in my second favorite holiday of all time than that true master of the macabre, Vincent Price.
Now MGM has thrown us a rather tasty treat in collecting a number of the films he did for American Independent. The earlier films, ranging from Tales of Terror through the Phibes films are what you will truly want. Tales (1962) is one of Roger Cormans many adaptations of the shorts of Edgar Allan Poe, specifically the shorts The Black Cat, A Cask of Almontillado, and The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar. It featured a solid supporting cast in the likes of Peter Lorre and Peter Cushing, but what really sells this film is the tight script adaptation by Richard Matheson, who took full advantage of the gothic elements of Poes work and milked them for all they were worth.
The same could not quite be said of the sequel, Twice Told Tales. Gone were the Poe tales for his contemporary/colleague/rival Nathaniel Hawthorne. Also gone are Cushing and Lorre, being replaced by the likes of Sebastian Cabot. So are Corman and Matheson. While Price himself is up to each and every role he plays in these three shorts, the rest of the film comes off as workmanlike when compared to Tales.
Still, Price would hit his peak with the Phibes films and Theater of Blood. In the first two, Price pushed goth horror to its absolute limit with this particularly manic creation. The particular gem is Dr. Phibes Rises Again, where the mad undead doctor goes to Egypt to recreate some of the most grisly murders ever committed in the early 1970s. As for Theater, this film was a personal Price favorite, where Shakespeare and a number of theater critics get butchered in the most unsettling ways. It didnt hurt that he had the future Dame Diana Rigg adding some deliciously dangerous class to the film either.
As it turns out, the last two films in this collection were not favorites of Price. He found them, well, too violent. Still, both Madhouse and Witchfinder have their moments. The final disk, which adds an incredible amount of depth to the history of the man and his films, rounds out this set magnificently.
For the record, the Fly collection represented here is the original series of films in which Price starred in two, not the equally chilling remakes developed by David Cronenberg. The first actually starred David Hedison (later Captain Crane of Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea) as a scientist whos experimenting in teleportation goes notoriously wrong. Price plays Hedisons suffering brother Francois, who must try to get to the bottom of what happened. As it turns out, Prices Francois must come to the rescue one more time in Return of the Fly. This time its Hedisons son, Phillipe (Brett Halsey), who sports the gigantic head. Whats amazing is the sequel holds up quite well when compared to the original. Both were solid sci-fi horror films, and this in a time before Price became the prince of panic.
Still, the real treat is the inclusion of the third film in the franchise, The Curse of the Fly. Shot six years after Return, what this low budget British offering lacked in the absence of Price, it made up with some truly grotesque monsters and plausible acting from a cast that included B-movie veteran Brian Donlevy. Its a truly creepy movie no matter how you look at it.
Whats fascinating is the last disk included in the series. It not only includes a Biography special on Price, but also a serious examination of the entire series. No matter how you look at it, this is a great set of films about science going too far and well worth having in its own right.
