The Good

A cool collection of scary titles to bring in Halloween 2007!

The Bad

No features on Deadly Friend!

The Twisted Terror Collection gives horror movie fans 6 films from the 70s, 80s and 90s that are sure to bring a smile to many faces and also help bring in the new Halloween Season. The films in this collection are:

  • The Hand

  • Dr. Giggles

  • Someone’s Watching Me

  • From Beyond the Grave

  • Deadly Friend

  • Eyes of a Stranger

Written and Directed by Oliver Stone, The Hand shows us what happens when a man becomes a slave to a part of his body. Dr. Giggles is a ghoultastic tale that gives us a glimpse of what happens when a Doctor vows to “Do Harm.” In Someone’s Watching Me the luscious Lauren Hutton is the object of one sick man’s desire. From Beyond the Grave gives horror lovers “a stylish five-episode supernatural shocker.” Deadly Friend shows what happens to a scientist who can’t let his love go. Lastly, Eyes of a Stranger examines the relationship between a blind girl and serial killer!

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

Features

Someone’s Watching Me

John Carpenter: Director Rising

Carpenter sits back here for a very thoughtful discussion about this film. He talks about how the subject matter for it came out of real life, and how the story was very much a product of the 1970s. Now, he claims, “Everyone’s a voyeur.” He then goes on to say that originally the movie was called “High Rise” and that the Warner Bros. executives thought the first draft of the script was too soft. Carpenter then goes on to say that this highly stylized film was shot in 10 days.

The Hand

Video

All the films in the Twisted Terror Collection are in their Widescreen Versions. They are presented in a “matted” widescreen format preserving the aspect ratio its original theatrical exhibition. Enhanced for widescreen TVs. All the movies in this set are in color and while I don’t think Warner Bros. really cleaned them up too much for this release, they all look solid in their presentation. I didn’t notice any hits in the picture or any points where it looked like the prints were falling apart.

Audio

Since there are a bunch of different audio offerings on each disc in terms of stereo, mono, English, Spanish, etc., I am just going to say that all the movies are in Dolby Digital. I thought the sound on the discs was good but it is clear that they weren’t leveled the same way. Does this hurt the movies? Not really, as I doubt most people are going to watch one after the other in one sitting. Basically, just know that you’ll be hitting the volume bottom depending on which DVD you access.

Package

They have given all these old movies a makeover by having the front cover look like something out of this years Captivity marketing campaign. Just imagine a cold, steel cover with an eye peaking out. The back cover showcases all the movies in this set and offers up a thumbnail image and tiny blurb for each. The movies are all packed in amaray cases (why Warner Bros. didn’t go the digipack route I will never know), with each one passing along information that is particular to that film.

Final Word

It would be wrong to put across the idea that the movies in the Twisted Terror Collection are great. While I don’t know that one would call them classics (well maybe The Hand), I think that this eclectic assortment of movies should make fans of this genre want to buy it. Afterall, a lot of movies in this set are just seeing the light of day on DVD for the first time. In addition to this, it’s very nice to see how the styles of these movie evolved over the course of 3 decades. There is a richness to the films in the 1970s that doesn’t seem to have been continued in the later decades. Does this make the films bad? Should they not be added to the list of ceremonious horror movies?

I think not.

At its best the Twisted Terror Collection should be reminder that we call these movies genre films but there’s a lot going on within the realm of horror.

From Beyond the Grave was released February 21, 1974.