He Is Going To Eat You! One of the island inhabitants of Del Tenney’s ZOMBIE, also known as I EAT YOUR SKIN.
is what appears on the VCI DVD. The success of BLOOD CULT enabled Lewis to proceed with his second SOV feature, 1985’s THE RIPPER (also re-released by VCI but not part of this collection): Tom Savini continues to apolo- gize to this day for his top-billed cameo role in the latter. Instead, VOLUME 5 continues with Lewis’ sequel to BLOOD CULT, known simply as RE- VENGE (1986, 99m 33s), which picks up exactly where the origi- nal leaves off and expands the Caninus conspiracy as the cult- ists (now shown to have legiti- mate supernatural powers) try to wrest their ritual land from the rightful ownership of one Gracie Moore (the returning Bennie Lee McGowan). With two feature projects now under his belt, Lewis expands his horizons to attempt some legitimate action scenes and can now afford a couple of additional “name” performers, but the thoroughly disinterested lead Patrick Wayne (SINBAD AND THE EYE OF THE TIGER) is
out-performed by pretty much every amateur in the cast. At least John Carradine’s there to do his Carradine thing as a powerful senator at the top of the Caninus barking order. Though it’s 10m longer than the original, RE- VENGE entertains somewhat more successfully—at least until writer/director Lewis neglects to come up with an ending. RE- VENGE was shot on 16mm and is identical in quality to the old UHV tape.
As was the case with DON’T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, Bob “Benjamin” Clark’s 1972 cult classic CHILDREN SHOULDN’T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (VW 54:54) was originally released to tape by Gorgon Video before be- coming a public domain standby. Unless one counts the quickly- recalled first pressing of VCI’s previous “35th Anniversary Ex- humed Edition” DVD, missing footage has never been an issue with this title (86m 24s), but the inexcusably dark and smeary transfer offered here to kick off
VOLUME 6 presents CHILDREN at its very worst. The “zombie” theme offers a very tenuous link to the co-feature, the original 1987 release version of Roger Evans’ FOREVER EVIL (see re- view elsewhere in this issue). In either case, VCI’s stand-alone releases offer a lot more than can be had here. If VOLUME 6 is completely
disposable, VOLUME 7 is quite the eye-opener, containing two titles most assuredly not stocked by American video stores in the 1980s. Leading off is Manuel Caño’s delirious, necrophilia- flavored THE SWAMP OF THE RAVENS (1974, 87m 39s), scripted by Santiago Moncada of CUTTHROATS 9 and BELL FROM HELL and reviewed in its Something Weird Video incar- nation way back in VW 24:23. The plot may seem to come straight out of a Jess Franco film (obsessed medico refuses to cur- tail his highly unethical “resurrec- tion” experiments), but the secret swamp laboratory, the dormant
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