approximately 1.78:1; however, Discs 1 and 3 default to anamorphic playback, which distorts the image within a stretched 2.35:1 frame. Only by “adjusting” the images to fill our widescreen moni- tor were we able to reconfigure the three films on each of these discs to their shared proportion. Discs 2 and 4 are non-anamorphic and require zooming to fill a widescreen monitor. Therefore, the films on Discs 1 and 3 look better than those on 2 and 4 because they are already anamorphic and only require vertical compression. The films on Discs 2 and 4 actually need blowing-up to fill the frame, dulling their resolution. Disc 1: Alfred Sole’s ALICE, SWEET ALICE
Band’s Wizard Entertainment restored the movie to its original form, but was taken from an aged fullscreen master and offered no bonus content. Synapse’s Blu-ray + DVD combo pack ($29.98) offers a new 1080p 1.78:1 HD transfer and supple- mentary materials, including a director/producer commentary.
As an added incentive to acquire the film from the Synapse website (
synapse-films.com), the first 500 copies they sell will include an individually numbered bonus DVD-R of Spiegel’s workprint version with extended, differently edited gore se- quences (also included amongst the extras on the pressed discs) and other material. Both the Blu- ray and DVD versions are all-region and the release retails for $29.95. —John Charles
A Dozen Screams Evaluated
VCI Entertainment has released a bargain set
of four discs under the title SCREAM THEATER, which retails for about $12. Trumpeting “12 Cheap Chills,” the four-disc “Horror Marathon” seems a tempting value, but how’s the quality? Expectedly, it’s a mixed bag but it’s surpris- ing how mixed it really is, and in which ways. For example, all of the films are letterboxed at
6
(1976, 106m 43s) looks like most of the PD cop- ies in circulation, with generally flat colors, salmon skin tones and a low bit rate that does no favors to highly detailed imagery, like the opening shot of tree leaves. John Charles reviewed the film’s Roan Group laserdisc release in VW 40:46, and that transfer (which ran shorter than all previous versions of the movie thanks to some latter day editorial changes by the director) and its Sole com- mentary track were later ported over to DVD re- leases from Anchor Bay and Hens Tooth Video (which both restored the footage Sole had deleted); this earlier edition features the best quality. Eddie Romero’s BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT (1970, 83m 30s), which we reviewed in its “Retromedia Drive-In Theater” DVD incarnation in VW 89:46, looks palely colored by day but ripely colored in its night scenes, and is otherwise fairly crisp. Also directed by Eddie Romero, BEYOND ATLANTIS (1973, 91m 12s), which John Charles reviewed in VW 64:38 as an unmatted full-screen DVD from VCI, appears letterboxed for the first time on disc. It has beautiful color but the image is on the soft side. All three films—all of the films in this set, in fact—sport deep blacks that make the picture quality richer when the source materials are up to it, but which also has a tendency to make lesser material look murky. Disc 2 opens with DEATH GAME (1977, 87m 6s)—an intriguingly sexy but misogynistic film in which Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp seduce a happily-married Seymour Cassel to participate in an evening of increasingly dangerous sex games and psycho-dramas. Unfortunately, it’s the worst- looking film in the set; not only is it fuzzy, but it appears to be a cropboxed presentation of a stan- dard ratio video source. This opinion would seem to be supported by the fact that VCI also offers, at $9.99, a stand-alone DVD presentation in stan- dard, cropped ratio. S.F. Brownrigg’s DON’T OPEN THE DOOR (1975, 85m 19s) is one of the set’s
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