The Val Lewton Horror Collection (Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People / I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher / Isle of the Dead / Bedlam / The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship / The Seventh Victim / Shadows in the Dark)

The Val Lewton Horror Collection (Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People / I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher / Isle of the Dead / Bedlam / The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship / The Seventh Victim / Shadows in the Dark) Review

What a great collection.

I already wrote something about "Cat People" on its own DVD page at Amazon, but I wanted to say a couple of things about "The Seventh Victim," which is one of the bleakest films I've ever seen.

It begins with a Metaphysical poem about death ("I run to death and death meets me as fast / And all my pleasures are like yesterday") and never lets up.

A woman is reported missing, and her younger sister (played by Kim Hunter) goes to Greenwich Village looking for her - but not before the (dreary) boarding school administrators tell Hunter (an orphan) never to return.

Hunter discovers her sister's apartment contains nothing but a chair, over which is a hanging noose. And there's a murder. And a satanic cult. And two creepy guys on a subway with a corpse. And a dying neighbor. And three people in love with objects of desire they can't have. And an attempt to get someone to commit suicide. And a shower scene that momentarily seems to anticipate the famous scene in "Psycho." And then there's that ending.

And all of this occurs in just a little over an hour!

The Val Lewton Horror Collection (Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People / I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher / Isle of the Dead / Bedlam / The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship / The Seventh Victim / Shadows in the Dark) Feature

• Val Lewton, a famous RKO Radio Pictures producer, redefined the horror genre with low-budget, high-box office films. Now available are nine of these horrorics on DVD in the all new Val Lewton Horror Collection. Exclusive to the collection are a new documentary on the producer and 3 of the 9 films. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION Rating: NR Age: 053939727029 UPC: 

The Val Lewton Horror Collection (Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People / I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher / Isle of the Dead / Bedlam / The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship / The Seventh Victim / Shadows in the Dark) Overview

Val Lewton, a famous RKO Radio Pictures producer, redefined the horror genre with low-budget, high-box office films. Now available are nine of these horror classics on DVD in the all new Val Lewton Horror Collection. Exclusive to the collection are a new documentary on the producer and 3 of the 9 films.

DVD Features:
Audio Commentary:Greg Mank with Simone Simon on Cat People and Curse of the Cat People, Kim Newman and Steve Jones on I Walked With a Zombie, Steve Haberman with Robert Wise on The Body Snatcher, Tom Weaver on Bedlam, and Steve Haberman on The Seventh Victim.
Documentaries:Shadows In The Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy
Theatrical Trailer

The Val Lewton Horror Collection (Cat People / The Curse of the Cat People / I Walked with a Zombie / The Body Snatcher / Isle of the Dead / Bedlam / The Leopard Man / The Ghost Ship / The Seventh Victim / Shadows in the Dark) Specifications

Val Lewton's name is synonymous with the subtlest, most mysterious brand of horror filmmaking in Hollywood's golden age, and the nine horror classics he produced at RKO between 1942 and 1946 constitute the most remarkable cycle of creativity in B-movie history. (For the record, the Lewton/RKO legacy also includes two non-horror entries, Youth Runs Wild and Mademoiselle Fifi.)

Before becoming a film producer, the Russian-born Lewton was a prolific writer of pulp fiction, nonfiction, and a couple of pornographic novels. He also worked for years as assistant to David O. Selznick, a legendary producer with a distinctive personal signature--and a flair for grandiosity Lewton himself never emulated. It's ever so revealing that, on Selznick's Gone With the Wind, it was Lewton who came up with the idea for the famous rising shot of the Atlanta railyard filled with Southern wounded, with the Confederate flag streaming above--only he idly proposed it as a joke, never imagining that anyone would actually film such a spectacularly ambitious scene.

In 1942 Lewton left Selznick to undertake a series of horror films for RKO Radio Pictures. The studio would give him a budget around 0,000 per picture and a title RKO deemed to be grabby; Lewton would have a free hand as long as he stayed on budget, used the title, and gave the studio a salable movie of second-feature length (around 70 minutes). Over time, Lewton would increasingly have trouble with studio supervisors, but RKO was the right place for him. Although low in the pecking order among Hollywood majors, the studio made up for its lack of MGM-style glamour and Warner Bros. grit-and-gusto by working in a finely filigreed, almost miniaturist style. The art department under Van Nest Polglase and Albert S. D'Agostino was capable of exquisite artisanry, and in Nicholas Musuraca, a master of low-key cinematography and supple camerawork, Lewton found an invaluable collaborator in creating moody shadow-worlds where what you couldn't see was more disquieting than what you could.

He was also fortunate in having Jacques Tourneur to direct his first three efforts (they had teamed years earlier on the Bastille-storming sequence for Selznick's A Tale of Two Cities). They scored first time out of the gate with both a popular hit and a masterpiece: Cat People (1942). The story involves a pretty young Serbian woman in Manhattan (Simone Simon) convinced that her ancestors had practiced animal worship during the Middle Ages--and that she herself might shape-change into a lithe, ravening panther if her passions were aroused. The film is uncannily successful in keeping the viewer guessing whether this is a phobia borne of morbid obsession and sexual repression, or a genuine, horrific possibility. There are two sequences of matchless artistry and almost unbearable suspense--a lonely, echoing walk through pools of lamplight alongside Central Park, and a late-night swim in a deserted indoor pool--that build to throat-grabbing climaxes and remain milestones in the history of screen horror.

Many critics feel that the second Lewton-Tourneur endeavor, I Walked With a Zombie (1943), is both men's finest work. The title is so lurid that the heroine-narrator (Frances Dee) must shrug it off with her very first words, yet the movie is an amazingly delicate and poetic piece of spellbinding--nothing less than a reworking of Jane Eyre on a voodoo island in the Caribbean. Other horror aficionados prefer the more mainline ferocity of The Leopard Man (1943), an adaptation of a Cornell Woolrich story about a serial killer strewing corpses along the U.S.-Mexican border. Although on one level this is the Lewton film that veers closest to conventional mystery-suspense, there's no end of unsettling ambiguity (another black panther on the loose!) and hints of occultism and religious mania.

RKO promoted Tourneur to A-movies after this; Lewton would never again have so masterly a directorial partner. Yet in a weird sense (which is only appropriate), this underscores how much Lewton--with his wealth of arcane historical lore and storytelling archetypes, his quiet, patient attention to detail, and his taste for oblique narrative--was the essential auteur of all his films. Promoting first Mark Robson and then Robert Wise from the editing table, Lewton went on to make the deeply mysterious The Seventh Victim (1943) and The Ghost Ship (1943), two films in which such grotesque elements as Satan worship and murderous psychopathology are folded away inside eerily drifty, almost becalmed sleepwalks into eternal night. The Seventh Victim--a movie populated with more walking dead than Lewton's out-and-out zombie picture--is one of the cinema's supreme meditations on the ways lives brush against one another in the spaces of a great, impersonal city. And The Ghost Ship (the rarest of Lewton's films, owing to a ruinous copyright suit) is like a fever dream from which the viewer never awakens.

That's enough for a legacy, surely. Yet there remain The Curse of the Cat People (1944), a sequel that is not quite a sequel, a pretend-horror movie that's really a contemplation of the fragility of childhood; Isle of the Dead (1945), a doomed reverie about travelers who escape the Goya-esque chaos of a 19th-century war only to be beset with plague on a miasma-shrouded island; The Body Snatcher (1945), an atmospheric Robert Louis Stevenson adaptation that invokes the grisly history of graverobbers Burke and Hare, and supplies a together-again-for-the-last-time occasion for Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi; and Bedlam (1946), the Hogarth painting come to life to portray the real-life horrors of an 18th-century insane asylum. Bedlam's critical and box-office failure ended Lewton's quasi-independent status at RKO; he would live to make only three other, unsuccessful films.

James Agee, the premier American film critic of the 1940s, reckoned that Val Lewton was one of the three foremost creative figures in Hollywood--an assessment yet more impressive when we consider that the other two were Charles Chaplin and Walt Disney. His greatest films--Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie, The Seventh Victim--are towering achievements, and even his half-realized projects are haunting experiences, the products of an utterly distinctive sensibility. This is an extraordinary collection. --Richard T. Jameson

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Pokemon Movie Collection (The First Movie/The Movie 2000/Pokemon 3)

Pokemon Movie Collection (The First Movie/The Movie 2000/Pokemon 3) Review

Although we own all the video games and tons of cards, and watch the TV show, I was trying to avoid buying the DVD movies. Then came the day when we just had to have them. And not just some of them, of course, but all eight. I won't talk about the content itself, because the quality is somewhat uneven, but if you have to have them, and you know you do, this three pack is a little easier, and a little cheaper, than getting them separately.

Pokemon Movie Collection (The First Movie/The Movie 2000/Pokemon 3) Overview

All three Pokeman features in the same place.

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Stuart Little Movie Collection

Stuart Little Movie Collection Review

My grandson is 3 and he LOVES Stuart Little and I was more than happy to
purchase the collection for him. It's also fun watching Hugh Laurie (he's
so diffent from his character in House)show his compassionate, loving,
parental side.

Stuart Little Movie Collection Overview

STUART LITTLE(DELUXE EDITION), STUART LITTLE 2 SPECIAL EDITION, STUART LITTLE 3 CALL OF THE WILD

Stuart Little Movie Collection Specifications

Goodbye realistic family with an implausible child, hello animated world of make believe. Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild takes a marked departure from the realistic footage of the Little family and a skillfully animated mouse son in Stuart Little and Stuart Little 2 with this fully animated presentation that views like just another animated cartoon television show. That said, the story and action are good. While Stuart may be tiny and have a reputation as delicate, he's determined to prove his strength and independence during his family's summer stay in a cabin on the shores of Lake Garland. Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) pleads to be allowed to join the Lake Scouts where he seems destined to be unsuccessful in spite of much perseverance. He develops an unlikely friendship with a skunk named Reeko (voiced by Wayne Brady), but that friendship leads Stuart and his cat Snowbell (voiced this time by Kevin Schon) to the brink of disaster with "The Beast" that lives in the woods. Can courage, ingenuity and the bonds of true friendship overcome the wrath and brute strength of a ferocious monster? This third movie in the Stuart Little collection remains true to its predecessors in its wholesome message and fast-paced adventure, but the full animation is definitely disappointing. (Ages 4 to 10 years) --Tami Horiuchi

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Fox Horror Classics Collection (The Lodger / Hangover Square / The Undying Monster)

Fox Horror Classics Collection (The Lodger / Hangover Square / The Undying Monster) Review

3 films from the 20th Century Fox vaults that i'm proud to add to my dvd collection. Two of the films, The Lodger and Hangover Square, features the very underrated Laird Cregar in what I believe were his only 2 starring roles. What a fantastic actor this gentleman was and thankfully with the release of this box set, will always be. Other reviews have revealed the films storylines so I won't go into that. IMO Mr. Cregars own tortured private life spills over into his acting in both films which also adds a note of sadness and sympathy to both performances. With beautiful leading ladies, Merle Oberon in The Lodger and Linda Darnell in Hangover Square plus the exquisite b/w photography of foggy victorian England make both of these films a winner in my book.I also enjoyed the commentary of Hangover Square featuring the second leading lady of that film, Faye Marlowe. The only other work I have seen Miss Marlowe in is Fox's 1945 hit Junior Miss with Peggy Ann Garner. It's a treat to hear her take on the studio system and her very short film career. Not to mention what a lovely young lady she was. The third film in this box set is one I had never seen or even heard of. The Undying Monster. A "B" picture that is as classy looking as any "A" production I have seen. The film stars "B" leading actors James Ellison and Heather Angel. Miss Angel is one of my favorites who also had good roles in The Informer, Pride and Prejudice and Cry Havoc. Spooky atmosphere, a gothic castle on a cliff and first rate b/w photography imo make this little gem as good as any of the classic horror flicks that Universal was making at the time. I highly recommend this set to add to your own collection. They truly don't make them like this anymore but thanks to dvd can be enjoyed over and over again.

Fox Horror Classics Collection (The Lodger / Hangover Square / The Undying Monster) Feature

Fox Horror Classics Collection (The Lodger / Hangover Square / The Undying Monster) Overview

This three-disc collection of vintage suspense from the Fox vaults not only presents three atmospheric and underrated thrillers in sparkling remastered formats, but also serves as a long-overdue tribute to the talents of director John Brahm and actor Laird Cregar, who stars in two of the three films. 1944's The Lodger is probably the best-known of the three; it's a remake of a 1926 Alfred Hitchcock film and stars Cregar as a mysterious house guest who may be Jack the Ripper. Cregar is top-billed in 1945's Hangover Square as another psychologically tormented soul; here he's a concert pianist (Bernard Herrmann composed the film's stunning concerto) who flies into a psychotic rage at the sound of a dissonant chord. And 1942's The Undying Monster is the "truest" horror title in the collection due to its werewolf plotline, but there's more than a touch of detective drama (and scientific procedural) in its frames as well. All three pictures are distinguished by German-born director Brahm, whose expressionistic visual style and emphasis on psychological terror over physical frights help to set these films apart from the monster-driven horror films coming from Universal at the same time. He's aided considerably by Cregar, who set the standard for movie madmen for decades to come. In addition to their stunning remastering, all three films feature in-depth featurettes on their principal players and histories. Concerto Macabre: The Films of John Brahm traces the director's offbeat career (after making an impact with the three films featured here, he concentrated almost exclusively on TV, where his output included stellar episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits), while The Tragic Mask: The Laird Cregar Story explores the oversized actor's struggle with typecasting and his homosexuality. The Lodger gets its own making-of documentary, The Man in the Attic, which explores Brahm's stunning visual compositions and Cregar's intense performance in detail. Trailers and advertising galleries for all three pictures are included, as are two complete radio adaptations of The Lodger and Hangover Square, both starring Vincent Price, who became Fox's in-house heavy after Cregar's untimely death at 31. Commentary on Hangover Square by film historians Richard Schickel and Steve Haberman with cast member Faye Marlowe, and James Ursini and Alain Silver on The Lodger, round the extras on this chill-filled set. -- Paul Gaita

Fox Horror Classics Collection (The Lodger / Hangover Square / The Undying Monster) Specifications

A Three Movie Collection of Fox Horror Classics!THREE classic creepy tales in one collection priced to sell & guaranteed to set your spine tingling. From Jack the Ripper to a werewolf on the loose... there is something for everyone.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR UPC: 024543466796 Manufacturer No: 2246679

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