Product Description: Chronicles the history of horror films from the silent era to present day. Genre: Documentary Rating: NR Release Date: 5-SEP-2006 Media Type: DVD
Amazon.com: "What frightens me is not so much the obvious monster. What frightens me is the unknown, the fear that my mind is not in control, that there is something out there that nobody knows about." So says Roger Corman, king of the B picture, helping to set the tone for this richly detailed survey of the horror film. Introduced and hosted by veteran horror actor Christopher Lee, and written and directed by Ted Newsom (the director of Ed Wood--Look Back in Angora), this documentary is clearly a labor of love. There is on view a "blood feast" of film clips and sometimes priceless interviews with filmmakers. As our host, Christopher Lee offers up funny anecdotes about his days at Hammer Studios; you might be interested in knowing why being The Mummy was a literal pain. Exploitation film director Herschell G. Lewis is hilarious on why you shouldn't worry about opening gory films in Peoria, and how the censor board was stymied by the bloodiest of films. And John Carpenter tells how Suspiria director Dario Argento worked from his dreams like Luis Bunuel. Notably missing is any mention of Stephen King, Brian De Palma, or Sam Raimi. Raimi alone could have been the focus of a whole section devoted to the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on modern horror films. Also, the filmmakers seem less interested in the sections on science fiction for some reason, despite critics' estimates that half of all science fiction films fall clearly in the horror genre. Nevertheless, the interviews and film clips make this disc worth the price of admission. --Jim Gay
