This short survey of Anchor Bay focuses on their most recent DVD and video releases, all available in time for Halloween '98.

Dracula--Prince of Darkness
Now available on DVD for $29.99.

Dracula--Prince of Darkness is one of Hammer's best Dracula movies. Filmed seven years after Christopher Lee first donned the cape in Dracula (American title: Horror of Dracula), Dracula--Prince of Darkness brims with a decadent, edgy atmosphere that is occasionally punctured by bristling bursts of violence. The plot itself is fairly ordinary stuff: a group of four travelers forgoes the warnings of villagers and ends up stranded in the vicinity of Dracula's castle. With no alternatives available, the travelers accept the invitation of Dracula's servant and spend the night in the castle. In the most shocking and innovative resurrection scene of Hammer's entire Dracula series, the servant lures one of the travelers away from the rest of the party, kills him, strings him up over Dracula's tomb, and then slices open his throat. The flood of blood mixes with the ashes and Dracula quickly takes form. Other choice scenes include the vampirization of Barbara Shelley and later her staking by Father Sandor (Andrew Keir). The movie is occasionally marred by some lapses in logic and the ending is a disappointment, with Dracula teetering on a piece of ice ("like a circus act" says Christopher Lee on the DVD's audio commentary track), but overall Dracula--Prince of Darkness is one of the most tension-filled movies in the entire Hammer canon. The DVD edition is letterboxed at 2.35:1 ratio and contains several extras, including audio commentary by actors Christopher Lee, Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews, and Susan Farmer; a behind-the-scenes home movie; a so-so episode of World of Hammer entitled "Dracula & and the Undead"; and theatrical trailers. The audio commentary is fun to listen to (but it's mostly fluffy stuff) as the lead actors discuss their experiences on the set of the movie (with Lee providing most of the commentary).

Quatermass and the Pit
Now available on DVD for $29.99.

The first two movies in the Quatermass saga--The Quatermass Experiment (U.S. title: The Creeping Unknown) and Quatermass 2 (U.S. title: Enemy from Space)--have always received the most attention, but arguably the best movie in the series is Quatermass and the Pit (U.S. title: Five Million Years to Earth). It's one of the most underrated sci-fi movies ever made, an ambitious and thought provoking film that manages to rewrite human history and the nature of religion. Based on the Nigel Kneale-scripted BBC classic television series of the same name, Quatermass and the Pit followed the first two Quatermass movies by ten years. Hammer's first two Quatermass movies starred Brian Donlevy as the professor. His interpretation of Professor Quatermass was abrupt and cold-as-ice. In this go round, Andrew Keir plays the professor and he's a major improvement. He doesn't allow Quatermass's determination to trample his humanity. The plot itself provides us with a strange object discovered during subway construction in London, England. The military believes the object is an unexploded German bomb (a highly plausbile plot-device considering unexploded German WWII bombs were frequently discovered in London); however, we soon learn that the object may in fact be an ancient spaceship. The DVD edition is letterboxed at 1.66:1 ratio and includes several extras, including audio commentary by director Roy Ward Baker and writer Nigel Kneale; an episode of World of Hammer entitled "Sci-Fi"; and theatrical trailers. The audio commentary is disappointing. Baker and Kneale frequently watch the movie in silence until an uncredited interviewer prods them.
[Related link: video review of Quatermass and the Pit]

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
Now available on DVD for $29.99.

If you'd like a lesson in how movie distributors can screw up a movie, this DVD provides a perfect opportunity. On the DVD, you'll find two versions of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires. The first version is the original, uncut version (89 minutes). And the second version is the American release version, as re-edited, re-titled (as The Seven Brothers Meet Dracula), and distributed by Dynamite Entertainment (75 minutes). The original movie, as delivered by director Roy Ward Baker, is a severely flawed but inspired piece of horror filmmaking. Filmed in partnership with Shaw Brothers in Hong Kong, The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires gives us a bizarre mix of European and Asian attitudes toward vampires, mixed with some martial arts sequences. Peter Cushing stars in familiar guise as vampire hunter Van Helsing. He ventures to China to help destroy the 7 Golden Vampires, who have been calling the dead to rise from their graves and march as an army on the neighboring town. Cushing is assisted by the fetching Julie Ege and a squadron of martial arts experts. The DVD is letterboxed at 2.35:1 ratio. (The DVD cover erroneously indicates that Peter Cushing narrates the audio-only vampire story included on the DVD. I don't know who the narrator is, but he definitely isn't Peter Cushing.)
[Related link: video review of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires]

The Satanic Rites of Dracula
Now available on DVD for $29.99.

The Satanic Rites of Dracula followed the lead of Dracula AD 1972 by giving us a Dracula tale set in the present day. However, the Dracula legend drew much of its power from its relationship to Victorian England and Transylvania, as shown by previous Hammer movies such as Dracula (U.S. title: Horror of Dracula) and Dracula--Prince of Darkness. Without a gothic atmosphere, the vampire legend lost much of its force. But by this time, however, with each movie providing dwindling returns, Hammer was desperate to try new directions. The Satanic Rites of Dracula was not the answer. In fact Warner Bros. (the studio that typically released Hammer movies in America) refused to release Satanic Rites. The movie collected dust for five years before it finally found a distributor in America (and then it was distributed as Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride, never mind that no bride exists in the movie!). In many ways, it's one of Hammer's more disappointing vampire movies, with Christopher Lee as Dracula making little more than a cameo appearance in the final reel. Until then, the movie resembles a plodding version of The Avengers (with Joanna Lumley in a supporting role, who would indeed star in The New Avengers just two years later). Most of the movie's best scenes involve Peter Cushing as a vampire hunter. The DVD edition is letterboxed at 1.85:1 ratio and features a so-so episode of World of Hammer entitled "Dracula & the Undead."
[Related link: video review of The Satanic Rites of Dracula]

Daughters of Darkness
Now available on DVD for $29.99.

This director's cut version of Daughters of Darkness restores the movie to its original length of 100 minutes. This is the version of the movie that was originally released in Europe. American versions have long been truncated to just 87 minutes. The hypnotically beautiful Delphine Seyrig stars as Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who may or may not be the infamous "Scarlet Countess" herself who bathed in the blood of 300 virgins to maintain her youth (c. Hungary in the 16th and 17th centuries). Seyrig (who also starred in the equally unusual Last Year in Marienbad) has a beguiling smile that will turn the knees weak of both men and women. When she arrives at a seaside hotel in Belgium, she is accompanied by a stunningly sensual young lady (Andrea Rau) with large eyes, pouty lips, and a Dutch bob haircut (reminiscent of silent film star Louise Brooks). Seyrig and Rau soon stare longing at a newlywed couple: "Look how perfect they are," she says. She's a little too happy to see them, a little too willing to ingratiate herself with these strangers, and we know that spells trouble for the newlyweds. John Karlen (who played Willie in the TV horror/soap opera Dark Shadows) stars as the husband and Daniele Ouimet (a former Miss Canada) stars as the wife. Daughters of Darkness is a stylish, cold, and sinister meditation on sex, compliancy, and vampirism. The DVD edition is letterboxed at 1.66:1 ratio and features audio commentary from actor John Karlen and journalist David Del Valle. Karlen clearly had a blast watching the movie again. Del Valle keeps the commentary focused, while Karlen provides many behind-the-scenes insights.
[Related link: video review of Daughters of Darkness]

Day of the Dead
Now available on DVD for $29.99 and VHS for $14.98.

When George Romero's Day of the Dead was released to theaters in 1985, most fans of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead were disappointed. Fourteen years later ... Day of the Dead is still the weakest of Romero's "living dead" trilogy, but it's not the complete failure that it appeared on first viewing. Because it was the third and supposedly final installment of the series, audiences expected the movie to provide the series with a powerful concluding episode, but the movie doesn't provide a conclusion. Instead, it simply provides us with a story told from the perspective of another small pocket of human survivors. The biting, satirical social commentary of Dawn of the Dead has been replaced by an oh-so-obvious military vs. science dichotomy. Basically, the rural house of Night of the Living Dead has been transformed into an underground military/scientific complex with thousands of zombies waiting to get inside. Just as before, the people bicker and complain. Only now, we have to sit through over an hour of talk before the shit hits the fan. On the plus side, the movie gives us an eerie version of a future where the surviving humans place zombies in holding cells and conduct gory experiments. A semi-intelligent zombie named "Bub" emerges who is capable of learning. But any potential this scenario has for satirical commentary is wasted once the movie erupts in the inevitable splatters of brain and viscera. The DVD and video editions are both letterboxed at 1.85:1 ratio and feature "behind-the-scenes" footage.

Q--The Winged Serpent
Now available on DVD for $29.99.

Directed by Larry Cohen (who also directed the infamous monster-baby movie, It's Alive), Q could have been just another cheesy monster movie--the kind that Roger Corman's New World studios turned out by the dozen in the '70s and '80s. While Q is indeed cheesy, in a charming sort of way, it also contains a first-class cast, led by Michael Moriarty, who delivers an inspired, method-acting performance. He sweats profusely, mutters incoherently, and stumbles around the sets while grinning like a fool who has just seen the face of God. In a sense, he has seen the face of God, except it's an Aztec god, a fearsome dragon-like creation named Quetzalcoatl that has been summoned to modern-day New York City. It has built a nest in the top of the Chrysler Building. Occasionally, it zips around the neighborhood, plucking its victims from rooftops (with an apparent appetite for sexy female sunbathers). The DVD edition edition is letterboxed at 1.85:1 ratio.
[Related link: video review of Q--The Winged Serpent]

The Night Stalker/The Night Strangler
Now available on DVD for $29.99.

This DVD double-feature presentation allows us to see Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) in action again. I still remember seeing The Night Stalker when it first appeared on TV in 1971, and it scared the bejesus out of me. Indeed, Kolchak's late-hour prowl through the vampire's house is still pretty scary stuff. When he discovers a woman tied up to a bed, apparently as a snacking tidbit for the vampire, it's still quite shocking. But the rest of the movie is a little bit of a let down. The 90-minute made-for-TV time slot forces the movie to skip too quickly past the vampire's first appearances. In comparison, The Night Strangler, which seemed like a total failure back in 1972, fares much better today. With less time devoted to Kolchak's run-ins with the newspaper editors and more time devoted to actually chasing the monster, The Night Strangler creates a more palpable and unnerving sense of tension, involving a subterranean world long-buried beneath modern construction in Seattle, Washington. However, the confrontation with the "strangler" himself (Richard Anderson playing a variation on the Phantom from Phantom of the Opera) is a disappointment. Still, both of these movies make for fun viewing. Ralph Meeker, Carol Lynley, Charles McGraw, Claude Akins, and Simon Oakland co-star in The Night Stalker and Wally Cox, Jo Ann Pflug, Margaret Hamilton, John Carradine, Simon Oakland, and Al Lewis co-star in The Night Strangler.

Zombie
Now available on DVD for $29.99.

After George Romero's Dawn of the Dead attracted huge audiences around the world, Lucio Fulci responded with Zombie. Promoted as a Dawn of the Dead sequel in many countries, Zombie lacks the satirical commentary of Dawn of the Dead. Instead, it gives us a sobering blast of physical violence with not an iota of humor. In one scene, a zombie slowly pulls actress Olga Karlatos' face toward a splintered fragment of wood and the camera stares unflinchingly as her eye is impaled. This is the kind of scene that Fulci fans adore. Most of the acting in Zombie is amateurish, with Tisa Farrow (Mia's sister) providing some stunningly stiff support. However, British actor Richard Johnson lends the movie some respectability. This movie contains some of Fulci's most atmospheric filmmaking. Particularly harrowing is the film's opening sequence, when a deserted ship drifts into New York harbor and police jump on board. A zombie interrupts the investigation by ripping the neck out of a policeman. But most of the best scenes take place on a jungle island where the verdant, hot-house environment is equated with decadence and decay. Soon after Zombie's release in 1979, the Italian film industry cranked out scores of cannibal and zombie movies. The DVD edition of Zombie is letterboxed at 2.35:1 ratio and features audio commentary by actor Ian McCulloch and the editor of Diabolik Magazine, Jason J. Slater.

Shivers
Now available on VHS for $14.98.

Released in the United States as They Came From Within, this movie was advertised as Frissons in most other countries around the world. By calling this release Shivers, Anchor Bay has restored the movie's original title. The first of director David Cronenberg's low-budget Canadian-made films, Shivers contains little of the polished filmmaking that we've come to expect of Cronenberg. While Cronenber's Dead Ringers and Crash have the gloss of a carefully polished Mercedes Benz, Shivers is like a hand-painted Chevy Nova. In an interview also included on this video, Cronenberg freely admits that when he started work on Shivers he didn't really know what a director was supposed to do. As a result, the movie frequently looks amateurish, with awkward camera angles and poor compositions. But the movie's crudities actually help contribute to the movie's atmosphere of sexual deviationism. The plot itself involves the residents of Starliner Towers, a self-sufficient apartment building with its own stores and medical office. After a doctor plants a parasite within the body of a promiscuous young woman, the parasite multiplies and spreads throughout the apartment complex. The doctor created the parasite as a means of releasing the sexual inhibitions of its host. Therefore, as the parasite spreads to new hosts, the apartment complex's residents become grinning sex fiends who turn riotous and hunt down the uninfected. This is one of Cronenberg's most disturbingly perverse movies. In one of the movie's most notorious scenes, a parasite (which looks like a crawling turd) slithers out of a bathtub drain and between the legs of the reclining bather (horror movie icon Barbara Steele). This video includes a 15-minute interview with Cronenberg.