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Goodies

By: Robert “Bob” Trate
Date: Tuesday, October 09, 2007

This week bag is chock full of goodies. Obviously ‘Twilight Zone: The Movie’ is must have for the bag. The other Spielberg collaboration that all true Maniacs must have is the 25th Anniversary Editionof ‘Poltergeist’.   Here are two classic Eighties films that true film aficionados love for more than obvious reasons. Both films not only thrill, scare, and entertain, but both have back stories packed with real life scares. ‘Twilight Zone: The Movie’ has the unfortunate death of Vic Morrow and two extras which happened during filming. ‘Poltergeist’ has had ghost stories told by the cast and crew revealing that their lives have been affected in one way or another from the “other” side; mix that with Heather O’Rourke’s untimely death several years later and this movie about an angelic little girl who talks to ghosts becomes scarier on whole other level.
 
The ‘American Silent Horror Collection’ is another must have for the week. ‘The Man Who Laughed’ (1928) is a chilling and uplifting tale based on a Victor Hugo story about a disfigured prince raised by gypsies who loves a blind girl and must escape his royal responsibilities. That film alone is worth picking up but, when you place it in a box set with John Barrymore’s eerie transformations in ‘Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde’ (1920) and a tale featuring the man of a thousand faces Lon Chaney in ‘The Penalty’ (1920), the box set changes from a “must have” to a “must buy”. 
 
What will not make it to the bag this week is ‘28 Weeks Later’. The follow up to Danny Boyle’s highly successful ‘28 Days Later’ was a disappointment when it came to scares and character development. The film started off great with Robert Carlyle’s opening back story which was just as scary and chilling as the original film. The rub here was it was a flashback to when the original film took place.   Once the military moved in and the natural immunity children took center stage the film became a direct to DVD sequel that should have never seen the light of a darkened movie theatre. Hopefully the sequel to the sequel will be direct to DVD. 
 
The weeks are getting better Maniac readers. The box sets will soon be clogging the shelves and choosing between the special or ultimate edition will be your number one concern. If you agree with me or not on my picks for the week you have to agree that there are plenty of goodies to go around.
 
This being October let’s start with the Horror films…
             
HORROR
 
28 Days Later [Blu-ray] (2002)
 
28 Weeks Later / 28 Days Later (2 pack)
 
28 Weeks Later [Blu-Ray]
 
28 Weeks Later (2007)
Check out Mania’s write up the sequel here.
 
American Silent Horror Collection
(The Man Who Laughs/The Penalty/The Cat and the Canary/Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde/Kingdom of Shadows)
 
Black Sheep (Unrated) (2006)
 
The Cat and the Canary (1927)
 
Fox Horror Classics Collection
(The Lodger / Hangover Square / The Undying Monster)
 
Grindhouse Double Feature - Eyes of the Werewolf/V World the Matrix
 
Grindhouse Double Feature: Horror - Blood Sister / Bloody Tease
 
Grindhouse Double Feature: Horror - Evil in the Bayou / Bagman
 
Grindhouse Double Feature: Horror - Evil Unleashed / Zombie Chronicles
 
Grindhouse Double Feature: Horror - Tales from the Grave/Tales from the Grave 2
 
Grindhouse Double Feature: Within the Woods/Mutation
 
Holla
 
Hallowed Ground (2007)
 
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The: Ultimate Edition
 
Night Of The Living Dead 3D (2006)
 
Raiders of the Damned (2005)
 
Poltergeist: 25th Anniversary Edition  
 
Splatter Beach (2006)
 
Tales of Horror
 
Wrong Turn / Wrong Turn 2 - Dead End (2pack) (2003)
 
Wrong Turn 2 - Dead End (Unrated) (2007)
 
ACTION / ADVENTURE / THRILLERS
 
Crossed Swords (1977) aka The Prince and the Pauper (UK)
 
Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life (2006)
 
Divide (Sub) (2006)
 
The Italian Stallion (Grindhouse Sexploitation Collection) (1970)
 
Hitler - The Rise of Evil (2003)
 
Rise - Blood Hunter (2007)
 
Rise - Blood Hunter (Unrated) (2007)
 
Shinobi No Mono (1962)
 
Ultimate Force (2006)
 
Zorro (1974)
 
SCIENCE FICTION
 
Robocop (1987) [Blu-ray] (1987)
 
Twilight Zone - The Movie (1983)
 
Twilight Zone - The Movie [Blu-ray] (1983)
 
Twilight Zone - The Movie [HD DVD] (1983)
 
OUT TODAY IN TV LAND
 
Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Season Three (5pc)
Featuring: Peter Lorre, William Shatner, Vincent Price, Jack Klugman, George Peppard. Episodes directed by: Alfred Hitchcock, Robert Altman, Arthur Hiller.
 
Boston Legal - Seasons 1 - 3 (2004)
 
C.S.I. New York - The Third Season (2004)
 
CSI: NY 3 Season Pack
 
Ghost Hunters: Season 3-Part 1 (2007)
 
Heartland Horrors - Season 1 (2007)
 
Murder, She Wrote - The Complete Seventh Season
 
Robin of Sherwood Set 2 (1985)
 
Roots - The Complete Collection (Roots / Roots - The Next Generations) (1977)
 
Roots - The Next Generations (1979)
 
Son of the Dragon (2007) mini series
 
STARGATE SG-1 Complete Series on October 9
Check out Mania’s write up of the complete series box set.
 
War & Peace (1972) BBC
 
Comedy and Love – Mania Style
 
Edward Scissorhands [Blu-ray] (1990)
 
Evan Almighty
 
Evan Almighty [HD DVD]
 
The Film Crew: The Giant of Marathon
 
ANIME
 
Blood Reign/Kimera
 
Kurau Phantom Memory, Vol. 4: Mirror Image
 
Kyo Kara Maoh!: Season 1
 
Samurai 7 - Vol. 4 - Battle for Kanna
 
Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, Vol. 4 - Between Death and Danger
 
Yu Yu Hakusho: Seven Sins eps. 85-98
 
CARTOONS
 
The Reef (2006)
 
Surf's Up [Special Edition]
 
The Criterion Collection Releases
For those Maniacs that love all movies and the best DVD have to offer, I thought I would mention the latest releases Criterion. 
Breathless by Jean-Luc Godard
Days of Heaven by Terrence Malick
Mala Noche by: Gus Van Sant
Under the Volcano by: John Huston

More Content By Robert “Bob” Trate
Goodies
(Tuesday, October 9, 2007)
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Comments/Responses
1
GentlemenDeath • Oct 09, 2007, 12:07am •
28 Weeks Later was a good movie. I do not know what people expected out of a film like this, but I thought it was well put together and a fun ride.

Yeoman • Oct 09, 2007, 12:13am •
no it wasn't, it was garbage.

vikingkitty • Oct 09, 2007, 08:17am •
28 Weeks Later was better than the original movie in the series (28 Days Later). What started as a good horror movie ended as an anti-military screed.

lister • Oct 09, 2007, 10:54am •
"Hey, you wanna see something really scary?"

gauleyboy420 • Oct 09, 2007, 03:14pm •
It's not a series if theres only two of them right? ALSO 28 days later IMHO (thats for you lister) is a fantastic movie and revolutionized and breathed new life (pun inteded) into zombie movies. It was fantastic scary, and fresh. If you saw it as anti-militarythen you are atad bit defensive, because I saw the bad guys at the end not as the military, but as humans, and their nature. Personified in this case by the military. I never saw the sequel because it looked like shite. The first one did for zombie movies in our generation what Romero's Night of the Living Dead did for zombie movie in the 60's.

joeybaloney • Oct 09, 2007, 03:22pm •
28 Days was good. 28 Weeks pretty much sucked.
(Slight spoiler)
Zombie Dad's amazing detective work in tracking down his children just couldn’t be believed and I was all shakey-cam'd out after the 1st film. I would have loved to have actually seen how Zombie Dad escaped from the room holding his wife but just had to go with the shakey-cam assumption that it must have been horrific because... well... the camera shook.

jppintar326 • Oct 09, 2007, 03:58pm •
28 Days Later was overrated and I have no desire to see 28 Weeks Later.

As for Twilight Zone: The Movie, I think the movie understandably suffers from the death of the three people in that accident. I don't know if the scene that was filmed that fateful night would have helped that first segment of the movie, but it doesn't work as is. The latter two segments work the best.

Poltergeist is somewhat overrated. Yes, the fact that young Heather O'Rourke died young has an eerie subplot to it. Still, I never thought the movie was that great.

silversurfer • Oct 09, 2007, 04:49pm •
Did anyone see Rise? Or was there a review for this?

lister • Oct 09, 2007, 05:03pm •
Poltergeist was and still is a great ghost movie.

mbeckham1 • Oct 10, 2007, 11:48am •
28 Weeks Later had a lot of good elements, but farther longer the movie the more those elements on unravelled. The beginning was absolutely awsome, and everything up to the new outbreak was pretty good.

After that the suspence vanished, tension ran out and the interesting charaters either got dead, absent or a lot less interesting. I think it would've done better as a series of shorts set in the 28 Days Later world.

1
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