From a Whisper to a Scream (The Offspring) Vincent Price - coming via Scream Factory

[captainjoe]

Originally Posted by dissention

I'm only put off when they're kinda shitty, i.e. the 70 minute making-of for Nightbreed that had no focus or much of a point. A good making-of is never long enough.

Agreed I couldn't make it through that one, had no flow to it

[redrayz]

the review from DVDTalk says the 2 Docs are feature films in their run-times, so that's pretty cool. Definitely ordering this..

[Val Lewton]

Has anyone that ordered this directly from Shout! received their shipping notification yet?

[Val Lewton]

My copy arrived today with the cool thank you card from Jeff Burr and the strip of film. I can't wait to dig into this, especially the documentaries.

[redrayz]

yea the special features on this are amazing considering not many people prob remember this coming out originally, scream factory always knows what's up!

[Wernski]

Nice! I forgot this one was shipping now; I pre-ordered it so long ago. This is my most anticipated Scream Factory title.

[Val Lewton]

Originally Posted by Wernski

Nice! I forgot this one was shipping now; I pre-ordered it so long ago. This is my most anticipated Scream Factory title.

Yeah, this is such a fun flick. I'm saving this for the weekend so I can dig into and enjoy all the special features. Two full length documentaries plus the movie itself should keep me occupied for a while.

[cakefactory]

Just watched this today. Good lord, is this a bad movie! The first and fourth segments have their moments, but the middle two, especially the glass-eater one, are just dire. The first one is fun just for how completely repulsive the protagonist is, and the fourth one is good for a couple moments of inspired disgustingness and for Cameron Mitchell giving one of his patented performances where he seems like he must have been completely hammered at the time of the filming.

The single worst part of the movie was probably the snake woman. The actress is SO bad it's incredible. I know I've seen that actress before, too (The Omega Man, for one) and don't remember her being bad in those, so it was probably just her thinking she was playing a 60s Batman villain which didn't exactly match the tone of everything else.

There are a couple other great guest stars like Susan Tyrrell and Martine Beswick, but unfortunately neither of them really got to do anything.

I've seen probably 25 horror anthology flicks, and this is the worst I've seen unless you count ABCs of Death. Even Night Train to Terror is far more entertaining. I guess it's at least bland instead of spectacularly bad like some segments of Creepshow 2 or the V/H/S movies, but it definitely doesn't have their heights so I think this still comes out on the bottom. I do have some other ill-respected ones lying around that I haven't seen yet, though, like "Monster Club" and "Twice Told Tales" so maybe it will be dethroned.

I still want to watch the extra features, though! I started the Super 8 one and it was rather charming but I saw there was over an hour remaining and wasn't sure if I could handle it right now.

[NoirFan]

^
I'd have to agree - an awful film! The performances were community-theater level and the stories painfully nonsensical. Definitely one for the re-sale pile, although I will watch the extensive extras first.

Originally Posted by cakefactory

I do have some other ill-respected ones lying around that I haven't seen yet, though, like "Monster Club" and "Twice Told Tales" so maybe it will be dethroned.

It's not straight-up embarrassing/cringe-inducing like Monster Club, but in the same (minor-league) ballpark.

[The Great Owl]

I like From a Whisper to a Scream a lot. I didn't absolutely love it, but I like it a lot.

I'm somewhat biased, because I live only 90 minutes or so from Dalton, Georgia, where this movie was filmed, and I like the familiarity of the terrain. More importantly, though, I really appreciated the grisly anthology stories that paid homage to the old EC Comics stories and such. My two favorite stories were the swamp story (the second one) and the final Civil War-era story. To say more than that about the plot is to do the film a tremendous disservice. The film style is crude, but this was a better independent horror feature than most, and the way that the filmmakers made use of limited means compels me to appreciate it all the more.

I understand that Vincent Price himself did not enjoy the film, but he still delivers an awesome performance, and his presence elevates the film in so many ways. The fact that Price apparently disliked the movie simply increases my appreciation for his legacy, because he still shows the "If something is worth doing, then it is worth doing well." mindset that characterized every single performance of his career.

The two feature-length extras are just as entertaining as the film itself, and I will go so far as to say that this is a class act Scream Factory package for anyone interested in independent cinema.


Oh, and, just for the record, I think that Monster Club rocks as well.

[cakefactory]

I thought it failed as an EC comics sort of thing since the plotting was so messy and unfocused that it lacked the moral lesson aspect that typified all of those. I was thinking about that a lot while watching it. The first segment DOES seem like an EC comics-style morality play (

[Show spoiler]don't have sex with a corpse, or a mutant baby will be born to it that will kill you!!!!

), the second one maybe could (

[Show spoiler]don't be a mean jerk to the guy that knows the secret of immortality or he'll set you on fire and dismember you and that will be how you spend your immortal years!!!

). The third one, though, is just a story where some guy's boss is a huge jerk to him

[Show spoiler]and then kills him, so unless the moral is "always do what your boss says or you will have glass explode out of your body and your girlfriend will be kidnapped into your old position"

it breaks the pattern. The fourth one also isn't much of an EC comics morality thing where some guy does something wrong and gets punished (though it does seem to be angling towards that with the intro to the Cameron Mitchell character), it's just a horror story along the lines of Who Could Kill a Child or something.

I don't have a problem with the anthology not being EC comics style, it just seemed in this case like it was trying to be and failing due to incoherent plotting.

I started watching the documentary about the making of it, and TBH it was more entertaining than the movie itself. I'm about an hour through it. All the guys who made the movie are quite an endearing crew and the way it was like a local effort where the old ladies came together to sew the civil war uniforms is charming.

[NoirFan]

I certainly appreciated the DIY enthusiasm (and ambitions) of the film, and the FX were well-done for a shoestring budget, but in the end the primarily amateurish acting failed to convince (though I thought Gulager was appropriately repugnant and slug-like), with, as cakefactory notes, some truly atrocious line-readings from the Snakewoman, and the stories themselves frequently reached (?) Ed Wood-ian levels of incomprehensibility.

[HorrorBlu]

Even if you didn't like the film, do not miss the "Return To Oldfield" documentary! It's exceptional, one of the best docs I've seen produced for a disc release. Might even give you a new appreciation for the movie.

The other documentary about super 8 filmmaking didn't really do much for me.

[cakefactory]

Originally Posted by HorrorBlu

Even if you didn't like the film, do not miss the "Return To Oldfield" documentary! It's exceptional, one of the best docs I've seen produced for a disc release. Might even give you a new appreciation for the movie.

The other documentary about super 8 filmmaking didn't really do much for me.

I watched the whole making-of documentary. It's better than the movie itself. I tend to really like these kinds of things, though. But, the people who made the movie are more interesting characters than anyone IN the movie!! I particularly liked the chemistry guy that left college to help with this silly project. The stories about Vincent Price and Forry Ackerman are priceless. I especially like the description of the phone call from the cruise with Vincent Price screaming "IT'S S***T!!!!! IT'S S***T!!!!" I wanted to know how they got that letter from Forry Ackerman to Vincent Price warning him not to do the movie, though. It didn't sound like Vincent Price had sent it to them right away, but it didn't make it clear if it was something that they later were given after he died or what.

The Super 8 one is sorta charming but too long. It's just funny that they interviewed like everyone who had anything to do with all these high school student films, and also seemed to have transferred all of them to digital since they included clips of basically everything anyone ever mentions. It's a fun glimpse into a local film scene and incredibly nostalgic and (obviously) incredibly self-indulgent, but that's sort of the point.

The fact we have three hours worth of excellent features related to a movie like this and some big studio semi-classic like Poltergeist which has a legendarily interesting production history has literally nothing is so unfair, haha.

I commend shout for going so many extra miles on the features on this, I wish other movies still had this kind of attention lavished on them. It's just strange that they put so much effort into such a lame movie.

[NoirFan]

Did anyone else have trouble playing the theatrical trailer? I tried in two different machines, and in both cases got audio but no image.

[Majin Blu]

Originally Posted by NoirFan

Did anyone else have trouble playing the theatrical trailer? I tried in two different machines, and in both cases got audio but no image.

I couldn't play it at all (t. Trailer ). Everything else was fine.

[HorrorBlu]

Originally Posted by NoirFan

Did anyone else have trouble playing the theatrical trailer? I tried in two different machines, and in both cases got audio but no image.

Same. I didn't even get audio. Just a black screen. I could still access the pop-up menu though.

[Wernski]

Originally Posted by HorrorBlu

Same. I didn't even get audio. Just a black screen. I could still access the pop-up menu though.

Works fine for me. It does start with a black screen, though (then a door opens casting light into a the darkened room) - maybe you're just not giving it enough time?

[returnofthemack]

I've got to agree that this movie was a stinker. Monster club wasn't a whole lot better but atleast monster club had that segment with Donald Pleasence that I really enjoyed. I did like the super 8 doc but outside of that I wish I hadn't bought this one.

[dissention]

I'm actually surprised so many disliked it. For a double feature, the last story makes for a nice segue into Grim Prairie Tales; another old anthology flick that we'll never see on Blu (or DVD) as long as Image has it.