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Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
Released on: November 10th, 2015.
Director: Peter Perry/Jerry Warren
Cast: Charles Veltmann Jr., Jodean Lawrence, Stanton Pritchard, Nona Carver/ Don Sullivan, Katherine Victor, Steve Conte
Year: 1959/1957
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The Movie:
Vinegar Syndrome's Drive-In Collection line continues, this time offering up two late fifties cheapies on one DVD for your viewing pleasure!
Revenge Of The Virgins:
Co-written by none other than Edward D. Wood Jr. himself (as Pete La Roche), Peter Perry's 1959 nudie western Revenge Of The Virgins isn't very good, but then, when it seems to exist only to parade around a bunch of pretty topless 'Indian' maidens, it doesn't really have to be!
There's not a whole lot to this one, story wise, and it doesn't always make sense but let's give it a shot. Somewhere in the old west, some prospecting is going on. As such, there are prospectors about. One such prospector is an old guy who may or may not know the secret location of a whole lot of gold. So that old guy teams up with a young man and his wife (Charles Veltmann Jr. and Jodean Lawrence, the later of whom pops up in a lot of seventies TV shows) and off the bunch of them go in search of all those riches. Unfortunately for them, some gun-slinging nogoodniks follows them and as gun-slinging nogoodniks as wont to do, they make trouble.
But those gun-slinging nogoodniks aren't going to cause nearly the trouble that the topless Indian maidens will! Led by a blonde gal named Yellow Gold (Nona Carver), they're quick to attack with their bows and their arrows… and slow to dress or bother with bras. Hooray!
Despite the fact that the naked Indian ladies are awesome, any time they're not on screen this one loses steam. The story isn't very interesting and while the camera work isn't half bad and the locations fairly nice, not much really happens. When the naked Indian ladies show up, things are definitely better, because… naked Indian ladies. The acting is lousy, the pacing is erratic and, yeah, enjoy the nudity. That's more or less all this has to offer, the quirky charm inherent in some of Wood's other stories seems to be missing from this one. It is at least historically interesting as one of, if not the, earliest known nudie-western hybrids and also as the directorial debut of Peter Perry, who would go on to make a whole lot of sleazy sex films for Harry Novak in the sixties and seventies (often under the amazing pseudonym of A.P. Stootsbury!).
Trivia fans and completist types will be keen to know that this was released on DVD previously as the second part of a Something Weird Video double feature release where it was paired with The Ramrodder. Nona Carver appeared in that movie too.
Teenage Zombies:
Our second feature is considerably better entertainment, even if it doesn't have hot arrow slinging naked Indian ladies in it. Directed by the great Jerry Warren, this one tells the terrifying tale of a bunch of fifties teenagers (Don Sullivan, Paul Pepper, Mitzie Albertson and Brianne Murphy) who decide to spice up their collective lives by hopping on a boat and heading out to some weird island off the shore.
Soon after their arrival, they spy a bunch of nicely dressed women in fine evening wear ordering around a bunch of zombies. At one point they figure, hey, let's get out of here, but no - too late! Their boat has gone missing. With no way back to the mainland, they wind up hanging out at the home of the bizarre Dr. Myra (Katherine Victor) and her assistant Ivan (Chuck Niles), a weird hunchback guy. Meanwhile, on the main land, their friends Morrie (Jay Hawk) and Dottie (Nan Green) borrow a friend's boat and, yeah, head out to the same island where the other four are currently stranded. Will our heroes make it off the island in one piece or will they fall victim to Myra's nefarious plot, the random zombies that roam to the island or possibly a giant gorilla?
Nuttier than a fruitcake, Teenage Zombies is a lot of good, dopey fun. It's never even close to scary and very much a product of its time but that's half the charm of a B picture like this. Warren keeps things moving at a pretty quick pace and has a tendency to throw in a strange plot device anytime the story seems like it's going to slow down, so we wind up with a picture that is, if not particularly logical, pretty entertaining.
If the 'teen' cast (these guys and gals are all at least in their twenties) are dopey, well, Katherine Victor steals the show as the strange doctor running about the island. Chuck Niles is also completely awesome as the hunchbacked man servant and the various players cast as zombies are fun to watch too.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Both films are presented in 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen in black and white transfers taken from 2k scans of the original 35mm negatives. There's some minor print damage throughout, mostly small white specks, but aside from that these old low budget films look pretty damn good here. Contrast is spot on, detail is impressive for a standard definition presentation and there are no problems to note with any compression artifacts or edge enhancement quirks.
The Dolby Digital Mono tracks aren't fancy and there is some occasional hiss present in the mix but for the most part they're pretty clean sounding. Dialogue is easy enough to follow, the scores are nicely mixed in and there aren't any issues here. No alternate language or subtitles are provided.
Aside from static menus and chapter selection there are no extras features on this DVD.
The Final Word:
Vinegar Syndrome's Drive-In Collection DVD release of Revenge Of The Virgins and Teenage Zombies is a good one, even if the first feature is more of a curiosity item than something you'll want to watch over and over again. Teenage Zombies holds up well though, it's a blast, and neither movie has ever looked better on home video than it does here.
