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Released by: VCI Entertainment
Released on: 10/12/2004
Director: Joseph Mazzuca/Marc B. Ray
Cast: Claudia Jennings, Arthur Franz, Cheri Howell, Sherry Boucher/Fred Holbert, Leigh Mitchell, Robert Knox, Suzette Hamilton
Year: 1978/1973
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The Movies:
Two goofy seventies drive-in movies on one bargain priced DVD? Here's the lowdown…
SISTERS OF DEATH
A sororiety group known only as 'The Sisters' is holding an initiation ceremony when one of the new recruits, Elizabeth, is killed, supposedly by accident. Seven years later, the five females who were in the sororiety responsible for the supposedly accidental death all receive mysterious invitations for a reunion. They arrive only to be taxied out to remote estate by two guys who look like Starsky and Hutch but aren't.
Things are going well for the girls, they're drinking and swimming and having a great time. This all changes though when the electrical fence gates close and they girls find out that the mysterious host of this party is actually the father of the girl (played by Arthur Franz) who was killed, now out to avenge his daughter's death once and for all.
A very loose knock off of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, this one takes its time getting going and then really ends up as a mediocre experience at best. While the presence of five lovely ladies (one of whom is played by Playboy Playmate Claudia Jennings, of Fast Company fame) is nice, the acting is subpar and the direction is stagnant. The movie is not without its moments - the almost completely bloodless death scenes are unintentionally funny and the girls are fun to watch - but the movie really offers nothing of note to make it anything more than a disposable seventies horror film.
SCREAM BLOODY MURDER
A young man named Matthew (Fred Holbert) is released from a psychiatric hospital ten years after he killed his father by running him down with a farm tractor (an event that cost him his hand, which has since been replaced with a hook)! It doesn't take him long at all to get back to his old tricks though, and soon enough Matthew kills his mother and his new step-father in a fit of jealous rage.
He hits the road, hitches a ride out of town (kills the couple that picked him up) and later meets up with a pretty girl who makes her living as an artist. He becomes obsessed with her and starts offing anyone who she comes into contact with, and a few hookers and miscreants on the side just to spice things up a little bit. He also kills to get money so that he can flatter his current obsession with groceries. Eventually he snaps even more and kills everyone in a giant old house in the neighborhood. He tells her that this is his mansion, gets her inside, holds her captive and tortures her.
Now this is some serious entertainment. Fred Holbert (who is this guy? WHY DID HE NOT STAR IN MORE MOVIES?????) is a great manical killer uttering his incredible lines with the utmost conviction. You want to see Matthew call a hooker by his mother's name before he kills her? Gotcha covered. You want to see him flatter women with groceries? It's all good. That's here too. Maybe you want to see him haunted by the spirits of everyone he kills during the film in a few trippy scenes where they're projected behind him? Hey, I want that too. And it's all here. There's even a whacked out acid trip ending that makes very little sense but somehow fits the movie perfectly.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Both films are presented fullframe, and neither of them look too hot. The credits on Scream Bloody Murder are so fuzzy that they're almost illegible and many of the night time scenes in both films are too murky and dark. Colors are faded and soft and at times the reds bleed out a little bit. There's not a lot of detail and the entire image is very flat looking on both films. That being said, they're watchable - but not much more than that.
Both films are presented in English Dolby Digital Mono soundtracks, with no subtitle options and the audio fares about as well as the video does on this DVD. Dialogue is flat and uneven and at times it is a little hard to hear what's being said. For most of the film you can understand things reasonably well despite the mild hiss in the mix, but the occasional drop out doesn't help things any.
The only extra at all is a promo reel containing clips from other upcoming Cinema Pops releases. That's it.
The Final Word:
While Sisters Of Death is dull, Scream Bloody Murder is an interesting psuedo-slasher with enough strange elements to make it interesting. While the DVD doesn't look or sound particularly good or contain any real extras, it is cheap and makes for an affordable way to add one crappy film and one weird film to your collection.