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Released by: Troma
Released on: 7/20/2004
Director: Herb Freed, Daniel Boyd, Andreas Mafori
Cast: John Saxon, Linda Day George, Jesse Emery, Marjorie Fitzsimmons, Elena Cantarone, Luciano Crovato
Released: 1980, 1987, 1988
The Movies:
The team supreme, Troma and Brentwood, bring you the second collaboritive effort in releasing Troma catalogue titles in threesomes onto DVD in an affordably priced package that delivers pretty much all you'd expect from Troma. Here's what comes in the second volume of Toxie's Triple Terrors…
BEYOND EVIL
This low budget thriller from director Herb Freed follows a married couple (the husband is played by none other than John Saxon) who take up residence in a creepy old house that has a few secrets hiding within its creaky old walls. The building used to be home to a force of great evil that died there, and now that fresh blood has shown up, the spirit takes up residence within the woman's body.
As the wife's evil powers grow stronger, some of the locals start winding up dead so Saxon decides to contact a shaman to enlist his aid in getting his wife back from whatever spirit is running the show.
Beyond Evil is beyond bad. Don't go into this one expecting much in the way of atmosphere, ambience, or creepiness. Everyone, Saxon included - though he's the , over acts or doesn't act and the effects are obvioulsy cheap and not in the least bit effective. While more often than not this would bury a film, this time it works in its favor as Beyond Evil does have enough unintentionally funny moments in it to at least make for an entertaining watch. Laser beam eyes, bad voodoo doll types, goofy possession effects and dialogue that would make Ed Wood cringe all make for good times… good times indeed.
CHILLERS
One of those VHS covers that used to leap out at me as a kid while roaming the horror section of Jumbo Video in Niagara Falls, Chillers was an anthology film that, in my younger days, suceessfully scared the crap out of. Revisiting it recently made me realize just how bad my taste was in films when I was a kid, and seeing as I enjoyed it, I'm not all together convinced that's changed in adulthood.
At any rate, the book-end's in this Twilight Zone styled tale follow a group of people waiting for a bus. To kill some time while they're sitting there doing nothing, they discuss their recent nightmares. The first story comes from a young lady who had a bad dream about a swimming pool of the damned wherein she had relations with a buff young man who turned out to be deader than a doornail. A young boy roughly twelve or so years old is up next as he tells us the story of his nightmare - he dreampt he went camping with two friends, boy scouts of some sort, and that their leader turned out to be a murderer. Trapped alone in the woods with him, they had to work together to get out of there alive before he murdered them the same way they same him murder the hunter who was unfortunate enough to cross his path. Story number three is told by a woman in her thirties who had a dream in which she became obsessed with a late night news anchorman. When she called in on his show, he ended up coming to visit her and they immediately hit it off - too bad for her he was a vampire. The penulitmate story is told be a teenage man who dreampt that he was given the power of resurrecting the dead. When he first learns of this he brings back a young boy who was killed too soon but after tinkering with his ability a little bit, he starts to spread out and ends up accidentily bringing back a serial killer. The last story is courtesy of a learned man whose nocturnal ramblings told of a mythological creature called the Ixpe that existed in Spanish legend. The creature ended up coming back to modern times when the ancient spell was recited and it took over the body of one of his students.
With a cast consisting of no one of note, this one is better left to nostalgic memories. While the first story has a creepy moment or two, the rest of the material is pretty laughable the serious scares I remembered from my younger days were nowhere to be found. The nostaligic factor made a fun watch, however, and it's at least an entertaining slice of low budget eighties video cheese. The production values and gore effects are as good as the average horror film of the time and the performances certainly aren't any worse.
EVIL CLUTCH
The last film is an Italian Evil Dead inspired backwoods horror film that tells the tale of a foxy American gal studying abroad in Italy. She and her local love interest head off for a weekend away in the woods to get a little rest and relaxation in before the school year sucks up all of her free time again. Things are going great for them until they stop to pick up a female hitchhiker who at first looks innocent enough but soon, after she's made friends with them, proves to be more than they thought she was.
When her behaviour starts to change, the young couple soon realize that the pretty girl they took in is actually a monster who has, for the past years, been wreaking havoc on the area and killing people whenever she pleases.
Cheap effects, bad acting, and even worse dubbing hinder this one and make it pretty much impossible to take it seriously. When the evil manifests in the later part of the film, it's pretty laughable and even by the standards of the time, Evil Clutch is neither an original film or a very well made one. With that in mind, it fits in perfectly with the other two films in this set as it has the same camp and nostalgia appeal and a similar level of unintentional laughs contained inside.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The three features are all presented in 1.33.1 fullframe, and none of them really look all that good, truth be told. They're watchable, sure, but none of them deliver the kind of clarity of picture quality that fans expect from the format. For the most part, these look about as good as decent quality VHS rips, and it looks like they may be just that. Colors are faded, picture quality is soft, and the entire thing looks a little on the fuzzy side.
Each of the three films sound about as good as they look - mediocre at best. While the dialogue is clear and you can pretty much hear everything well enough, some background hiss is noticeable and none of the three mixes in the set sound particularly remarkable. They get the job done, and that's about it.
Each DVD in this three disc set has its respective trailer included, and that's all she wrote.
The Final Word:
None of these films are going to really 'wow' you but they each contain enough fun moments that they're worth a look for fans of low budget 80s horror films. Toxie's Triple Terror Volume 2 doesn't have a whole lot to offer in terms of extra features and the quality on the set is less than remarkable, but the price is right.