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Six creepy tales of the walking dead...
Some movies on this DVD compilation are rated R.
Includes:
White Zombie (1932), MPAA Rating: NR
King of the Zombies (1941)
The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Castle of the Walking Dead (1967)
Fangs of the Living Dead (1968)
Zombie (1979), MPAA Rating: NR
White Zombie
It is altogether typical of Bela Lugosi's lousy business judgement that he accepted one of his finest film roles for a mere $500 dollars. In the haunting low-budgeter White Zombie, Lugosi stars as Murder Legendre, a shadowy character who exercises supernatural powers over the natives in his Haitian domain. Coveting beautiful Madge Bellamy as his bride, wealthy Robert Frazier is refused her hand in marriage. He enters into an unholy agreement with Lugosi, whereby Madge will fall ill and die, then be resurrected as a zombie-and, implicitly, Frazier's love-slave. This is accomplished, but Lugosi, relishing the hold he has over Frazier, refuses to release Madge's soul. She is ultimately rescued from Living Death by her faithful beau Robert Harron and missionary Joseph Cawthorn (heretofore merely the comedy relief). Few talkie horror films have ever so expertly captured the "feel" of the silent cinema as White Zombie; the film's ethereal, ghostlike ambience enables the audiences to accept even the most ludicrous of plot twists. The producers, Victor and Edward Halperin, use the film's tiny budget to their advantage, evocatively suggesting the horrors that they haven't the financial wherewithal to show on screen. Lugosi is superb throughout, making the most of such seemingly innocuous lines as "Well, well, we understand one another better, now." Long ignored or shunted aside as insignificant, White Zombie can hold its own with any of the like-vintage Universal horror classics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
King of the Zombies
Set in the Caribbean shortly before the U.S. was drawn into WWII, this zombie chiller tells the tale of an American special agent who, along with his butler and a pilot, is sent out to find a missing American Admiral, whose plane crashed on one of the islands. Unfortunately, the hero's plane also crashes. Fortunately, a suave but sinister German doctor with a very strange wife is there to help them. The doctor explains that his spouse is in a strange trance and he is trying to find a cure. The butler soon discovers that she is not the only one; the island is teeming with zombies. When the butler tries to tell his employer, the employer refuses to believe in "voodoo hocus pocus." The butler and the pilot find themselves entranced. Fortunately, the agent is still around to solve the mystery of the zombies and to confront the culprit, an enemy spy. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
The Last Man on Earth
In a post-epidemic nightmare world, scientist Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only man immune to the plague which has transformed the entire population of the Earth into vampire-like creatures. He becomes the monster slayer that vampire-society fears. Curing one of them, Ruth (Franca Bettoja), with a transfusion of his blood gives him hope for the future. It is a short future, however, since the other vampires quickly find and kill him. This dark tale, based on Richard Matheson's even darker novel "I Am Legend," was later remade as The Omega Man with Charlton Heston in the Vincent Price role. ~ Lucinda Ramsey, All Movie Guide
Castle of the Walking Dead
Just the thing for spooky Halloween-night viewing, this good-looking German film from director Harald Reinl tells the story of the horrible Count Regula (Christopher Lee), who murdered a dozen virgins and drained their blood. For these heinous crimes, he was sentenced to be drawn and quartered. Thirty-five years later, his undead servant resurrects him for revenge and a 13th victim (pretty Karin Dor), whose blood will give Regula eternal life. Lex Barker (a former movie Tarzan) plays the descendant of the man who sentenced Regula to death and has the task of stopping him, aided by Dor's maid and a highwayman disguised as a monk. Some chilling visuals (a haunted forest with corpses growing out of trees, swarms of vultures in the castle corridors, the obligatory pendulum) and assorted creepy crawlies (pits of snakes, spiders and scorpions) make this a real old-fashioned scare-fest, and it is not too bloody for horror-hungry children. Very loosely based on Edgar Allen Poe's Pit and the Pendulum, this film delivers on its promise to frighten, although the badly-dubbed U.S. version is to be avoided. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Fangs of the Living Dead
This low-budget Spanish-Italian co-production was the handiwork of cult filmmaker Amando De Ossorio, best known for his series of Knights Templar zombie films which began with La Noche del Terror Ciego (1971). Faded '50s bombshell Anita Ekberg stars as Silvia, a young woman who travels to the family castle which she will soon inherit. When she arrives, she meets her uncle (Julian Ugarte), who gives her some rather disheartening news. Many years before, a nun named Malenka was burned as a witch in the town square and swore to return for revenge. Silvia looks just like Malenka, and the villagers are terrified that the witch's spirit has been reincarnated in her. Soon, villagers start dying, and Silvia is so sure that she is possessed that she breaks off her engagement, convinced that she is destined to kill her beloved (Gianni Medici). Naturally, as the title already gives away, the blood-drinking attacks are part of a plot by Ugarte to drive Silvia mad and steal her inheritance. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Zombie
This audaciously disgusting spectacle from the late master of gruesome horror, Lucio Fulci, was posited as a semi-sequel to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead, which was released in Italy as Zombi. Tisa Farrow and a group of vacationing tourists travel to an island where they find a doctor (Richard Johnson) who is attempting to cure a condition that reanimates the dead. Things quickly get out of control as undead Spanish conquistadors crawl from their graves hungry for human flesh. The nauseatingly graphic set-pieces by Gianetto de Rossi include a close-up of a woman's eye being pierced by a large shard of wood and a zombie fighting a Great White shark underwater. This relatively well-made shocker was enormously popular worldwide and led to the zombie-gore film becoming the dominant motif of 1980s Italian horror. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
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