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As if by some irresistable compulsion to witness the mortification of the flesh, EXPERIMENTS IN TERROR perversely unearths a celluloid sarcophagus of
horrible, horrible beauty...
a phantasmagoria of the uncanny, the dreadful, and the macabre...
a pathological delirium of witchcraft, phantoms, and the undead. Using visionary cinematography and a masterful montage of rare film artifacts, these amoral auteurs probe every dark corner of the human psyche, with morbid curiousity and in lurid detail! This shocking program explodes the genre of the horror film, profoundly expanding the cinematic language of fear.
Further Information:
Includes:
"Outer Space - Peter Tscherkassky
Gavin Smith's Films Of The Year, Film Comment
Golden Gate Award - Best Short, San Francisco International Film Festival
Audience Award - Best Film, Cinematexas
"Tuning The Sleeping Machine" - David Sherman
Official Selection, 1997 Whitney Biennial; 1996 New York Film Festival; San Francisco International Film Festival; VIPER (Lucerne, Switzerland)
"Ursula" - Lloyd M. Williams
Gold Medallion Cannes Film Festival, 1961. Best Scripted Film, Best Special Effects for Sustained Horror
"Dawn of An Evil Millennium" - Damon Packard
"Journey Into The Unknown" - Kerry Laitala
"The Virgin Sacrifice" - J.X. Williams
-extra features info for each title
Jenny Olson's "Trailer Camp"
Psychorama subliminal messaging
"The Haunted Mouth" (w/ Cesar Romero)
Upcoming Releases from Other Cinema
| Catalog Number: MC-179 |
Type: Shorts Compilation |
Genre: Horror / Bizarre |
| Copyright: 2003 |
Length: 106 minutes |
Format:
DVD Region: 0 (All) |
| TV System: NTSC |
ISBN: |
UPC: 823857129522 |
| Label: Other Cinema DVD |
Notes: Region All
This title is available in Europe for Wholesale - List Prices: £16.99 / 24.95€
Wholesale Purchasing:
Program MC-179 is available for wholesale from Microcinema DVD. Contact info[at]microcinema.com or call at +1-415-447-9750
Exhibition:
Microcinema is not authorized to represent this title for exhibition. Write us for this contact information.
2006-09-26 Educational Media Reviews Online
By Mike Boedicker
The title of this short film collection is only partially accurate. Experimental it certainly is, for most of the selections eschew the conventions of narrative cinema in favor of avant-garde technique. But terrifying it is not. The DVD packaging promises a “shocking program…a phantasmagoria of the uncanny, the dreadful, and the macabre.” Instead we get a mixed bag of shorts which will have greater appeal to experimental filmmakers than horror fans.
The DVD contains a 71-minute Main Program consisting of six shorts coupled, rather oddly, with a 32-minute “Archive” of promos and trailers from cheesy horror films of the 1950’s-70’s. The six Main Program shorts include works from the 1960’s, 80’s, 90’s, and early 21st Century and run from 5 to 21 minutes in length. The formats included range from Super-8 to 35mm Cinemascope, and print and sound qualities vary greatly. Like much non-narrative cinema, the works tend to favor form over content, often to their detriment. An optical printing effect, for example, might be interesting for a minute or two, but stretched to ten times that length it becomes insufferable. Indeed, some of the selections could be called Experiments in Tedium. The best films include The Virgin Sacrifice, a 1969 production by J.X. Williams about a young woman initiated into a Satanic cult, which effectively maintains an atmosphere of dread throughout. Also interesting is Dawn of an Evil Millennium, a Super-8mm epic inspired by the horror classic Evil Dead. Dawn is the bloodiest film of the six but also the funniest, with gore so extreme and stylized it’s more comical than disturbing.
The DVD’s campy second part, the Archive, begins with a promo for “A Date With Death,” a 1959 thriller filmed in a process called “Psychorama” in which subliminal messages flash across the screen at key moments. B-movie actor Gerald Mohr - reading atrociously off cue cards - demonstrates the effect by showing scenes from the film. A similar gimmicky promo follows, with veteran horror film producer William Castle offering a money back guarantee to anyone who isn’t frightened by his film Homicidal. In addition to these promos, trailers are included for such cult items as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, and Blacula. The most unusual inclusion in the Archive is The Haunted Mouth, a 1973 curio commissioned by the American Dental Association featuring the voice of Cesar Romero (!) as Plaque, an insidious, invisible spirit who warns children against the dangers of not brushing and flossing.
An uneven mix of avant-garde and pop culture elements, Experiments in Terror is recommended only for the largest and most adventurous experimental cinema collections in academic and public libraries. |
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