The Amicus Collection (And Now The
Screaming Starts/Asylum/The Beast Must Die!/Dark Sky Films)
Picture:
B-/C+/C Sound: C+/C/C Extras: B-/C/B- Films:
And Now The Screaming Starts! (1972) C+
Asylum (1972) C
The Beast Must Die! (1973) B-
Amicus
was the #2 British Horror company behind Hammer and though their legacy is not
as remembered as the films were not as Gothic, stylized or had the
comparatively larger budgets or star monsters, they were a formidable
entity. Dark Sky Films has grouped three
of their more memorable films in The
Amicus Collection. Asylum is an anthology film at least as
savvy as Twilight Zone – The Movie
(1983, reviewed elsewhere on this site) despite its own troubles, while The Beast Must Die! is a unique twist
on the werewolf genre.
That
leaves And Now The Screaming Starts!,
Dark Sky’s expanded version of a previous DVD release, which we already
reviewed. You can read more about it at
this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4925/And+Now+The+Screaming+Starts!
Asylum has been issued in many video
versions, but despite some minor problems, the Dark Sky DVD is far superior to
the previous releases. The film
(directed again by the great Roy Ward Baker) offers several segments with an
exceptional cast including Peter Cushing, Britt Ekland, Patrick Magee, Barry
Morse, Barbara Parkins, Charlotte Rampling and Herbert Lom in the best segment
devilish as ever. The film may not add up
like one would like, but it is worth a good look as enough of it does
work. It has aged with mixed results,
but don’t let that get in your way.
The Beast Must Die! is what it would have been like
if William Castle made The Last Of
Sheila, making a mystery out of which guest of a rich man who loves to hunt
(Calvin Lockhart) is actually a werewolf, complete with a Werewolf Break! Yes, you get
to guess who is the killer in the best of the three films in this set, with a
cast that includes Peter Cushing, Marlene Clark, Anton Diffring, Charles Gray,
Ciaran Madden, Tom Chadbon and Michael Gambon.
Paul Annett directed from Michael Winder’s screenplay that throws in
action and even Spy elements to the story.
This is much fun and rounds out the set nicely.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image in the three cases vary a bit, with Screaming looking the best, Asylum having some picture issues but
being clearer, cleaner and more color accurate than its many previous issues
and Beast surprisingly soft throughout. None were three-strip dye-transfer
Technicolor releases in the U.S. as we could gather, though they might have
been in the U.K. and camerawork on all is pretty good. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono in each case is
weaker than expected, except for Screaming,
which sounds a bit better and has the same extras as the previously reviewed
disc.
Extras on
both remaining releases include stills, text cast/crew bios, trailers for all
three films and liner notes, for which Asylum
offer such in a paper pullout/foldout in the DVD case and adds both Inside The Fear Factory featurette and
feature length audio commentary by cameraman Neil Binney and director
Baker. Beast has a making of featurette
and audio commentary by director Annett.
All in
all, this is still a good set of thrillers that remain interesting, even when
they do not always work. You can’t say
that about many such films today.
- Nicholas Sheffo
