Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams (1984 - 1989)

A byword for cheap and cheerful fantasy entertainment on VHS in the 1980s, five films from Charles Band's Empire Pictures are now being given the special treatment in a new Blu-ray box set from Arrow. So let's take a look at what's in the box:

Disc One: The Dungeonmaster (1984)

Otherwise known as RAGEWAR, THE DUNGEONMASTER is presented in three different versions on this disc: pre-release (the longest version that also happens to contain nudity not present otherwise), international and US theatrical, the differences with those last two being different orders to some of the film's sequences.

Computer wizard Paul Bradford (Jeffrey Byron) gets pulled into the world of evil actual wizard Mestema (Richard Moll) who sets him seven challenges, the prize being the life of both Paul and his girlfriend Gwen (Leslie Wing). Each of the challenges has a different writer and director, leading to THE DUNGEONMASTER feeling uneven at best and at worst somewhat longer than its actual 77 minutes. The highlight is probably David Allen's riff on Talos from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS which stands out amongst all the stuff with rubber puppets and wandering around caves.

Extras kick off with a new commentary featuring star Jeffrey Byron and moderated by Dave Wain and Matty Budrewicz. Byron returns for a 15 minute interview and you also get two trailers and an image gallery.

Disc Two: Dolls (1987)

Little Judy Bower (Carrie Lorraine) and her awful parents (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon and Ian Patrick Williams) break down in the middle of nowhere. Pausing only to throw away Judy’s favourite teddy bear (which then comes back giant-sized to tear off Purdy-Gordon’s arm in a weird fantasy bit) the three of them break into a nearby house, only to be confronted by its owners, Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke (Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason, effortlessly showing up all the other ‘actors’ in this film). Gabriel is a toymaker whose dolls exhibit very special properties indeed, including giving Charles Band the idea for at least another twenty or so movies based on the concept.

Filmed before Stuart Gordon’s FROM BEYOND but released after because of the amount of post-production animation that was required, DOLLS was a curious follow-up to the director’s previous REANIMATOR. Like many an Empire picture it's only 77 minutes long. Sadly we get little explanation for why Rolfe and Mason would want to trap people and turn them into dolls which is a shame as it’s not as if this film is overlong and some fleshing out of their characters (and some more screen time) would have been most welcome.

Extras on Arrow's disc include three commentary tracks, one of which is new (from David DeCoteau) and two are archival (writer and director Ed Naha and Stuart Gordon on one, members of the vast on the other). Scream Factory's 2014 making of featurette has also been ported over, and there's a new 17 minute interview with editor Lee Percy. You also get three trailers, an image gallery and eight minutes of storyboard to scene comparison.

Disc Three: Cellar Dweller (1987)

Jeffery Combs, doing his very best ‘Herbert West - Animator’ here, plays comics artist Colin Childress in an extended cameo in an extended prologue. Colin is famous for drawing the ‘Cellar Dweller’ comic, which seems to feature nothing but the exploits of a big hairy monster that tears people apart. Colin draws the monster for what must be the thousandth time. It comes alive and attacks him. He burns down the house. Cue the credits, which last for ages to pad out the running time.

Thirty years later, Colin’s house has been turned into an Empire Films version of an art institute, which means it has a scantily clad girl with 1980s hair sitting on a kitchen table and beating eggs, a random assortment of actors playing students, some of whom look dangerously close to retirement age, and an at-the-end-of-her-career and-therefore-cheap Yvonne de Carlo presiding over them. Into this somewhat unrealistic milieu comes Deborah Mullowney, who looks as if she’s studying big hair and bigger ear-rings rather than the comic book art she claims (or acting for that matter). 

Debs starts drawing Cellar Dweller. He pops up intermittently to eat people who have upset her slightly using his very rubbery jaws. There’s a girl in a shower. There’s a bloke with a mullet. There are some poor optical effects. Deborah and mullet-boy try and get rid of Cellar Dweller. There’s a twist. The film ends. I really can’t think of anything else to say about it. In fact I've probably said too much already.

If CELLAR DWELLER isn't a very good film (and it isn't) the extras on Arrow's Blu-ray are. There's a new commentary with Michael Deaks (the man inside the monster costume) moderated by Dave Wain and Matty Budrewicz. Deaks returns for a 16 minute interview while Wain and Budrewicz  pop up again to give us and enthusiastic and affectionate tribute to CELLAR DWELLER director John Carl Buechler. Finally there are two trailer reels for Empire Pictures product, running 28 minutes in total and a real blast of nostalgia for those of us who likely saw them many times on Entertainment In Video releases back in the day.

Disc Four: Arena (1989)

A pitch from Charles Band about wanting a 'wrestling movie in space' led to writing team who gave us TRANCERS and ELIMINATORS (Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo) coming up with the script for ARENA, even if, according to Bilson on one of the extras, not a lot of their script actually made it to the screen. Steve Armstrong (Paul Satterfield), in need of money owed to the evil Mr Rogor (Marc Alaimo) agrees to be the new fighter for Quinn (Claudia Christian) in the biggest tournament in the galaxy. But needless to say Rogor with the aid of sidekick Weezil (Armin Shimmerman) is determined to see him fail.

ARENA is directed by Peter Manoogian who was also responsible for ELIMINATORS and while this isn't as good as that extremely entertaining comic book picture, it's still a pretty good time and definitely one of the highlights of the set.  The only available source was a 35mm theatrical print so the transfer isn't top quality and because of 'difference in colour grading' we get the full frame version as an extra as well. 

Other extras include a Manoogian commentary moderated once more by by Dave Wain and Matty Budrewicz. Writer Danny Bilson's 15 minute reminiscence of working for Empire is a must watch, and Michael Deak pops back up on this disc as well (he plays Arena champion Horn in the film) to talk about his role and some of the special effects. Finally you get a couple of trailers and an image gallery.

Disc Five: Robot Jox (1989)

The final film in the set might also be the best, both in terms of picture quality and actual quality. In a post apocalyptic future wars are no longer fought, the task instead performed by each nation being represented by a massive robot. Seeing as the only nations left appear to be the US and Russia that very handily means two robots (although in view of the events of the past few years it's probably good we didn't get to see a British one). Each robot is piloted by a single individual. For the US it's Achilles (Gary Graham) while the Russian pilot is Alexander (Paul Koslo) who swears to destroy Achilles when the two of them fight over the future of Alaska.

ROBOT JOX is directed by Stuart Gordon which means acting and characterisation are above par, even if the plot is rather slight. The robots themselves are well-rendered with stop-motion animation, lending them a ROBOCOP ED-209 feel. In fact the whole film has a (very slight) ROBOCOP feel to it in terms of its vision of a future filled with grey concrete, matte paintings and stop-motion.

Extras consist of two audio commentaries, both of them archival. One is from Stuart Gordon, the other from three members of the visual effects team. New material for this release includes interviews with stars Gary Graham and Anne-Marie Johnson, and a 26 minute appreciation of stop-motion expert David Allen by some of the effects wizzes who knew him. There's an archival interview with Paul Koslo, eight minutes of behind the scenes photos - models, concept art, etc, plus a trailer, image galleries, and publicity material.

Finally, the set comes with double-sided posters for each film, 15 art cards, an 80 page book with new writing on the films and some other bits and pieces as well. 

Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams is out in a limited edition Blu-ray box set from Arrow on Monday 26th June 2023

Ghoulies II (1987)

The second GHOULIES film (there are four in case you’re interested) gets a UK Blu-ray release courtesy of 101 Films. It has practically no connection with the first film other than it features the same little rubber glove-puppet monsters and a knockabout sense of humour that will have those of you nostalgic for the days of Saturday morning children’s television in raptures.

A barrel full of ghoulies!

We start with a priest escaping from some kind of KKK reunion with a sack of ghoulies slung over his shoulder. Let’s pause now to give the man playing the priest some recognition, as this is none other than Anthony Dawson of Hammer’s CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF and DR NO fame. Far more famous than anyone else in this film, Anthony gets offed pretty quickly and the ghoulies are once more free to move about in their jerky, hand-assisted little way.

Ghoulies everywhere!

They hope a ride on a lorry that turns out to be part of a travelling circus. Soon the ghoulies themselves are part of the attraction as they take over the Satan’s Den haunted house, killing pissed up Uncle Ned (Royal Dano in awful jacket) and torturing various caricatures of late 1980s teendom. Soon it’s up to Larry (Damon Martin), his sidekick Sir Nigel Penneyweight (Phil Fondacaro who gave an equally winning performance as Dracula in Charles Band’s THE CREEPS) and Larry’s girlfriend Nicole (Kerry Remsen) to conjure up an enormous ghoulie to catch the little ones. We all know an enormous pair of ghoulies would have led to a much hairier situation but sadly that doesn't happen here.

Naughty ghoulies!

GHOULIES II is actually better than GHOULIES I. For a start there’s far more ghoulie action. The acting’s a bit better and the pacing is far less draggy. The only downside is we don’t get a reprise of Richard Band’s bouncy, mischievous music score but otherwise GHOULIES II provides 90 odd minutes of silly fun for the undemanding Charles Band fan. 101 Films’ disc contains no extras. 

GHOULIES II is out on UK Blu-ray and DVD from 101 Films now. 

Ghoulies (1984)

Another Charles Band direct-to-VHS staple from the halcyon days of the Entertainment In Video label now comes to Blu-ray courtesy of 101 Films. There now follows a review refreshingly free of all the cheap jokes you might have been expecting at the expense of a title that is just begging for all kinds of phrases that include the words ‘grab’ or ‘grabbing’. But not here, oh no, I’m above that sort of thing.

"You muppet!"

GHOULIES was Charles Band’s rip-off of Joe Dante’s GREMLINS but bears very little similarity to it, other than featuring tiny creatures that cause mayhem. Otherwise the storyline is very different (and somewhat less coherent). 

Melty ghoulie

At some kind of satanic ceremony, Malcolm Graves (a deliciously over the top Michael des Barres who’s almost the only one here who pitches his acting at the level of quality of the material) tries to sacrifice his baby son Jonathan while little rubber puppets and assembled coven members look on. He’s thwarted by Jack Nance (!) who then provides us with intermittent voice-overs throughout the film to assist coherence (not sure it works, though). He also turns up as some kind of wizard at the end.

Finding this random still in a film book would have made me want to see this film 

Now grown up, Jonathan (Peter Liapis, whose acting would only match the quality of the script if said script had been carved onto a rather dull oak tree) and his girlfriend Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan - the same) move into Jonathan’s old house. A 1980s party with 1980s friends and appalling 1980s breakdancing ensues, followed a bit later on by a 1980s satanic ritual that eventually causes the ghoulies of the title to appear. 

Graves back from the grave

I don’t think they’re ever referred to by name, by the way. In appearance they resemble a muppet collection that some child’s evil older brother has taken a blowtorch to but got stopped before they could melt the things completely. Their glove puppetness is amusing and actually a little bit appealing, but unfortunately (and typically for a Charles Band production) they’re not on screen for anywhere near long enough. 

Oh yes I'd want to watch a film with this in it too.

Instead the plot busies itself with Malcolm coming back to life and overacting even more than before. I do hope Michael des Barres managed to perform in the version of THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW in which he truly belonged. Otherwise all this stuff is a bit plodding, and despite a playful Richard Band score (with extra bits by Shirley Walker) the film feels longer than its 82 minutes.

Th-th-th-th-that's all folks!

An understandably bewildered-looking Luca Bercovici provides us with a special director’s introduction in which he refers to GHOULIES as a ‘silly horror film’ and says he’s amazed it’s still around thirty years later. He’s right on both counts. He also provides us with a feature-length audio commentary that completes the extras for this UK disc. 101’s Blu-ray transfer looks very nice, though. 

GHOULIES is out on UK Blu-ray and DVD from 101 Films now

Trancers (1985)

Jack Deth is back and he's never been here before! 

Quite possibly the epitome of all that was good about the direct-to-video revolution of the mid 1980s, Charles Band's quasi TERMINATOR/BACK TO THE FUTURE ripoff is as evocative of that decade as the movies of Cameron & Zemeckis. But on a lower budget. Much, much lower. Coming out on UK VHS on the classic Entertainment In Video label (a mark of not so much quality as quirkiness it has to be said) TRANCERS was one of a series of Band epics that kept teenagers of that era enthralled and entertained with their comic-book storylines, fun character acting, decent Richard Band music scores and (ahem) brief running time. 

    

       Charles Band, Empire Pictures, and Entertainment In Video were an important part of the exploitation scene back then, and for many of us SF & horror-hungry fans of the era, films like TRANCERS, ELIMINATORS and ROBOT HOLOCAUST helped while away many a dull Sunday afternoon when the only alternatives in the video shop were versions of VIDEODROME where you didn't even get to see Barry Convex explode or HALLOWEEN III with all the best bits cut out. Of all of them, TRANCERS was probably the best, and now 88 Films, the natural successor to Entertainment in Video if there ever was one, is about to bring it out on Blu-ray.

In the year 2247 Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson doing his Chandleresque best) is a cop pursuing a villain called Whistler (Michael Stefani), who has the ability to ‘trance’ weak-willed humans and turn them into crazed zombies who do his bidding. When Whistler travels in time back to 1985 and starts bumping off the relatives of the future High Council, Deth follows in an attempt to stop him and bring him back to his own time. 

TRANCERS is a lot of time-travelling fun, benefiting from good performances (especially Thomerson, who gives it his all, and Helen Hunt in an early role as his girfriend), a crisp and witty script from Danny Bilson and Paul de Meo, and a minimalist but bouncy action music score from British composers Mark Ryder and Phil Davies. Some of the set pieces are inspired (“There’s trouble at the North Pole!”) and everything moves along at a fine clip. It’s probably Charles Band’s best film as a director, even if, like so many of his pictures, it barely qualifies as a feature, having a running time near the 75 minute mark.

But the fun doesn’t end there. One of the extras on the disc is TRANCERS: CITY OF LOST ANGELS, aka TRANCERS 1.5. A previously ‘lost’ 25 minutes segment of the aborted anthology movie PULSE POUNDERS, TRANCERS 1.5 is also included, with pretty much all the same team back on board. Watch them back to back for 100 minutes of superb low-budget 1980s SF fun.

As well as the short, 88 Films’ Blu-ray includes a commentary track from Tim Thomerson, who remembers everything, and Charles Bans, who’s rather sweary. There’s also a short making of with Thomerson, Band, and the screenwriters; some brief archival interviews, a bit of rough footage from one of the DUNGEONMASTER movies, trailers for all five / six TRANCERS films, a rough-looking trailer for the original PULSE POUNDER films, and the ever-fun 88 Trailer Park. There’s a reversible sleeve and booklet notes as well. Overall it’s a hugely entertaining package that, with a fine 1.85:1 aspect ratio transfer, TRANCERS 1.5, and all the extras represents excellent value for money.

TRANCERS is one of the best films of its kind, and 88 Films’ Blu-ray release is THE very best release ever of TRANCERS. Jack Deth is back - and he’s never looked so good. 

88 Films are releasing Charles Band's TRANCERS on Blu-ray on 24th November 2014. If you're reading this from the future you'll already know how good it looks. 

Cellar Dweller (1987)

From the gloomy, dusty archives of Empire Pictures, taken from the section labelled ‘crappy rubbish’ (it’s quite a big shelf) here comes CELLAR DWELLER, a semi-coherent rendering of an interesting idea that sadly doesn’t really work. 

Jeffery Combs, doing his very best ‘Herbert West - Animator’ here, plays comics artist Colin Childress in an extended cameo in an extended prologue. Colin is famous for drawing the ‘Cellar Dweller’ comic, which seems to feature nothing but the exploits of a big hairy monster that tears people apart. Except if you’re a girl, in which case it would appear from the artwork that you have to have ridiculously prominent nipples that can even project through Kevlar to make you a candidate for the ripping. How this comic has become such a success if that’s all it features is anyone’s guess, but let’s move on. Colin draws the monster for what must be the thousandth time. It comes alive and attacks him. He burns down the house. Cue the credits, which last for ages to pad out the running time.

Thirty years later, Colin’s house has been turned into an Empire Films version of an art institute, which means it has a scantily clad girl with 1980s hair sitting on a kitchen table and beating eggs, a random assortment of actors playing students, some of whom look dangerously close to retirement age, and an at-the-end-of-her-career-and-therefore-cheap Yvonne de Carlo presiding over them. Into this somewhat unrealistic milieu comes comics student Deborah Mullowney, who looks as if she’s studying big hair and bigger earrings rather than comic book art (or acting for that matter). 

Debs starts drawing Cellar Dweller. He pops up intermittently to eat people who have upset her slightly using his very rubbery jaws. There’s a girl in a shower. There’s a bloke with a mullet. There are some poor optical effects. Deborah and mullet-boy try and get rid of Cellar Dweller. There’s a twist. The film ends. I really can’t think of anything else to say about it.

CELLAR DWELLER is a movie best enjoyed by those nostalgic for the halcyon days of the VHS era, when any old nonsense could be packaged in an oversized, brightly coloured box, and could be assured of pride of place on the rental shelf for about a week before the sticky fingers of those who borrowed it rendered it all but untouchable for the rest of us. To augment the experience, there’s even a line of video drop-out about a minute in, just to remind us that this DVD transfer has been taken straight from a VHS master. 

I always want to like the films I review here. I wanted to like CELLAR DWELLER, but I just can’t. When the best thing you can say about a film is that it’s short then you know it’s in trouble. There are no extras. You’ve all been warned.

101 Films released CELLAR DWELLER on Region 2 DVD on 12th May 2014

Lurking Fear (1994)

88 Films presents the UK DVD release of yet another back catalogue B-movie bad boy from Charles Band’s Full Moon Productions. As far as Lovecraft adaptations go (yes, it’s another one of those) it’s actually not too bad, but please bear in mind that when I say that I’m placing it on a scale that ranges from REANIMATOR and DAGON at the good end to CHILL and THE UNNAMABLE at the bad.

LURKING FEAR has a great cast (Jon Finch, Jeffrey Combs, Ashley Laurence - billed as Ashley Lauren presumably as the result of some bizarre credit cost cutting exercise - and Vincent Schiavelli to name but most of them), some nicely atmospheric shots courtesy of director C Courtney Joyner and, on occasion, an almost John Carpenter / RIO BRAVO feel to the scenes in which the motley assortment of characters are holed up in a church awaiting the attack of Something Horrible From Out There. That’s the good news. Sadly, my friends, there is a downside to LURKING FEAR, and I have to say that if incoherent plotting and editing, and a music score performed on a Bontempi home organ, are the kinds of things that mar your enjoyment of such fare, you might want to think twice before giving this one a go.

John Martense (Blake Adams) is released from prison and immediately goes to visit old crime buddy Skelton Knaggs (Vincent Schiavelli) at his funeral parlour. While those of us who obsess about this kind of thing wonder how many members of this movie’s intended 1994 home video audience would have actually got that gag (Knaggs was a character actor of the 1930s-1950s who specialised in playing sinister and weird bit parts) Schiavelli explains that he wants Martense to go to the creepy old rotting town of Leffert’s Corners (actually a creepy old town in Romania and a splendid location) and dig up a body he stuffed with money before burying it.

Off goes Martense and in comes Jon Finch with his gang and his partial dubbing that usually tends to occur when he’s offscreen. The money actually belongs to Finch and he wants it back so, after disposing of Schiavelli, they all troop off to Leffert’s Corners as well.

So far so good. The problem with LURKING FEAR is that something is going on in Leffert’s Corners. Something that has already involved Ashley Lauren(ce) in a prologue that feels more like the end of a movie, and is currently involving her, chain-smoking and chain-drinking doctor Jeffrey Combs, a preacher (Paul Mantee), a pregnant lady, a church, something very badly boarded up that lives under the church floorboards, and the necessity for a large quantity of gelignite to be used to blow up the cemetery. This is where the film really falls down, as that’s about as much as is explained. Everyone converges on the church. The monsters try to kill them. In some cases they succeed. LURKING FEAR is all over in just over 70 minutes and to be honest it really needs another 20 minutes of explanation as to just what is meant to have been going on. And that’s a real shame because with a bit of care and attention LURKING FEAR could actually have been very good indeed. The cast are excellent, the locations are creepy, and the production design boasts a style that’s reminiscent in parts of good Hammer.

88 Films’ DVD is in 4:3 aspect which looks like the frame ratio it was filmed in. Quite a few scenes would actually benefit from being in 2.35:1 so if you do decide to take the plunge with this one, even more fun can probably be had from viewing it through a letterbox-shaped piece of cardboard. There’s a making of that’s very superficial and doesn't deal with any of the obvious problems this production must have encountered. Oh, and the transfer isn't terribly good - at least, the disc I previewed wasn’t. In fact the clips they show in the making of look a lot better. Add in the usual 88 Trashy Trailer Park reel & I’d certainly think I’d have got value for money forking out for this. As always, readers are encouraged to make of that what they will.

88 Films released LURKING FEAR on Region 2 DVD on 19th May 2014

Dolls (1987)

Just released on DVD and Blu-ray by 101 Films is this Stuart Gordon-directed curio from 1987. 

      Little Judy Bower (Carrie Lorraine) and her awful parents (Carolyn Purdy-Gordon and Ian Patrick Williams) break down in the middle of nowhere, only to spot the kind of house you should never go near in these films through the trees. Pausing only to throw away Judy’s favourite teddy bear (which then comes back giant-sized to tear off Purdy-Gordon’s arm in a weird fantasy bit) the three of them break into the house, only to be confronted by its owners, Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke (Guy Rolfe and Hilary Mason, effortlessly showing up all the other ‘actors’ in this film). 

      Gabriel is a toymaker whose dolls exhibit very special properties indeed, including giving Charles Band the idea for at least another twenty or so movies based on the concept. Before you can say ‘we need more Doll fodder’ traveling salesman Ralph Morris (Stephen Lee) has turned up with two of the absolute worst actresses in living memory, whose English accents have one yearning for the far more accurate tones of Dick van Dyke. Soon the dolls are chasing people around the house, popping out eyeballs and causing general mischief, before Stephen and Judy have a final confrontation with the dolls, and the more unpleasant members of the cast end up as part of the doll collection, possibly as a punishment for not being able to act terribly well.

Filmed before Stuart Gordon’s FROM BEYOND but released after because of the amount of post-production animation that was required, DOLLS was a curious follow-up to the director’s previous REANIMATOR. Produced by exploitation legend  (and tiny people movie enthusiast) Charles Band at a time when the long-running PUPPET MASTER series and its multitude of spin-offs were still a twinkle in his eye, DOLLS does at least have one thing in common with all the future Full Moon product that was to follow, in that it’s only 77 minutes long. Even at that length it still drags a bit, although once the animated dolls start doing their stuff it actually becomes quite disturbing for a couple of minutes. Sadly we get little explanation for why Rolfe and Mason would want to trap people and turn them into dolls, which is a shame as it’s not as if this film is overlong and some fleshing out of their characters (and some more screen time) would have been most welcome.

101 Films’ presentation of DOLLS on Blu-ray looks very nice. There are some scratches on the print at the start but other than that it’s nice and clean. The only extra is a director’s commentary.

101 Films released Stuart Gordon's DOLLS on Blu-ray and DVD on 17th February 2014