Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Yeah OK, the source prints used for this DVD box set are kind of nappy lookin', dubiously collected (check how the bottom of many of the films is cropped off by a black bar to conceal a smaller company's watermark, then re-watermarked by Mill Creek ... one almost has to admire the nerve ...), atrociously presented, ambiguously "digitally remastered" -- a term that can mean anything starting with "Recorded onto DVD from a VHS" -- and sort of haphazardly collected onto 12 bare bones double sided DVDs that your 12 year old could more imaginatively author on mom's orange iMac after school for a rainy day keep busy project. Many of the films have already been released on DVD by companies like Alpha Video & Something Weird, which sadly may have been the sources for what is on this box set, so don't expect any "upgrades" on what you may already have in your collection, and indeed stuff like HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD have been released on excellent archivally sensitive DVDs. It is a mixed bag to say the least. *BUT*, anybody who loves Peplum "Sword and Sandal" muscleman films with Gladiators, Hercules/Sampson types, lots of Pizza Pizza guards with plumed helmets and gorgeous Italian supporting actresses dressed in flimsy garments performing Veil Dances OR any student of Italian cult B cinema like myself will be well served by this collection. Filmmakers like Mario Bava, Ruggero Deodato, Antonio Margheriti, writers like Ernesto Gastaldi, Bruno Corbucci, composers like Marcello Giombini & Bruno Niccola -- they all got their start in cinema working on these Peplum cheapies, some of which are very imaginatively staged and filled with a kind of endearing charm which seems beyond the grasp of today's big name filmmakers. Peter Jackson's A-list projects cannot hold a candle to stuff like FIRE MONSTERS VS. THE SON OF HERCULES, KINDAR THE INVINCIBLE and GOLIATH VS. THE MOON MEN, which are brimming with imagination and intrigue that still has the power to delight viewers of all ages even forty-five years after they were made. He would probably admit just the same, and point to his childhood love of these films as part of his inspiration. That's another thing I like about this box set: Here are 50 films that the whole family can enjoy *TOGETHER* for the most part. Sure, some of them might seem a bit violent to a conflict resolution oriented culture raised on the Care Bears and the teachings of Albert Gore Jr., but there really isn't anything on these films that would be unsuitable for somebody 8 to 10 years old, and you can just explain to them that back then they gave the pretty maidens to the Kraken all the time & look how things have changed for the better. What's more important is that the kids won't care about the print qualities one bit. They will be too busy wondering what it would be like to be a Son of Hercules, able to tear trees out of the ground and swing them like a baseball bat, or what it would be like to be a Queen of Rome who makes valiant gladiators swoon at her sandaled feet ... Mom will be too busy admiring the chiseled looks & beefanoid muscular chests of Steve Reeves, Gordon Mitchell, Kirk Morris and Richard Harrison, and Dad will get this funny look on his face during the Veil Dance sequences that are an inevitable and enjoyably innocently cheuvenistic element in these films. Everybody likes a good Veil Dance, and that funny look means that Dad is wondering what it would be like to have a whole harem of them waiting back in his chambers after the kids are tucked in bed. Who wouldn't? Juvenile fantasies aside, these movies also aren't going to get any better looking: Most of the original source material has been lost to time & neglect -- the bulk of the material is ultimately based on old fullframe English language TV prints that savvy brained individuals rescued from trash dumpsters or at foreclosure auctions when local TV stations stopped showing matinee type movies on the weekends. A lot of the prints are worn and tattered, color rotted or bulb decayed to the point of having their color nearly completely washed out, and re-formatted for small screen presentation in a slipshod manner that had no sensitivity for shot compositions. Not that these were decisions made by the DVD company, mind you, it's just that the genre itself was thought so poorly of that nobody took care of the material and sadly, what you see on these DVDs is about all that's left of them. So don't blame the messenger: Mill Creek did what it could with the material, and you get so much of it that in the long run it doesn't really matter what they look like. And at roughly $.50 cents/film they can be whatever they are and still be a fantastic value. So here is a highly recommended collection of films for anyone who needs a bunch of cheap DVDs to take to the lake house for the summer or even just for sitting around being bored until school starts up again. And again, for students of the golden era of Euro cult filmmaking this is a must-have history course on how our idol filmmakers & stars got their start in the business, and what a tragic loss the Veil Dance tradition has been to our standards of entertainment.