The Flesh & Blood Show
by Pete Walker
from Shriek Show
A group of trendy young actors and actresses assemble at a run-down theatre at the end of a pier in an out-of-season British coastal resort. Hired by the mysterious Theatre Group 40 to put together the improvisation revue The Flesh and Blood Show the actors are soon at the mercy of a madman who begins working his way through their number. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: UNRATED UPC: 631595061994 Manufacturer No: SSDVD-0619
Die Screaming Marianne
by Pete Walker
from Shriek Show
Marianne following the sudden death of her mother stands to inherit the family fortune along with several documents that could incriminate her corrupt judge of a father. Now her sister and her father both want their hands on Marianne's inheritance and they'll stop at nothing even murder to get it! Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: UNRATED UPC: 631595061895 Manufacturer No: SSDVD-0618
Sexy Susan George (Straw Dogs) pouts and peers from wounded eyes like a B-movie Julie Christie as Marianne, a go-go-dancing free spirit on the run from her lordly father, a defrocked magistrate enigmatically called the Judge (Leo Genn), and her psychotic half-sister. It seems our shapely sweetheart has something everybody wants, namely incriminating files and a small fortune in ill-gotten gains left by her light-fingered mum in a Swiss bank to be handed over on her 21st birthday. A little conspiratorial conniving brings Marianne back to the Judge's seaside estate to await her inheritance, and the blood sport begins.
Handsomely shot in the lofts of swinging London and on the sunny coast of Portugal by future British goremeister Pete Walker, this is a competently made little thriller, familiar in parts and clumsily executed in moments--the flaming car wreck is particularly ragged--but engaging overall. There is no shortage of murder and mayhem, but despite its provocative title, Die Screaming, Marianne only hints at the sex and violence that later became the hallmark of Walker's savage productions Frightmare and House of Whipcord. His signature is found in the sheer desolation of the project. In a Pete Walker film, innocence is no guarantee of survival.
Image Entertainment's full-screen release marks the film's first uncut home-video release in the U.S. The print is worn in places and in parts resorts to less than stellar footage (ostensibly to reconstruct the full version), and the color is slightly subdued, but considering that this is a 1970 drive-in film it looks fine and is quite watchable. --Sean Axmaker
The House of Whipcord
from Image Entertainment
With a title like House of Whipcord, you already know this is no Disney movie. British exploitation horror-meister Pete Walker (The Flesh and Blood Show) combines his two shock-in-trade specialties--sex and violence--for this sadistic portrait of a private prison used for the systematic degradation of "loose" women. A perverted prison matron, her dutiful son (named, tellingly, Mark E. DeSade), and a doddering old judge with an Old Testament approach to modern permissiveness collect beautiful young women guilty of the most minor offenses (our heroine is found guilty of public lewdness) and punish them for their sins via a penance that ends in their inevitable death. As our sweet young French model is stripped, whipped, and generally abused by her brutal captors--oddly enough merciless and angry middle-aged women--her roommate takes it upon herself to track her down. It's a sleazy exercise in cinematic sadism perpetrated on beautiful women for the entertainment of the audience, smoothed slightly by surprisingly good performances, a modicum of rough style, a few gripping scenes of tension, and one jaw-dropping twist. --Sean Axmaker
Many young girls have entered these gates...none have come out! Beautiful young women are kidnapped and taken to a prison designed for the devotees of the Marquis de Sade! Guilty or not, they must be punished! The crazed caretakers viciously whip their victims in this nightmarish den of torture and depravity. Those who try to escape will be executed! British goremaster Pete Walker (Frightmare, The Flesh and Blood Show) directs this Euro Horror classic.
Frightmare
from Image Entertainment
Britain's answer to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre finds its villain in a little old fortunetelling lady who likes to take an electric drill to the skulls of her customers. Sheila Keith is the seemingly dotty old woman recently released from an insane asylum with her doting husband (Rupert Davies). Brunette Deborah Fairfax's good-girl heroine helps stepmom through the transition with midnight visits and animal brains (yum!), while her thrill-killing delinquent half-sister (the appropriately named Kim Butcher) takes to the family business with a deliriously ferocious glee.
This is the film that gave British goremeister Pete Walker his notorious reputation, with its brain-munching matron and her gory murder spree (including a red-hot fireplace poker through the stomach--ouch!). The movie is tight and well acted, and Walker's usually blunt style rises to the occasion of David McGillivray's script, a sad and savage psychodrama that takes the blood in blood relations with a cruel literalness. Walker's grainy black-and-white prologue is startlingly visceral, and his penchant for numbing, nihilistic climaxes remains as strong as ever. This well-mounted splatter film is smarter than most of its ilk, with a strong subtext of family tensions, but it's definitely not for the squeamish.
Released uncut on home video for the first time by Image Entertainment, it's a sharp, colorful full-screen transfer of a good print, with only minor scratches. --Sean Axmaker
At the quaint little farmhouse down the road live an old couple. They seem nice enough, but... The judge pronounced Edmund and Dorothy Yates sane after spending 18 years in a mental hospital for a series of gory cannibal killings. Now, after their release, everything seems fine--until a psychiatrist starts poking around and uncovers the blood-splattered truth. From master of cult horror Pete Walker (The Flesh and Blood Show) comes a ghastly tale of dark secrets and bizarre appetites. "Frightmare" is a must for horror fans with good taste.
Schizo
by Pete Walker
from Image Entertainment
A little girl watches helplessly as she is the sole witness to her mother's murder. Years later, that little girl has grown into the beautiful skating star Samantha Gray (Lynne Frederick). But after her wedding announcement is published in the local newspaper, a man who becomes more and more obsessed with her begins turning up everywhere she goes. Samantha's fear mounts as one by one her friends are murdered, and she becomes convinced that the stalker is no stranger! Directed by British goremaster Pete Walker (Frightmare, The Flesh and Blood Show), this suspenseful horror thriller was one of the early slasher films, rich with gore, an intriguing story, scenes reminiscent of Psycho and a twist ending considered so frightening that squeamish theater patrons were promised free smelling salts if they fainted!
Home Before Midnight
by Pete Walker
from Shriek Show
The rock music business... Money Fame Girls... and whole lot of trouble!This exploitationer from British low-budget specialist Pete Walker Frightmare the Flesh and Blood Show tells of a songwriter for a rock band who is accused of raping a 14-year-old girl. Although he is innocent of the crime he finds his life being destroyed by the girl's vengeful parents and a legal system that he believes gives him no rights at all.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR UPC: 631595070293 Manufacturer No: SSDVD0702
Die Screaming Marianne
by Pete Walker
from Image Entertainment
Sexy Susan George (Straw Dogs) pouts and peers from wounded eyes like a B-movie Julie Christie as Marianne, a go-go-dancing free spirit on the run from her lordly father, a defrocked magistrate enigmatically called the Judge (Leo Genn), and her psychotic half-sister. It seems our shapely sweetheart has something everybody wants, namely incriminating files and a small fortune in ill-gotten gains left by her light-fingered mum in a Swiss bank to be handed over on her 21st birthday. A little conspiratorial conniving brings Marianne back to the Judge's seaside estate to await her inheritance, and the blood sport begins.
Handsomely shot in the lofts of swinging London and on the sunny coast of Portugal by future British goremeister Pete Walker, this is a competently made little thriller, familiar in parts and clumsily executed in moments--the flaming car wreck is particularly ragged--but engaging overall. There is no shortage of murder and mayhem, but despite its provocative title, Die Screaming, Marianne only hints at the sex and violence that later became the hallmark of Walker's savage productions Frightmare and House of Whipcord. His signature is found in the sheer desolation of the project. In a Pete Walker film, innocence is no guarantee of survival.
Image Entertainment's full-screen release marks the film's first uncut home-video release in the U.S. The print is worn in places and in parts resorts to less than stellar footage (ostensibly to reconstruct the full version), and the color is slightly subdued, but considering that this is a 1970 drive-in film it looks fine and is quite watchable. --Sean Axmaker
In notorious British goremaster Pete Walker's first horror film, the beautiful Susan George (Straw Dogs) stars as Marianne, a nightclub dancer desperately running for her life. Marianne is about to turn 21 and inherit the contents of a sizeable Swiss bank account, which includes certain incriminating documents. Trickery, betrayal and death are around every corner in this pulse-pounding, suspense-filled horror thriller.
Cool It Carol
by Pete Walker
from Image Entertainment
In this popular early '70s blend of comedy and social commentary from cult director Pete Walker (Frightmare, House of Whipcord), a freewheeling couple decides to let themselves go in swinging London. The decadent playground they encounter proves to be more than they can handle as carnal designs of every stripe lure them into the swirling pleasures of bare flesh and cold, hard cash. Will they manage to find themselves again before it's too late?
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