HORROR CLASSICS 50 MOVIE MEGAPACK

Although I had a good portion of these movies from collections I bought from DVD bargain bins, the price was very reasonable to justify getting about 35 new horror classics added to my collection.With the DVD market collapsing, I doubt that we will see such a collection of forgotten classics ever again. I finished watching the first disc, and I would say that 2 of the 4 films on it are considered great ("Carnival of Souls" and "Nightmare Castle"). Even the other 2 ("Creature from the Haunted Sea" and "Atom Age Vampire") have more than enough entertainment value to keep you watching until the end. Sure, the picture quality and the synchronization of audio is not 100%, but considering the target market and the budget, this is a reasonable tradeoff.The great thing about these forgotten classics is that I am discovering films that I have never heard of, and I would argue that they are better than the more modern horror movies.EDIT: Since I wrote my review, I've noticed other 50 movie packs being released which kind of contradicts my statement "we'll never see another collection like this again". Although I don't expect them to be as good as this one, I will definitely buy one or more of them.EDIT #2: I have ordered 2 more 50 movie packs: "Nightmare Worlds" and "Tales of Terror". It will probably be a while before I get to watch these as I am only about 60% of the way through the current collection (Horror Classics). Keep in mind, there are quite a few stinkers, some of these are not even horror stories (more like detective mystery stories). But there are real gems--if it weren't for this collection, I would have never seen classics like "Metropolis" (not really horror, more like sci-fi), "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" and "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde".

This is a really fun mix of popular early horrors—classics and fun B-movies alike. For me, the collection was worth it alone for the greatest silent horror movies together in one collection: Jekyll & Hyde, the Hunchback, and Nosferatu. But the real treasure (for me) was this edition of The Phantom of the Opera. He’s one of my favorite monsters, and this collection presents the original, longer version of the film from 1925 with the fabulous color scene at the opera house’s masquerade ball. True horror collectors will appreciate this along with the other hard to find drive-in horror shows. Don’t hesitate to pick up this set and start enjoying it!

If you're at all familiar with Treeline Studios' "50 movies" anthology collections, then you've probably come to associate them with cheap cardboard boxes filled with B movies for a reasonable price. The Horror Classics movie pack seems to be cut from a very different mold, though.For starters, the clam-shell case that it comes in is very attractive. This may seem like a silly thing to care about, but it actually looks nice on my movie shelf, whereas my cardboard SciFi Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection looks cheap and annoys me every time I see it. The discs contained within still come in those cheap cardboard sleeves, but they are at least locked securely into a plastic compartment within the clam-shell. They're also nicer looking than the old generic red envelopes. Please note that older versions of this set still come in a cardboard box, so be careful when buying from third party vendors. You want the new edition with the Phantom of the Opera on the cover.More important than appearance, though, is the content in this collection. Whereas most or all of these collections are filled to the brim with cheap B movies that you'd never consider buying on their own, this anthology contains many of the greatest classic horror films ever made (Phantom of the Opera, Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde, White Zombie, Carnival of Souls, Nosferatu, Hunchback of Notre Dame, etc), as well as a number of other entertaining and well-respected horror films, many of which star legends such as Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Vincent Price. Of course, there are a few of the better B horror films as well, including my personal favorite, Maniac. Most of these films aren't scary by modern standards, but they still manage to set a tone of suspense and excitement, all richly encapsulated in a sense of the grotesque. There's something in these films that you can't find in modern day horror; call it style, artistic merit, pacing, restraint, or anything else that suits you. Whatever that missing ingredient is, it's here.Regarding quality, you obviously can't expect anything worthy of an HD TV for this price. Most of these films are adequate captures from the same public domain footage that you might see put out by Alpha Video or shown by a local television network after midnight. Fair quality, for the most part. There seems to be more blurriness on the later films (Night of the Living Dead, Little Shop of Horrors, etc), while the older silent films contain cropped aspect ratios (you can still read most title cards) and bad scores (turn off your volume!).However, there is at least one film in this collection where the quality is inexcusably bad. Metropolis, as an extreme example, looks like someone held a camcorder to a television screen, resulting in a crooked picture, terrible cropping (you can't read anything) and blurriness so bad that you'll swear you're losing consciousness. This is inexcusable considering how many excellent public domain copies there are of this film. And seriously, what is Metropolis doing in a horror anthology anyway?Honestly, I haven't seen any other movie in this collection that I would consider unwatchable (though I've only seen about a third of them), but quality does waver.Here's the full list of what I have watched so far and how the quality fared:*Atom Age Vampire (****): Very watchable, with only the faintest contrast and sound quality problems.*Black Dragons (****): Aside from some minor graininess, the picture is crisp and the sound is clear.*Carnival of Souls (****): Looks great. Sound is a little muffled. Nearly as good as a pricier copy.*Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde (***): Slightly blurry at times. The score is terrible. Pretty watchable with the volume turned off.*House on Haunted Hill (*****): First rate. Best quality movie in this collection.*Hunchback of Notre Dame (****): Lots of scratches and film damage, but overall good looking for an old silent film. Bad score. Keep the volume off.*Invisible Ghost (****): Overall excellent with a slight compromise in sound quality.*Last Man on Earth (**): Very grainy picture. Inexcusable when much better copies are available in public domain.*Little Shop of Horrors (***): Blurry. Sound is a bit muffled. Not bad, but it could be a lot better.*Maniac (****): Mostly excellent. A few scratches/artifacts here and there.*Metropolis (0 stars): See my comments above.*Night of the Living Dead (**): A little too blurry and muffled. Honestly, it's not terrible, but there are MUCH better copies available in public domain.*Nosferatu (***): The cropping/wrong aspect ratio seems to hurt this film more than most, but the quality is decent, and the score is the least terrible of all the silent films in this collection. Very watchable.*Phantom of the Opera (****): A few too many scratches/artifacts, and there's some blurriness here and there, but it looks pretty good overall. Awful score. Turn the volume off.*Revolt of the Zombies (***): Very watchable. The sound quality is poor to begin with on this film, so turn up your speakers. A few minor transfer errors towards the start (the worst one causes the contrast to go crazy for about a second), but solid otherwise.*The Terror (***): I've only watched the beginning so far, but it looks solid. There is a thin white line running down the right edge of the screen at times, but the colors and sound seem to be fine otherwise.*White Zombie (****): Considering how much I had to pay to get a reasonable quality copy of this (my favorite horror film), I'm surprised how good this one is. The contrast is too bright and there are small jumps in the film from time to time, but the sound was so bad on this film to begin with that it's difficult to find a copy where you can make out all of the dialogue. I can make out all of the dialogue on this one.All in all, if you're looking to obtain the best of the best classic horror films at an affordable price and are willing to sacrifice some quality, you can't go wrong with this collection. If nothing more, it would serve as an excellent introduction to the genre, containing virtually every great classic horror film ever made (with the exception of the Universal monster films which are still under copyright).