THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976) / FROGS (1972) (Scream Factory Blu-ray Review)

THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976) / FROGS (1972) 

SCREAM FACTORY DOUBLE FEATURE

Label: Scream Factory 
Release Date: May 26th 2015 
Region Code: A
Rating: PG
Duration: 88 Minutes, 91 Minutes 
Audio: English LPCM 2.0 
Video: 1080p Widescreen (1.85:1), (1.78:1)  
Director: Bert I. Gordon, George McCowan
Cast: Ida Lupino, Pamela Franklin, Marjoe Gortner, Belinda Balaski, Jon Cypher, Ralph Meeker,  Judy Pace, Ray Milland, Joan Van Ark, Adam Roarke, Sam Elliott, Lynn Borden

THE FOOD OF THE GODS (1976)

Pro footballer Morgan (Marjoe Gortner) and his pals are hunting on a remote island off British Columbia when one of them are attacked by enormous wasps the size of a small dog with wings. Morgan and the others don't witness the attack and are unaware of the oddity of the death, aside from the unusually swollen corpse. When the autopsy indicates he was injected with a near impossible amount of wasp venom Morgan and his friend Bryan (Jon Cypher) return to the island to find some answers. Once there they stumble upon a small farm house in the woods where Morgan is attacked by an 8 ft. tall rooster that's kept out in the barn, just narrowly avoiding having his eyes pecked out by the gigantic cock.

Mrs. Skinner (Ida Lupino), the elderly owner of the farm,  after some prodding reveals that she and her husband have found a substance bubbling up from the Earth, ome goo with the consistency of runny oatmeal which when eaten enables the animals to grow to an unnatural size, as evidenced by the 8ft rooster. Morgan puts two and two together and deduces that wasps must have eaten the substance and are loose in the area,  but Mrs. Skinner refuses to believe that their discovery could be something awful, what she doesn't know is that Mr. Skinner was torn apart by a horde of flesh-crazed rats who have also eaten the magic growth substance. 

Now we have Morgan and Bryan on the island in addition to a young couple expecting a child plus an unscrupulous owner of a dog food company who is bent on obtaining the substance for his own profit, alongside his somewhat adversarial bacteriologist assistant. Not completely sure why the owner of a dog food company needed a bacteriologist on staff but I do know that white-afro wearing Marjoe Gortner needed a love interest and she fit the bill. 

The idea of giant-sized animals and insects ingesting a strange substance who attack humans on a remote island might sound familiar to anyone who watched director Bert I. Gordon's Empire of the Ants (1971) just a few years earlier. The campy special affects are achieved through various means to varying degrees of success, a series of miniatures sets with real rodents that are hilarious, full size puppets, and a series of composite shot effects, which may not be the most impressive but are a lot of fun, particularly if you love bad movies or are nostalgic for these awesome creature-features from the '70s.

I love love love this film and always have and I always will, it's just a blast and hard not to enjoy for the cult-classic that it is, a movie loaded with giant-sized wasps, chickens, worms and a horde of deadly rodents who lay siege to the farmhouse. I just cannot get enough of this one and I am damn happy to see it get an HD release from Scream Factory with some new extras and improved A/V.   

The Food of the Gods shares space on a single-disc Blu-ray with the eco-terror Frogs, the HD transfer offers up improved clarity and detail over the standard-def DVD, which should be no surprise. Not the most impressive eye-popping 1080p on the market but for an almost 40 year old b-movie this one looked pretty solid. The English LPCM 2.0 audio is nicely balanced with no distortion, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Special features include a brand new Audio Commentary With Director Bert I. Gordon moderated by Kevin Sean Michaels, a fun interview with Actress Belinda Balaski whom recalls actress Ida Lupino informing the director she had written her own death scene and was leaving the set in a few hours, having to scramble to get the scene finished before she left. Additionally there are radio spots, a trailer, a photo gallery and trailers for Empire of the Ants and Jaws of Satan, also available as a double-feature from Scream Factory 

Special Features
- New Audio Commentary With Director Bert I. Gordon
- New Interview With Actress Belinda Balaski (12 Mins) 
- Radio Spot (1 Min) 
- Photo Gallery (4 Mins) 
- Theatrical Trailer (1 Min) 

FROGS (1972)

Frogs is one of those films I caught on TV quite a bit in the early '80s but could just never get into at the time, an environmental horror film starring Sam Elliot sans his signature mustache, which was weird. Elliot is wildlife photographer Pickett Smith who is canoeing around the bayou snapping pics of wildlife and pollution when his canoe is overturned by the wake of a careless speed boater. The speed boat circles back around and pulls him from the water, inside are Clint (Adam Roarke) and his sister Karen (Joan Van Ark), whom invite him back to their island estate for some celebratory fun, as they're celebrating not just the 4th of July but the birthday of their wheelchair bound grandfather Jason Rocket (Ray Milland), a stubborn southern man. 

Soon after the creatures of the bayou seemingly begin to rise up against humanity, beginning with a deadly snakebite in the swamp.  In very short order the birds, rattlesnakes, tarantulas, alligators, snapping turtles and frogs are hunting the humans. The movie is a classic example of '70s slow-burn cinema from start to finish, deliberately paced with some decent tension and creepiness punctuated by a few death scenes involving swampy critters with an attitude.  

Sam Elliot's Pickett Smith is the voice of reason among the humans, but for the most part his warnings to vacate the island fall on deaf ears, particularly the patriarch Jason Crockett who is one grade a stubborn son of a bitch. The kills sequences are fun with some cool shots of frogs gathering in great numbers outside the family mansion, which is sort of creepy but only to a point. There are venomous snakes hanging from trees, and a pretty cool scene of tarantulas descending from the mossy canopy onto a victim who has immobilized himself with a shotgun blast to the leg, while it's not quite up to par with that one scene in Lucio Fulci's The Beyond is is creepy. 

I just happen to enjoy a good slow-burn and creature features, but this one is pretty damn slow with most of the scenes of animals stalking their prey just clips of snakes or spiders spliced into a scene separate from the victim, which hurts it, but there's no denying the building sense of dread and creepiness of this one, but it never quite pans out in the end. While I didn't care for it much as a youth it has grown on me quite a bit, but I can see how many would rather watch paint dry, it's slow. 

The disc from Scream Factory looks good, a definite step up over the MGM DVD from a few years back with improved depth and clarity, skin tones are accurate, but some compression issues take away from the overall score, not too shabby, but not a stunner. The English LPCM 2.0 audio  is clean and well-balanced, again not a stunner, but probably true to the source material and free of distortion, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Special features include a 10-minute interview with star Joan Van Ark who is candid about the film, her love of the director and he obvious pleasure of working alongside Sam Elliot. Funnily she mentions that she is often mistaken for co star Lynn Borden, and is often presented photos of Borden to sign. Other extras include a trailer, a radio spot and a photo gallery. 

Special Features
- New Interview With Actress Joan Van Ark (10 Mins) 
- Radio Spot (1 Min) 
- Photo Gallery (3 Mins) 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 Mins) 

I am loving these Scream Factory double features which seem to be carrying on the b-movie tradition of the classic MGM Midnite Movies double-features, they're not all golden nuggets of cult-cinema but they are certainly entertaining slices of b-movie cinema and I am happy to see them being preserved in HD. The Food of the Gods is the clear winner of this double feature, director Bert I. Gordon mad quite a few entertaining movies and this is one of his best he made. Both films have decent PQ and we get some new interviews and an audio commentary on top of that, for the right price this is a fun double-feature of angry and over sized critters. *** 3/5

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973)

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973) 

Label: Scream Factory
Region Code; A

Rating: PG

Duration: 95 Minutes

Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: 1080p Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: John Hough

Cast: Pamela Franklin, Roddy McDowall, Clive Revill, Gayle Hunnicut

The Legend of Hell House (1973) is one  film I caught on TV during one of those chiller matinee double features that were so awesome.  Watching it when I was just a kid it put a serious fright into me and it's stuck with me for a while. In it we have the infamous Belasco House, a spooky Victorian era mansion originally owned by the very wealthy Emeric Belasco, whom as it turns out was notorious for his unsavory proclivities and depraved orgies. For decades the sprawling mansion has sat vacant - having been sealed up by the Belasco family - following the murder of twenty-seven people found massacred there after attending one of the wild parties. While suspected of the murders the reclusive millionaire mysteriously disappeared without a trace and is presumed dead.

At the story begins the mansion has been sold to an eccentric millionaire named Mr. Deutsch (Roland Culver) who recruits physicist Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill) to go the home and find proof of life after death - old man Deutsch looks like he;s on Death's doorstep so he probably wants to know what lies on the others side. The creepy mansion has garnered quite a reputation as "the Mount Everest of haunted houses" and is said to be inhabited by the tortured souls who fell prey to Belasco's demented desires. 

The arrogant Barret is a scientist and a skeptic, also assigned to the investigation are a physical medium named Ben Fischer (Rodddy McDowall, Fright Night) whom has the distinction of being the sole survivor or a previous investigation of the home which claimed eight lives. Fischer is only there for a paycheck - and refuses to open himself up to the influence of the home. The other investigator is the spiritualist Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin) who is completely willing to open herself up to the spirits within - more so than you may think. Also along for the ride is Barrett's repressed wife Anne (Gayle Hunnicut).  Anne's only supernatural ability seems to be an unearthly beauty, Gayle Hunnicut is most certainly an attractive woman, no doubt about it. 


Barret being of the scientific persuasion and a skeptic does not believe in the supernatural and attributes the strange goings on at the house as merely unfocused electromagnetic energy which creates a but of believer vs skeptic tension in the group. Fischer having only having just survived his last encounter at the mansion warns bot Barret and Tanner that they are hopelessly outmatched by the evil in the home. 

Right from the start you get the standard haunted house tropes beginning with fog shrouded exteriors of the home and then straight into slamming doors, ghostly voices, creepy black cats, moving furniture and a fun scene of ectoplasm manifesting during one of the psychic's seances. As the investigations gets under way proper a malevolent supernatural attacks Barret during a great dinner scene complete with levitating tables and flying silverware.

There's no shortage of standard haunting elements but something new to the mix are the strange erotic scenes that pop-up from time to time. The repressed Anne is plagued by erotic visions and newly awakened sexual urges which awakens her from her nightly slumber in a horny trance, throwing herself at Fischer who shows an impossible amount of self control in refusing her disrobed charms , in fact he slaps her across the face to snap her out of it. A bit later we have Tanner who so desperately wants to free trapped spirits from the mansion that she has consensual sex with an apparition... now that's commitment!

Without spoiling a whole lot more eventually Barret brings in a super computer of his own design which he believes will drain the home of the violent energies, and with that the film kicks into gear building up to a not quite satisfying ending. 

Scripted by Richard Matheson and based on his own novel The Legend of Hell House is a fun supernatural chiller with plenty of atmosphere and tension - it's thick with both. Right from the very beginning we have some excellent exterior shots of the mansion shrouded in a deep layer of fog - it definitely sets the mood. The art direction and cinematography are top notch, the crushed red velvet walls and multi-colored lighting would not be out of place in one of Mario Bava's Gothic masterpieces. 

Not everything completely works, I found the rampant use of time stamping slightly ridiculous, appearing onscreen about every five minutes throughout the entire film, probably meant to create some form of tension but failing miserably. John Hough's direction is pretty tight and

The Legend of Hell House arrives on Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a very nice transfer and strong color reproduction and black levels - definitely an upgrade from the standard-def DVD from a few years ago but nowhere near the impressive level of clarity and fine detail you would expect from a new film. The grain structure appears intact without any excessive DNR having been applied to it, the fine detail is surprisingly strong in a few of the scenes. 

The DTS-HD Master Audio Mono does a decent job balancing the dialogue and effects, a very crisp presentation with optional English subtitles. The electronic music score by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson sounds great, makes me wish for an isolated misc score option. . 

Onto the extras we have a new audio commentary from actress Pamela Franklin which I must say was a bit of a chore to sit through with frequent pauses without commentary, there's an uncredited moderator who could have done more to keep the conversation flowing - a bit of a letdown. 

The interview with director John Hough was quite a treat and made-up for the lackluster commentary. Hough speaks about the mansion used in the film and the influence of Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963). He goes on to speak of his creative process and camera movement, and how certain technical shots and effects were achieved in the film.  The director also talks about working with John Cassavetes on The Incubus (1982) and his life long desire to work for Hammer Films and Disney - both of which he realized with Twins of Evil (1971) for Hammer and a string of Disney films including Escape from Witch Mountain (1975)  and it's sequel plus the eerie The Watcher in the Woods (1980). Hough has made quite a few great films including the wonderful Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974), this is a great interview. 

Special Features:
- New Interview With Director John Hough
- New Audio Commentary With Actress Pamela Franklin
- Theatrical Trailer (2 minutes)
- Photo Gallery (3 minutes)
- Scream Factory Trailers (5 minutes) 
- Radio Spots ( 2 minutes) 

The Legend of Hell House is a fun ghost story with some keen cinematography and a great cast plus  plenty of things that go bump in the night, a damn good old fashioned chiller. Scream Factory have put together a nice package here with desirable picture quality and a handful of  quality extras that make this an easy upgrade from the standard-def DVD.