Reel Horror

Reel Horror (1985)

1/2 (out of 4)

If you rented movies back in the VHS era then you'll remember several compilations that were put together to show off movies. Usually titles like THE BEST OF SEX AND VIOLENCE and ZOMBIETHON featured various trailers and they were made in an attempt to make people interested in renting the actual films.

Then you've got something like REEL HORROR, which is downright awful in just about every way imaginable. In this film, film canisters become possessed and they "come to life." By coming to life I mean that once the prints come to life we then see clips from a variety of movies and in between the clips there are some hosts to tell some jokes.

This here is a really awful movie on many levels but I'm going to guess that a majority of people came to it because it was advertised as featuring John Carradine. Clips from his movie BAD CHARLESTON CHARLIE are shown and that's the only connection that Carradine has to this picture. We also get clips (according to IMDB) from UP YOUR TEDDY BEAR, THE BLOODY SLAYING OF SARAH RIDELANDER, NICOLE, PIGS and NIGHT CREATURE.

The problem with this film is that the hosts are incredibly annoying and nothing they do or say is funny or interesting. Another problem is that the clips from the films are showing without any rhyme or reason and it seems as if someone was too lazy to create an interesting trailer or an interesting segment of scenes so they just showed large chunks of the actual movies. Out of the clips shown, I've only seen PIGS and it was a pretty good movie but you wouldn't know it by the scenes selected here.

I'm really not sure why these films were selected but REEL HORROR was meant to be rented by horror fans yet the horror elements in the movie clips are very tame and it's doubtful anyone would watch this movie and then want to go out and rent these other films.

Ross Hagen...shame on you. Seeing your name listed in the credits of exploitation and action flicks has always meant sure-fire B movie fun. And then...this. What the Hell is THIS?! You've gone and scraped some detrius from a bunch of crummy 70s films, tied them loosely together with witless SOV wraparound footage, and then had pompous audacity to expect people to PAY TO SEE IT?? Yes, I know one dollar won't make or break most people, but c'mon Ross, it's the principle of the whole thing.

Please...retract your name from this abomination. You're still "the man" in my book, because I figure everyone's prone to a momentary lapse of reason once in a while. This is a big one, though, Buddy...

1.5/10...at least Catherine Bach's topless moment from NICOLE is presented, which *alone* makes this a dollar well spent.

Waaaaaaaaay back in the 80s , when vhs ruled the world, there was a strange genre of horror movie clip show tapes that circulated through video rental stores. Terror on Tape, Zombiethon, Terror in the Aisles just to name a few. The people reviewing this film clearly are too young or too uneducated to remember this. Yes, it's a bunch of clips of old movies. Yes the wraparound is poorly made and badly acted. THATS WHAT THE FOLKS THAT LIVED IN THAT ERA LOVED ABOUT THESE! They were stupid but showed you clips of other dumb movies for you to track down! Like an extended trailer reel. I always love the people that say movies like this is "the worst thing they've ever watched ". You just dont get it. Sorry.

Oh, the above comment is all too accurate! I wasted a whole dollar on this DVD because I thought it actually featured John Carradine, whom I worked with back in '66. Not only are all the selected 'archive' films dogs in themselves, but the bridging material is steaming dog crap. This must have been some locally produced TV show (or maybe unproduced!) that they strung together for this ill-begotten feature. The one main character in the new material, some dame named Hecate, can't decide which eye her eye-patch is supposed to cover! Oh, well, at least this dollar DVD has another film on it: Tommy Lee Jones in "Eliza's Horoscope"... Augggggh!

As of this writing, the IMDb credited cast for Reel Horror is soooo misleading... Actually, this film consists of clips from eight different movies in which those people (among others) appear. This is called Reel Horror because the octet is horror (or thriller-type) flicks, which are horrible themselves. So we have parts of eight really bad pictures tied illogically together by excruciatingly inferior skits that allude to various curses that have befallen folks in the theatrical profession. It's hard to imagine that what happens BETWEEN the previously-made stuff could be WORSE than the older fare - but it is. Much worse. For example, sound so poor that I often missed what was said, in spite of my assuring ample volume. (I was the only living thing which would venture within hearing distance of the dialogue. I bet the plants wished that they could walk.) There is a cast of seven which should bear additional blame for the intervening nonsense. Also, consider this: there's a name among the closing credits for "eyepatches." The parts of the selected works have absolutely no other similarity. Having seen it on TV, my lost investment is pretty much restricted to my time. Somebody would be a robber if any money was exchanged for this tripe.