The Films (4/5 - Asylum, 3.5/5 - And Now..., 3/5 - The Beast...)

    As a quick preface, please read to the bottom to learn how to win a copy of the Severin Films Amicus Collection and a copy of Richard Glenn Schmidt's Giallo Meltdown in our latest giveaway.

    Amicus Films has eternally been marketed as the sole competitor to England's Hammer Studio's, and in many ways they were. The studio started in 1962 by screenwriter and producers Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg originally decided to focus on a broad market including teen and arthouse films, before finding they had much success in the horror market.  They found their most successful formula with  portmanteau horror films like Tales from the Crypt, The House that Dripped Blood, and this collection's own Asylum, though they did make straight ahead feature horror fare.

    In January 2018 Severin Films have collected 3 of Amicus’ films (previously released by Dark Sky films over a decade ago on DVD), and put them together in a wonderful package with new HD transfers (including a 4K transfer for And Now the Screaming Starts), extras, including a newly created disc called "The Vault of Amicus" with a trailer reel of Amicus titles that can be played with a Kim Newman/David Flint commentary. 

    The set opens with the anthology horror film Asylum.  Like most of Amicus anthology horrors this one has a wraparound story before getting into the shorts that compromise the majority of its running time. The wraparound for this one involves a young psychiatrist (Robert Powell) coming to a mental hospital to interview for a position, only to find himself being grilled by the current head of staff (Patrick Magee).  In order to secure the job, he is offered a test. Recently, Dr. Starr, the former head of staff has fallen insane and taken on a separate personality, the young Doctor must interview the patients upstairs with multiple personalities and discover which one is Dr. Starr. 

    This sets up the 4 stories in the film, each (and the wraparound) written by Psycho's Robert Bloch. The stories follow an unhappy, cheating husband who plans to kill his voodoo obsessed wife with twisted consequences. A tailor who is running out of money is charged with making a suit for a mysterious man (Peter Cushing) out of a bizarre fabric, but only in the middle of the night. When things don't quite work out for the tailor, he tries to force his payment only to find himself a murderer, and left with a suit that causes him nothing but trouble.  The third story follows Barbara(Charlotte Rampling), who believes her other personality "Lucy" (Britt Ekland) is working alongside her brother against her. Rather, than sit idly by and wait for them to strike, she goes on the offensive.  The fourth patient (thought not so much a story) is Byron who makes little robot entities of people he knows, and is now making one of himself in the hopes of putting his consciousness into it.

    Asylum is less scary in its approach then one would expect from a writer like Bloch, and blends horror with elements of dark comedy, and occasional bits of tragedy.  It's an interesting mix up of stories, but overall a light watch,  and a lot of fun. I've always enjoyed the portmanteau style of horror films, and Asylum certainly delivers in that department.

    The second film in the set is And Now the Screaming Starts. The film is a typical English gothic film, with a nice creepy and suspenseful atmosphere. The film follows Catherine (Stephanie Beacham) as she begins her new marriage with Charles Fengriffen (Ian Ogilvy).  Catherine tries to settle into Charles’ centuries old country estate, but almost immediately finds herself haunted by a ghostly decaying man, and a dismembered hand. Others around the house have experienced the same terror, yet Charles will not believe her. After her mania reaches epic proportions Charles calls on a pair of Doctors played by Patrick Magee and Peter Cushing, who only offer minimal help. As it turns out there is something to the supernatural terror Catherine is experiencing, and it reaches back into Charles’ family tree, and is causing issues for his family now.

    And Now the Screaming Starts is not the best of the Amicus horror films. However, it has some great creepy imagery, and a slow burn horror atmosphere to recommend it on.   The performances across the board are quite excellent and contribute to the overall solid quality of the picture. The story itself has a nice backstory to the horror, but overall it's a tad cliché, However, I’ve always find these sort of gothic chillers charming on a personal level, and for others that feel the same, this film certainly delivers the goods.

    The third film in the set, and oddly the one I remember liking the most previously is the werewolf meets whodunnit film "The Beast Must Die".  This film is a bizarre one for Amicus. It wants to be an Agatha Christie style murder mystery,  and actually states it's intention somewhat with an opening narration that puts the question of "Who is the werewolf?" right on the viewer. We are told that toward the end of the film there will be a werewolf break, and we, the viewer, will be made to guess who the "Beast" of the title is. It's a goofy idea, but it's fun, and Amicus, like AIP, never shot down a gimmick.

    The film takes place on the estate of Tom Newcliffe  (Calvin Lockhart) who has just installed a vast camera based security system on his property to track down a WEREWOLF! He has invited 6 friends plus his wife over to get the wolf, knowing one of them is the creature. As bodies begin to pile up, the pressure to find the creature among them begins to grow before others die.

   The Beast Must Die is a fun time, but for those expecting more of a horror experience Amicus plays this closer to a mystery film than a werewolf film. This is actually to their benefit, because this is a very low budget affair, and the werewolf and violent FX in the film are not the best, and sort of downright silly. 

Audio/Video (3/5 - Average)

    Severin does solid work bringing these 3 Amicus productions to Blu-ray life.  All films are presented 1080p HD with new transfers. And Now the Screaming Starts is given a 4k transfer.  Asylum has the most solid transfer of the bunch with nicely reproduced colors, detail, and depth of image. And Now the Screaming Starts looks quite solid for the most part, but starts off with a rough looking credit sequence. There are some issues with speckling and damage but the most part colors are solid and detail is great. Both of the first 2 have some soft spots throughout, but these are production related, and not problems to do with the transfers.

   The Beast Must Die, however, is the most problematic of the 3. There are issues with compression throughout the film, including some black crush in darker moments.  Like the prior 2 print damage is minor.

   Audio is handled with 3 DTS-HD mono tracks and those sound satisfactory with dialogue and score coming through fine. Severin has also included Dolby Digital Mono tracks in Spanish for the first 2 features and DTS-HD Spanish for the Beast Must Die.

Extras (5/5)

    This set is stacked with content, some new, some archival, all pretty much great. Each disc in the set has at least one if not multiple commentary tracks. There are interviews, featurettes, visual essays, trailers and more. As mentioned previously there is  4th disc called the "Vault of Amicus" with a Dr. Terror trailer reel with informative commentary by Kim Newman and David Flint.  There are 2 audio interviews one with Milton Subotsky, and the other with Max Rosenberg. Combined these 2 run for over 4 hours.  There are also additional trailers and TV spots.

Overall

   This is an amazing set sure to please fans of Amicus. The Blu-ray's are of mixed A/V quality, but are totally an upgrade from what came before. They are loaded up with amazing extras, and this comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Contest

Before this review went to press, we found out that the Amicus Collection by Severin Films SOLD OUT. For those that missed out, here is your chance to snag a copy of Severin’s Amicus Collection.  If that were not awesome enough Richard Glenn Schmidt of DoomedMoviethon.com has contributed a copy of his book Giallo Meltdown to be given away as well.  So if you want to win both in a very cool prize pack all you have to do is send an email to Scott@eurocultav.com with your name, address, and favorite Amicus film with the subject Doomed Amicus giveaway. Contest is open in the U.S. and Canada, and ends 2/5/18.