Search - The Edgar Wallace Collection: Mad Executioners/Fellowship of the Frog on DVD

Anticipated

Martin Montag | INTERZONE | 02/05/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As a fan of Italian Giallo cinema I came to read about the Edgar Wallace and his inspiration to said giallo movies. Having read very favourable reviews on IMDB I decided to take the plunge and give this brand new Retromedia DVD a go. First thing to mention is the print damage which is most noticeable at the beginning of the Mad Executioners, but sadly occurs throughout. I managed to forgive this for such an obviously rare movie.

There is some atmosphere of the dry ice smoke machine kind and the location chosen by the titular executioners imbues the viewer with mild dread. Cinematography is good, this is a very low budget production which the skill of the set designer and camera person manage to overcome.
Unfortunately the story is developed slowly, setting up many a red herring. There are some small magic moments to enjoy which I won't spoil for you, but this is not as good a piece of movie-making I was hoping for.
Mad Executioners is presented in wide-screen. I've yet to view the second movie on this disc which sadly is non-wide-screen.
On the strength of the first film I'd find this difficult to recommend to anyone like myself taking their first dive into the cinematic world of Edgar Wallace. Perhaps another Amazon customer can recommend a better film adaptation available on DVD."