Search - Beauties & Beasts Box (Night of the Bloody Apes/ Feast of Flesh / Mighty Gorga / One Million AC/DC / The Beast that Killed Women / The Monster of Camp Sunshine) (Something Weird) on DVD

Gore-gantuan splatter pack

Annie Van Auken | Planet Earth | 07/19/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The cover art of IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT's BEAUTIES & BEASTS BOX SET only hints at what's in store for you on these four very unusual DVDs. Besides five vintage raunch and gorefests, also included are:

Trash-o-rama exploitatiion art and '60s se×ploitation art
Drive-in intermission shorts
Theatrical trailers for all five films
SHORT SUBJECTS: Artists' Paradise/Back to Nature/Beauty and the Beast/Bring 'em Back Nude/Diane the Jungle Girl and Her Gorilla of Love/The Exposé of the Nudist Racket/Gorilla and the Maiden/Nightmare/Prehistoric Daze/Nude Ranch/Nudist Fashion Show/White Gorilla/The World's Championship Women's Wrestling Contest
Vintage radio spots
Gory outtake footage
BONUS TRAILERS: The Cyclops/Equinox/Eves on Skis/Face of the Screaming Werewolf/The Flesh Eaters/Goldilocks and the Three Bares/I Dismember Mama/Invasion of the Flesh Hunters/Island of the Dinosaurs/The Loch Ness Terror/Lost Continent/Nudes on Tiger Reef/Nudist Life/Pussycats Paradise/Sound of Horror/Tender Flesh/Tom Thumb/Valley of the Dragons

Can you stand the excitement? Want more? Then check out FEAST OF FLESH (aka "Blood Feast"), the first-ever splatter movie from the genre's legendary creator, Herschell Gordon Lewis! Filmed in Miami in 1963 for a buck-and-a-half, this is the nightmarish tale of a homicidal Egyptian caterer who dismembers his victims, using their body parts to reanimate a long-dead goddess.

THE MIGHTY GORGA is the film's writer/director David L. Hewitt in a cheap gorilla costume. Surprisingly OK cast quickly sinks into an ad-libbed miasma. The subtitle of THE MONSTER OF CAMP SUNSHINE was obviously influenced by Dr. Strangelove-- any similarity ends there, however. In this one, a nudist camp's gardener drinks water tainted with toxic waste and transforms into a ghastly creature that attacks the unclothed campers.

The "highlight" of the Mexican-made NIGHT OF THE BLOODY APES is probably footage of actual open heart surgery. A mad scientist tries curing his son's leukemia by giving him the heart of an ape (pronounced "gore-EEE-yah"). The boy predictably turns into a gnarly monkeyman and goes on a bloody rampage. ONE MILLION AC/DC was scripted by Ed Wood! (Big deal...) The movie's tagline says it all: "See...Vala, the voluptuous cave babe! See...Mota, the mighty war-lard! See...Dino, the plastic-eating dinosaur!"


For five more examples of classic splatter, check out IMAGE ENTERTAINMENT's HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS COLLECTION.


Parenthetical numbers preceding titles are 1 to 10 viewer poll ratings found at a film resource website.

(4.2) Feast of Flesh ("Blood Feast") (1963) - William Kerwin/Mal Arnold/Connie Mason/Lyn Bolton/Scott H. Hall

(2.5) The Mighty Gorga (1969) - Anthony Eisley/Megan Timothy/Scott Brady/Kent Taylor/David L. Hewitt

(2.0) The Monster of Camp Sunshine ("or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nature") (1964) - Ron Cheney/Sally Parfait/Deborah Spray/Harrison Pebbles

(4.8) Night of the Bloody Apes (Mexico-1969) - José Elías Moreno/Carlos López Moctezuma/Armando Silvestre

(2.7) One Million AC/DC (1969) - Susan Berkely/Gary Kent/Billy Wolf/Sharon Wells/Jack King/Natasha"