Tomb

You probably don't know me, so I'll tell you something about myself: I've bought a lot of terrible movies on videocassette and DVD over the years. Dusty old films in video store bargain bins hold an inescapable appeal to me. Sometimes I luck out and find something really special. Other prizes run the gamut from “interesting failure” to “I can't believe this got made.” A lot of the junk I find is fun to write about.

This week, I'll be taking a look at the most poorly manufactured tapes and discs in my collection. I'm not talking about the quality of the films themselves here; I'm talking about home video releases with serious physical problems. These are all older acquisitions, but they still make me shake my head in disbelief.

• Tape starts halfway through opening titles — Astro-Zombies (1968): Sure, we're all tired of discs that force you to sit through 20 minutes of previews, ads, FBI warnings and animated intros before getting to the film itself, but this is ridiculous. Even when fully rewound, my VHS copy of this sci-fi turkey just starts in the middle of the opening credit sequence, with absolutely no preamble. Bam! Some guy's name vanishes from the screen, and we will never know what his job on the movie was. A few more names flicker by and we wonder; has the name of the movie appeared yet? Did we miss it? In a particularly surreal touch, the credits play out over footage of little toy wind-up robots whirring around for no reason. Egad, is this a real movie, or did somebody record over it as a joke?

It's no joke. This is a real movie, and one of the very worst ever made. The crew probably shortened the beginning of the tape on purpose, just so their names wouldn't appear on this mess.

• Reels shown out of order — House by the Cemetery (1981): Coherence was never director Lucio Fulci’s strong point, but it sure doesn't help when his Evil Zombie Scientist movie has had its scenes shuffled around like a deck of cards. Gotta label those film canisters carefully, boys. Sadly, this random-order VHS tape was the only way people could see this movie for several years.

• Edited for TV : Shivers (1975): Fans of Canadian cinema in general and the early works of David Cronenberg in particular should know about Shivers. It was Cronenberg's first feature film, and it found entirely new ways to upset and alarm audiences. Years before the horror boom of the 1980s, this movie was grossing people out with scenes of slug-like creatures turning people into sex-crazed maniacs. It's messy, queasy and hard to forget.

Astral Video's VHS tape of this film is actually the edited-for-TV version, a fact not even hinted at on the box. Removing all of the sex and blood from Shivers has the unfortunate side effect of also removing the entire story. Nothing bad happens in the entire movie now. Why are the characters panicking? What are they running away from?

• Hilarious misspelling – Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988): My DVD copy of this post-apocalyptic B-movie is a particularly cheap one. So cheap in fact, that the main menu contains only two words: “Strat Movie” (sic).

That's right, “Strat”. What kind of a doofus DVD manufacturer can't even spell the word “Start”?

• No ending — Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks (1974): Kids today... I tell you, they don't know how good they've got it. In my day, we didn't have the Internet; if we wanted to see boobies we’d have to watch an entire crappy film like Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks. Well, I say entire, but the VHS tape of this nudity-enhanced piece-o-junk is actually missing the ending. I don't mean just a few minutes off of the denouement, either; I'm talking about a tape that plays for about an hour and then halts in an abrupt burst of static. What the hell?! Did the good guys get away? Did the monsters die? Damn it, I need closure!