ANTOnline.com - St Clair Ent Grp Inc DSC88309D LIVING DEAD (DVD/9 MOVIES/3 DISC/2005)

Customer Reviews

Reviewed on 2007-12-18

Get what you pay for
Each movie is about 2.4 GB and there is artifacting, especially during high motion scenes, but it could be because of all the picture noise. Not huge block artifacting, but more of a thatch look. Messiah is full screen, House by the Cemetery is 2.35 and PAL speed yet NTSC spec'd. My DVD player started skipping about an hour into Messiah, but that's because of a scratch on the disc. I waxed it and then it played fine. All the St Clair discs I have played fine. The sound is pretty good but bits are wasted on the 5.1 treatment. Evelyn is 2.35 but the titles are partially off the screen, how did that happen? They are on single sided dual layer discs, DVD9s, and no inserts housed in inch thick keepcases. They mostly look like they were sourced from video, not film or VHS though. I just bought 6 of these St. Clair sets after reading they are the best of the public domain box sets along with a company called Platinum. There is artifacting but I suspect this is the best public domain box sets get. I also suspect these are the best movies to be had. The other companies just slop anything they can get their hands on together. Also, they aren't anamorphic even though some are widescreen. Most of the movies have dropouts and lots of noise but it does look like they were cleaned up a little comparing the actual movie to the clips in the extras. The Elite disc of Night is much better, but this one's totally watchable. You can check out the quality online as there are many places to watch the exact same prints on sites that let you watch public domain movies.

Reviewed on 2006-11-27

Buy it for "Messiah..."
This 3 Disc DVD set from St Clair offers nine public domain horrors plus a few extras at a bargain price. So how does it compare to other DVD multi-film sets?

Disc 1:
"The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave"
"House by the Cemetary"
"Fangs of the Living Dead"
Bonus Feature - Trailers (In a bargain set?!!) for "Doctor Blood's Coffin", "The Child", "City of the Dead" and others.

Disc 2:
"I Eat Your Skin"
"Last Man on Earth"
"King of the Zombies"
Bonus Feature - A horror poster gallery with a creepy soundtrack.

Disc 3:
"Night of the Living Dead"
Film - Do I really need to write anything about this?
Video/Audio Quality - Very good full screen print. Looks better than most versions I've seen. There is one superior DVD presentation from Anchor Bay with several extras, but if you just want an inexpensive copy of the film, this does nicely.
"Thirsty Dead"
"Messiah of Evil"
Film - This is the reason I bought this set. Worth the price in itself, in my opinion. This forgotten 70's budgeter is probably too artsy and slow for the 3rd generation zombie fanboy set. However, if you enjoy moody, atmospheric horror cum art films, you can't miss it. Recommended for fans of "Carnival of Souls", "Incubus", "Daughter of Horror" or "Night Tide".
Video/Audio quality: Full Screen, washed out, but servicable print. Sound is clear but unremarkable. This print looks its age, but the film doesn't suffer for it at all. There's another "Messiah..." DVD from Diamond Entertainment that seems to use the same print. It pairs "Messiah..." with "Devil's Nightmare" and retails for almost the same price as this set.
Bonus Feature - A very short "Making of Night of the Living Dead" featurette.

Considering the price, this is worth having for "Messiah..." and the excellent print of "House...". Think of everything else as an extra.

Reviewed on 2006-08-14

Decent Zombie Collection for the price
Over 13 hours, 9 movies, 3 DVD's, "The Living Dead" is a decent watch, featuring some really unique films on the zombie genre. Don't look for much gore though.

Highlights:
Disc 1
"The House by the Cemetery" Fulci
Disc 2
"The Last Man on Earth" Vincent Price (weak video tranfer)
Disc 3
"Messiah of Evil" Very much feels like 'Night Gallery', with creepy music, atmosphere, slow build up, and an excellent Supermarket zombie scene of a lady walking in an empty foodmart, spotting fresh zombies eating from the meat section. They spot her, and the chase ensues. It's a short scene, but cool. The rest of the film is decent and worth a patient watch. Story is about the Evil One returning to a town, where the streets go empty and everyone turns into a flesh eater.
"Night of the Living Dead" Better versions elsewhere.
"The Thirsty Dead" Feels like a sci-fi 70's flick on Saturday afternoon back in the 80's. Slow but interesting, despite the flaws. At the end, a horde of rotting zombie-like hags are released to attack the population of 'elite vampires'. Story follows four leading ladies.

Bottomline, if you're looking for an affordable zombie collection and you don't have Last Man, NOTLD, House by the Cemetery, but would also like to check out something different in the zombie genre, check this out, but don't expect gold. Had no problems with the discs.

Reviewed on 2005-07-06

Consider this "Night of the Living Dead" plus 8 Bonus Films
This 3-DVD set contains 9 public domain horror films, which include:

Disc 1 - The Night Evelyn Came Out of The Grave (1971)
Disc 1 - The House By The Cemetery (1981)
Disc 1 - Fangs of the Living Dead (1968)
Disc 2 - I Eat Your Skin (1964)
Disc 2 - The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Disc 2 - King of the Zombies (1941)
Disc 3 - Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Disc 3 - The Thirsty Dead (1975)
Disc 3 - Messiah of Evil (1974)

"The Night of the Living Dead" is the real main attraction here, and the true reason I bought the DVD set, but there are other winners here, too. "The Last Man on Earth" is a European cult favorite featuring Vincent Price as the sole survivor in a world overrun by vampires. It mightily influenced George Romero's film-making, and plays like an extended "Twilight Zone" episode. There's also "Fangs of the Living Dead," a late 1960s dubbed Italian horror-comedy featuring Anita Ekberg. It falls into the "So Bad It's Good" group. The others are mostly forgettable time-fillers that, once upon a time, helped to fill up late night TV or drive-in double features. "I Eat Your Skin," for example, is a badly dated "voodoo" thriller that would have seemed dated even in the middle 1950s, and despite its Goblin-like score, "The House By The Cemetery" is one of the most incoherent slasher films ever to come out of Italy.

Film and audio quality are good-to-adequate. I suspect that, for the most part, these are cable TV prints as the gore and occassional nudity are intact. Only "Last Man on Earth" has a print that I would consider substandard to the point of being distracting. The "Night of the Living Dead" print is excellent. The extras are nice to have, and consist of coming attractions to classic horror flicks, a poster gallery, and a very brief narrated documentary about the "Night of the Living Dead." There's nothing here a true Romero fan wouldn't know, but it's nice to see in a budget DVD.

I've no clue why the DVD wouldn't work in the other reviewer's DVD player; I've tried the DVDs in my own player as well as my computer and they work just fine.

For the price, this collection of mostly forgotten horror flicks simply can't be beat. On their own I couldn't recommend any of them on their own merits (save for "Night of the Living Dead" and "The Last Man on Earth" but the others do have their (sometimes unintentional) charm. I found it a fun experience to see a series of low-budget horror flicks whose storytelling style and ambience was made totally obsolete by - you guessed it - the Night of the Living Dead! This would be a good DVD set as Halloween approaches.

Reviewed on 2005-04-05

The Living Dead Collection
I have recently purchased this collection and all three DVD's have a format error causing them to skip and stutter. Buyer beware!

Video » DVD » Featured Categories » Horror » General

St Clair Ent Grp Inc

LIVING DEAD (DVD/9 MOVIES/3 DISC/2005)

$5.08

Product Description

Customer Reviews

Similar Products