The Vincent Price Collection [Blu-ray]

Product Description ------------------- Get ready for six chilling tales starring the master of horror, Vincent Price! This collection includes new and vintage bonus features that focus not just on each film, but on Price’s illustrious and enduring legacy as cinema’s most chilling actor. Titles Include: THE PIT & THE PENDULUM THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH THE HAUNTED PALACE THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES WITCHFINDER GENERAL .com ---- The four-disc Vincent Price Collection offers a fearsome feast of classic horror for fans of the genre and its sinister yet elegant leading man, as well as a terrific array of supplemental features. As with many of Shout Factory's home video releases, the extras compiled here are a mix of material previously issued on DVD and newly recorded extras, as well as several vintage items that may be new to some viewers. For those who snapped up the Price titles when they were released on DVD as part of MGM's Midnite Movies line, the Collection reissues commentaries by director Roger Corman that were featured on their presentations of House of Usher (1960) and The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), as well as an on-camera interview he recorded for their Haunted Palace (1963) and Masque of the Red Death (1964) DVDs. The iconic filmmaker contributes informative and frequently wry discussions of working with Price, as well as adapting Edgar Allan Poe's material and the occasional perils of low-budget filmmaking. Commentary by actor Ian Ogilvy and producer Philip Waddilove for Witchfinder General (1968) is also culled from an MGM/Midnite Movies disc, as is Witchfinder General: Michael Reeves' Horror Classic, a 25-minute featurette that discusses the late filmmaker's all-too-brief CV, with much of the focus devoted to this controversial title. Two lengthy interviews with Price conducted by author and historian David Del Valle--a 62-minute on-camera conversation with the actor and a 40-plus-minute audio interview recorded in his home in 1988--are ported over from the long out-of-print Vincent Price--The Sinister Image DVD, and make welcome returns to home video here. The final previously issued extra included in the Collection--save for the theatrical trailers for each picture, all presented in widescreen and in high definition--is a curious prologue (also hi-def) for Pit and the Pendulum featuring actress Luana Anders and filmed in 1968 to fill out the running time for television broadcast. The all-new material featured in The Vincent Price Collection is anchored by audio commentary tracks by Lucy Chase Williams, author of The Complete Films of Vincent Price, for Usher and Haunted Palace. Williams provides a wealth of historical information on both films, and her input is buttressed by observations from Richard Heft on Palace and Price's own words, delivered by actor Pitor Michael (doing a credible imitation of the actor's famously plummy tone) on Usher. Author Tom Weaver provides a second, equally interesting commentary track for Palace that includes a clip from a telephone interview conducted with the film's costar, Debra Paget. Director Robert Fuest is front and center on a lively new commentary track (with Hammer Films historian Marcus Hearn) on The Abominable Dr. Phibes, which is partnered with a second commentary track by Justin Humphreys that devotes a considerable a of time to the picture's elaborate production design. Author Steve Haberman also contributes a new commentary track for Masque of the Red Death, while Price's daughter, Victoria, is featured in a heartfelt conversation about her her that touches on, among other topics, his passion for the visual arts. The set is rounded out by the alternate opening and closing credits for the American release of Witchfinder, titled The Conqueror Worm and featuring Price intoning the Poe poem from which it draws its name, and an array of trailers for other Price titles, including House of Wax and The Tingler. Perhaps the most charming and offbeat extra featured on the set are introductions and closing comments for five of the six films that Price filmed in the 1980s for an Iowa public television series called Vincent Price's Gothic Horrors, as well as an interview with the program's executive producer, which, like the Collection itself, underscores the actor's long-standing reputation as a consummate professional and fan favorite. --Paul Gaita

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