DVD Picks of the Month: October 2007

In October, Price is right

By D.K. Holm

If it’s October, then there must be a million new horror DVDs inundating our home-viewing merchants’ shelves, a minor prelude to the Xmas season around the corner. There are so many horror DVDs, not just this year, but from years past back to 1997, that whole books are required to sort through them. The thing to do is to pick a monster (Dracula? The Blob?), a director (John Carpenter?), or an actor (Lon Chaney? Christopher Lee?), and then dig deep into his/its canon.
 
For starters, I would recommend Vincent Price. This American-born thespian, an obsessional favorite of director Tim Burton, was more a man of the theatre, and his profitable film career helped finance that passion (as well as his interest in cooking). But don’t undervalue his work just because of its motivation. Price is a fascinating screen presence, a man who, though he could easily start chewing the scenery if unrestrained by a strong director, offers a wide range of effects. With his Barrymore-like profile and his silky voice, Price could have been a matinee idol, were it not for the campy affect that skirts the edges of his character portraits. His preference for ham over wry, however, proved to be the perfect fit for the semi-satirical Gothic horror tales (especially those derived from Poe) that Roger Corman and others began making in the early 1960s.
 
For Price the actor, begin with The Baron of Arizona, included as part of the recently released DVD set The First Films of Samuel Fuller (Eclipse, $44.95), worth having in and of itself. As an Old West scam artist of monumental audacity, Price is called upon in the film to play a monk, a gypsy, a husband, a father, a lover, and a businessman. He holds this film together (shot by Hollywood great James Wong Howe) through force of talent.
 
But it is the horror genre where Price eventually excelled. One place to start might be the recent The Fly Collection (Fox, $39.95), which gathers together all three of the original Fly movies, plus a supplemental disc that includes bios and docs about Price and the Fly series. Here, Price is somewhat sidelined in the role of viewer surrogate, standing aghast as a fellow scientist descends into the madness of genetic mutation.
 
More profitably horrific is the also just released Vincent Price: MGM Scream Legends Collection (MGM, $39.95). This box gathers together a range of Price’s films from the 1960s on, including the revenge tales The Abominable Dr. Phibes and its sequel, the Gothic anthologies Tales of Terror and Twice Told Tales, along with the little-seen Madhouse, Theater of Blood (another revenge fantasy), and Witchfinder General, plus a bonus disc of short documentaries about Price. These films capture the full range of Price’s horror capabilities, in a wide variety of situations. In Theater of Blood, for example, Price is an actor killing off the theatre reviewers who stalled his career, reveling in the cinematic anthology of Shakespearean scenes and monologues he is called upon to do.
 
But if one had to choose just one Price film as an introduction, it would doubtless be Witchfinder General, which is part of the Price collection, but also available separately (MGM, $14.95). Called The Conquerer Worm when it was released in America in 1968 (in order to link it to other Poe films), Witchfinder General is the last film of a minor cult director named Michael Reeves, whose relentless examination of evil was unnerving even for jaded aficionados. Price plays a 17th century witch hunter corrupt to his very soul, and the film is a meditation on injustice and its horrific aftermath. Price is especially good in this film because for once he underplays, letting the character’s actions speak louder than his arias. Witchfinder General is a masterpiece on a number of levels, not the least of which is the one that finally reveals how truly great and premium a screen actor Price could be.