Director Jeff Burr brings us four tales of unbelievable horror as well as a nice little wrap around story. The film opens with a death by lethal injection of a young woman convicted of murder. Her name is Katherine White (Martine Beswick) and presiding over her execution is the Warden (Lawrence Tierney) and several witnesses including a reporter (Susan Tyrell), who, after the execution seeks more information about the executed woman.
She travels to the home of Julian White (Vincent Price) in Oldfield, Tennessee and there he introduces her to some of the history of the town in four chilling tales.
The first tale involves a rather bizarre man named Stanley Burnside (Clu Gulager) who has the hots for a young woman working in the same company as he does. Stanley lives with his demented sister who loves him in a very UN-sisterly manner. Stanley finally convinces the woman to go out on a date. He ends up killing her and going to the funeral home to have sex with the corpse.
Nine months later Stanley kills his sister and then is visited by his offspring that has crawled out of the grave and goes looking for Daddy!!
The second tale involves a greedy man and petty crook named Jesse Hardwick. he is set up by his girlfriend and then shot by gangsters and left to die in the swamp. He is saved by Felder Evans (Harry Caesar). Jesse learns that Evans is using voodoo to have eternal life, and he wants it too.
Jesse kills Evans and tries to steal the secret, but Evans returns from the swamp an delivers to Jesse a revenge that is more horrible than any death. This is by far the most disturbing story, and a great commentary for the bad side of living forever.
the third tale involves a young man in a carnival that has the ability to eat glass, razor blades, screws, etc. A young woman named Amarillis Caulfield is in love with him. However, the carnival is run by a voodoo priestess named "Snakewoman" and played by the wonderful Rosalind Cash.
She forbids the relationship but the young man does not listen. After killing the Sankewoman's right hand man they both flee from the carnival but learn that voodoo justice is not limited by distance as everything the man has ever eaten begins coming out of his body and spraying blood all over the room.
Amarillis is then seen in the carnival as the "Human Pincushion" in a very shocking ending.
The fourth and final story concerns three civil war soldiers who are held captive by some very bizarre and monstrous children. Cameron Mitchell stars in this segment. The children spend their time torturing and killing the men and even indulging in a bloody game of "pin the body part on the cadaver!!
In the conclusion of the wrap around story the reporter kills Julian by stabbing him in the throat with a knife, an thus the horrors continue.
This Blu-ray is an excellent presentation an has some of the best extras ever for a film like this. Ballyhoo Productions brings us two great documentaries. The first is a feature length look at the making of this very interesting film. It includes interviews with director Jeff Burr and many others.
Ballyhoo really knows how to make these thing entertaining, and tell almost everything you wanted to know about the film and the people behind it. This documentary is essential!!
The second feature length documentary from Ballyhoo is entitled "A Decade Under The Innocence" which really brings back tons of memories for me. This details Jeff Burr and his friends as they grew up in Dalton, Georgia and made movies on Super 8 film, and how that love of films stayed with them.
I said this brought back memories for me as I also made about 13 short super 8 movies when I was growing up, and I can really relate to these guys and their love of cinema. Again, this IS essential viewing!!! Ballyhoo really delivers the goods. Picture and sound quality are both top notch on this Blu-ray.
If you are a horror fan, then this should be added to your collection as soon as possible. Well worth the 17 bucks I paid for this. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!! And remember...when in Tennessee, please visit Oldfield!!
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