THE DUNGEON OF ANDY MILLIGAN COLLECTION is possibly the most important home video box set I've ever beheld.
Hear me out: Regardless of whatever you might think of the films encompassed by this compendium, no previous release has ever recovered so many films or director's cuts of films previously thought to be "lost." The contents of this set are literally incredible:
1. The only known surviving reel of THE FILTHY FIVE (and it's a doozy), featuring the screen debut of actor Frederick Forrest, from a German 35mm print with English subtitles;
2. the never-before-seen or released director's cuts of TORTURE DUNGEON, BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS, THE MAN WITH TWO HEADS, THE CURSE OF THE FULL MOON (without the rodent material that turned it into THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! two years later), and LEGACY OF BLOOD (which is included along with its previously released TV version, LEGACY OF HORROR);
3.) GURU THE MAD MONK presented in two aspect ratios, showing the film in its theatrical ratio as well as unmatted;
4.) the 1979 exploitation movie TOGA PARTY, which includes anonymous Milligan footage, presented for the first time on home video;
5.) the first-ever HD presentations of nine titles, by my count, and all of the films shot with Milligan's notorious direct sound Auricon 16mm camera are presented open aperture to ensure that we see what we were meant to see. The Auricon didn't even offer Milligan himself, in his role as cameraman, a direct view through the lens, so his compositions on these films were a matter of guesswork and thus highly and erratically variable;
6.) four original featurettes featuring campaign designer Samuel M. Sherman, actors Natalie Rogers and Chris Broderick, stills photographer Tom Vozza, producer Ken Lane, and historian Chris Poggiali;
6.) trailers for nine of the fourteen movies and variables;
7.) four new audio commentaries from Alex DiSanto, Keith Crocker, Vic Pratt and Will Fowler, as well as every commentary included on previous Milligan DVD/BD releases;
8.) THE BEARDED LADY'S WAKE, a previously unreleased collection of actor Hal Borske's MIDI recordings as a Bonus CD;
9.) and, last but certainly not least, ANDY MILLIGAN'S VENOM, a 128-page full color examination of the set's contents by the estimable Stephen Thrower (NIGHTMARE U.S.A.).
The extras in this collection alone amount to more than ten hours of material. The packaging is comparable to Severin's recent AL ADAMSON MASTERPIECE COLLECTION set (now out of print), with the discs easily accessed from a sturdy, tome-like, illustrated binder, encased with the Thrower book in a slipcase designed to resemble Milligan's initial home video releases as Midnight Video "big box" editions.
If you think you might ever want this, assuming it's in your price range, I recommend you order it directly from Severin Films NOW, because supply is diminishing daily and secondary sellers at Amazon and eBay are already demanding as much as $500 for the set - when Severin still has it for only $140. That works out to $10 a movie, without counting the voluminous extras.
My detailed look at this astounding set will continue shortly with my reactions to the first two discs I watched: THE GHASTLY ONES (with the DEPRAVED trailer and recovered reel from THE FILTHY FIVE) and THE CURSE OF THE FULL MOON and THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE!
(c) 2021 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.
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