Cheap Monster Films at Big Lots

[amphiboid]

Okay, I admit it, I go through their movie racks looking for cheap films. And right now, they have double-feature DVDs for a dollar, which ain't bad. Including:

ATOM AGE VAMPIRE with CARNIVAL OF SOULS

WARNING FROM SPACE with THEY CAME FROM BEYOND SPACE

CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA with NIGHTMARE CASTLE

I had not seen "Creature from the Haunted Sea" since I was a kid and enjoyed it (it's weird!), especially the abundant sea life in the underwater footage. Was that stuff really shot in the ocean, or in a tank? There are some creepy large fish and a shark or two swimming around in all that sediment.......

[Xenorama ™]

i'll have to go check one out. Big Lots is pretty fun, in the right frame of mind.

[stareater]

On the subject of $1 DVD's, Walmart has a few as well (at least the one near me). I picked up The Terror for a buck, and they had more horror titles such as The Satanic Rites of Dracula, White Zombie, The Killer Shrews, and others. They're the DigiView discs, the ones that come in that slim case. The prints vary (none are that good, but that's to be expected for $1), but it's an affordable way to add some classics (and alleged classics) to your collection, movies you may not want to pay more for but would like to have. I already have Shrews and Satanic Rites (found the widescreen Platinum version at Circuit City last year for $3 or $4), and had already had & traded in White Zombie.

The Terror wasn't bad, wasn't great either. More of a thriller with occult overtones than a true horror film. It's decent, considering Roger Corman shot it in 3 days as an afterthought when filming on The Raven had wrapped, using the same sets. He still had Karloff under contract, and figured why not make another quickie? It's worth a viewing, at least.

[stareater]

By the way, I go through clearance racks myself. Nothing wrong with admitting that. There are some films I don't want to pay top dollar for, but would like to see. Take the above-mentioned film, The Terror, for instance. I had been wanting to see it, but didn't want to pay the money it goes for on the web. Paying $1 for a DVD even beats renting it. It was certainly worth a buck, but I would've been upset had I gone ahead and paid about $10 (going net rate with shipping) for it, as it wasn't that good.

I look at it this way; it's better to pay $8 for 8 DVD's, whether they're good or bad, from a discount bin and view them in the comfort of your home than going to the theater and plunking down $8 bucks for a bad movie and having to take out a home equity loan if you want a popcorn & soda. It's also better to pay $1 for a cheapie DVD than paying $12 for a good one that you may end up hating anyway.

There's a few Big Lots within 20 miles of me. Thanks for the info, I'm going to take a ride later and see what they have.

[Xenorama ™]

i saw some at Best Buy yesterday as well. LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS was one i may go back and get. it's amazing that DVDs are that cheap- makes me wonder how much money companies are actually making on the big movies that have runs in the millions, making them even cheaper to press.
and people still pay $20 or more for them.

[stareater]

I read an article this week about the cheap cost of DVD's and their impact on other areas of the industry. The article actually claimed studios make huge profits off the DVD market, despite their dropping retail costs. The ones taking a hit from DVD sales are the rental chains & stores. Many consumers either rent off the web, or just buy a DVD. Why rent a DVD for $4 when you can buy many for that price or less? If it's a film you'd like for your collection, you can get most films for anywhere between $6-$10, so why spend money to rent it and then purchase it too? Take something like Yongary. What are the chances of Blockbuster of Tommy K's having it available for rent? It's easier to log onto Deep Discount and buy it for $5.99, with no shipping or taxes.

The cheap DVD's we see in bargain bins (like the $1 flicks) are closeouts. Stores like Big Lots and Ocean State Job Lot buy closeouts that other vendors have already paid for, for pennies on the dollar, and still make a profit at $1 a film. There's no way a studio could make a profit selling DVD's for $1. The cost of making the disc and delivering it to stores would have to exceed a buck, when you consider any rights, printing, electricity, and shipping it to stores.

[stareater]

Little Shop of Horrors is another example of the great benefit of cheap DVD's. I wanted to check it out (the original), and found it in one of the Brentwood box sets, Alien Predators:4-Movie Set. I paid $6 for the set at Deep Discount. I don't think you can rent four DVD's for $6 anywhere. They're all pretty bad movies (LSOH is campy fun), but it beats paying a $4 rental for one bad movie. By the way, that set also includes Killers from Sapce, Graveyard Tramps and Track of the Moon Beast, a laugh-out-loud funny bad movie that was roasted on MST3K. It's one of the funniest MST3K's ever, in my eyes, and the original film is probably just as funny to watch on its own. It was one of those bad monster flicks (in the vein of Octo-man) made as a result of government grants given out back in the '70s in an effort to promote filmmaking in each state. This one came out of New Mexico.

[Xenorama ™]

from what i've heard, even as far back as 2000 a DVD only costs a buck to press- now, i am sure there are other rights and costs, but when you think of SPider-man or LOTR when they are expecting to sell MILLIONS of copies, i bet it's not more than $5 total, and they sell them for $20 to $30 (usually with an extra disc of useless filler now).

but anyway, i'm glad some of these discs are out and cheap. i can get an Alpha Yongary at Fry's for $5- all the Alpha's are that cheap.

[Torgaman]

Selling SPIDERMAN dvds or other big budget movies at over 20 dollars is their way of recovering the hundreds of millions of dollars they spent to make the film in the first place.I bought myself a decent used copy at 7 bucks.I usually just wait for BLOCKBUSTER or HOLLYWOOD VIDEO to sell off their used blockbuster dvds for 3 for 30 dollars,etc.Be warned though,watch the films since the first day you bought them.If the dvds are defective you only have a limited time to replace them for other USED copies.

[celamowari]

KILLERS FROM SPACE had some of the most hilarious bad FX errors I"ve ever seen, such as the CELARLY VISIBLE HAND of the guy tugging the lizard's tail to get it to move.

[Torgaman]

I have noticed quite alot of smaller companies are putting out alot
of the "public domain" films out there.Usually films like THE BAT
and the GORILLA and THE APE MAN THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE,MONSTER
FROM A PREHISTORIC PLANET etc. are getting put out by different
companies.Some companies like ALPHA put out one film per dvd at
about eight bucks a pop but alot of other companies put out ten or
more of these same films in a collection for about fifteen a pop.Of
course I get rather dubious as to the quality these films will be in
so I have yet to spend my moeny on any of these collector sets.Has
anyone out there bought any of these and if so are they in good
quality?

[Xenorama ™]

i haven't bought any of the big movie sets, though i may at some time. i've heard the quality ranges from fair to very good though. some i've read are better than the single discs Alpha has put out. naturally, for the price you'd better not expect masterpieces, right?

[amphiboid]

A lot of the time, these cheapie discs fit right in, because it's often some public domain title that I saw on TV as a kid and isn't really a great film, but I don't mind spending a dollar on it. With some films, quality isn't as much of an issue. "Creature from the Haunted Sea" is a good example of this.

[stareater]

I have a Reel Values Horror Classics with Monster From a Prehistoric Planet as one of the films on a triple bill (Lady Frankenstein, The Monster Walks are the others). The print is very rough, not much better than Alpha's War of the Monsters grainfest, washed-out print, but for $5, I can't complain. It isn't a film I need to have in a widescreen perfect print., as I find it to be one of the lesser giant monster flicks. $5 bucks with two other movies to try and suffer through is fine by me.

[Torgaman]

The reason I am asking about alot of these discs is today I encountered a 50 pack for less than twenty dollars.It sounds too good to be true.Still for fifty films at less than a dollar each it is a very tempting offer and I have sat through bad quality vhs films so what would I
be going through that I haven't already endured?

[amphiboid]

Yeah, quite often it is a matter of how much stuff they are cramming onto each disc...I have one disc with FOUR movies crammed onto one side! This means that the "compression ratio" is much higher, and the images are much less detailed--they're fuzzier and they display more "compression artifacts" (squares, dithering, etc). This was a $5.00 disc, so I figure the price was right.

If they're only cramming two movies onto a one-sided disc, you're a little better off, image-wise.

But the movies on this disc are winners like "Devil's Nightmare," "Snowbeast," and "Moon of the Wolf," which are so bad I'm basically crazy to be watching them in the first place...so at five dollars, it's an affordable kind of craziness.........

[stareater]

Yeah, I look at it this way; on occasion, a flick on one of the 4-movie, $5 sets will surprise you and be halfway decent. At the very least, it's easier on my mind & wallet to pay $5 to see four movies, even if they're stinkers, than to pay $8+ at the theater to see a piece of crap like Dawn of the Dead 2004.

I also think cost factors into the image quality as well. Companies putting out cheap discs, like Alpha and Navarre, use a lot of public domain stuff, and don't want to put money into restoration. It's not like too many consumers are looking for a full-restored version of The Monster Walks or Beast of Yucca Flats , so they aren't going to cut into their profits to provide a better print of bad films. Aside from that,, the more movies they cram on each disc, the less they spend for discs, packaging, and printing. Small costs add up quickly when tens of thousands of DVDs are produced.

Although the quality is dubious, I think it's a great thing having these lower-end distributors around. Otherwise, the big-shot companies would have us paying $15-$20 for every film. I'm happy to pay $6 for a somewhat grainy print of Yongary, as opposed to paying $19.95 for the restored collector's edition or something similar, so some studio can pay Tom Cruise $25 million to be in their next mangling of a classic that should be left alone.

[Xenorama ™]

and at $5 or so, i may be inclined to spend some dough on a movie i haven't seen, since it's not a lot of money to shell out. or you can get them as gifts, pass them around. you just never know!

[amphiboid]

Poor Dawn of the Dead 2004! That puppy has been kicked around so much I almost feel sorry for it...I thought it was pretty dull, myself, but after watching it a couple of times, I found I enjoyed a moment here and there...

But I totally agree; low-end discs seem to have their place. Plus, a lot of people kinda like watching faded old TV prints with dust and scratches, because they saw them that way when they were kids.

Similarly, I like the restored "Night of the Living Dead" and "Eraserhead," but when I saw them projected at the local revival theatre way way back, the prints were pretty beat up, and both movies looked like they'd been made in 1948 or something...a certain amount of atmosphere came with that....