Analogue Archive
The Horror Star
1982
Movie - Review & Info
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Film Title: The Horror Star (AKA Frightmare)
Director: Norman Thaddeus VaneYear: 1982Archived: 24-10-2004 BT |
Film Review:
This one looked promising. I mean it's got Jeffrey Combs in an early appearance, and some funky looking crypts and a great looking cover. Sadly though, this film will remain for me far eclipsed by the 6 minutes of bumph after the film has finished.
So what happens when the credits stop rolling? Well, you get a peach of an attempt at the early 1980s idea of an interactive game, thought up by the video label. Once the film's finished, text starts rolling up the screen - it looks like it was done on a ZX Spectrum. It offers you the chance to play 'Zap the Villain' by, um, rewinding your tape, stopping at random and hoping you land on him...
There's another game which invites you to do some stuff about rewriting characters and the plot. One line goes something like. One day when technology catches up with our ideas then the end of the film will be decided by you and rewritten before you get there...
The best entry of the rewritten script per month would win a prize. Unfortunately, the rules and regulations seemed complicated to say the least. I wonder if anyone ever got their 25 videos or £100 (let us know if you did)? I struggled making head or tales of it all after a couple of minutes. Cunning plan or pointless ruse? You decide.
As for the film - Drama students decide to pay tribute to their favorite horror star by stealing his body from his crypt for a farewell party. They fail to realize their violation of the tomb has triggered powerful black magic, and Conrad (Ferdy Mayne) hasn't taken his final bows yet. Unfortunately.
They keep the body and one by one get knocked off until they realise they need to return the body to the tomb. Its all very flat, and despite one or two nice set pieces and interesting sets, the whole thing ambles along to a predictable conclusion without ever really taking off or engaging you. So much so that I'm afraid I ended up inventing a new game called Zap the Film, it involves watching the film on forward visual search.
Video Capture Comments:
Having a pretty good source tape ensured this was an acceptable quality capture. However, the actual film itself suffers from being fairly dark and poorly lit in places, which is reflected in the final capture.
| Rating Out Of 5: | ||
| Video Quality: |   |
3 |
| Cheese: |   |
3 |
| Film: |   |
1 |
Specificatons:
Duration: 01:28:08 (132,201 fr)
Video Codec: DivX 5.0 Resolution: 512x368 (1.39:1) [=32:23] Bitrate: 966 kb/s FPS: 25.000 |
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