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The online film magazine Combustible Celluloid offers new movie reviews, DVD reviews, film reviews, actor interviews, actress interviews, director interviews, film books and all things cinema related for the thoughtful and passionate. Online for ten years! Over 3000 reviews!

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The Fearmakers Collection (2007)

Rating: 3 Stars (out of 4)

Wanna See Something Really Scary?

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Buy The Fearmakers Collection on DVD

This triple-disc set from Elite Entertainment doesn't exactly offer the most dazzling of digital technology, but horror fans should definitely check it out. It collects ten episodes of writer Joe McCarty's TV series, based on his 1994 book, which never actually aired in the United States. (The nearest I can tell, these episodes were made sometime in the mid-90s.) Each 22-minute episode looks at the life and work of a horror director, ranging from silent-era filmmakers like Tod Browning (The Unknown, Dracula, Freaks) and the obscure Roland West (The Bat), to modern-day masters like Roman Polanski (Repulsion) and Tobe Hoooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Jack Arnold (Creature from the Black Lagoon), William Castle (House on Haunted Hill), Roger Corman (The Masque of the Red Death), Terence Fisher (Horror of Dracula), Jacques Tourneur (Cat People, Curse of the Demon) and Robert Wise (The Body Snatcher, The Haunting) make up the other six. Interviewees include filmmakers like Joe Dante, John Carpenter, and Wise (before he died in 2005), and other horror experts like Michael J. Weldon, but unfortunately the clips come mainly from battered coming-attractions trailers. Regardless, the episodes contain an infectious enthusiasm, and they're over before they can ever get stodgy.

Starring: Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Joe Dante, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Albert Band, Stuart Gordon, David J. Skal, John Agar, Jeffrey Combs, Jim Danforth, Tony Timpone, Richard Gordon, Gunnar Hansen, Marilyn Burns, Kim Henkel, Richard Matheson, Scott McQUeen, Ted Newsom, Jim Siedow, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Bill Warren, Micahel J. Weldon, Robert Wise
Written by: John McCarty, Wynn Winberg
Directed by: John McCarty, Wynn Winberg, Haley Richter
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 220 minutes
Date: June 7, 2007