Bad news about the Vincent Price MGM Scream Legends Collection (1 Viewer)

Just a heads up that all the movies are ported over exactly from the Midnite Movies. That means:

Tales of Terror.....Anamorphic
Twice Told Tales.....Non-anamorphic
Theatre of Blood/Madhouse-Non-anamorphic
Dr. Phibes/Roses Again...Both Anamorphic

Witchfinder General is Anamorphic!


DON'T SPEND YOUR MONEY ON THIS BOX SET...BUY "WITCHFINDER GENERAL" BY ITSELF.

The other Midnight Movies such as "Devils of Darkness" is Anamorphic, but the package only states 2.35:1 Widescreen.

I take it that, but have not viewed but will be the same as above:

Blueprint for Murder/Man in the Attic...Fullframe
Tales from the Crypt/Vault of Horror...Anamorphic
Chosen Surviors/Earth Dies Screaming...Anamorphic
House on Skull Mountain/Mephisto Waltz...Anamorphic
Gorilla at Large/Mystery on Monster Island...Anamorphic

Haven't received all the others yet and we'll have to see about the Fly Collection also.
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I don't think most people were going to buy DVD's that they already had anyway.

Not much of a shock.

My copy of the set arrived yesterday and it looks great, considering I didn't have any of the titles beforehand.

Yeah, we should have waited for the review to tell us we got screwed!

I did want them in anamorphic, because some of us do care!!!

Yeah, I was very disappointed by this set...

I have a feeling that MGM paid people to take the DVD's out of current overstock versions of the double feature DVDs and manually put them into the new smaller cases.

I base this on the fact that my fresh, factory sealed copy (with the factory "7 movies in one set" sticker still on it), straight of of the shipping box from my local borders, had actual FINGERPRINTS on the INSIDE of one of the cases and the DVD in said case had scratch marks on it that looks like the DVD had been raked across the case's hub during removal - but the DVD was still firmly attached to the hub! (Not to mention that another of the DVDs had a tiny partial fingerprint on the edge of the DVD!)

Then, the packaging for the last double feature in the set (Witchfinder General/Extras Disk) lists this double feature as a double sided DVD with Witchfinder General on "Side A" and the extras on "Side B". It is not - it is 2 DVDs - one for Witchfinder, one for the extras.

And don't even get me going on the fact that the small scanavo cases they use are so cheap they don't so much "snap" closed as "squish" closed!

To add insult to injury, it is impossible from the descriptions on the box to tell whether ANY of the movies are anamorphic or not - there is the confusing mix of "widescreen" and "letterboxed" listed for screen formats (and no, "widescreen" does not seem to mean "anamorphic" based on the original poster's info and what I remember from the box text).

At least they DO mark on the box that "Dr. Phibes Rises Again" and "Witchfinder General" are "Music Edited" versions. (Although I don't remember hearing that Witchfinder General was going to be "music edited".)

If it hadn't been for the fact that I got rid of the old versions of these that I had to make room for this set, I'd be taking it back.

Overall, a very pi$$poor showing from MGM.


Edit: I have since seen a review of Witchfinder General on another site that says that the "Music Edited" note on the packaging is false - the musical score is apparently the original orchestral score (which is the "music edit" that previous home video versions have had) - of course, based on the poor quality control on this set, there could always be some "music edit" that hasn't been discovered yet!

Thank you Mike!

It has been known for months on various message boards and genre dvd sites that this set would consist of straight repacks. It is a simple way for MGM/Fox to make $ from existing product which is currently out-of-print.

They were also good enough to release Witchfinder General separately for those of us who already own the older releases.

Yeah, it would be great if they remastered all the titles into anamorphic widescreen, but c'mon... do you really think they can justify the expense on titles like Madhouse? The answer is no.

And let's not forget that MGM/Fox released TWELVE new Midnite Movies yesterday, 10 of which are double features for about $10:


Tales From The Crypt / Vault Of Horror
Chosen Survivors / The Earth Dies Screaming
Devils Of Darkness / Witchcraft
Blueprint For Murder / Man In The Attic
Gorilla At Large / Mystery At Monster Island
The House On Skull Mountain / The Mephisto Waltz
Phantom fom 10,000 Leagues / Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes
Return Of Dracula / The Vampire
Yongary / Konga
Beast Within / The Bat People
Witchfinder General
Food Of The Gods

Keep that in mind before slamming MGM for repacking their older discs.

I wasn't so much slamming them for repacking, as I knew they weren't doing anything to the previously released movies, but I was slamming them for the shoddy way that it seems to have happened.

I mean, come on, FINGERPRINTS inside a sealed package?! Confusing/incorrect box copy?! Scratched DVDs (and not from shifting during shipping)?! These are all things that should NEVER happen!

To add some positive spin to this - even at $40 retail, you ARE getting 7 movies and an hour's worth of docu's for basically $5 a piece.

Yeah, your gripes about the quality certainly seem legitimate. I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet. Hopefully the set you have is a fluke! Are you going to return it?

Eegads! Thanks for the warning. I have all those except Witchfinder and Madhouse. No double dipping for me on that set for sure.

Phibes Rises Again and Witchfinder General do not have music edits. They must have used the box art from the VHS release which omitted Price singing Over The Rainbow in the former and Paul Ferris' score on the latter.

Great! My post saved one person and my mission was accomplished!!!

Probably not - the scratches came out with a quick rub down and the fingerprints cleaned up easily enough.

I just feel cheated of that "New Car Smell" newness factor with the copy I got.

How is the bonus disc? If you have all of the other titles (including the R2 of WITCHFINDER GENERAL) and are a big Price fan, is it worth picking up the set?

What exactly did you save them from... getting 6 previously released films (long out of print), 1 new-to-dvd movie with new special features and a documentary for under $30?

I just honestly did not think anybody would have for one second thought that these DVD's would be any different then the last ones they released. Your headline makes it seem like these are really awful botched DVD's when they are just being re-released.

I don't get the complaining either.

ALL of these MGM box-sets are previously issued releases -- the Frankie & Annette set, the Elvis set, the Roger Corman set, etc. There's nothing "new" here other than a repackaging. None of them indicate what's anamorphic or not, which admittedly is kind of a pain, but if you did your homework you'd know what's 16:9 and what isn't.

If some of these discs were full-screen only and it didn't say that, I'd say it's "bad news," but I agree the headline is inaccurate.

This set is EXACTLY what most of us anticipated it being. If you already bought these there's no reason to buy this one, but then again, why did you think you'd have to? WITCHFINDER is available separately for a reason

LOL, no kidding!

Looks like some people didn't bother to read the specs ahead of time...

Were THEATRE OF BLOOD and MADHOUSE anamorphic on their previous release?

No they were not. These discs are exactly the same as the previous releases.