I've figured it's time to reach back into the vaults of Code Red to pick out another cool, cult release; and when I stumbled across the same title in one of those Mill Creek 50 packs, I knew this would make a great comparison piece. The film is 1974's
Devil Times Five, one I was particularly interested in since it features my favorite kind of movie monster: children! Code Red released this all the way back in 2006, when they were working with Media Blasters, and later re-released it in 2009, but I'll come to that later. Mill Creek, meanwhile, has included this in a number of their jumbo horror movie collection sets, but the particular one I've got is their
Chilling Classics box of 12 double-sided discs. Now, the
Chilling Classics box technically came out first, but Mill Creek has this strange habit of swapping out some titles for others over the years (presumably as rights ownerships change) but without changing the set title or online listings. So I'm not sure if Mill Creek got a hold of it before or after Code Red, and more importantly, if you order
Chilling Classics from Amazon or someplace, there's about a 50/50 chance you'll get the version with
Devil Times Five, as opposed to another which replaced several titles including
Devil with others.
Update 7/30/15 - 6/10/16:
Oh boy, it's time to step it up again! Code Red has just re-released
this movie (making it their third time), with an all new blu-ray
edition. Is it worth the double-(or tripe- or quadruple-, depending
where you are with this movie) dip? Let's get into it, people!
Update 11/28/24: Now the
Devil has changed hands again, and Vinegar Syndrome is issuing a new release for 2024. They've restored it to 4k, issued it on UHD, and cooked up some new special features. Does this movie deserve it? I don't know, but it sure is fun!
So, I wasn't kidding when I said kids are my favorite movie monster. Forget zombies, forget vampires. Give me little kids turned rampant murders any day. The obvious mainstream examples would include
Village Of the Damned and
The Omen, which I'm all for, but I really love the crazier indie ones like
Who Can Kill a Child,
The Children,
Bloody Birthday,
Cathy's Curse,
Bad Ronald, or
Julie Darling. Heh, I think I just gave you hints of about six or seven reviews you can expect to see on this site in the future. Oh man, I'm so on board for a bunch of cute little kids on the rampage. And
Devil Times Five? Well, it's not as good as any of those movies... in fact, objectively speaking, you probably couldn't call it a good movie at all. But it's got its moments, and those moments are enough to make this worth seeing, especially if you're predisposed to the obscure killer children subgenre like I am.
There's a scene with a mentally challenged character, ham-fistedly overplayed in an
Of Mice and Men "aw, shucks" kind of way. And when this attractive married women visits the house, she randomly decides to invite him into her room to seduce him, laughing as she tells him to pull down his pants. Lord knows why, the only explanation seems to be that she's an alcoholic so this sort of activity is in her daily wheelhouse. Anyway, as the guy strips down to old western movie style long underwear, an attractive blonde woman walks into the bedroom and demands to know what's going on. The brunette says, "I've had him before, and I can have him any... time... I... want." So the blonde woman yells, "you bitch!" grabs her, and they wrestle on the floor as very dramatic action music with blaring horns kicks in. Then a third woman walks in (the long underwear guy has just quietly stepped out of the room at this point), and at this point the two fighting women's robes have opened in the standard, sleazy exploitation kind of way, and the fight stops and the blonde goes, "we were just having a little... fun?" And the third woman says, "whatever turns you on honey," brushes her hair and leaves the room. End scene. And none of that has any bearing on the rest of the story whatsoever. Did I mention that this wasn't an objectively good movie?
Anyway, eventually some kids - who've been wandering around the woods since the bus taking them to an asylum crashed - show up and start killing all the people who stay at the house one by one. Again, this isn't anywhere near the same level as, say,
Who Can Kill a Child, which is a genuinely pretty great film. It's all kind of amateurish, but it gets entertainingly weird, with some great kills and odd-ball scenes. There's a bit of a
Neon Maniacs feel to things, as each of the kids as an over-the-top identity: one boy acts like a soldier, carries a toy gun and has his own military marching band theme in the soundtrack, another one dresses and acts like a nun. A third is child pop star
Leif Garrett who turns out to have a cross-dressing fetish. Of course, there's five all together, hence the title. It has a low budget, almost home made feel much of the time, despite featuring a number of recognizable television actors like
Sorrell Booke, a.k.a. Boss Hog on
The Dukes of Hazard. But for my money, it's not the campy laughable moments that make this movie (though there's some fun to be mined from there, too) but the dark, demented moments that really stand out as genuinely powerful despite the goofiness of the rest of the film.
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1) 2005 Mill Creek DVD; 2) 2006 Code Red DVD; 3) 2016 Code Red BD;
4) 2024 Vinegar Syndrome BD; 5) 2024 Vinegar Syndrome UHD. |
One mark against Mill Creek's version is that they've added a watermark (boo!) that occasionally fades in and out of the lower right corner of the picture. Yuck. I understand Mill Creek has given up this practice, but it's common on their older discs.
About the only thing Mill Creek has going in its favor is that it's open matte. Mill Creek's is full-screen, while Code Red has matted the picture down to an anamorphic 1.78:1 widescreen on both their DVD and blu. It's not a question of additional info gained on the sides, but rather lost on the top and bottom. And I guess there's some contention about the aspect ratio being either 1.78 or 1.33, because people complained, and in 2009, Code Red re-released
Devil Times Five open matte in a double bill with
Mark Of the Witch, but missing all the extras. Vinegar Syndrome, meanwhile, has come down on a more likely side of 1.85:1, which mattes the image slightly more, but also reveals a smidgen more along the sides.
Otherwise, it's not exactly a photo finish in terms of which
label beats out which. Both DVD transfers seem to be from the same
print, as evidenced by the weird bit of damage that pops up in a single
frame in the top set of shots. But only Mill Creek has the very serious
interlacing problem, as seen in the second set of shots. There's
actually very little print damage on hand, by the way, that frame is a
rare instance of anything bigger than a small speck, but it shows both
companies started at the same place. And the back of Code Red's case
tells us their transfer is from "original 35mm elements." Mill Creek's
looks dark and murky, while Code Red's is much more colorful and clear.
Detail is lacking in both though.
Code Red's DVD is clearly a new
scan far ahead of Mill Creek's, but their blu, which we're told is a new 2k scan of the
original negatives, is so much more alive and photo
realistic! The film has come a long way in HD. Vinegar Syndrome's blu is another step forward, especially on the UHD, but there's less less ground for improvement. Still, even just comparing the BDs, grain is more thoroughly captured and looks like true film. Very fine detail is clearer, too - like the veins of his eyes in the first set of shots - BD to BD, and especially on the UHD. The increased resolution also gives more rounded edges and reduced pixelation when you zoom in further.
As for audio, Code Red's blu has some soft fuzz to it, but the mono
audio track is otherwise very distinct, with clear, easily discernible
dialogue and music. It's also lossless DTS-HD, putting it ahead of both DVDs. Vinegar Syndrome's is DTS-HD, too, but sounds a little more robust. They've also added optional English subtitles for the first time ever.
And Code Red came up with some great extras for this. There's a terrific audio commentary by producer
Michael Blowitz, director #2
David Sheldon (
Grizzly,
Just Before Dawn) and actresses:
Joan McCall and
Dawn Lyn. They're all enthusiastic, have some good memories of the production, and thanks to a good moderator, answer a lot of the questions viewers will be bound to have after watching this film. A key thing we learn is that the original director was deemed to be shooting too slow, so was taken off the film and replaced by another director, and big sections of the script were "torn out," leaving key plot points and things unexplained. So that's why you have stuff like that crazy cat-fight I described earlier that doesn't fit into the story - it was filmed later in LA and not part of the original screenplay. I think it's safe to say all the good, compelling content was by the original director and the campier, more laughable stuff was the later guys. It's too bad... I would've loved to have seen the film completed as it was originally intended; but I can't deny that some of the new stuff isn't entertaining in a different way, and the mish-mash of the two makes for a more bizarre, possibly more memorable, film.
Then there's on-camera interviews with all four commentary participants plus actor
Tierre Turner. They're all edited into a featurette that runs a little over twenty minutes and is pretty informative, plus it's neat to see the little soldier boy all grown up and laughing about this crazy film he made. Then there's an alternate opening title using the
Devil Times Five title card (which is the one on the Mill Creek transfer), since the one on the film uses
The Horrible House On the Hill. Plus there's also a cool theatrical trailer ("The Devil Times Five leaves nobody alive!"), a very short poster gallery and six bonus Code Red trailers.
AND there are three easter eggs with extra footage from the interviews, which are fairly substantial by easter egg standards, so be sure to hunt those down (they're not hard to find). The Mill Creek set, of course, has no extras.
Code Red's blu carries pretty much everything over from their special edition DVD. The commentary's here, the interview's here, the trailer's here, and the Easter Eggs are now plainly on the menu as "Bonus Interviews." The only things missing are the alternate title card, gallery and Code Red bonus trailers, and who cares about those?
Happily, Vinegar Syndrome retains all of the Code Red extras, so if
you missed their release at the time, you don't have to drive yourself
nuts trying to find a copy on EBay to fill out your special edition.
And they've come up with new stuff, including an audio commentary by
The Hysteria Continues
gang. I feel like the results are always mixed with these guys, and if
I wasn't giving this disc a proper review, I probably would've skipped
the track. But there are some good parts. There's your usual mix of
childhood anecdotes, opinions and stuff you won't care about unless you
know these people personally. And they throw out a lot of
half-researched rumors, like speculating that the director's girlfriend,
who plays the nun, was underage at the time (no, she was in her
mid-twenties, which they'd have known if they'd listened to the Code Red
extras). But they - mostly the main guy, the British author - did dig
up some vintage reviews that he reads from and throws in some actual
facts. It's honestly not bad and overall better than I went in expecting. Give it a listen if you're in the mood.
Much better
though, are the new on-camera interviews. The second AD actually has
some great memories, including one very interesting story none of the
other special features hint at. And the son of the executive producer
was a kid at the time of filming and hung out with the "Five" on-set, so
he has some fun memories. Then, finally
Stephen Thrower comes
on for a deep dive into the original director's career and an appraisal of his work on this (especially interesting
since the people in the Code Red extras are constantly throwing the
director under the bus). Honestly, these days, Thrower is the film
expert for cult titles. Usually when I see an expert commentary or
interview on a horror title, I roll my eyes, because they tend to be so
lazy, indulgent and no more informed than the casual viewer. But I've
learned never to skip a Thrower.
Anyway, VS has also brought back
the alternate title card that Code Red dropped. Their release comes in
an embossed slipcover, though I don't care for the art style on this
one, and reversible cover art with the original poster on the flip.
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The infamous, slow motion black and white sequence.
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Man, I don't know who complained about the matting (well, actually I
think I do... there are a couple Amazon reviews and a guy who posted on
the Latarnia forums). Surely the film was shot full-frame with the
intention to matte it to 1.85 or so for theatrical exhibition, like
pretty much every movie from that time. So, sure, there's a bit of
curiosity value for the hardcore film lover to see the fullframe version
and discover the odd little detail here and there. But I'll take the
widescreen OAR any day. Couple that with the surprisingly compelling
collection of extras and vastly improved transfer, and that makes the
Vinegar Syndrome's new
Devil Times Five the definitive choice by a
wide margin. Though I guess it's nice that the full-frame versions are
out there as an option; maybe there are a couple hardcore fans out there
who feel they need both. And if that's you, I'd recommend the Code Red
double bill over the crummy Mill Creek discs unless you're buying one of
their boxed sets already anyway.
