To be clear, I'm not saying
The Willies is the best horror anthology ever. I'm not saying it's a greater artistic achievement than
Tales From the Crypt,
Black Sabbath or
Creepshow. But I am saying it's the best horror anthology yet to be released (and no, the Echo Bridge DVD doesn't count, for reasons you're about to see); and even more than that, I'd say it's better than a lot of the amusing but weaker anthology flicks we've been enjoying from labels like Scream Factory and Code Red lately, i.e.
After Midnight,
Nightmares,
Encounter With the Unknown or
Screams of a Winter Night. Those are all fun, but
The Willies is more fun. I think some people are put off by the fact that it's PG-13. It's even
been packaged with children's films. But that is just flat out wrong.
The Willies is actually the darkest and most twisted of all the films I've mentioned so far. Its low budget does show, but apart from that, it's a kick.
Update 8/23/17 - 11/16/25: Well, here's something I never thought we'd see:
The Willies on blu-ray. I'm sure you've got questions. Well, read on.
The Willies is written and directed by none other than Scuz of
Return Of the Living Dead fame,
Brian Peck (and for those of you whose hands just shot up in the air, I know, and I'll come back to that). And it's pure
EC Comics: entertaining and gross stories of human weakness culminating in twist endings, poetic justice and monsters. It's got a simple but effective wrap-around where a bunch of kids - including Samwise himself,
Sean Astin - out camping at night telling each other spooky stories. Then the structure gets a little unusual. Instead of an film evenly divided into three or four stories, they build up in length. So we start with little short vignettes: i.e. an old lady's poodle gets wet and she decides to dry it off by putting it in the microwave. That's it; runs about two minutes, but it does set a more honest tone of the kind of stories kids would tell each other. Then you've got a standard-length story about a kid who finds a monster in the school bathroom, reminiscent of
Stephen King's tiger story in
Skeleton Crew. Then, finally there's a surprisingly long story that takes up more than half the film's running time. Fortunately, it's pretty great; about a maladjusted kid who makes dioramas out of flies.
One thing that helps set this 80s anthology apart from many of its peers, besides its writing, is it's excellent cast. The kids give surprisingly strong performances for unknown child actors, and some dependable veterans show up in supporting roles, including fellow
Return Of the Living Dead alums
James Karen and
Clu Gulager,
Twin Peaks'
Kimmy Robertson and
Dana Ashbrook,
Kathleen Freeman and a whole bevy of television sitcom and character actors, including
Kirk Cameron and
Tracey Gold in one of the most surprising, how-were-they-able-to-clear-that? cameos in horror history. Every minor role has an extensive resume, though you'd have to have been watching television in the 80s to recognize most of them. But even if you don't, it still gives the production a solid, professional air that's only countered a bit by the film's special effects. And it just has some weird vibes. For example, you've got a farmer dressed up like something out of
Hee-Haw, suggesting they're trying to make a safer
Goosebumps-like "entry horror" film for younger audiences, but then it's mixed with more adult sensibilities. I actually kind of like this unusual mix-match of tones, but then it's genuinely disturbing when you let yourself consider who made it.
Alright, ugh. I guess let's just address this now and get it over with. I'm a big believer in separating the art from the artist and have zero interest in celebrity gossip or the filmmakers' personal lives. But whenever I see fans on forums wondering why we haven't gotten a decent special edition of
The Willies yet, it's hard not to assume at least part of the reason is that the film's writer/ director is
a convicted child abuser. Now, admittedly, we still get plenty of quality
Polanski discs, and nobody seems to be boycotting the
X-Men movies, but Scream got some blow back recently with their
Jeepers Creepers editions, and frankly, I can't exactly say those reactions are unwarranted. So I would still like to see this film get a quality release. After all, it represents the work of a whole ton of talented artists who never did anything to anyone, and again, if we can get fancy blus of everything from
Rosemary's Baby to
Dark House, and Scuz can host the
More Brains documentary, there's no reason to single
The Willies out. But you can certainly understand why DVD artisans don't rush to this one as opposed to another catalog title.
Now
The Willies hasn't technically gone unreleased all these years, but as you've been seeing in the screenshots, what we've got looks like a fuzzy, old VHS tape. It's an old barebones DVD from Echo Bridge, and they've reissued it many times, but it's always just a repackaging of the same product. There's the standard solo disc, the aforementioned
Kid-Approved Collector's Set, a version paired up with a film called
Under Wraps, and a version that comes with a CD of scary sounds. I kind of regret not going for the one with the CD. But as far as
The Willies itself, there's really only been one option, and it hasn't been pretty.
So now comes Cargo Records, a German label starting a new "From the Vault" line of horror blu-rays.
The Willies is #11. But is it anything more than an upconvert? Let's see.
 |
| 2008 Echo Bridge DVD top; 2025 Cargo Records BD bottom. |
Echo Bridge issues us a boxy ol' 1.31:1 fullscreen transfer. It doesn't look terribly well shot, with lots of flat, boring close-ups; but maybe seeing the film restored would fix that to some degree. It wouldn't be the first horror film people assumed was shot poorly due to a terrible transfer. But for now, it's just ugly on top of ugly. And let's see, what else can we throw at it to make it be worse? Interlacing? Yes, it's got that, too. But hey, the picture's so soft, it almost smudges that out. Um, yay? Also the colors are faded with plenty of grey blacks.
And now? Well, it's still fullscreen at 1.36:1. It actually loses a sliver of information around the edges, but this was presumably framed for 1.85:1 anyway, right? It was a direct-to-video release, though, so they might've framed it that way along all, like
the later Silent Night, Deadly Night sequels. At any rate, it is a cleaner and clearer picture. The interlacing is fixed, but it's not just that. The image is sharper, and you can make out things like Karen's name badge now in that second set of shots. There's even a surprisingly consistent layer of film grain... Is it legit? I can't help being suspicious, but there's no question this is a legit upgrade over the DVD. And given that this film was shot on 16mm, I doubt there's much more detail we're still missing.
EB's audio isn't as fuzzy as you might expect looking at the screenshots, but Cargo Records improves things again by giving us a high fidelity DTS-HD track, as well as a German dub, also in DTS-HD. They also throw in (removable) German subtitles for one of the cuts.
"One of the cuts?" Yes, probably the most exciting aspect of this
new Cargo release is that they've uncovered two versions of this film. I
first learned there was an alternate version in 2021, when a helpful
reader posted a comment on this post linking to some footage that was
certainly not a part of any edition I'd ever seen before. It's
that weird character pictured above. He acts as a
Zacherley-style horror host, broadcasting from a graveyard for "the KBLCH television network." I would say this was shot as an alternative for the Sean Astin wrap-around segments, but the version here actually includes both. Or, to be clear, the Blu-ray includes two cuts. The video version we've all seen before, exactly the same as the DVD, and the TV version, which runs six minutes longer with these additional hosting segments in addition to, not instead of, the Astin stuff. It almost raises as many questions as it answers, but it's great to finally have this rare material, and even the choice of which version to watch.
Of
course, there isn't much by way of extras. Echo Bridge's DVD is as
barren as it gets. But Cargo actually makes an effort. They include
the trailer, a video promo, and a complete scan of
The Willies' comic book? "
Willies comic
book?" Yes! We learn from the video promo that a complete comic book
was produced and given out to video stores who stocked the video. It's a
complete adaptation of the entire film (sans KBLCH), which seems to go
for quite a lot these days if EBay is anything to go by. And we get it
all here as a lightly animated (the camera pans down most pages, and
it's set to music) video bonus.
Cargo has released a mediabook version and a standard
Willies in
a traditional Amary case. I chose the later, which includes a 12-page
full-color booklet (in German) and reversible artwork so you can hide
the giant ratings logo.
I've
been dying for this film to get restored, and this may well be the best
we'll ever get, given the director's awful legacy, which has been further exposed in last year's docu-series
Quiet On Set. So this isn't exactly an
Arrow 4-disc UHD limited edition, but it's a good step up over the old DVDs,
that's for sure. And hopefully no proceeds are going to anyone evil.
