Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

The Monster Club Blu-ray Movie Review

Cover charge is an arm and a leg.

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf October 14, 2013

If there must be a film about dance party happenings at a club built exclusively for creatures of the night, it seems appropriate that Vincent Price would be our tour guide. 1981’s “The Monster Club” is an anthology effort with a bizarre wraparound story that interrupts spooky and disturbing events to observe singers and bands rock out onstage in front of a throng of extras clad in bad Halloween masks. Normally, this type of schlock would trigger immediate dismissal, yet “The Monster Club” has enormous charms and a fairly convincing line-up of chiller material to help offset the feature’s cannonball splashes into absurdity. It’s a lively, sincere movie, given considerable genre reach by a colorful cast, including Price, John Carradine, and Donald Pleasence. Sure, it’s silly business, perhaps spending too much time trying to sell a soundtrack, but picture is immensely entertaining, setting the spooky season mood with aplomb.

Out late one night, horror author R. Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine) is stopped by Eramus (Vincent Price), a vampire who’s also a huge fan of the writer. Biting his idol, but not deep enough to spread vampirism, Eramus offers R. a night on the town, taking him to The Monster Club, where all the ghouls go to party. Teaching his new pal about monster genealogy, Eramus shares three stories of terror to help illustrate the struggle of his kind. In “The Shadmock,” Angela (Barbara Kellerman) is urged by boyfriend George (Simon Ward) to accept a secretary job with Raven (James Laurenson), a creature with unlimited treasures in his estate, including a safe filled with cash. While Raven is instantly smitten with the new hire, Angela struggles with plans to steal from her boss, soon discovering his special whistling power that fries flesh. In “The Vampires,” young Lintom (Anthony Steel) openly wonders about his loving but mysterious vampire father (Richard Johnson), eventually accosted at school by monster hunter Pickering (Donald Pleasence), who demands entrance into the boy’s home to kill off the bloodsucker. In “The Ghouls,” film director Sam (Stuart Whitman) travels into the country to scout locations for his latest feature. Happening on a hidden village, Sam gradually learns of the community’s macabre secrets, using assistance from a naive young girl (Lesley Dunlop) to help escape before it’s too late.

“The Monster Club” isn’t a suffocating horror experience, consumed with mastering the trends of the early 1980s. It’s an omnibus effort with relaxed charms, a throwback production that invests in short bursts of mood and surprise, with the three short films resembling chapters from a young adult novel. While not explicitly aimed at children, the movie does dial down gore zone visits and assorted adult escapades to keep its thrills relatively accessible. In fact, the bawdiest moment of the picture, where a stripper (Suzanna Willis) emerges to titillate the crowd, soon morphs into a slickly executed animated segment where the dancer peels off her own skin in silhouette, revealing a gyrating skeleton. This startling moment is one of many in “The Monster Club,” which emerges as a tasteful enterprise more interested in the entertainment value of scares than the actual pants-wetting stuff.

Credit director Roy Ward Baker (this being his last effort in a long career) for the movie’s welcome restraint, summoning more of a party ambiance than a terrifying extravaganza, calling on Carradine and Price to warm up the picture during their wraparound segment, which finds the two sipping drinks, with R. learning about the history of the creatures featured in the film. There’s also time set aside for musical performances from bands such as Night and The Pretty Things, while UB40 provides some reggae-tinged background music. Baker burns plenty of screentime on the stage acts, including entire songs, which tends to distract from the scary business. However, the celebratory tone of “The Monster Club” can’t be beat, especially when the camera roves around the dance floor, spotting extras with cheap rubber wrapped around their heads boogie down, soon joined by Price and Carradine in the grand finale. Imagine Studio 54 situated inside a Spirit Halloween store, and that’s close to the viewing experience provided here.

Eramus’s stories ditch the party vibe to play up a routine of ghastly discovery, with “The Shadmock” the most effective of the bunch, offering a slightly more operatic tilt to its tale of deception, with a propulsive orchestral score building tension as Angela finds herself in way over her head, while Raven is forced to unleash his killer whistle on a few occasions, taking out a cat bold enough to feast on the loner’s prized pigeon. “The Vampires” has more comedic interests, though it’s blessed with an amusing twist ending of sorts, allowing Pleasence to chew the scenery in his own unique way. “The Ghouls” is the least gripping due to a few anemic chase sequences, though the segment does win points for being the grimmest offering of the group.

The Monster Club Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The AVC encoded image (1.78:1 aspect ratio) presentation is satisfactory, with a fresh appearance that makes the picture look as though it was shot recently. Source material is in excellent shape, with a healthy, crisp look that brings out acceptable texture from the image, with fine detail a pleasure with costuming, bad masks, and the rubbery faces of the movie's stars. Make-up work is also revealed in full, allowing for a few pause-worthy moments to study the frame. Colors are stable and expressive, finding flashing performance lighting in the titular dwelling to be the richest source of vivid hues. Horror events also retain their ghoulish inspiration, with meaningful blacks. Skintones are secure and intended, with a welcome pinkness to Price's presence. Grain is managed to satisfaction, preserving a filmic look to the viewing experience.

The Monster Club Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 2.0 DTS-HD MA sound mix matches the visual elements with an agreeable sense of weight, with soundtrack selections delivering some heft to the musical performances, offering satisfactory instrumentation and frontal power. Scoring is also big and supportive, carrying suspense needs with stability. Dialogue exchanges are direct and true, managing various accents and levels of intensity, with the Shadmock's whistle successfully piercing. Atmospherics and group events are also tended to with consistency. While limited in scope, the track contains real energy, capturing the bizarre mood of the picture as it bounces between drama and stage antics.

The Monster Club Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Liner Notes from George Reis detail the production history of "The Monster Club."

• "Nightmare Theater" (6:35, HD) reunites the viewer with host Katarina Leigh Waters, who brings along her puppet pig Mr. Pickles and enjoys a sing-along with one of the songs from "The Monster Club." Once the merriment concludes, Waters returns to her routine, checking off IMDB credits for the cast and crew, picking out genre connections.

• "Outro" (3:23, HD) returns to Waters after the film, where she comments on the picture and bids adieu to the viewer.

• Interview (62:08, SD) with Vincent Price is conducted by author David Del Valle, taken from a 1987 television show where the star sat down to promote his turn in "The Whales of August." Eager to show off his encyclopedic knowledge of Price's work, Del Valle interrogates his guest about his extensive career, pulling out anecdotes concerning Hollywood legends and the actor's own perspective on his artistic choices.

• Audio Interview (41:02) returns to Del Valle and Price, who plunge even deeper into the actor's legacy in this undated chat.

• Interview (10:22, HD) with Del Valle is a part of Waters's "Kat's Eye" segment, but she hardly gets a word in with the excitable author, who's here to reverse any ill feelings toward "The Monster Club," reinforce his friendship with Price, and plug his books.

• A Theatrical Trailer (2:00, HD) is included.

The Monster Club Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"The Monster Club" is a hodgepodge of comedy, horror, animation, illustration, musical performance, and ultimately condemnation, where the gathered beasts roast humankind, listing off their darkest achievements over time to make R. feel at home. It's all over the map at times, but the movie has a bewitching buoyancy about it that keeps it on track, working through various stories and silliness without breaking character, managing to shock and tickle with equal skill.