Anolis Entertainment was kind enough to send me a copy of this recently. I must say, they put out the most beautiful and thorough boxed sets I’ve ever seen! It is absolutely packed with information and photos. First off, it contains a glossy, full color booklet with all the film details, plus background info on Richard Gordon, as well as others involved with Tower of Evil, including a short paragraph on Robin Askwith. In that it mentions he was originally supposed to be given the (bigger) part of Brom, but does not say why he was not. I had not heard that before and am curious now. Maybe you’ll remember in my original review of Tower of Evil I thought he would have been great in that part. Now, I have to point out that this booklet is all in German, so keep that in mind before purchasing it. I can read a little German, as I’ve been studying it for the past few years in hopes of someday visiting Germany, especially the cute medieval village my great-great-grandfather left back in 1855. But for what I couldn’t figure out, Google Translate helped a lot!
One amusing translation – “Der Schreckensturm Der Zombies” translated as “Terror Storm of the Zombies”. There were zombies in this? Hehe But from looking at the photos of the promo posters in the booklet, this film has had a lot of titles. Another one is “Turm der lebenden Leichen” translating into “Tower of the Living Dead”. And how about the Turkish “Seytan öldür Dedi” which seems to translate to “He Killed the Demons”. Languages are fascinating! And then there’s also “Horror on Snape Island” which is probably the best one, in my opinion.
UPDATE: Ivo Scheloske from Anolis has just written to clarify my translation a bit:
You made a slight mistake by translating “SCHRECKENSTURM DER ZOMBIES” as the first word does not consist of “Schrecken” + “Sturm” but of “Schreckens” + “Turm”. Hence the title means TERROR TOWER OF THE ZOMBIES. This is the title that was used when the film was re-released in theaters. During that time dozens of films got “a second chance” because Zombies were the big thing in those years and by simply adding this word to the title you could get a much larger audience.
The box I received came with two discs: one blu-ray, and one regular DVD. I only have the regular DVD players. Last time I watched this film it was on my old VHS copy of it, and it was poor quality, kind of dark and with faded colors. This was a delight to see: fresh, bright colors and crisp images.
One observation about the movie which I had not thought of in my original review. Toward the beginning when the fishermen discover a naked body facedown on the beach. Robin has said before that that is him, right? Yet, when the killings are shown, he is killed by sword and hung on the door and the other guy, Gary, is the one left naked on the beach. So, is that Robin or not? And….the fisherman say he has been dead “about a week.” A body left out in the elements a week with crabs crawling all over it is not going to look so rosy and fresh now, is it? Ha ha.
You can select to watch this movie in English with no dubbing or subtitles or with German subtitles (the one I chose to help further my German learning) or you can also watch it German-dubbed.
Extras! Yes, lots of those, including Darrell Buxton’s interview with Robin at the 2011 Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester (which I have not yet watched, but stay tuned for my review of that!); English, American, French and German trailers (interesting to see the differences in those – the French one seemed to focus on the bloodiest parts and the American didn’t seem to show Robin at all); French and German title sequences; German promo ads, and then a poster gallery!
Oh, and before the film starts you can choose to watch a talk from Marcus Stiglegger about it and the genre in general. I looked him up and he is a professor of film studies at the University of Mainz. He gives quite a long talk, and it looks very interesting, but be warned, it’s in German and there doesn’t appear to be subtitles available. I was able to catch some words here and there but I will revisit that in the future if I should ever become more conversant in the language.
All in all, WELL worth the cost will be if you are a fan of this movie or this type of movie! I didn’t see it yet on Amazon or even Amazon.de but I tracked it down on the “Bluray-DVD Film Shop” so get your copy today!
ANOTHER UPDATE: Ivo Scheloske explained why this cannot be found on Amazon:
The reason the film is not available through Amazon is because since 30 years now it is on an index. Sounds strange, is strange. I guess you know that movies can get banned. This is something that could and can still happen to gruesome movies in Germany. But in addition to that fate we have something that is supposedly slightly better for customers & the industry: If a movie is deemed to be unfit for minors but not gruesome enough to be banned, it can be put on the index. The consequences are that the movie can still be sold BUT
- cannot be displayed in areas were minors are permitted (like in the shelve of a normal shop)
- you are not allowed to advertise it (that includes naming the title as part of a bestseller list for example and can include a POSITIVE review in a magazine)
(thanks, that was really interesting!)
With this, Anolis also enclosed my long-desired “Frankenstein’s Horror-Klinik” so watch out for that review in a couple of weeks!
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