100 Greatest Horror Classics - Disc 1 Review

Disc 1: Carnival of Souls / Atom Age Vampire / Creature from the Haunted Sea / Nightmare Castle

I sat through the first disc of the set, which featured four movies, in the matter of a few days. I watched the first side of the disc (Carnival of Souls and Atom Age Vampire) in one sitting and finished the second side (Creature from the Haunted Sea and Nightmare Castle) a few nights later. Only one of the four were worth watching. My reviews of all four are below.

The first movie of the set was Carnival of Souls. This is a movie I am familiar with as I tried watching it years ago. It is considered a horror classic, however, I found myself bored with it as I was when I first tried sitting through it. I managed to make it to the end this time, but as creepy as it can be, it just doesn’t live up to the cult hype it has. It is very slow paced and has a few good moments, but Carnival of Souls is an average film in my mind.

Carnival of Souls: 3/5 stars.

Next up was Atom Age Vampire, an Italian horror film with English overdubs. This movie is the exact opposite of Carnival of Souls, as it moves at a very fast pace and features rapid fire dialog, which seems reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino films. It features some neat stop motion camera work when the mad scientist changes from his normal self to a “vampire” - which is pretty much a werewolf, but who’s counting? The film overall is a bit boring, though, and by no means is a classic.

Atom Age Vampire: 2/5 stars.

The Roger Corman b-movie, Creature from the Haunted Sea was the third movie on the disc, and holy hell was this movie hard to sit through. I enjoy b-movies as much as anyone, but this was a boring mess from the start. It tried hard to be a campy horror comedy, but failed in all aspects. The “creature” effects were horrible for even a b-movie and people were being killed by a plunger. If that was a metaphor for how crappy this movie was, it was right on point. This would fit right in as a drive in movie that people weren’t actually watching, but I’d hate to be the guy whose date wasn’t putting out that night and had to sit through this.

Creature from the Haunted Sea: 1/5 stars.

Finally, Nightmare Castle was the fourth and final movie on the disc and was a bit of a surprise. It is another Italian horror movie with English overdubs, but it held my interest from the start and featured some disturbing horror and torture scenes that were way ahead of its time. This was backed by a haunting musical score that featured a repeating piano tune that got stuck in my head for days after watching the film. After doing some research, I found out that the version in this set was an edited version, which had more than 20 minutes taken out. I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on the unedited version someday.

Nightmare Castle: 4/5 stars.

Final Thoughts
Overall, Nightmare Castle was the only movie I truly enjoyed. Carnival of Souls had some good moments, but I just couldn't get into it. The other two movies, Atom Age Vampire and Creature from the Haunted Sea, could both disappear for all of eternity. 

Disc connections
- Carnival of Souls and Atom Age Vampire had lead characters that were in car accidents.
- Atom Age Vampire and Nightmare Castle featured mad scientists.
- Atom Age Vampire and Nightmare Castle were made in Italy.
- Carnival of Souls and Nightmare Castle featured a haunting piano/organ musical score.
- All four of the movies were released in the 1960s and were all shot in black and white.

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