Cheap Scalps (DVD) (Fred Olen Ray) Price

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Customer Reviews of Scalps

Scalps review
Scalps was a highly ambitious low budget horror flick that should be in everyones horror collection. The story is well written and proves as an interesting spin on the slasher flick. Instead of making the evil killer a crazed lunatic like in most of your horror films from this time frame(the early eighties) it uses a evil native native american spirit as its vehicle for massacre. I think this makes it scarier than most of the traditional slasher films. The movie is filled with gorey and darkly frightning scenes. The only problem I had with the movie was the sometimes inappropriate lighting it used during some of the nightly killing scenes. It seems to be daytime sometimes in the middle of the night??? And also some of the acting is sub par but an the whole is pretty decent. I really like some of the slow motion chase scenes near the middle of the movie and also the hauting indian face that flashes in the fire and through out the film. Chilling!!!.......Jerry

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A lesson to learn
I vaguely remember seeing this film on Continental Video in the mid 80's and considered it OK. I puchased the original movie poster a couple of years ago and then went on a quest to find a VHS copy of it. No luck. Then I heard about Retromedia and Fred Olen Ray Along with "The EEL" decided to do the 20th Anniversary eddition. I bought it. Basically Fred Olen Ray had to go through hell trying to piece together a print to Scalps. Most of the footage shown is grainy from a blow up of a 16mm print to 35. The cut scenes that were added in are from a Vidoe transfer from the 80's U.S. VHS release and Canadia 3 quarter inch tapes. Watch the movie once through and please forgive the grain. The viewing may seem like the film is over 2 hours because it drags and drags on. The best scene is the throat slashing. In my opinion it is one of the best throat slashings I have ever seen on film. I had some time to kill and decided to view Scalps once again with the commentary track on by Lee and Fred. The commentary is great. I learned information about the making of a film. From script writing to finding financing. The commentary taught me a lesson on filmmaking. How to make a film with no budget and the tricks to shooting with what you got. Fred Olen Ray explains about shooting day for night, shoestring budgets, how 21st century cheated him out of $ and the secrets to some special effects that were used for the murder scenes. I recommend the viewer to watch the film once without commentary then watch it with the commentary. The movie is not great, the image is grainy and poor but the make-up and gore is pretty good. The commentary is the best. Fred's voice over is much louder than Lee's but Fred is much more fun to listen too. 3 stars for gore and commentary.

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"Its From Hell!!!!!"
The packaging of Fred Olen Ray's "Scalps" leads one to believe that it has been banned virtually everywhere and is usually only seen in highly censored versions. I doubt this is a true statement and comparisons with "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" are unfounded. If you do not watch the film expecting it to be some sort of forbidden fruit of graphic gore and unrelenting horror you will probably enjoy it. The setting is a familiar one to those who know horror; a group of young people end up stranded in a remote area and stumble upon an ages old curse that engulfs them all. The acting is terrible and the film does not ever betray its low budget roots. The one amazing thing about the film is an extremely brutal throat slashing sequence that might be one of the "best" ever. This scene alone makes the film worth watching as well as cameos by Forrest Ackerman, Carrol Borland and a general revisiting of early eighties horror. I especially enjoyed the virtual immediate "freak out" of one of the group who resorts to some priceless dialouge during a scene when they hear ghostly drumming. (Its from hell). The DVD transfer is barely acceptable and there is even a disclaimer stating that it was culled from many different sources to present the most complete version possible. What is odd is that I am not clear as to why this was needed as there is nothing in the film that would indicate the need for massive censorship. My thought is that the film was basically "lost" and it was pieced together from whatever footage they could find. Anyway, while I seem fairly negative about this movie, I did enjoy revisiting "Scalps" and would recommend it to slasher movie completists.