Cheap Shriek of the Mutilated (DVD) (Michael Findlay) Price

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Customer Reviews of Shriek of the Mutilated

Mutilated till I shrieked
Hey now, don't get me wrong, but Shriek of the Mutilated WAS actually one of my favorite 70's schlocky horror films, till Retromedia did it up and had to leave out the song Popcorn due to copywrite problems? Instead they toss in some other groovy fake rock'n'roll to cover that scene, which is pretty obvious and borderline blasphemy. I'm glad I still have my Lightning Video version on VHS, because if I recall it actually is more watchable than this. Generally Retromedia does a good job with what they have to work with but where did they get the print they did this from? Not the best I've seen from them and frankly if I can't watch Shriek of the Mutilated in its original form then it's not the same movie. The basic storyline is Yeti Hunting on some island, only Yeti Hunting is only a cover for something more sinister, if you can imagine what THAT might be. Overall a good feel and like I said, this IS one of my favorite movies, really and truly, but Retromedia really hosed this one.

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Classic turkey!
I first saw this film in the early 1980s on late night tv, and it's stayed with me ever since. This is one of the most ineptly produced movies I've ever seen...and I love it! If you enjoy laughing at really bad films, you'll have a great time with this one.

What's the DVD like? The transfer is pretty bad, but this isn't surprising as this version has been pieced together from various film and video prints in order to present the most complete version possible. Unfortunately, the song 'Popcorn' has been omitted because of rights issues. This is a great shame as the popcorn party scene was a highlight for me when I first saw it. The song has been replaced by some nondescript muzak.

It's still worth the purchase price as there's a lot of fun to be had having a chuckle at this movie.

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Get ready to laugh your head off.
Shriek of the Mutilated (Michael Findlay, 1974)

There is one thing certain about this film. After watching it, you will never view Thanksgiving dinner the same way again.

Michael Findlay, most famous for the 1976 shocker Snuff (his last film, soon after the shooting of which he was killed in a helicopter accident), spent the beginning of his career making grade-Z "erotic thrillers" (read: softcore porn with a small modicum of plot) with almost no budget. Shriek of the Mutilated was (as far as I can tell) his sole foray into the world of the straight thriller. The only bare legs one is likely to find in this film are those of a mythical snow beast. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Shot with the same grade-Z budget as the rest of Findlay's films, Shriek of the Mutilated is about a college anthropology professor, Ernst Prell (the late Alan Brock), who takes a group of students into the mountains over winter break in order to hunt for the famous Yeti. Prell has been hunting the Yeti for decades without success, he tells his entourage, who are going with him mainly in order to get some extra partying in when they don't have annoying classes getting in the way. Or so they think. Even before they get out into the wilderness, bad things start to happen, and the crew are picked off one by one in various inventive ways (including death by toaster, in one of the film's most memorable scenes, and one that has been imitated a number of times in horror films since-the 1995 shocker Jacko, in fact, pays almost shot-for-shot homage to it).

It will surprise no one who had actually seen the film that this was the first and last screen appearance for most of the so-called actors herein. Jack Neubeck, who plays the "main" student, was in Findlay's similarly horrid Invasion of the blood Farmers, and lead nymphet Jennifer Stock surfaced, albeit briefly, in the splatter film classic Bloodsucking Freaks. The rest of `em? Forget it. Which is not a bad thing, as most of them deliver their lines as if reading from a teleprompter after taking too many Quaaludes. Obviously, Findlay's "erotic thriller" expertise came in handy there. The sets are obviously fake, the monster is even more obviously a guy in a rubber suit than was the guy in some of the Godzilla movies, etc. I'd be surprised if the total budget for this movie (in 1974 dollars, mind you) was five grand.

Now all of that should point you to the fact that this film would have made great Mystery Science Theater 3000 fodder, had it been available at any time during the show's run. And that is certainly the case; Joel and the bots trashed far finer films than this dog. That being the case, why do I adore this movie so very much? It's hard to explain. I first saw it on late-night television in seventh grade and became so obsessed with it I earned the nickname "Shriek" for the rest of the school year. That was over twenty years ago, and before the film's release (finally!) on DVD in June of 2003, I hadn't seen it again. Yet there were still scenes from the movie that were stuck in my mind as plain as day. And upon viewing the movie for the first time in twenty years, I found I still had every detail correct. And the film was just as gloriously bad, and as memorable, as it was two decades previously. I can't tell you why it is. It's not extreme horror in the Men Behind the Sun sense of the word, the kind of thing that traumatizes its way into your nightmares. Nor is it uncomfortable horror that just plain scares the daylights out of you. For that matter, it's more comedy than horror most of the time. But there's still something lurking under the surface there, and whatever it is, it will cause this movie to stick with you. In fact, it may stick with you for twenty years or more. *** ½