Terror in the Aisles

I had a lot of fun watching 'Terror in the Aisles,' despite its shortcomings. This has nothing to say about horror movies; its narration by Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen is just patter designed to lead us into the next clip or montage. Unless you're bowled over by revelations like "scary movies tap into your childhood fears," or the news that special effects used to be primitive but are now more advanced, you're going to get nothing out of this as a documentary.

But the way in which various scenes are cut together is entertaining. Sometimes there are extended segments in which two or three films are intercut at length, leading to climaxes in which, for instance, 'Ms. 45' ends up taking out the killer from 'Klute.' You'll get a quick idea of the plots of several films, even enough to get caught up in them a little (it's funny how effective the first twenty-odd minutes of 'When a Stranger Calls' still are, even broken up and spread across an hour and a half). Other parts have no narrative at all, with a dozen different films cut together for a montage of horror-type things happening, but it sure looks neat. Occasionally this remembers it's supposed to be a documentary and we'll see Leatherface, Damien, Bruno Antony and Baby Jane go across the screen as Pleasence notes that great movie villains range in appearance.

What does it add up to? This was made by a company that normally specializes in movie trailers, and they don't seem to have changed their approach at all to make this film: it's a feature-length mashup, all cutting technique and big moments. If you're familiar with most of these movies it will be a snappily edited trip down memory lane; if you're not but wish you were, it'll be a pretty good advertisement (although, maddeningly, it doesn't tell you which clip comes from what). I'm a real horror nut, especially for the 1960s-to-early-1980s period this spends most of its time on, and I enjoyed it.