THE ULTIMATE PARTY TAPE "HORRIBLE HORROR" WAS RELEASED BY GOODTIMES VIDEO IN 1986 STARRING THE COOL GHOUL ZACHERLEY HIMSELF. Now, I don't know what kind of party has this tape playing in the background but THAT'S a party I wanna attend! Unfortunately for all of us, the nearly 2 hour tape is not available on DVD and, more to the point, it wasn't even released in high quality SP (the fastest VHS speed) but was in the slower, lower quality LP or even (gasp) EP speed! But the gloriousness of pure gold glisters no matter how muddy. This was a tape I simply adored from the first moment I clapped eyes on it -- I believe, in a big bin of video tapes at K-Mart! Clutching it to my worm-infested bosom, I flew home on pterodactyl wings and popped it in the VCR.

Naturally, the reasons for the tape to exist are two-fold: firstly to provide a forum in which to sell a passle of trailers and public domain horror movie clips. But even better was the chance to see the great Zacherley -- granddaddy of all TV horror hosts -- once again in harness and in ghoulish action for more than a few minutes. This is a rare opportunity to see Zach do his classic stuff -- and in COLOUR yet -- something which hadn't been seen since his late 50's-early 60's heyday first on Philadelphia local TV (as Roland) and then (as Zacherley) after his move to New York City television. Zacherley is in top form on HORRIBLE HORROR as he revives and elaborates on his classic schtick: electrocuting wind-up monster toys, jousting with a stuffed vampire bat (uh, it's a girl...), dissecting his patented green jello amoeba or probing a cauliflower brain. Zach even revives his original concept of sneaking himself into the movies we're watching. . . as well as providing a nice cameo appearance by his wife "My Dear" in the box. Zacherley even provides a priceless television appearance from the 1950's in which, apparently on Pat Boone's TV programme, the Cool Ghoul serenades him outside a window in the rain. This is the kind of archival footage of Zacherley we didn't get to see until the release of THE ZACHERLEY ARCHIVES on VHS and, later, DVD.

SIDEBAR: When I met the great man himself several years ago, Zacherley kindly autographed my DVD of THE ZACHERLEY ARCHIVES in his own inimitable way: "From Zacherley and all the creeps in Transylvania". Take a gander below.

So, what is all this getting at??? Is HORRIBLE HORROR the best video in the entire world. Well, of course it is. How could something that combines the greatest horror host ever with piles of horror and science fiction clips be anything BUT?!?!?

And what about those aforementioned clips? Well, as I said, they are culled from scads of movie trailers and public domain monster movies. However, the conceit of the HORRIBLE HORROR video is that Zacherley, after about 500 years or so, has been evicted from his Transylvanian castle so he has to gather together all his treasures and move out. Many of these treasures, of course, are film reels which the Cool Ghoul thankfully plays for us (with the help of his unseen, groaning assistant Ygor). Ygor and Zacherley has thankfully compiled the clips into loose categories such as "Creatures I Have Known And Loved", "Dracula's Home Movies" and "Special Effects...or Is It Special DEFECTS?!".

Just listen to this list of horror and science fiction fun on display in HORRIBLE HORROR: so-called Dr. Radford Bain of the Information Service warning us of the terrible threat of THE KILLER SHREWS -- even though those on display look about as dangerous as hamsters, THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE complete with facial bandaging which looks more like a urinal, Mexican monster BRAINIAC sucking the brains out of a pudgy-fingered ingenue, a slightly-booze-soaked Lon Chaney Jr. attempting menace as THE INDESTRUCTIBLE MAN, Jonathan Haze feeding a severed hand to his bloodthirsty plant in LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, intergalactic invader Ro-Man (with the gorilla suit and wacky diver's helmet) carrying off a damsel who seems more inclined to giggle than to scream, a young Peter Graves trying to take an alien with ping-ping ball eyes seriously in KILLERS FROM SPACE, Bela Lugosi pretending he's a wall painting and sneezing on one of the Dead End Kids -- of course, Bela made his sneeze sound distinctively like "Oh Shit!", Mantan Moreland stealing the entire movie KING OF THE ZOMBIES away from the rest of the cast by being "loquacious", evil overlord Vultura twisting the nipple-knob of a leftover PHANTOM EMPIRE robot in CAPTAIN VIDEO, MASTER OF THE STRATOSPHERE, Ray "Crash" Corrigan (with a fin on his head) strapped to the front of a vehicle of death (driven, in fact, by a young bit player named Lon Chaney Jr.!) in THE UNDERSEA KINGDOM, and Edward D. Wood Jr. making himself happy with "a pair of lace undies" in GLEN OR GLENDA.

HORRIBLE HORROR also contains some more rarities which I've not seen practically anywhere else. Besides the aforementioned Zacherley TV appearance on The Pat Boone Show there is also Barry Atwater (the vampire in the original telefilm THE NIGHT STALKER) in full Dracula gear leading us in the taking of "The Oath" to the Count Dracula Society: "I do hereby swear, aver and depose that I will hereinafter assist all the efforts of the Count Dracula Society . . . so long as they remain consistent with the loyalties of a good American . . . and in sign whereof I will receive all priviledges thereto, so help me Christopher Lee!" This rarity alone, which I've never seen ANYWHERE else, is worth the (small) price of admission. Also present are the classic bloopers on the set of ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, Rod Serling's "raspberry blooper" from THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Bela Lugosi's early 30's "Intimate Interview" as well as his classic assault on Betty Boop (Betty...you have booped your last boop!"), a rare 1950's Bela Lugosi TV appearance on YOU ASKED FOR IT! performing his "weird vampire bat illusion", as well as scenes from early TV programmes like CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT, FLASH GORDON and the Universal/Hammer Films co-production TALES OF FRANKENSTEIN. From the sound of things, you might think the King of Horror Boris Karloff doesn't appear in this video; well, he certainly does (ranging from the classic chess "confrontation" against Bela with the skull on the mantlepiece between them to DICK TRACY MEETS GRUESOME. However, probably owing to Karloff's slightly better fortune in the movie business, he doesn't appear as much as Lugosi or even Chaney Jr. This despite the relative wealth of Karloff poverty row material from THE APE to the Mr. Wong pictures to FRANKENSTEIN 1970 to VOODOO ISLAND to THE DEVIL COMMANDS or any of the Columbia "mad doctor" movies. Ah well, that's show-biz!

HORRIBLE HORROR is so good (if you're a true horror and science fiction fan) that it leaves you wanting A LOT more! The producers could have made the video twice as long and we STILL would be asking for more. I've always dreamed of being given the chance of editing in EVEN MORE old clips. After all, there is SO MUCH still missing -- where are THE SLIME PEOPLE, for instance, or any of the Santo movies, THE PHANTOM FROM 10,000 LEAGUES, CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA, DEMENTIA 13, PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, MR. WONG DETECTIVE or any of 100 I could mention which are not included herein. Someone should have commissioned a sequel -- HORRIBLE HORROR 2 -- long before now. With Zacherley himself still making the trek to every Chiller Theater convention in his early 90's, there is still a chance, of course, but methinks the powers that be have missed the boat. But at least we have the wonderful wackiness of HORRIBLE HORROR (as well as THE ZACHERLEY ARCHIVES dvd) to revisit again and again. And again!