BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS/RATS ARE COMING! WEREWOLVES ARE HERE!: DVD review

BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS: Barber/murderer Sweeney Todd
and meat-pie maker Maggie Lovett are up to no good. Sweeney kills his customers for their money while Lovett uses the corpses for her meat pies. Yikes!

THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE!: The Mooney family suffers from a terrible curse of lycanthropy, while their crazed daughter raises some man eating rats! And when all goes wrong, look-out!

BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS and THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! are two films from the master himself, Andy Milligan. Either you love him or hate his guts, you have to hand it to Milligan and his persistance to make a film, no matter how the quality of the film turns out, visually or script-wise. But of the two, BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS comes out on top as being Milligan's best (Andy, however, hated the end result and thought it didn't meet his standards despite being his most popular film).

Released as two-disks in one keep case, Video Kart's presentation of the two films are quite a disappointment, BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS being the main one. BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS print is full of grain and color saturation, yet some basic colors like red and blue are stong. Video Kart claims to have gone through all the trouble to Digitally Remaster and restore BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS to it's original form. Yet, it's all a lie as the film looks more like it was Digitally Mastered instead, and with DVD that is not a good sign. Not only that, but in order to restore some of the film's missing and damaged footage Video Kart uses some sequences in the remaining film, yet are processed in slow motion. Watch the old crappy Anchor Bay VHS release of THE CRAZIES, and you'll see what I mean when Video Kart claims to have restored BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS. If you want the complete version of BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS, your best bet is the VHS release from Something Weird Video. While the color on the Something Weird Video release is somewhat faded, it was taken from a more complete and less-damaged 35mm print and is quite better than Video Kart's crappy "restoration". THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! doesn't look too bad as the colors are a bit bold and very few scratches are on hand. Yet when it comes to a darker image, the picture begins to pixilate. One funny thing I noticed from this release is the main title card is different from the one in the old Midnight Video release, yet the title card on Video Kart's release is not a video generated one but from a print source. Best bet is that the title card on Video Kart's release is from a re-issue print.

Video Kart promises "original theatrical trailers", but they are just re-created video trailers with varying image quality (THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! trailer being the worst in terms of image quality). Yet Video Kart has the nerve to call them "original theatrical trailers" so I already feel cheated. Also included is an on-screen text from the president of Video Kart who talks about his run-in with William Mishkin's son, Lew, and Andy Milligan himself. As far as what I read from it, their is really nothing new and doesn't provide any insight, except for claiming that the two films were so-called restored.

I am disappointed and dismayed by Video Kart's release of Milligan's films. I was sure hoping that Image Entertainment and Something Weird Video would release BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS and THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE! on DVD with better image quality. But, apparently Video Kart beat them to it. And worse yet, Video Kart plans to release TORTURE DUNGEON and THE MAN WITH TWO HEADS on DVD as well so I'm already disappointed. Yet thank God that Image Entertainment and Something Weird Video are going to release THE GHASTLY ONES and SEEDS on DVD, as their efforts will be worth it. As for Video Kart's release of BLOODTHIRSTY BUTCHERS and THE RATS ARE COMING! THE WEREWOLVES ARE HERE!, I would suggest you search these out for a rental only.

Shame on you, Video Kart!