| Terror in the Aisles | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Andrew J. Kuehn |
| Written by | Margery Doppelt |
| Produced by | Andrew J. Kuehn Stephen Netburn |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | John A. Alonzo |
| Music by | John Beal |
Production company | Kaleidoscope Films |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 84 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $10,004,817[2] |
Terror in the Aisles is a 1984 Americandocumentary film abouthorror films, includingslasher films andcrime thrillers. The film is directed byAndrew J. Kuehn, and hosted byDonald Pleasence andNancy Allen. The original music score is composed byJohn Beal.
Director Andrew J. Kuehn has excerpted brief segments of terror and suspense in a wide variety of horror films and strung them together with added commentary, as well as some enacted narrative, to create a compilation of fright-inducing effects.Halloween actorDonald Pleasence andDressed to Kill starNancy Allen provide the commentary on topics such as "sex and terror" (Dressed to Kill,Klute,Ms .45,The Seduction,When a Stranger Calls), loathsome villains (Dracula,Frankenstein,Friday the 13th Part 2,Halloween I &II,Marathon Man,Nighthawks,The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,Vice Squad,Wait Until Dark,What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?), "natural terror" (Alligator,The Birds,The Fly,The Food of the Gods,Frogs,Jaws 1 &2,Konga,Nightwing), theoccult (An American Werewolf in London,Rosemary's Baby,The Exorcist,The Omen,Carrie,The Fog,The Fury,The Howling,Poltergeist,The Shining), cosmic terror (Alien,The Thing,Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and spoofs (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,Hold That Ghost,The Ghost Breakers,Scared Stiff,Phantom of the Paradise,Saturday the 14th). In one segment of the anthology, legendary filmmakerAlfred Hitchcock presents his concepts of how to create suspense in a clip fromAlfred Hitchcock: Men Who Made The Movies. The advertising specifically refers to the movies that the clips are taken from as "terror films" instead of "horror films", and some of the movies used here (such asMarathon Man andNighthawks) are not considered horror films but were included because their villains (a Nazi war criminal and a global terrorist) were considered horrifying. The most recent movie used for the 1984 release wasVideodrome, which David Cronenberg brought to theatres in February 1983; the efforts of getting rights to and assembling clips was so extensive that no movies released after that were considered for usage by the documentarians.
The movie was released wide theatrically in theUnited States byUniversal Pictures on October 26, 1984. The movie grossed $10,004,817 at the box office.[2]
Gene Siskel of theChicago Tribune gave the movie zero stars out of four, explaining, "Scary movie scenes work best when they're set up by some expository foreplay, which is why this compilation of horrors doesn't really work."[3]Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times thought the commentary from the hosts was "pretty dumb" and concluded, "Because 'Terror in the Aisles' is composed entirely of climaxes, it has none of its own."[4]Variety called the movie "poorly conceived and executed", adding, "Applying the rapid editing and juxtaposition techniques to a feature-length project results in simply ruining many classic movie sequences rather than preserving them."[5]Kevin Thomas of theLos Angeles Times thought the movie was "often fun" but criticized the "cornball, patently phony audience reaction shots."[6] Richard Combs ofThe Monthly Film Bulletin called it "TheThat's Entertainment of horror movies—in other words, its dexterity at pasting together clips from a selection of scaries, old and new, is not matched by a glimmer of the historical awareness, or even filmic appreciation, that would make the exercise worthwhile."[7]
The movie was released onVHS andCED Videodiscs byMCA Home Video in 1985.[8] On September 13, 2011, the movie was released to digital format as a special feature on the 30th Anniversary EditionBlu-ray ofHalloween II (1981). On October 15, 2012, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment released the movie onDVD as part of its Universal Vault Series.
The movie's DVD and Blu-ray release is presented in the same 1.85:1 aspect ratio of its original theatrical release, which also cropped any segments from other movies that were originally produced using the anamorphic process. The number of terror, suspense, horror and thriller movie clips that are featured and shown from in this documentary totaled to seventy-eight clips.
On October 13, 2020, the movie received its own Blu-ray release courtesy ofScream Factory. As with the previous releases, it was presented in its original aspect ratio; unlike the earlier releases, the Blu-ray includes all-new bonus features, including a new interview withNancy Allen and the alternate broadcast television edit of the movie.