Here's something that got by us! This coming Tuesday,
October 20th, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is releasing
The William Castle Film Collection. It's a 5-DVD set filled with 8 classic films from the man:
13 Frightened Girls, 13 Ghosts (1960)
, Homicidal, Strait-Jacket, Mr. Sardonicus, The Old Dark House, The Tingler and
Zotz!. What does that have to do with TV-on-DVD? It's all in the extras!
The $80.95 SRP set (which, at the time of this writing,
Amazon is discounting to $59.99) includes an avalanche of extras. Among these are two bonus episodes of the 1972 television series that William Castle produced:
Ghost Story. One is actually the pilot episode, "The New House", with Sebastian Cabot, David Birney, Jeanette Nolan and Sam Jaffe. And the other is "Graveyard Shift", the 19th episode, starring the (then) husband-and-wife team of John Astin (
The Addams Family) and Patty Duke Astin (
The Patty Duke Show).
If you're wondering, other extras (for the films) include a bunch of Featurettes: "Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story", "The Magic of Illusion-O", "Battle-Axe: The Making of Strait-Jacket", "Scream For Your Lives: William Castle and The Tingler", "Taking the Punishment Poll", "Psychette: William Castle and Homicidal" and the "How To Plan a Movie Murder" Vintage Featurette. There are also Joan Crawford Wardrobe Tests, Axe Tests, TV spots, Commentary with Producer/Director Jeffrey Schwarz and Terry Castle, the premiere of
Homicidal (in Youngstown, Ohio), the Original "British" Trailer Introduction, the Original Candy Web Trailer, an Original "Candy Web" Theatrical Opening Message from William Castle, an Original "Candy Web" Theatrical Closing Message from William Castle, and Alternate Openings for British, Swedish, French and German audiences.
But we're really posting about this for the TV show's episodes...a real treat! Our thanks to reader Bill Jankowski for making sure we didn't miss telling all of you about this. Here's the front and rear package art for this collection:
