The Naked and the Dead (1958)

best release yet of this hard-to-find title
While by no means perfect, this is the best way to see this incredibly obscure grindhouse horror pic. The mastering is not the greatest, but it looks far superior to a VHS and is obviously not from a videotape. Andrew Prine as usual delivers in the demented protagonist department. If you ever saw his deranged performance in either CENTERFOLD GIRLS or SIMON KING OF THE WITCHES, you'll know what awaits you here. Okay, so the girls are never totally naked -- or at least naked when they're dead, but who cares if the title literally represents the content of the movie? Since when has that ever been a criteria for a drive-in/grindhouse type movie being entertaining? Prine excels as an insane young man living in the desert who has a whole boatload of female hitchhikers chained up in his barn to do his ringmaster bidding. And did I mention that he lives a little too close to an old atomic test site? His poor old dad stumbled a bit too far from home one day, got exposed to an overdose of radition and is now a horrible-looking mutant. Great trash. By the way, this is not a bootleg. About five years ago I was toying with the idea of starting up my own DVD video company releasing public domain horror/exploitation films. And I did some research on 20 or 30 titles -- this was one. Along with films like THE SADIST, THE BLANCHEVILLE MONSTER, THE BEAST OF YUCCA FLATS, et.al. this is definitely no longer under copyright. In fact this one seems as if it may never ever have been copyrighted at all. I was actually going to give this only three stars, but added another star in my rating for just the extras -- there's a great Prine interview moderated by old man of the mountain Johnny Legend and another interview-packed feature called "Gorebeat" that's like a video magazine with some pretty funny interviews Johnny Legend did with people like John Landis, Fred Olen Ray, Brian Yuzna and Ray Dennis Steckler. Plenty of value for your hard-earned sheckels!

Barn of the BORED Dead!
Ok, I don't care who is putting out what version, all this talk of the film, and the intriguing title, made me want to rent this, and I wasted a rental on this. I can't judge the quality, for the film is NOT 16x9 enhanced, which should be the norm nowadays, nor is it progressively scanned, so the picture played weird on my player. And to top it off NO NAKED DEAD! Just a moron who chains girls up and lives with his monster dad. Very amateur night, so what is the big deal? No naked deads here. Did I miss something?

Great Film but Bad DVD!
This is an unlicensed bootleg most likely duped from a VHS and it looks awful so don't waste your money on it especially when Code Red plans to release an official version under the TERROR CIRCUS title so look for that coming soon.