Terror in the Aisles

Terror in the Aisles (1984)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen host this documentary telling (and showing) us why horror and suspense films are so important. Both actors are sitting in a theater where they add a few comments before showing us clips to dozens of movies including Halloween, King Kong vs. Godzilla, Play Misty for Me, The Ting, Sisters, Night of the Living Dead, Rosemary's Baby, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Friday the 13th, The Exorcist, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Alligator, Scanners, The Shining, Alien, The Howling, Firestarter, Alone in the Dark and countless others. I think a nostalgia level is going to be the biggest highlight for some people on this one. For one, it's doubtful this film will ever be released onto DVD just because of how many different studios have material on here. I'm shocked it was ever released to theaters in the first place but I doubt Universal would pay the bill to get these clips released today. This leaves us with the VHS, which is faded and has all the films clip's in pan and scan, which is probably how many of us first saw the film way back in the day. Pleasence and Allen don't add too much in the way of funny or interesting comments but it's always nice to see them. Pleasence even gets to throw a few comments towards himself in Halloween. From what I've read the MPAA originally gave this an X-rating even though all the movies here received a R-rated on their own. Oh, the good ol' days of horror films.