It / The Shuttered Room (DVD)

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It / The Shuttered Room DVD review (click for larger image)Reviewed by Uncle Creepy

Starring (It) Roddy McDowall, Jill Haworth, Paul Maxwell, Aubrey Richards; (The Shuttered Room) Gig Young, Carol Lynley, Oliver Reed, Flora Robson

Directed by (It 1966) Herbert J. Leder; (The Shuttered Room 1967) David Greene

Distributed by Warner Home Video


Ah, the double feature. So many thrills! One low price! You just can’t beat it, man. Warner Brothers continues to open up their horror vaults thereby delivering some more of their best and little seen genre flicks onto DVD. This time up — two tales from the Sixties, It and The Shuttered Room. Let’s start with the first.

It is a pretty common title so as a means to clear up any confusion this is not the Stephen King tale, nor is it the 1958 classic It! The Terror Beyond Space which was more or less the inspiration for Alien many years later.

This It follows the exploits of Arthur Pimm (McDowall) an insane museum worker with a penchant for his mom’s corpse. Everything is strange as usual in old Artie’s life until he happens upon a nine-foot Golem or — as the title puts it — It. Of course Pimm ends up sicking the stone creature on all of his rivals and before you know it we have got ourselves a good old fashioned body count to enjoy.

It / The Shuttered Room DVD review (click for larger image)With echoes of dozens of other films, It stands on its own as a delightfully dark, tongue-in-cheek horror film that’s riddled with low budget nonsense, over-the-top hammy performances, and enough cheese to feed a third world country for decades. I love It!

The second film in this package, The Shuttered Room, is a true sight to behold. Never mind its gloriously laughable (and sometimes genuinely creepy) storyline about a young woman who returns home to find out the truth about her family curse. That’s cool and all, but there is one true reason to watch this film — Gig Young be thy name.

Holy cow! Young (the male lead) is kind of like a walking cartoon of what people thought was cool in that era. He’s suave, has an amazing car, and he possesses manly good looks as well as a biting sense of humor. The best part that makes him the total package of Sixties Chic? If you get in this dude’s way, he will Karate chop the shit out of you. You will fear his manliness. You will bathe in his sea of machismo. Gig Young will fuck you up. Sleep with one eye open. You’ve been warned.

There are so many reasons to own this DVD it’s hard to even know where to start. Sure there are no extras, but wow, is there a lot of fun. Go ahead. Click the link below. Worship at the alter of Gig. You know you want to. It’s crazy, baby!

Special Features

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