Who payed the critics

Good idea lost in the noise

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Back before "Scream", "Saw" torture porn and endless sequels became the norm in horror films, moviegoers were treated to legitimate, creative and well thought out scares and shocks when they wanted to see a scary movie. "Terror In The Aisles" is both a retrospective of that time, and the ultimate love letter to that genre. A documentary type film, hosted by Donald Pleasence (Halloween) and Nancy Allen (Dressed To Kill; Robocop) take us on a ninety minute guided tour of the horror film genre. Along the way, we get all the best parts of so many great horror films from the last half of the twentieth century. Since Pleasence is basically the host of this memory lane trip, "Halloween" is given ample exposure, but make no mistake: If it was a scary film from the 60's on through the mid 80's, it's represented here, in some form.No matter if it's Linda Blair barfing up pea soup from "The Exorcist", Jack Nicholson's iconic freak out in "The Shining" or David Naughton turning into a very scary werewolf from "American Werewolf In London", if you were young in the last half of the 20th century, you probably saw most of these films, you remember what made you jump, scream, have nightmares, and then laugh about it all later with your friends. And it's all here, in all their gory, creepy, grisly glory. Along the way, several themes are discussed: Why do we like scary movies? What really scares us? Are we afraid of evil monsters from space or from Hell, or are the monsters within our own minds and subconscience even scarier? As we go along, we get lots of nifty montages from similar types of horror films: people being killed, bad guys and monsters moving in for the kill, people running for their lives, sometimes escaping, sometimes not. From a film editing standpoint, "Terror In The Aisles" is the ultimate horror remix. We've seen all these clips before many times, but put together in this format, with this type of presentation, they feel fresh and exhilarating once again.Even films that weren't strictly classified as "horror", such as "Marathon Man" and "Nighthawks", still contained harrowing visual shocks and nerve wracking suspense so their inclusion into this potpourri of terror feels quite natural.And at the end of it all, you can appreciate just how carefully and skillfully the American film industry has cultivated the art of horror films through the decades.Great retrospective film! Check it out! (And with the lights out while you watch it, if you dare, hee hee hee...)

Any serious investigation into the world of fear cinema is welcome, but Terror in the Aisles' gimmicky narration, delivered by Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen sat amidst an irritating fake movie audience, is far from informative, giving very little genuine insight into why people love to be scared at the movies.Ignore the incessant, mindless jibber jabber from the two hosts, and what remains is a compilation tape consisting largely of an uninspired choice of classic clips, along with some downright oddball choices (Midnight Express, Nighthawks), all edited together in such a way so as to rob them of their original impact (there's also a noticeable lack of captions, leaving less knowledgeable viewers in the dark about the origin of each clip).To be fair, I enjoyed Terror in the Aisles more when I was a teenager and had yet to see some of the films included, but a lot of blood has passed under the bridge since then; watching it today proved to be an extremely dull experience (except for the exploding head from Scanners, which is always amazing to see!).

Horror film fans should be sure to check out this hard to find semi-documentary, Terror in the Aisles. Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen explore many of the great moments in horror movie history (though most are archived footage of movies released by Universal Pictures, since they are the studio that released this movie). The movie is hosted inside a movie theater with Pleasance and Allen, both horror movie veterans (though Pleasance is more than Allen since he's appeared in nearly every Halloween movie), probing what it is about horror movies that audiences enjoy (perhaps we like the nightmares knowing they're only imaginary as Pleasance sullenly suggests) as well as some of the evolution of classic horror tales (such as Lon Chaney in Wolfman or the Hitchcock horror classics like Psycho and The Birds) into dazzling modern horror creations (like The Exorcist, Halloween, and Jaws). Basically, the movie is just a series of clips of great scenes from great Universal Picture horror films (and many emphasizing special effects in the genre more than anything else).For example, you see werewolf transformation scenes in Wolfman and the famous Rick Baker transformation in American Werewolf in London. You see the head explosion scene from Scanners (one of the best special effects sequences in a horror movie); the famous shower sequence and Norman Bates finale from the classic, Psycho; the nanny hanging sequence from The Omen; shark attacks from Jaws; those many awesome creature scenes from The Thing and Alien; Jack's crazed persona in The Shining; Carol Kane on the telephone in When a Stranger Calls; scenes from the 1970s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers; and many other scenes from some of the greatest horror movies ever made (except for The Brood and Alone in the Dark, those were pretty awful films). Although, the latter half of the movie isn't as good as the first, because the mood changes and you get a lot of archive footage from movies that aren't even of the horror genre. Scenes, for example, from the movie 'Vice Squad' (the movie with Wings Hauser as the crazy Texan who is beating up a female hostage in front of the cops); Nighthawks (a great cop thriller with Sylvester Stallone and Rutger Hauer, but certainly no horror movie); Marathon Man (yes, the "is it safe?" part with Lawrence Olivier is certainly creep city, but it is still only a thriller and not a horror movie); Klute; and so forth. So it isn't entirely about horror films (though I suppose that, judging by the title, it doesn't promise to be strictly about horror films). If you like horror and suspense movies or just want to see your favorite scenes from the classic titles, Terror in the Aisles is a good choice.

Saw this one in a drive in back in 1984. It was a great place to see this compilation of the best clips of (mostly) more recent Horror and Suspense movies. This movie was released in theatres first, not direct to video as with many other compilations, so the highlighting of 1970s slasher movies is totally understandable from a marketing viewpoint. For fans of early horror, I recommend the documentary "Universal Horror" which highlights the classic horror films and influences of Universal Studios. Donald Pleasance was at his prime then, starring in slasher films galore, he camps it up here as does Nancy Allen, trying to keep the suspense up in between clips. It all works. For horror fans, its a fantastic sampler platter of some of the greatest moments in Horror film. It will steer you toward films you may not be aware of, or it will give you peeks at films you may have heard of but never seen.