So much average

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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...)

Pointless and pretty silly film that is just basically a compilation of clips from horror, science fiction and suspense films. There are unnecessary shots to an audience watching the clips and Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen are among audience members who turn to the camera and explain why we love horror films. Not a bad idea but all the explanations are obvious ("movie horror helps us deal with real horror", "you are at the mercy of the filmmaker in a theatre") and pretty trite. Also the clips are shown very quickly and the changes are kind of jarring. And, shown out of context, these bits aren't very scary at all. And it's REAL short--I saw it in a theatre back in 1984 and was outraged that I paid $5.00 for an 84 minute movie!Still, it is reasonably well-edited and Allen and Pleasance seem to be enjoying themselves. For people who have an interest in knowing more about terror this might be fun and interesting. But if you're a horror fan (like me) you'll probably be bored silly. Good idea, bad execution (no pun intended). I give it a 3.

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.

I had a lot of fun watching 'Terror in the Aisles,' despite its shortcomings. This has nothing to say about horror movies; its narration by Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen is just patter designed to lead us into the next clip or montage. Unless you're bowled over by revelations like "scary movies tap into your childhood fears," or the news that special effects used to be primitive but are now more advanced, you're going to get nothing out of this as a documentary.But the way in which various scenes are cut together is entertaining. Sometimes there are extended segments in which two or three films are intercut at length, leading to climaxes in which, for instance, 'Ms. 45' ends up taking out the killer from 'Klute.' You'll get a quick idea of the plots of several films, even enough to get caught up in them a little (it's funny how effective the first twenty-odd minutes of 'When a Stranger Calls' still are, even broken up and spread across an hour and a half). Other parts have no narrative at all, with a dozen different films cut together for a montage of horror-type things happening, but it sure looks neat. Occasionally this remembers it's supposed to be a documentary and we'll see Leatherface, Damien, Bruno Antony and Baby Jane go across the screen as Pleasence notes that great movie villains range in appearance.What does it add up to? This was made by a company that normally specializes in movie trailers, and they don't seem to have changed their approach at all to make this film: it's a feature-length mashup, all cutting technique and big moments. If you're familiar with most of these movies it will be a snappily edited trip down memory lane; if you're not but wish you were, it'll be a pretty good advertisement (although, maddeningly, it doesn't tell you which clip comes from what). I'm a real horror nut, especially for the 1960s-to-early-1980s period this spends most of its time on, and I enjoyed it.