Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining if you're a Vincent Price fan
Review: "Oblong Box" is the better movie of the two, with a good cast and impressive Victorian settings. The lovely Hilary Dwyer once again stars with Price, this time portraying his fiancée/ wife. The plot is implausible, but entertaining in a strange sort of way. "Scream and Scream Again" is a confusing, muddled film. I still don't understand the plot, if it has one. But "Scream" is likeable because of the quality cast. I'd rate "Oblong Box" a B+, and "Scream and Scream Again" a C+.
Rating:
Summary: Price Hessler & Wicking Double Bill
Review: Another excellent release from the Midnight Movie series of double features gives us the first and second collaborations of director Gordon Hessler & screenwriter Christopher Wicking. The first is 'The Oblong Box'. Replacing the tragic Michael Reeves as director and getting Wicking to rewrite Laurence Huntingdon's script, Hessler's first AIP horror film isn't by any means a bad effort, beautifully shot and with some nice performances by Price and AIP's then-current scream queen Hilary Dwyer.
Of course, it's the second film, 'Scream & Scream Again', that we have all been waiting for. Subject of one of Tim Lucas' very first Video Watchdog columns before he made it into a magazine, this has until now only been available on home video with a different music score composed by Kendall Schmidt, replacing the original music composed by David Whitaker. Well, the Whitaker score is now back, and its interesting to watch the film having got so used to Schmidt's electronic doodlings, which it turns out actually weren't that bad. In fact sometimes his score is better than Whitaker's own jazz-inspired music, which in places is quite inappropriate to the action taking place on screen.
Some of the reviews on this site have criticized the plotting. Certainly Hessler & Wicking have always maintained that the fragmentary disjointed nature of the story was always intentional. Anyone who has read the original novel 'The Disorientated Man' by "Peter Saxon" (a pseudonym for any number of writers working at that particular publishing house at that time) will know that the novel is constructed like that anyway, possibly because multiple writers may have contributed to it. 'We took out the blobs from space' said Wicking in an interview, but to be honest they don't seem to have done much else. On the other hand, the original screenplay was written by Milton Subotsky who put everything into logical order, so maybe Hessler and Wicking deserve praise simply for going with a different kind of narrative style. Certainly 'Scream & Scream Again' has often been beloved of 'art-house horror' critics who have praised its paranoid conspiracy plotline. At least now we get to see it in 1:1.85 and with the original music as intended
Rating:
Summary: Price Hessler & Wicking Double Bill
Review: Another excellent release from the Midnight Movie series of double features gives us the first and second collaborations of director Gordon Hessler & screenwriter Christopher Wicking. The first is `The Oblong Box'. Replacing the tragic Michael Reeves as director and getting Wicking to rewrite Laurence Huntingdon's script, Hessler's first AIP horror film isn't by any means a bad effort, beautifully shot and with some nice performances by Price and AIP's then-current scream queen Hilary Dwyer.
Of course, it's the second film, `Scream & Scream Again', that we have all been waiting for. Subject of one of Tim Lucas' very first Video Watchdog columns before he made it into a magazine, this has until now only been available on home video with a different music score composed by Kendall Schmidt, replacing the original music composed by David Whitaker. Well, the Whitaker score is now back, and its interesting to watch the film having got so used to Schmidt's electronic doodlings, which it turns out actually weren't that bad. In fact sometimes his score is better than Whitaker's own jazz-inspired music, which in places is quite inappropriate to the action taking place on screen.
Some of the reviews on this site have criticized the plotting. Certainly Hessler & Wicking have always maintained that the fragmentary disjointed nature of the story was always intentional. Anyone who has read the original novel `The Disorientated Man' by "Peter Saxon" (a pseudonym for any number of writers working at that particular publishing house at that time) will know that the novel is constructed like that anyway, possibly because multiple writers may have contributed to it. `We took out the blobs from space' said Wicking in an interview, but to be honest they don't seem to have done much else. On the other hand, the original screenplay was written by Milton Subotsky who put everything into logical order, so maybe Hessler and Wicking deserve praise simply for going with a different kind of narrative style. Certainly `Scream & Scream Again' has often been beloved of `art-house horror' critics who have praised its paranoid conspiracy plotline. At least now we get to see it in 1:1.85 and with the original music as intended
Rating: 
Summary: Buy it for the Box
Review: Heres one that i have to give only three stars as Scream and Scream Again is so very terrible. The Oblong Box on the other hand is a great Price horror flick and on its own would recieve 4 stars. You have Voodoo, a premature burial, lots of murder and mayhem and an ending that makes one shiver. At the low price these Midnight Movies are the best deals on DVD, and the double features are nothing less than a steal. The extras are next to none but the picture quality is great.
Rating:
Summary: One good, one bad movie
Review: Just as Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney were the horror actors of the 1930s and 1940s, the 1960s belonged to the trinity of Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. While Lee and Cushing worked together often, collaborations with Price were much less frequent. This DVD offers two such rare collaborations. Scream and Scream Again is definitely the better of the two movies. It has its flaws: the plot is overly complicated and certain plot lines don't tie together for a long time, if truly ever. The story has something to do with a mad scientist (Price) who is performing mysterious experiments and a serial killer who frequents discos and is seemingly unkillable. Add to all this some intrigue with a East German-country, and you have a mess, but somehow a fun one. Although billed as starring all three actors, this is misleading. Cushing is in the movie for all of five minutes, Lee not much longer. Only Price has a significant role, and even he's got a relatively small part. On the other hand, both Lee and Price have significant roles in the Oblong Box. Unfortunately, this movie is pretty weak. Price plays a wealthy gentleman who has just returned from his African plantation, where his brother was hideously deformed as part of a native ritual. The brother, confined to Price's house, fakes his death and is buried alive, only to wind up in the custody of some grave robbers, who sell him to Lee, a doctor who hides him. The brother's quest for revenge occupies the rest of the movie.
The Oblong Box is pretty slow-moving and suspenseless, and even the big payoff, seeing the deformed brother's face at long last, is a disappointment: he's hardly scary or even grotesque. At best, these are minor horror movies; for big fans of the genre, especially from the 1960s and 1970s, it may be worth watching. Others should find their thrills elsewhere
Rating: 
Summary: Bored And Bored AGAIN!!
Review: SCEAM AND SCREAM again was something I saw a lot as a child and I never understood what was going on but I watched it anyone because it was VINCENT PRICE and it seemed to be a horror film. Well I watched it recently and on this very disc and still could not be able to tell you what the sub-plots in the movie are about. I could give you a vague guess and then tell you most of the movie is about a crazy scientist who is making super beings who live on blood. But it is SO BORING!! I don't know how I watched it so many times as a child. THE OBLONG BOX is my least favorite VINCENT PRICE movie so I cannot reccommend this under any circumstances when I refuse to own it myself. I immediately sold it after I watched it because I was so mortified by it's total lack of entertainment value.
Rating:
Summary: ONLY FOR RABID FANS OF VINCENT PRICE AND CHRISTOPHER LEE
Review: SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN/ OBLONG BOX ARE ONLY MEANT FOR TRUE FANS OF VINCENT PRICE AND OTHER HORROR MOVIES OF THE B GENRE. AS A VINCENT PRICE FANATIC I WAS DISAPPOINTED IN THE ORIGINALITY AS WELL AS LACK OF STAR POWER IN THEM. SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN IS AN ODD MOVIE ABOUT A SERIAL KILLER WHO DRAINS ITS VICTIMS OF BLOOD IN LONDON.; IT PRETTY MUCH TAKES PLACE IN TWO DIFFERENT COUNTRIES WHICH THE MURDERS TAKE PLACE AND IT KIND OF CONFUSES YOU AT TIMES. THE MOVIE PRETTY MUCH DOESN'T HAVE A MAIN CHARACTER AND IT GIVES ALL THE ACTORS A DISAPPOINTING AMOUNT OF SCREEN TIME. BUT NEVERLESS, IT IS AN INTRIGUING AND DISTURBING TWIST ON FRANKENSTEIN IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE SUCCESSFUL ORGAN TRANSPLANTS IN THE LATE SIXTIES. THE OBLONG BOX IS THE BETTER MOVIE OF THE TWO. IT STARS VINCENT PRICE AND CHRISTOPHER LEE IN AN INTRIGUING TALE ABOUT AN ARISTROCRAT WHO KEEPS HIS BROTHER IN THE ATTIC OF HIS HOUSE BECAUSE HE IS HORRIBLY DISFIGURED DUE TO A VOODOO CURSE. EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE HIS BROTHER ESCAPES TO KILL A FEW PEOPLE AND EVENTUALLY LIVES WITH A DOCTOR WHO HIRES GRAVE ROBBERS TO STEAL BODIES FOR HIS RESEARCH. THIS ALL TWISTS AND TURNS INTO A SURPRISE ENDING.
Rating:
Summary: TRIPLE DISTILLED HORROR... maybe a little watered down
Review: The Oblong Box - Not a bad movie...deals with voodoo and revenge. Vincent Price plays Sir Julian Markham, an aristocrat, charged with the care of his brother, Edward, who was horribly disfigured in a voodoo ritual as punishment for some apparent crime he committed against the native tribe. Edward's face is messed up, along with his mind, and creates a devious plan to escape from his brother, who keeps him locked away in the attic. Well, the best-laid plans and such...something goes wrong, and Edward gets buried alive, but manages to escape and plots revenge. Christopher Lee has a bit part as an unscrupulous surgeon who performs experiments on freshly dead and buried bodies. The movie seems a little long-winded, and I felt about ten or fifteen minutes could have been shaved off, but no matter. The movie was passable, even though I saw the surprise ending coming a mile away.
The second feature was much more difficult to watch. Scream and Scream Again was a big mess of a movie. The first hour of the movie jumps between three different plot threads, and finally gets around to trying to tying them together late into the movie. The first thread involves a man who wakes up in a hospital room and only to find a limb missing. He wakes up at some later point, another limb is missing, and so on...the second thread involves Vincent Price as a doctor and a serial killer...the third involves a plot within a military state (the solders look Nazi in the way they dress, but the insignia is different). I ultimately think this movie was about the creation of a super race of human beings, but the scope of the story was too wide to convey this accurately. As I said, it's difficult to follow this movie until about an hour in, when they start to try and tie the loose plot threads together, but not very successfully. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing make appearances, for like five minutes each, and Vincent price shows up early for a short bit and then at the end for like 15 minutes.
The quality on both pictures is pretty good and the audio is not too bad, although on Scream and Scream Again, I felt the dialogue got drowned out by the music at some points, causing it to become muddled. A couple of trailers, and that is it for extras. I like how MGM seems to now be releasing their Midnight Movies in a two for one deal, as if I had paid full price for one of these movies, I would have felt ripped off.
Rating:
Summary: TRIPLE DISTILLED HORROR... maybe a little watered down
Review: The Oblong Box - Not a bad movie...deals with voodoo, schemes, and revenge. Vincent Price plays Sir Julian Markham, an aristocrat who is charged with the care of his brother, Edward, who was horribly disfigured in a voodoo ritual as punishment for some apparent crime he committed against the native tribe. Edward's face is messed up, along with his mind, and creates a devious plan to escape from his brother, who keeps him locked away in the attic. Well, the best-laid plans and such...something goes wrong, and Edward gets buried alive, but manages to escape and plots revenge. Christopher Lee has a bit part as an unscrupulous surgeon who performs experiments on freshly dead and buried bodies. The movie seems a little long-winded, and I felt about ten or fifteen minutes could have been shaved off, but no matter. The movie was passable, even though I saw the surprise ending coming a mile away.
The second feature was much more difficult to watch. Scream and Scream Again was a big mess of a movie. The first hour of the movie jumps between three different plot threads, and finally gets around to trying to tying them together late into the movie. The first thread involves a man who wakes up in a hospital room and only to find a limb missing. He wakes up at some later point, another limb is missing, and so on...the second thread involves Vincent Price as a doctor and a serial killer...the third involves a plot within a military state (the solders look Nazi in the way they dress, but the insignia is different). I ultimately think this movie was about the creation of a super race of human beings, but the scope of the story was too wide to convey this accurately. As I said, it's difficult to follow this movie until about an hour in, when they start to try and tie the loose plot threads together, but not very successfully. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing make appearances, for like five minutes each, and Vincent price shows up early for a short bit and then at the end for like 15 minutes.
The quality on both pictures is pretty good and the audio is not too bad, although on Scream and Scream Again, I felt the dialogue got drowned out by the music at some points, causing it to become muddled. A couple of trailers, and that's it for extras. I like how MGM seems to now be releasing their 'Midnight Movies' in a two for one deal, as if I had paid full price for one of these movies, I would have felt ripped off.
Rating: 
Summary: Voodoo, Revenge, and Mad Science...
Review: THE OBLONG BOX- Julien (Vincent Price) keeps his brother Edward chained in a room in their mansion. Poor Edward went quite mad after being disfigured by a voodoo priest in africa. Fortunately for Edward, he has friends who are willing to aid in his escape. By using more voodoo, they will give Edward the appearance of death and wisk him away at the opportune moment. Unfortunately, these "friends" are more interested in money than Ed's freedom. Surprise! Julien decides to nail Edward in his coffin and have a stand-in corpse for the viewing! When Edward is buried, his co-conspirators leave him in the ground! Luckily, some graverobbers are in the area and inadvertantly rescue Edward, taking him to a local doctor (Christopher Lee). The good doctor helps Edward, who dons a red velvet mask and becomes his own avenging angel. This ghoulish gothic is perfct for cold, damp nights! SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN- Vincent is back again as Dr. Browning, a scientist working on secret government experiments with "composite" super-humans. One of them runs amok, becoming known as "the vampire killer" for his trademark blood-draining of victims. His exploits are a good part of the story, leading police to Dr. Browning's place. Christopher Lee is the government-type who is somehow involved in all the mysterious experiments and cover-ups. Peter Cushing is a tyrannical leader of a militaristic nation, who is in this movie just long enough to be killed by a super-human sadist named Konratz. Konratz is out to put an end to the whole Dr. Browning project, now that the vampire killer has made the headlines. SASA has lots of action and intrigue. There's also a healthy dose of humor throughout the proceedings to keep things fun. Watch for the poor jogger who has a heart attack, only to be taken in by Dr. Browning. Every time he wakes up in his hospital bed, another piece of him is missing! He's a stitch! All in all, this is a great double feature...
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