Drive-In Discs, Vol. 2: The Wasp Woman/The Giant Gila Monster

Customer Reviews:

What Can I Say . . ........2007-07-09

Of the two films on this DVD, I'd say the winner is "The Wasp Woman." Okay, so the film is low budget and the acting is questionable, but the face mask used to make the wasp woman was very creepy. Maybe I have a thing about bugs. There's something about those eyes and antennae which had me shiver just a bit.

Too bad most people can't enjoy a good old-fashioned horror movie without CGI or modern special effects. The Wasp Woman represents those bygone days when you could see two for the price of one at the local drive-in. I can't say what a phenomenal movie it was but if you're into the old black and white classics, I'd say give this one a shot.

As for the Gila Monster, don't even bother. This was really, really bad all the way. It's not even worth going into and wasting electronic ink to give a review. Take my word for it boys and girls: stay away!

Thanks.

Does a slithery tongue give you a buzz?.......2006-02-13

The Wasp Woman:

Maintaining that wasp waist

Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot) head of a cosmetics company was told the she needs to stay young to promote the product. What can she do? Enter garage scientist Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark) with a dubious formula made from wasp royal jelly. He explains that "just a little dab will do you." She gets greedy and shoots up with the extra strong stuff. This gives her a BUZZ and can have biting consequences.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Giant Gila Monster:

A huge slithery tongue

This is a picture of life before CGI. The contrived dialog is part of the mystique. You get to see hotrods and large lizards (every thing is bigger in Texas.) The blob it is not; but it is a necessary addition to any 50' collection.

A teenage boy and a teenage girl disappear together and the law is getting suspicious.

I want to ask the monster if teenagers taste like chicken?

A waste of plastic.......2005-05-10

I didn't have high expectations for this disc, but it didn't even meet my modest hopes. What a turkey.

The two feature films are bad beyond belief. I say this without having watched them from start to finish. At one point, a voice in my head said "life is too short to waste it watching this junk". So, I fast-fowarded through them to see if, by some miracle, things would improve. They did not. I won't bore you with the details, but will simply list the categories in which these films fail every test: camera work, acting, special effects, dialogue, pacing, and on and on.

But, to tell the truth, the main thing I was intested in was the disc's extras -- the period intermission shorts and cartoons -- which I hoped to use during my own home drive-in presentations. These are marginally useful, though the menu system on the DVD makes it very difficult to show them, since you have to renegotiate the menu after every 30-second clip.

And, finally, there's the issue of transfer quality. You don't expect a complete digital restoration of this kind of material, especially when a degraded soundtrack is touted as one of the disc's "benefits". But the framing was so bad that, on the film titles and the shorts one or more letters was cut off on either side. I'm reminded of the joke: The wife complains to her husband "The food in this place is just awful!" He replies: "Yes, and the portions are so small!" I would at least expect to get all the lousy video I paid for.

I rate the disc with one star, only because one-half star wasn't available. Maybe a good value for $1.99, but certainly not at the current price. Too bad; the idea seemed to have promise.

DVD:

DVD

DVD