The Metropolitan Film Group Years - Scotty Spiegel's SUPER 8 SHORTS Vol. 2 - Is here!
For the longest time these Super 8 Shorts were the holy grail of fans, especially Within the Woods, the movie that preceded The Evil Dead. Over the years there were rumours of an official release, a few of the Super 8s showed up as bootlegs at conventions, on overseas DVDs, Josh Becker put out a handful of his from his website and, inevitably, some wound up on YouTube. These releases by Evil Dead alum Scott "Scotty" Spiegel are as close to official releases as we may ever see and boy have they done incredible work with the design and packaging of them. I have the Vol. 1 DVD and I can attest to the handmade/individual wonderful design of these sets. Long may they continue!
In time for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, Scotty and his team have released Vol. 2 and this set, in particular, has some classics and some hidden gems on it. Scotty has also included some era appropriate TV Spots, trailers and commercials on the set so the whole thing is a nostalgia and creativity filled delight.
You can hear our interview with Scott Spiegel about the Super 8s and more HERE
A young Sam Raimi in Attack of the Helping Hand the short that would directly influence the now legendary hand sequence in Evil Dead 2, co-written by Scott Spiegel.
From The Press Release:
This is our second Super8Shorts.com DVD presentation. For those who missed the first; while many have seen the iconic horror movie The Evil Dead, and its sequels Evil Dead II & Army Of Darkness, fewer know is that its creators & friends had a legacy of Super-8 Short film making stretching all the way back to their childhood in the late '60s. It's Murder, Within The Woods and The Blind Waiter are among the most prominent examples, but there were nearly seventy shorts made from 1969 onwards.
This second DVD set contains eleven new shorts directed or co-directed by Scotty, along with some of Bruce Campbell's early TV commercials, intercut with vintage 60's, 70's & 80's intros, credits, idents, trailers, adverts & promos from Scotty's own extensive film collection. It's only available as a 'Standard' option, no signed 'Deluxe' version this time. Here is a complete list of everything you will get in the set:
- Two dual layer DVDs containing the eleven shorts, each with an optional commentary track from Scotty, motion menus, and full color printed disc artwork.
- A black standard DVD case with color glossy DVD sleeve.
- An four page handmade vintage style booklet, with notes on each short from Scott.
- A random selection of four, from a total of twelve 6" x 4" replica photos.
A young Bruce Campbell in Half-Wits-Holiday
The list of 'featured' items play in chronological order, and run at 142m 29s alone, but 227m 28s including all the vintage adverts, trailers, promos and such. All the shorts have an optional commentary track by Scotty, as does some (but not all) of the additional material. You can see the list of the 'featured' items, with dates & running times below;
- Half-Wits-Holiday (1974) (10m 58s)
- All The Worlds A Stooge (1974) (6m 01s)
- No Dough Boys (1974) (11m 17s)
- The Singing Nutzs (1974) (7m 45s)
- I’ll Never Heil Again (1975) (19m 41s)
- The James Hoffa Story (1975) (12m 52s)
- James Bombed In 'Here Today... Gun Tomorrow' (1976) (17m 57s)
- The Ghoul - Ch.62 Show Segments (1978-1979) (11m 29s)
- Attack Of The Helping Hand! (1979) (4m 58s)
- Compilation Of Shorts Clips (1974-1979) (6m 57s)
- The Blind Waiter (1980) (15m 29s)
- Torro, Torro, Torro! - Scotty's Edit (1981) (3m 28s)
- Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter - The Producer's Cut (1982) (9m 09s)
- WHYT Radio Bruce Campbell Snake Commercial (1984) (0m 29s)
- WHYT Radio Bruce Campbell Puppies Commercial (1984) (0m 30s)
- Breakdancing Stooges (1984) (2m 50s)
- WNIC Naturally Funny Bruce Campbell Commercial (1985) (0m 31s)
Most of the items above have not been publicly seen, although a couple have been officially released, and others as bootlegs. As fans will want to know specifics, the Attack Of The Helping Hand! transfer here is uncropped, brighter & better quality than featured on the semi-bootleg 2002 German Dragon Films Entertainment Intruder R2 SE PAL DVD, as is Torro, Torro, Torro!; which is also edited differently. Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter is a different edit to Josh Becker's official release, but The Blind Waiter is largely the same, also less cropped.
Scotty transferred many of the huge number of shorts from Super-8 film to S-VHS tape back in the 1990s, and later on to DVD, when he added/upgraded certain stock shots simply unavailable at the time. That aside, the content of the shorts themselves (including any music) remains untouched. This DVD is pretty much the experience you would have had on viewing these shorts when they were first shown back in the early '70s.
This DVD set is only available through Super8Shorts.com, and is out to buy, now!
We here at the After Movie Diner strongly encourage all Evil Dead and beyond fans to purchase this set as soon as possible!
If you want to read more of our Evil Dead, Ash Vs Evil Dead and Post Evil Dead coverage CLICK HERE
STILLS OF THE SET
STILLS FROM THE SUPER 8s
