This is not a review.

Now, y'all know I love my movie multi-packs. In fact, "multi-pack movies" is one of the categories in Operation: 101010. Quite frankly I'm not sure I hope to fulfill all the categories in the remaining time of the year, but I'm still trying. As such, I figured I'd add another review to the list today by watching A Bell from Hell (La campana del infierno, 1973). "Ooh, Euro-horror," thought I. "I like that. And the synopsis on the cardboard sleeve! I do so love movies where people try to drive other people insane in order to procure their inheritance...it's such a deliciously Scooby-Doo notion. Oh, and it stars Maribel Martin? How surprising! Why, after seeing The Blood Spattered Bride, I'd watch her in anything. And it also stars Viveca "dotty old Aunt Bedelia" Lindfors? Verily, this Bell from Hell should be a delight."

A DELIGHT IT WAS NOT...but it's not really the movie's fault, I discovered quickly enough- it's the cruddy 50-pack quality of the transfer. Sometimes you can live with it, and sometimes you simply should not. Remember how I said as much when I recently reviewed Messiah of Evil, how you'd be cheating yourself if you watched the Mill Creek cheapo version and not the special edition? Well, I'm going to take my own advice with A Bell from Hell. Yeah, I watched the whole thing. But the audio was so damn awful- I mean truly, truly, truly outrageous awful that I could barely tell what was going on. Huge chunks of dialogue were simply lost to me because it sounded like the cast of characters consisted solely of Charlie Brown's teachers.

The picture quality was equally awful, but I'll get to that.

Basically, I got enough of the gist of things to know that the film had to be better than what I was watching. I wondered if there was a better version out there somewhere- and guess what? There is! Take a gander at these comparisons between the "Chilling Classic" version I watched and Pathfinder's Special Edition:








There are COLORS! I had no idea. And this isn't the worst of it; there were certainly plenty of times I couldn't tell what the hell was going on at all.

So, I'm going to pretend I've never seen A Bell from Hell at all. I'm fixin' to seek out the Special Edition so I can give both the movie and my eyeballs the treatment they deserve. The multi-packs are sneaky, you see, and cheaper isn't always better. They've got good films- really good films- mixed in with the utter crap. I know enough to stay away from the obligatory Argento films, to wait to see those the way they're meant to be seen. But A Bell from Hell...I didn't know, I swear! A real review, then, will have to wait..as will we. Nyah.