Terror in the Aisles (1984)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Terror in the Aisles is a compilation of clips from various horror movies, focusing primarily on works from the 1970s and early 1980s. Although it was produced by Universal, it casts a wide net, featuring Friday the 13th and other franchises from different studios.The film is a rather bland appreciation of the modern horror genre. Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen provide adequate narration, although they don't offer any real insights. Furthermore, all the movie does is show clips, without offering any analysis of why these movies scare us.Furthermore, some of the films excerpted seem rather odd choices. For instance, there are numerous clips from the Sylvester Stallone film Nighthawks, never mind the fact that it is an action film. This kind of sloppiness undermines the film as a whole.

"Terror in the Aisles" might look like the ultimate treat for horror fans but it has, in fact, very few to offer. Granted, it presents a decent and versatile (too versatile?) selection of horror/thriller fragments that are considered classic but ...what's the point? This documentary primarily aims for the horror-loving public so we've pretty much seen all these clips already, haven't we? The only thing really praiseworthy about this project is the editing. If you're into scream-queens, chases by vile murderers and that sort of things, "Terror in the Aisles" has some neat compilations of the most famous sequences. All these different scenes hang together by a lame wraparound story starring Donald Pleasance and Nancy Allen sitting in a movie theater. In between two sequences, the address the viewer and "explain" why we love horror so much. Those speeches naturally are soporific and rather obvious (it's in our nature to be afraid ...bla bla bla) and I fail to understand why many people love the concept. This is worth a peek in case you're a loyal horror fan but it certainly isn't essential viewing. On the contrary: in case you still have to see a classic genre title, beware that bits and pieces of it here don't spoil your future viewing. The main reason why I overall disliked it is because it shamelessly ignores a lot of lesser known, but fundamental (foreign) titles endlessly focusing on "Halloween". This does result in a cool inside joke, however, when Donald Pleasance screams to the screen at his own character.

TERROR IN THE AISLES is a very entertaining movie. You can't help but watch the series of clips thrown at ya from beginning to end. Unfortunately, the whole thing is a head scratcher. TERROR IN THE AISLES almost looks like producers got hold of a series of clips from several movies and they basically decides to make a movie out of them. The way it's edited together is often fun AND confusing. They always have clips of 3 to 4 movies edited together, which sometimes makes the combination fun to see how things from 4 different films actually meld together but it also becomes frustrating after a while.What's odd also is that they never identify the movies. Some of them I have no idea from what movie they were from. And I'm sure non-genre fans would also be lost to make sense of anything. For instance, at the very end, we finally see very briefs scenes from SUSPIRIA. Why?!?! Why didn't they show more scenes earlier? When those scenes are shown, it's an almost useless addition to the bunch.TITA is very short. 84 minutes. When it ended abruptly, I thought, This can't be the end??? It was. It's hard to believe this was ever released on the big screen. People must have felt cheated for paying full price for such a short and inexpensive flick. But in the end, even if it doesn't make much sense, it's still fun to watch and because I doubt TERROR IN THE AISLES will ever be released on DVD due to all of the legalities over the rights of every film clips they use, if you want to see it, better buy the video now.

Saw this one in a drive in back in 1984. It was a great place to see this compilation of the best clips of (mostly) more recent Horror and Suspense movies. This movie was released in theatres first, not direct to video as with many other compilations, so the highlighting of 1970s slasher movies is totally understandable from a marketing viewpoint. For fans of early horror, I recommend the documentary "Universal Horror" which highlights the classic horror films and influences of Universal Studios. Donald Pleasance was at his prime then, starring in slasher films galore, he camps it up here as does Nancy Allen, trying to keep the suspense up in between clips. It all works. For horror fans, its a fantastic sampler platter of some of the greatest moments in Horror film. It will steer you toward films you may not be aware of, or it will give you peeks at films you may have heard of but never seen.