Terror in the Aisles

Plot

Director Andrew J. Kuehn has excerpted brief segments of terror and suspense in a wide variety of horror films and strung them together with added commentary, as well as some enacted narrative, to create a compilation of fright-inducing effects. Halloween actor Donald Pleasence and Dressed to Kill star Nancy Allen provide the commentary on topics such as "sex and terror" (Dressed to Kill, Klute, Ms. 45, The Seduction, When a Stranger Calls), loathsome villains (Dracula, Frankenstein, Friday the 13th Part 2 (although, surprisingly, not its 1980 original), Halloween I & II, Marathon Man, Nighthawks, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Touch of Evil, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Vice Squad, Wait Until Dark, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?), "natural terror" (Alligator, The Birds, Frogs, Jaws 1 & 2, Nightwing), the occult (An American Werewolf in London, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, Carrie, The Shining) and spoofs (Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Saturday the 14th). In one segment of the anthology, legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock presents his concepts of how to create suspense in a clip from Alfred Hitchcock: Men Who Made The Movies.

Release

The film was released theatrically in the United States by Universal Pictures in October 1984. It grossed $10,004,817 at the box office.

The film was released on VHS and CED Videodiscs by MCA Home Video in 1985. The film's first time release to digital format was as a Special Feature on the 30th Anniversary Edition of Halloween II (1981) Blu-ray. On October 15, 2012, Universal released the film on DVD as part of its Universal Vault Series.

The film's DVD and Blu-ray release is presented in the same 1.85:1 aspect ratio of its original theatrical release, which also cropped any segments from other films that were originally produced using the anamorphic process.