NOTE: These Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

Firstly, the 6 films are divided on the 4 Blu-ray discs as follows:

Disc 1) The Pit and the Pendulum and The Masque of the Red Death

Disc 2) The Haunted Palace and The Fall of the House of Usher

Disc 3) The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Disc 4) Witchfinder General

I will make a few comments and hopefully the more complete screen capture comparisons of both The Fall of the House of Usher and Witchfinder General will augment what is said here.

Video: I'm less-enthused to see the doubled-up titles (2 titles sharing one Blu-ray) which seem to all have a 24.00 Mbps video bitrate. Disc1 has The Pit and the Pendulum and The Masque of the Red Death, while disc 2 has The Haunted Palace and The Fall of the House of Usher. However, overall these don't seem to suffer adversely because of the, essential, single-layering.

Going chronologically Usher is not up to the robust Arrow transfer of earlier this year. It is darker, skin -tones a shade warmer and there is a touch of noise. Blacks are richer but hint at moiring. Overall though it is quite watchable. NOTE: The Shout! Factory release is three minutes+ longer as it has the Overture starting the presentation.

 The Pit and the Pendulum looks quite strong with solid detail and no bothersome flaws. There isn't a lot of depth but the HD image quality seems a notch above acceptable - probably advancing handily over the SD versions.

We have compared some captures of with The Haunted Palace Koch German Blu-ray. The Shout! Factory fares a bit better both technically and visually although you can see it has the exact same marks and scratches. The US transfer is marginally more robust but only purchasers who project (and are very picky) would notice. It is probably the weakest of the six in terms of video appearance but, without a restoration, I doubt dual-layering would advance the image quality to a significantly higher level. It is darker than the Koch and exhibits excellent contrast.

The Masque of the Red Death is also on a shared disc but the 1080P is reasonably impressive with detail, depth and authentic-looking colors (cool skin-tones). The 2.35:1 scope is pleasing and adds to the film-like appearance. We don't own the German Blu-ray of Masque but suspect this US transfer is equivalent or superior.

Witchfinder General has a better technical transfer than the UK Odeon Entertainment but I doubt many could find a dramatic differences. This US edition might be marginally brighter - you can see more comparative Blu-ray captures HERE.

The 'youngest' film, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, looks the best although skin tones ('cept for Phibes himself) look a shade warm but detail is very strong and there is plenty of depth. Detail almost makes some of the make-up effects transparent but the film's atmosphere retains its integrity.

Audio: All offer DTS-HD Master 2.0 channels (ditto for the commentaries) and sound solid with only Pit and Haunted showing some scattered weakness. Not a game-ender but notable none-the-less. All Shout! Factory titles of the set offer optional English subtitles and all are region 'A'-locked Blu-rays.

All six films have audio commentaries and 2 of them offer 2! These are, for the most part, older ones but some fans may have missed them over the years and they have value to fans. There are also introductions for all 6 films - 5 'vintage' from Vincent Price and one new one from Justin Humphreys (author of Names You Never Remember, With Faces You Never Forget) on Dr. Phibes. There are also interviews with Price and Corman, trailers and galleries. Quite a good lot of supplements that Vincent Price and genre aficionados will enjoy wading through.

Pretty sweet to have all 6, in 1080P, of these films in one collection. Usher, Phibes, Pendulum, Masque are all strong horrors - worthy of any collection. These are the titles that established Vincent Price's reputation and this set offers plenty of value with the mass of supplements, including commentaries. We strongly recommend!  

Gary W. Tooze