March 18, 2016

I don’t know about you, but as a horror fan, it is also inherent in me to be a hardcore horror collector. Naturally, there are the usual compulsions to find and purchase the rarest and hardest to find titles to add to my library. That grew to soundtracks, both CD and vinyl. And eventually action figures. I mean, when I was a kid, it was rare to be able to find and purchase a Freddy Krueger action figure! So the fact that just about every horror icon has been immortalized in plastic is a thing to celebrate.

But at the height of the DVD boom, studios got really creative with the packaging for their boxed sets. Pretty early on in the format’s infancy, I picked up a muti-region DVD player, solely so I could pick up some of the best import box sets. Anchor Bay UK was killing it with collections for SCANNERS, HOUSE, CHILDREN OF THE CORN and more. But here’s a few more that really went above and beyond what you’d expect from the traditional box set. And… also proved a challenge to find shelf space for.

THE FLY: ULTIMATE COLLECTOR’S SET

This set was never available in America, but overseas in other countries, you could actually purchase a box set consisting of all 5 films from THE FLY franchise, all packaged in a replica of Seth Brundle’s telepod!

The 7 disc set included THE FLY (1958), RETURN OF THE FLY (1959), CURSE OF THE FLY and double disc special edition versions of David Cronenberg’s 1986 THE FLY and its 1989 sequel THE FLY II. At the moment, only the original FLY and its remake are available on Blu-Ray. But how cool would it be to own this?

FRIDAY THE 13TH US DVD Box Set

Prior to the epic Blu-Ray box set that collected every FRIDAY THE 13TH film from both the Paramount years and the New Line years, all previous box sets only collected the first 8 Paramount produced films from the series. The last one of note is the one you see here, which came in a compact box, complete with a replica of Jason Voorhees’s hockey mask! The upside is the mask looks awesome! The downside is the mask is just a tad bit smaller than the average head, so you can’t actually wear it. It’s strictly a “for show” only item. Still cool!

HELLRAISER UK DVD Box Set

Here in America, Anchor Bay US managed to put out a HELLRAISER box set in the Lament Configuration. It featured DVDs of the first 2 films and a third disc of the Blu-Ray version of 1. But Anchor Bay UK rocked it a few years earlier with this 4 disc set, which consisted of DVDs of the first 3 films, as well as a bonus 4th disc featuring the early college short films of Clive Barker!

PHANTASM UK DVD Box Set

Anchor Bay UK for the win again! PHANTASM 2 has always been the black sheep of the family because it’s a Universal Studios picture, which makes it difficult to package all the movies together. However, the rights weren’t an issue in the UK as all 4 films were collected in this sphere replica, which also included a 5th disc loaded with documentaries and special features. With the new 4K restoration of the original, and the 5th film RAVAGER coming later this year, here’s hoping we’ll get a high def Blu-Ray set as cool as this soon enough!

HALLOWEEN: 30th Anniversary Commemorative Set

Here’s another odd one that Anchor Bay US put out. In that weird period where most consumers didn’t fully make the jump to Blu-Ray, this was another set that featured DVDs of John Carpenter’s HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN: The Extended TV Version, HALLOWEEN 4 & 5, along with the feature length documentary HALLOWEEN: 25 YEARS OF TERROR. It also features the Blu-Ray of the original HALLOWEEN but this was before cinematographer Dean Cundey oversaw the transfer for the most recent Blu-Ray box set. This one however comes with a rubber Myers mask, but again, it’s tiny and embedded into the actual box, so all you can do with it is display it.

THE BLIND DEAD COLLECTION

This is just cool! The fine fiends over at Blue Underground collected all the films in the BLIND DEAD series and put them in a coffin shaped box! It features DVDs of TOMBS OF THE BLIND DEAD (2 versions), RETURN OF THE EVIL DEAD, THE GHOST GALLEON, NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS and a bonus documentary disc about director Amando De Ossorio. It’s a great high def set, but let’s hope it makes the jump to Blu-Ray sometime in the near future!

ALIEN ANTHOLOGY Collector’s Set

When the epic quadrilogy came to DVD and Blu-Ray, you could pick up the tradition 6 disc box OR you also had the option of picking up this version which came inside an Alien egg, surrounded by the infamous xenomorph. Even crazier? There was another UK version that came with the discs inside the Alien Giger head! You can see video of that sucker below!