The Ghastly Ones / Seeds of Sin (Something Weird) | 
 enlarge | Director: Andy Milligan
Actors: Veronica Radburn, Maggie Rogers, Hal Borske, Anne Linden, Fib Lablaque
Studio: Image Entertainment
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.98
Buy New: $6.52
You Save: $3.46 (35%)
New (27) Used (8) from $6.52
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 58172
Format: Black & White, Color, Dvd-video, Special Edition, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 150
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 014381003024
EAN: 0014381003024
ASIN: B0000YEDOK
Theatrical Release Date: December 1968
Release Date: January 13, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
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Description
Direct from the outer fringes of Bizarro Cinema comes this Sex-Gore Double Feature from notorious underground filmmaker Andy Milligan! Collecting the inheritance on their father's will turns into an orgy of dismemberment, disembowelment, and decapitation
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 the gastley ones November 19, 2008
terrible, but, hal borske was my neighbor in taos, nm and i told him i would buy the movie.....tc
 ANDY MILLIGAN WE MISS YOU !! November 26, 2006
Most people talk about the great ANDY MILLIGAN as if he was just a funny hack and that pisses me off. The man was a true genius, period.
So bad it's so good ? Are you blind, unsensitive SOB's kidding me ? If loving movies like SEEDS OF SIN is wrong, then believe me, I don't wanna be right. That insane piece of Cinema History left a print on my mind that will stay forever. I can only think of very few movies ( the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is among them ) that portrayed a disfonctional family so effectively. Pure hysteria on film, that's what SEEDS OF SIN is.
It is known that ANDY has been mistreated and abused by his mom as a child, and if you can feel it in most of his movies, it's crystal clear when you've watched this one. Abusive, unstable mom,hateful children driven to insanity and murder, deviant sex scenes, cheap but vicious Gore FX... that's what's on the menu. And don't forget the raw B&W photography, the weird angles and of course the actors giving all they got. You call that a scholkfest ? I call that the work of an auteur, yes sir.
I want to thank SOMETHING WEIRD for bringing us masterpieces like that. Those guys are saints in my book and ANDY MILLIGAN is one of our prophets. Those who think I'm joking can get the middle finger and the others... Well, you know what to do.
Terrible films by a terrible film maker May 5, 2006
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
These films are appauling. I can't understand why Andy Milligan has such a cult following, he is a total and utter hack. Sure, nobody watches a movie called "The Ghastly Ones" expecting high art, but these films aren't even entertaining. I love low-brow films as much as the next guy, but there is good bad (i.e. the films of Roger Corman, Llyod Kaufman, Herschell Gordon Lewis etc) and then there is just plain bad. These films fall into the latter category. Milligan doesn't even understand basic cinematography (axis of camera etc).
I'm not the kind of guy who gets his jollies writing scathing cynical reviews (you can check!), but after seeing all the four and five star ratings I felt compelled to be the voice of reason. For the love of god, SAVE YOUR MONEY, DO NOT BUY THIS MOVIE.
Hilarious films, this is just a quick fact check April 8, 2005
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
You'll either love or hate these no-budget movies, in fact you should already know if it's something you like or not. The "If you're an Andy Milligan fan" review is really good, except for the fact that there are other Milligan movies available on DVD besides the three mentioned.
They come in 2-DVD sets on the Video Kart label. Bloodthirsty Butchers comes with the dreadfully painful The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here! Graverobbers, a funny and twisted movie, is actually directed by Milligan collaborator Straw Weisman, who also wrote the exploitation classic Fight For Your Life. Graverobbers is packaged together with Monstrosity, for those who've never seen Andy's work from the 1980's. Apparently there's some tampering with the movie on Bloodthirsty Butchers, as far as inserting some unnecessary slow-motion footage. Also there's some debate on whether these movies are completely uncut. Just wanted to let all the weirdos out there know that these films have also made the jump to DVD. Stay sick.
"If you're an Andy Milligan fan, there's no hope for you" March 6, 2005
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Welcome back, kids, to this Saturday's double-feature from the Something Weird series. I chose "The Ghastly Ones" and "Seeds of Sin" entirely at random only figuring it was another combination of a cheap horror film and a sexploitation flick from the old days only to discover that both films are the work of director Andy Milligan (1924-1991). Early today I would have said that all I knew about Milligan as a cult auteur was that he was out there in the realm of underground films somewhere between Ed Wood and Russ Meyer pointed in the direction of Roger Corman. I had also heard of Michael Weldon's choice riposte from "The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film" where he declared, "If you're an Andy Milligan fan, there's no hope for you." These two films provide all the evidence you would ever need to conform Weldon's hypothesis.
Milligan made 29 movies between 1965 and 1968, consisting mainly of gory horror films dressed up as period pieces, such as "Bloodthirsty Butchers" and "The Rats Are Coming! The Werewolves Are Here!", and sex melodramas with rampant nudity, including "Gutter Trash" and "Fleshpot on 42nd Street" as part of NYC's "grindhouse" cinema (most of the theaters were on 42nd Street). Milligan shot most of his films with a hand held 16mm movie camera on extremely cheap budgets. What usually happened then was the films were blown up to 35mm size and shown in and around New York "art" theaters. Today there are only three of Milligan's films available on DVD and here are two of them (the third is "The Body Beneath"). Something Weird has apparently included every trailer they could find for a Milligan opus (even if they do not have sound).
"The Ghastly Ones" (a.k.a. "Blood Rites"), Milligan's first horror film, is a 1968 film shot in "cranium-cleaving color" at his Victorian mansion on Staten Island. After a prologue in which a couple with a really large umbrella are hacked up by some guy, this movie has three daughters and their husbands at a reading of their late father's will. It is his wish that the couples spend three days in the family mansion "in sexual harmony," and then they will find out who gets what from the old man. But once there the handyman is eating live rabbits, the couples start fighting, and then people start dying and showing up as the main course at dinner.
It takes a long time to get to anything remotely close to the required sexual harmony and even longer for characters to start dropping, but once they do, they start dropping like flies. But by then you might be asleep. It has been a long time since I have seen a horror film where nothing happens for such a long time. But if you are loose for a high content of cheese with your blood and gore, you will not be disappointed. This film comes with a spirited discussion between actor Hal Borske, who plays Colin the guy who eats the rabbit, and Frank Henenlotter, the director of "Basket Case." In addition to insights into Milligan's work both interesting and irreverent, they discuss Da Vinci writing backwards and other unexpected choice topics. The first two-thirds of the film is a two, the last third a four, and the commentary a five. Do your own math.
"Seeds of Sin" (originally released as "Seeds") was also shot in 1968, at the same location, and offers a similar plot wherein a family reunion ends up with everybody dead (the end). Claris Manning (Maggie Rogers) is a wretched old invalid whose daughter Carol (Candy Hammond) decides to invite the rest of her siblings home for the holiday. But since there is an inheritance to be had when the old lady dies, the list of possible benefactors needs to be trimmed. Because this film is shot in black & white there is not as much gore, and I should also point out that the film ponders the question, if you are contemplating suicide and a door opens driving a sharp instrument into your heart, were you murdered? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Like "The Ghastly Ones," this film opens with a scene that has nothing to do with the rest of the film involving an orgy. The difference is that this prologue was clearly shot by someone other than Milligan with different actors. In other words, this is the "producer's cut" of "Seeds of Sin," because the producers decided to take sex scenes and insert them in between (and sometimes during) the scenes Milligan shot. It is really easy to tell the inserted stuff, because the music suddenly becomes most drums and some guitar. This is X-rated material (not XXX-rated material) and watching this film takes me back to watching late night horror shows, except that instead of commercials suddenly popping up at the wrong times we have Sixties style porn. It also has me wondering when was the last time I saw such serious tan lines in a movie.
Fortunately the people at Something Weird uncovered the first and third reels of the original 16mm footage Milligan shot. Some of it does not have sound, but the 40 minutes of that are twice as good as the finished movie, which is twice as long. But in its edited form "Seeds of Sin" is a true cinematic car wreck, by which I mean you cannot take your eyes off of it as Milligan's story get interrupted for the sex scenes. From the original footage and the unfinished trailer included on the DVD, you can get some idea as to what was cut to make room for the sex scenes (apparently they did some cutting before the insertions). There might not be a Doctoral dissertation in reconstructing the original "Seeds of Sin," but you could probably get a decent Master's thesis out of it. Both versions of the film merit four stars for decidedly different reasons.
All of the extras are found in "Andy's Closet," which includes the above mentioned footage, the extant trailers of the Andy Milligan oeuvre, and as is to case to date with these double-feature CDs from Something Weird earn five stars (or higher for the unrepentant fans of Milligan). Be aware that the copies of both films have some significant problems, with "The Ghastly Ones" being all scratched up and the original parts of "Seeds of Sin" having major sound problems (subtitles would have been nice). So, that would be three stars for the first feature, four stars for the second, plus five for the extras, which adds up to twelve, divided by two is six, which is one more than five, so we round down because this DVD is a celebration of a true giant of sexploitation and horror. Be sure to join us next Saturday night, when we have "Bloodlust" and "Atom Age Vampire" on the midnight menu.
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