Product Description

Dr. Alex Zorka (Bela Lugosi), eccentric scientist, carries on mysterious experiments in his secret laboratory with the aid of Monk (Jack C. Smith), an ex-convict. Zorka has invented many strange and powerful weapons of warfare, including a devisualizer belt which allows him to operate without being seen, and a terrifying mechanical robot eight feet tall. He also possesses a deadly meteorite fragment from which he extracts a strange element which can induce suspended animation in an entire army. 12 Chapters.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #79293 in DVD
• Brand: VCI ENTERTAINMENT
• Released on: 2008-02-05
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 240 minutes

Features

• Dr. Alex Zorka (Bela Lugosi), eccentric scientist, carries on mysterious experiments in his secret laboratory with the aid of Monk (Jack C. Smith), an ex-convict. Zorka has invented many strange and powerful weapons of warfare, including a devisualizer belt which allows him to operate without being seen, and a terrifying mechanical robot eight feet tall. He also possesses a deadly meteorite fragme

Customer Reviews

Good Serial, Bad DVD
The Phantom Creeps, Bela Lugosi's final movie serial, holds a special place in my memories for being the first complete chapterplay I had seen. I had seen portions of others but never a complete one before this. Lugosi steals the serial as Doctor Alex Zorka, a brilliant scientist who has made a series of inventions from a meteorite he found in Africa--via footage from "The Invisible Ray" for the Africa sequence. He wants to sell his secrets to the highest bidder, but the US Government wants to stop him. What is unusual for this serial is that I feel that Zorka was initially the good guy of the story before the US and a spyring start looking for his secrets and thus hounding him into insanity. The DVD for this is painful. The print used retains the Commonwealth (TV?) logo instead of the normal Filmcraft or Universal logo. Sound is muddy at quite a few places. Picture will be dark in a few places--sometimes in a daytime scene. They use only one set of opening credits for the 12 chapters. Normally, Universal would use a opening which showed the main cast for its first 3 episodes while the remaining episodes would use an opening that merely lists who the actors were. It is this second opening that is on the DVD and is only used once for all 12 chapters. There are no extras on this disc, such as a trailer, although you can choose to play it all at once or select an individual chapter. There is an insert with information on Lugosi. There are better VHS copies out there and in my own collection at one time I had an actual film print which had the Universal logo. I can't really recommend this DVD unless you don't have a copy of this serial at all. I wouldn't buy another disc from Whirlwind Media, the releasers of the disc, unless it was an extremely rare serial that probably would not be released any other way. Now if only Universal would get off its duff and start releasing their own serials instead of letting people with Public Domain prints do it, I might be a little bit more happy.

Unfathomable phantom
I bought this DVD to replace a Beta tape version I had made several years back. I like my tape better. This is a great, campy serial, but the terrible source quality of this DVD version makes it a poor choice. The original film (16 mm.?) jumps in spots; the dark contrast makes some scenes impossible to fathom; and the soundtrack is muffled and uneven.

Fun Serial with Lugosi. Typical early Alpha Quality
Fun Serial with Bela Lugosi at his evil best as Dr Zorka. Alpha has broken this 12 chapter serial into 2 separate DVD's for sale. This disk contains chapters 1-6. When I first starting watching this disk, I cringed during Chapter 1 as the quality was quite poor with lots of scrathes and some splicing. I thought, "Here we go again with a substandard Alpha release!" Then, to my surprise, chapters 2-5 were quite good. Still nothing like you would get from the Roan Group, but on par with Sinister Cinema or Retro Media. Chapter 6 falls in closer to the poor quality of chapter 1, however.

If you are a Lugosi fan and want a low cost version of this series, then take a chance on the Alpha release. If you are a Lugosi fan who wants to collect the best possible prints of his films, then skip this Alpha release. The disk contains no extras, but does have a chapter stops for each serial chapter.