As the umbrella title implies, the films compiled in the first four volumes of Warner Brothers' new "Cult Camp Classics" series were selected primarily for their high-cheese content. Some are bad enough to keep the crew of "Mystery Science Theater" in wisecracks for repeated voyages into the unknown.

Yet the compilers clearly gave serious thought to the task at hand. Each set contains at least one film noteworthy to fans of specific genres, films that are worth owning on disc. While any film whose title begins with "Attack of ..." is unlikely to have great artistic merit, there is little denying that 1958's "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" is a certified classic of camp.

It is that surprisingly rare confluence of a ludicrous story — wealthy, nutty Allison Hayes, whose husband is conspiring with a tramp to steal her fortune, has an alien encounter that turns her into a vengeful colossus — and awful acting, plus laughable special effects. Nearly as awful is the same year's "Queen of Outer Space," in which hunky space captain Eric Fleming and a crew that includes a scientist played by Zsa Zsa Gabor are kidnapped and taken to an all-female planet of man-haters. "The Giant Behemoth," also from 1958, is just a mediocre British yarn about a radioactive dinosaur that stomps London.

"Vol. 2: Women in Peril" comes close to ceding its camp credentials with the inclusion of 1950's "Caged," a melodrama starring Eleanor Parker as a 19-year-old innocent sent to prison for being an accomplice in an armed robbery her husband committed. Screenwriter Virginia Kellogg, who did research by spending time in an Illinois prison, won an Oscar nomination for her trouble, but the movie is in this collection because it's the grandmother of all those women-in-the-joint films that followed. 1968's "The Big Cube," in which Lana Turner's inheritance-hungry daughter and seedy boyfriend attempt to drive her to suicide, is suitably ridiculous, as is 1970's "Trog," in which Joan Crawford, in her last movie, plays an anthropologist who discovers the missing link.

"Vol. 3: Terrorized Travelers" comes close to compromising the context with a film originally titled "52 Miles to Midnight," starring Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain as the parents of a teenage girl who attracts the unwanted attention of some juvenile sociopaths when the family is on a road trip. What is initially truly tense goes so over the top that the producers were able to release it to the drive-in crowd in 1966 as "Hot Rods to Hell." It's joined by the in-flight thrillers "Skyjacked" and "Zero Hour!" famous for having inspired the great parody "Airplane!"

Even more problematic is "Vol. 4: Historical Epics," because packaged with 1955's biblically inspired "The Prodigal" is an early and often impressive Sergio Leone movie, "Colossus of Rhodes," whose only real drawback is Rory Calhoun, looking a little long-in-the-toga; and the serious, if seriously flawed, "Land of the Pharaohs" from 1955. Alongside the slaves heaving their way through the construction of the pyramids is the heaving bosom of Joan Collins, and if she's not camp, nothing is.