Trick or treat! Wait a minute...what's going on?
It's not Halloween week already! It should be, for this particular week's most notable DVD releases are all returning appearances of several classic horror movies. Four of cinema's most iconic monsters have been resurrected for special edition releases, two Stephen King adaptations have been double-dipped and a gory cult classic from 1987 provides one of the most surprising collector's edition releases of the year. As for more recent and less scary titles, we got hot mamas, sappy dramas and bad monkeys in need of a spanking. So without further ado, let's go!
We start back in 1931, when Universal Studios unleashed two iconic monster movies based on classic novels. The first, "Dracula," was directed by Tod Browning ("Freaks") and based not just on Bram Stoker's story (and the first talkie to come from it, too), but also from a British stage production written by Hamilton Deane and several other versions. The lead role was played by a Hungarian export who had a slippery grasp on the English language, which gave him much more of a presence. That foreigner was Bela Lugosi, who got the role after Lon Chaney passed away pre-production. With his thick accent and wild, staring eyes, Lugosi's monumental portrayal of Dracula became the template from which future portrayals by the likes of Christopher Lee and Gary Oldman would be held up against.
Everything you ever found desirable about the life of bloodsuckers seemed to originate here, from the count's debonair disguise to the fact that Dracula gave good hickeys ("I never drink---wine!"). Of course, Hammer Films and Francis Ford Coppola could get away with more than Browning could in depicting how Dracula draws in lovely Cockney lass Mina (Helen Chandler), so all we see is the count covering Mina in his cloak, which is a subtle but effective method of sensual conquering. The movie is fairly short and has moments of dead space, but Browning's macabre sensibilities, Karl Freund's excellent lighting and Lugosi's larger-than-life villain tickled me blood red even to this day.
A more enduring movie, though, lies in "Frankenstein," James Whale's equally loose take on Mary Shelley's gothic tale of demented scientist Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) and his creation. Opening with the classic stagehand's warning, Whale proceeds to take you into the cemetery and near the completion of Frankenstein's soon-to-be monster. Sure enough, the monster comes alive thanks to the great Boris Karloff, working without any spoken lines (the reason Lugosi legendarily turned down the role) and hidden under over 40 pounds of make-up. The movie probes the grim issues of life and death with a keen eye towards both terror and sympathy for the being, born with the brain of a violent criminal but innocent and misunderstood, inevitably forsaken by his own creator. Not only that, but the movie makes excellent use of Expressionist-style photography, chilling sound effects and some of the most effectively-directed sequences of any classic creature feature.
The "Dracula" DVD comes complete with a pair of audio commentaries, including one by Steve Haberman, writer of Mel Brooks' immortal-for-the-wrong-reasons "Dracula: Dead and Loving It." Better is the commentary by historian David J. Skal, who also created the comprehensive "The Road to Dracula" documentary on the first disc. Kenneth Branagh narrates a fine salute to Universal's classic horror legacy, but a choppy look at the career of Lugosi suffers from poor handling of a fascinating story. Finally, the disc also boasts the Spanish version of the film directed by George Melford, which loses the mighty Lugosi but bares a bit more fang than Browning's take in terms of creepiness and subtext.
The two-disc "Frankenstein" package contains yet another pair of informative audio commentaries, biographies on both the making of the film and the life of Boris Karloff and only one disposable bonus feature, a short yet silly horror parody called "Boo!" Even then, the most special aspect of this re-release of "Frankenstein" on DVD is the amazing restoration of audio/visual elements. Not only has the movie been presented in its true version, which adds the scenes that were forbidden by the Hays Code at the time, but the gorgeous black-and-white photography and monaural soundtrack have never been better on any previous release. It is, in a word, alive.
"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" is now in theatres, but if you really want to see where Leatherface's reign of horror began, save your money, skip the box-office and buy the brand new special edition of Tobe Hooper's seminal 1974 original, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Leatherface has been reduced to sexual deviant and freak of nature in the movies that followed, but here he's all business, a hulking retard in a dead skin mask dispatching four unlucky young travelers with hammer, meat hook and, of course, the chainsaw, which comes from out of nowhere and will forever disturb you. Gunnar Hansen, like Lugosi and Karloff, IS the definitive personification of his character, and the original film defies all of its successors by marrying relatively bloodless yet carnal terror with gritty, low-budget filmmaking. If you don't feel as damaged as heroine Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) by the film's end, you're already dead.
Dark Sky has released the definitive two-disc edition of this movie before the release of the new installment in the "Chainsaw" franchise from New Line Cinema (Hooper's 1986 sequel comes out with similar treatment on October 10). The film has been given a high-definition remaster that provides greater contrast and saturation without sacrificing the movie's grungy "realism." Aside from the numerous bonuses ported from past DVD incarnations (deleted scenes, still galleries, commentary with Hooper, Hansen and photographer Daniel Pearl), we also find an unreleased commentary track with Marilyn Burns, production designer Robert A. Burns and actors Paul A. Partain and Allan Danziger, recorded before the deaths of both Partain and Bob Burns. Combine both audio commentaries with the feature-length documentaries on the second disc ("The Shocking Truth" and "Flesh Wounds"), and this Criterion-worthy collector's set is as ultimate as any "Ultimate Edition" release gets.
Bringing back up New Line Cinema, the studio re-distributed the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" in 1980, years before they found their own iconic horror figure in the form of Freddy Krueger, a sadistic, razor-fingered bogeyman that would cause even Michael Myers nightmares. Wes Craven's original "A Nightmare on Elm Street" became a sleeper hit (no pun intended) in 1984 and spawned enough of a cult on video to keep Freddy alive for over 20 years. New Line has revisited the original as part of their series of "Infinifilm" DVD special editions, which uses interactive icons that pop up during the movie as a way to allow viewers to catch behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with cast/crew, clips from related movies, and other bric-a-brac.
Improved picture quality and some gussied-up audio mixes (some will criticize the differences when they hear them) give way to two audio commentaries. The first includes Craven, cinematographer Jacques Haitkin and actors Heather Langenkamp & John Saxon, who play resourceful heroine Nancy and her policeman father. The second is a cut-and-paste "audio essay" which features not only Craven, Haitkin and Langenkamp, but also producer Robert Shaye, composer Charles Bernstein and, who could forget, Robert Englund, who is and always will be Fred Krueger. The two-disc package also boasts new mini-docs on the making of the film, real life sleep disorders and New Line's post-Freddy excursions into horror. Three alternate endings are provided, and the "Infinifilm" format boasts a handful of discarded takes, but New Line is still missing some of the deleted scenes from the classic Elite Entertainment laserdisc (including a line from Saxon featured in the trailer but cut from the film). It's the least definitive of all the deluxe reissues in this review despite the valiant efforts of New Line.
An unlikely candidate for a special edition release but worth mentioning, James Muro's black comic gorefest "Street Trash" (1987) is repulsive and disjointed in equal measures. This movie focuses on a bunch of homeless people who are drinking a cheap liquor called Tenafly Viper and melting into gooey piles of florescent anti-matter. The bums in this movie are all a bunch of vulgar, ugly types who engage in all manner of silly and often revolting acts (one tries to shoplift chickens whilst another rapes a perfectly nice Samaritan). It is certainly one of the most misanthropic splatter films ever released, and one that is now available for re-interpretation via a limited edition DVD release courtesy of Synapse Films.
Muro and writer/producer Roy Frumkes contribute solo commentary tracks full of candid recollections and analysis that will surprise anyone who rightfully considers this a Z-level grotesquerie. However, it's Frumkes' massive behind-the-scenes feature, "Meltdown Memoirs," that features more insight than you'd ever imagined from a movie like these. Not even Troma movies have been as dissected as this film is. This two-hour item includes interviews with a large swath of the cast/crew, on-set footage, deleted scenes, storyboards, location visits, and more. The original 16mm short that preceded the full-length film also turns up as well as a fascinating teaser trailer and 50 slides worth of promotional/production photos. All that's missing is a Tenafly Viper label on the package itself.
Finally, two Stephen King-based movies have been re-released with assorted bells & whistles. "The Dead Zone" from 1983 stars Christopher Walken as John Smith, a teacher who survives a freak accident and awakens from a lengthy coma with newfound psychic powers. Unfortunately, his one-time sweetheart (Brooke Adams) is now married with children, and Smith is forced to take serious action when one of his disturbing premonitions involves the end of civilization at the hands of a presidential candidate (Martin Sheen). It's a well-written feature that contains superb leading work from the typically eccentric Walken as well as some of the most restrained, humanist direction from David Cronenberg, who would top this three years later with his remake of "The Fly." There is a four-part documentary on this "Collector's Edition" DVD which lacks the input of Walken or King (writer Jeffrey Boam, producer Debra Hill and composer Michael Kamen have all passed away), but offers plenty of reliably intimate recollections courtesy of Cronenberg, Adams and editor Ronald Sanders. Sadly, that's as special as it gets.
"The Dead Zone" reveals itself as an intensely dramatic yet bracing horror movie, whereas the empty "Pet Sematary" (1989) is stuck in the same rut as some of the more slapdash, hokey King adaptations ever released ("Children of the Corn," "Graveyard Shift"). King wrote the screenplay himself, which is not a good sign considering he also penned "Maximum Overdrive." The story concerns a family who moves out to the country only to experience a devastating loss that can be rectified thanks to an ancient burial ground which resurrects dead bodies as psychotic zombies. Undisciplined, unscary and unbelievably bland for such a serious horror movie about the human struggles with life and death, it's given some style courtesy of director Mary Lambert (best known for a few classic Madonna videos), but Lambert can't compensate for the movie's dull performances, lousy FX and King's heavy-handed attempts at character development and thematic elements. It's like smelling a corpse after it's been buried in sour soil for a year. The disc contains audio commentary by Lambert (who doesn't atone for neither this nor that ---damn "Pet Sematary Two") and three relatively short featurettes which include archival comments from King, and once again there is no responsibility taken for this film's painful mediocrity.
Here's a look at five other new releases:
CURIOUS GEORGE: A breezy, unironic animated film based on Margaret and H.A. Rey's series of children's books. Will Ferrell voices Ted, a.k.a. the Man in the Yellow Hat, who goes to the African jungle looking for a treasure to help save the history museum he works at. Instead, he ends up taking home that innocent, rascally monkey George, who takes to New York City with more wild abandon than most animated zoo critters do. But George is such a charming creature that he instead comes off more like a giddy toddler than a pesky primate. The movie sticks to traditional hand-drawn animation, employing vivid primary colors straight out of the storybooks. The voice talents, which also include Drew Barrymore and David Cross, are refreshingly devoid of ego-stroking (even Ferrell, who is admirably restrained doing voiceover work). And Jack Johnson's infectious, bouncy soundtrack only adds to the movie's quaint charms. It may be aimed at tykes, but parents looking for quality family entertainment will likely do worse if they ignore this. The DVD, more so than the film, is targeting kids, its primary extras include games, information on how to animate George and even a vocabulary lesson. There's also some deleted scenes in animatic form as well as a video for Johnson's "Upside Down" with optional sing-along subtitles.
THE LAKE HOUSE: If I told you Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock reunited for a boring romantic drama about long distance love affairs, you could imagine an apt enough title. "Speedless in Seattle"? How about "While I Was Sleeping"? Or maybe "Missed Congeniality"? It's tempting, even more so considering Keanu and Sandra are lovers literally trapped between time, a la Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour in "Somewhere in Time." Sadly, watching the two in this movie only left me alone in my own universe of discontent. There is some potential to be found in the idea of a magic mailbox, but the movie plays like a weepy Hollywood version of a weepy art film. All Keanu and Sandra do for the most part is mope (which is more of an asset to Sandra than Keanu) as they read each others letters and director Alejandro Agresti unites them under the kind of strained logic that makes a Terry Gilliam film seem linear. Not even Shohreh Aghdashloo and Christopher Plummer can elevate this feather. Where's Dennis Hopper when you really need him? The DVD is as light as the film is, with only three minutes of outtakes and a trailer the principal extras.
THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE: Growing up in rural Tennessee, Bettie Page was a blossoming young woman who had to endure numerous sour relationships with men (her father sexually abuses her, and her first husband is no saint). After running away to New York City with hopes of being an actress, she ends up furthering a career as a model that begins with provocative swimsuit shots and only gets more kinky and naked from there. She ended up converting to Christianity in the late 1950s after surviving a congressional witch-hunt and would eventually end up in a mental hospital for a spell. However, director Mary Harron ("American Psycho") decides to instead focus on the supposedly innocent days of "hubba hubba" and less on the psychological baggage of Bettie Page. The movie has an effective retro look, mixing brisk black-and-white photography with gaudy color easily, and in the title role, Gretchen Mol is a knockout in more ways than one. It's just that the movie feels astoundingly soulless, a wispy and nostalgic piece delivered with professionalism and charm but afraid to get naked, which seems clearly the opposite concerning the game Mol. Still, it's quite saucy when you take it for what it is. Harron, Mol and writer Guinevere Turner provide audio commentary, and we also get brief footage of the real Bettie Page modeling nude back in the 1950s.
THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT: If the original "Fast and the Furious" from Rob Cohen managed to be brain-dead fun, to which I'll freely admit, watching both John Singleton and Justin Lin spin their wheels with the even more lobotomized sequels is the equivalent of crashing into a giant neon sign: bright, jittery and overloading to the point of death. Lucas Black takes over for Paul Walker as the reckless hero, deported to Japan in order to live with his father after apparently doing something serious worth deportation. Sean, the hero, soon becomes enticed by the underground drag racing circuit that celebrates the act of "drifting," a traction-free form of sideways racing achieved by slamming on both the gas and the brake pedals (I kept hoping for a fiery accident a la "Faces of Death"). These sequences prove only marginally more interesting than the remainder of the movie, which parades atrocious acting (Walker is amazingly missed), a cliched-to-death storyline (hero has hots for hoodlum's honey) and Lin's Red Bull and Mad Croc-charged directorial overkill, which typically takes all the fun out of said racing scenes by cutting them into insanely-edited blurs. With such empty, moribund pleasures, these "Fast & Furious" movies are becoming best described by the title of that old David Bowie song: "Always Crashing in the Same Car." The sincere if misguided Lin provides a full-length commentary and there's a bevy of behind-the-scenes shorts that, not surprisingly, focuses on the cars.
CHAOS: Wes Craven cribbed from Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring" when he made his debut with the grind house classic "Last House on the Left," but its sheer brutality and social conscience gave it some identity. Sadly, David DeFalco could raise all the hell he can and the result wouldn't even be half as torturous as sitting through this unabashed Craven rip-off. Not even saying "It's only a movie...only a movie..." will keep you from seething. It opens with the same type of disclaimer that worked better in "Wolf Creek," and then degenerates into a grisly morality tale involving two girls lured to a cabin in the middle of nowhere and subjected to grisly humiliation by your typical psychopathic yahoos (one of whom is named Sadie...AAARGHHH!), who then make the mistake of bumping into one of their victims' parents. After Rob Zombie's "The Devil's Rejects" and Eli Roth's "Hostel" updated sadist cinema to chilling, fresh effect, watching this uninspired, vacant-minded disaster is enough to make me yearn for "I Spit on Your Grave." The extra features are masturbatory at best and contemptible at worst, ranging from an ego-stroking commentary with DeFalco and producer Steven Jay Bernheim to the filmmakers' response to Roger Ebert's negative review, which isn't as insecure as challenging critics to boxing matches but still fits the old allegory about digging your own grave.
ALSO:
Down in the Valley
Lady Vengeance
One Tree Hill: The Complete Third Season
Save the Last Dance: Special Collector's Edition
Whose Line Is It Anyway? Season One, Volume One
Reach John Bishop at: john.l.bishop@asu.edu.
