Weekly DVD Dissection
This looks to be a suitably colorful week in the horror section: We get a new flick from zombie master George Romero, a swanky new (and director-approved) re-release of an old-school classic, a few catalog titles, and some random new stuff. Oh, and a Butterfly Effect double feature, too.
By Scott Weinberg
The pick of the week is definitely Diary of the Dead, which is a Romero flick that seems to be dividing the fans right down the middle. (I'm definitely on the "liked it a lot" side of the argument.) Imagine Blair Witch mixed with a typically snarky Romero zombie chomp-'em-up flick.It's definitely something different for the long-standing Night / Dawn / Day / Land franchise, but certainly worth checking out as well. Plus the disc looks to be stocked: An audio commentary with Romero, his DP, and his editor; a feature-length making-of doco; several deleted scenes and a bunch of featurettes. Cool!
And since they're very savvy businessmen, the Weinstein brothers decided to dust off the (public domain) Night of the Living Dead and polish it off for (what they hope to be) the best DVD release of the flick yet. Extras include a pair of audio commentaries, an ALL-NEW full-length retrospective piece, some new cast & crew interviews, galleries and trailers. Hmmm, I may actually have to buy this one -- even though I already own two cheapie DVDs of the movie.
If you're done with zombies after that double feature, why not check out Tony "Candyman" Todd as the title character(s) in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? I've not seen this one yet, so I can't comment on quality, but it does co-star the still-cute Tracy Scoggins and it was directed by FX master John Buechler ... so at least we can expect some solid gore. There's also Lionsgate's Sight, which sounds a lot like White Noise 2, plot-wise, which means it's a Netflix rental at best. LG also delivers an indie thriller called The Entrance, which someone at IMDb described as "a Canadian Saw rip-off," which I find pretty amusing: The Canadians are way too polite to make a movie like Saw!
In the catalog / re-release bin: The infamous 1986 Belgian import Lucker the Necrophagus (which is rrrrreally nasty); Zelda Rubinstein in the very solid 1987 obscurity Anguish; and Maurice Deveraux's Slashers, which I didn't dig very much the first time around, but after seeing MD's End of the Line, I want to give a second chance.
From the wacky title bin: Bloodspit, Sorority Sister Slaughter, and Grapes of Death. Oh yeah, and don't forget to snag the new Butterfly Effect double feature!! (They just announced a third one, by the way.)
Next week: Not very much, but we do get a swanky new box set from horror lord Dario Argento -- plus a movie about a pissed-off grizzly bear. And another one about a haunted chair.
