This week offers only a handful of horror, fantasy, and science fiction films on home video, all of them either older titles being re-released or direct-to-video obscurities probably best consigned to the vault of oblivion. The big cheese of the weekly offerings is Walt Disney’s animated adventure THE GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE, which arrives in something called the “Mystery in the Mist Edition.” This 1986 effort (from the filmmakers who made last year’s PRINCESS AND THE FROG) is a fine film, the first glimmer of the Disney resurgence that would eventually lead to THE LITTLE MERMAID and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST a few years later. The new DVD offers a new digital restoration, plus several bonus features: So You Think You Can Slueth; The Making of The Great Mouse Detective; The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind Sing-Along; Dylan and Cole Sprouse, and more.
Also up this week is a new Blu-ray release of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, timed to coincide with the remake hitting theatres on April 30. Also being re-released this week is the eight-disc Nightmare on Elm Street Collection box set, which contains all eight prevous Elm Street movies, including the 199os cross-over, FREDDY VS. JASON. (NOTE: The NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET Blu-ray was originally announced for last week, then pushed back.)
It may be pushing the oute edge of the genre lable, but Fellini’s surreal masterpiece 8 1/2 arrives again on home video, this time as part of Janus Films’ Essentail Art House collection. It’s not what we usually think of as “fantasy” filmmaking, but it goes well beyond the neo-realism of Fellini’s earlier work.