Laserblast: Indy Raids Again, Timber Falls, and Blu-ray Chronicles Narnia

Action-Adventure and Family Fantasy dominate this week’s home video releases, followed by two gruesome horror shows and a couple box box sets filled with cult films and classics. Up first is the inevitable DVD re-release of the Indiana Jones films, which I find truly inspiring. Not the movies, and not the DVDs. No, what I find inspiring is the fact that fans can maintain their warm enthusiasm for the franchise (and their eager anticipation for the upcoming INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS) in spite of their openly acknowledged awareness of the filmmakers’ greed that led to these rather unnecessary new DVD releases. Only a few years ago there was a box set titled “The Adventures of Indiana Jones: The Complete DVD Movie Collection,” which claimed to be the “ultimate anthology.” Obviously, it was not so ultimate after all, since there is now a new one, “Indiana Jones: The Adventure Collection.”
The old “Movie Collection” contained four discs, one for each film, plus a disc of bonus features. The new “Adventure Collection” fits all films and bonus features onto three discs. Each title is also available as a separate stand-alone “Special Edition DVD.”
The films are presented in widescreen transfers enhanced for 16:9 television sets, with Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, French 2.0 Surround, and Spanish 2.0 Surround, plus subtitles in all those languages.
Each disc contains a handful of new special features, including introductions by George Lucas and Steve Spielberg, who frankly discuss their history collaborating on the films (including on-set disagreements). These new features are seldom specific to the film on whose disc they appear. (It would probably have made more sense to put them on a fourth bonus disc).
If you are a fan who does not already own the films, you might consider picking up this box set, but there is probably not enough new material to justify re-purchasing the titles. Also, none of the bonus features from the previous DVDs have been reproduced here, so you cannot simply replace your old set with the new one.
It seems somewhat suspicious that the current release is only on DVD, not Blu-ray, and there are still no audio commentaries. One imagines that an even bigger, better box set will arrive months after the theatrical release of KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULLS, including all four films, all the previously available features, plus some new ones for the new format. Best advice: save your money till then – you know it’s coming.
Another cow cashing in on the on the upcoming release of a sequel is CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: THE LION, THE WITCH, AND THE WARDROBE, which arrives on Blu-ray Blu-ray disc just ahead of the theatrical release of PRINCE CASPIAN. The two-disc set features high-def video (1080p in AVC-MPEG4) and PCM 5.1 audio, plus a boatload of bonus features. Most of these are in Standard Def, having been ported over from the  previous DVD release (e.g., a four-minute reel of “The Bloopers of Narnia”), but there are some new high-def bonus features two, including a BD-J Game called “Battle for Narnia.” The bonus features are split between the two discs:
Disc One:

  • The Bloopers of Narnia (SD)
  • Discover Narnia Fun Facts (pop-up information)
  • Commentary by director Andrew Adamson and stars William Mosely, Anna Popplewell, Skandar Keynes, and George Henley
  • Commentar by Adamson, production designer Roger Ford, and producer mark Johnson

Disc Two:

  • Battle for Narnia
  • Chronicles of a Director (SD)
  • Children’s Magical Journey (SD)
  • From One Man’s Mind (HD)
  • Cinematic storytellers (SD)
  • Creating Creatures (SD)
  • Anatomy of a Scene ((SD)
  • Creatures of the WOrld (HD)
  • Explore Narnia (HD)

So much for high-profile re-releases of previous available movies. What’s new this week? A couple of low-budget horror films are making their debut, which you might want to check out, depending on your tolerance for sickening shocks.
TIMBER FALLS is an above-average low-budget flick that loosely falls into the torture porn category. It bears some similarities to STORM WARNING (it’s also about a vacationing couple who fall prey to some dangerous locals in an isolated setting), but it is not up to the standard of the wonderfully gruesome gorefest. Still, the movie was good enough to earn a small platform release earlier this year, and its skewered satirical take on right-wing relgious morality (murder is okay, but abortion is not) is amusing if not terribly insightful.
FRONTIER(S) – a French-language gorefest – was originally considered for a slot in last year’s After Dark Horror Fest, but it was pulled out when it earned an NC-17 rating from the MPAA (the trailer did run with the fest, helping to raise awareness for the film). Instead, the film opened on Friday in ten theatres around the country, including the Man Chinese 6 in Hollywood and National Amusement’s The Bridge Theatre in West Los Angeles. (See a list on the official website.) Four days later it hits video store shelves, the theory being (as expressed by After Dark CEO Courtney Solomon here) that the DVD marketing will benefit from the theatrical marketing. Nice theory, except that there has been virtually no theatrical marketing – unless you caught a handful of banner ads on horror-themed websites, you probably had no idea that this film was in any theatres at all. In any case, the movie is supposed to be loaded with excessive violence, which should appeal to those who loved INSIDE, the previous French slaughter showcase to find its way to video here. (And just what is up with those French filmmakers, anyway? Has all that existential philosophy driven them to such dark depths of despair that their vision can only encompass brutal bloodshed?)
The rest of the week’s DVD releases includes a couple collections of old titles: “Movieology Shockfest 1960-1969” and the “Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection 1 & 2.”
“Movieology Shockfest”is the kind of set that I imagine will soon be disappearing from shelves like an extinct dinosaur: the discount collection of public domain titlesWith downloads and instant online viewing making p.d. titles available for free, I doubt fans will continue shelling out money for this kind of thing. This particular set contains DEMENTIA 13 (Francis Ford Coppola’s psycho-thriller), LAST MAN ON EARTH, CITY OF THE DEAD (a.k.a. HORROR HOTEL), CARNIVAL OF SOULS, A BUCKET OF BLOOD, and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
At least three of these titles (LAST MAN ON EARTH, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, CITY OF THE DEAD) are available on DVDs that offer bonus features, giving you more vavlue for your money. If you’re simply interested in seeing the film, you can probably find them online for free (which is how I recently viewed LAST MAN ON EARTH).
The “Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection” is a somewhat schizoid mix of good and bad films from the ’50s, when giant bugs and miniature men crawled across drive-in screens. TARANTULA and THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN are actually high-quality B-movies, lacking big name stars (except for a cameo by a young Clint Eastwood in the former film) but filled with solid production values and good special effects. DR CYCLOPS also has its fans, but I have never understood the appeal. THE LAND UNKNOWN and THE DEADLY MANTIS are pretty dire (best to see the latter on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000). MONOLITH MONSTER, MOLE PEOLE, and MONSTER ON CAMPUS may be fun if you’re a fan of this kind of thing, and LEECH WOMAN has some interesting ideas, but they are not realized very well on screen. All in all, with a $60 price tag, you’re getting more nostalgia than quality for your money. Which may be good enough if you’re a collector who wants a complete collection of titles from this era.

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