OOO, SCARY STUFF

By Bruce Kirkland

From The Toronto Sun, 10.30.2000

With a chill in the air, frost on the pumpkins and an army of ghouls, goblins and other scary stuff ready to take to the streets, Canada is gearing up for Halloween tomorrow.

In honour of the occasion, DVD distributors have flooded the market with new releases of past horror classics (or not!) which are now making their digital debuts.

A roundup of major new titles, not counting The Changeling, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Rosemary's Baby, which The Sun has already reviewed this month:

The Nightmare Before Christmas: This is Tim Burton and Harry Selick's 1993 masterwork of stop-action animation, which was re-released to theatres this weekend. See it on the big screen if you can. Then the marvellous new Special Edition DVD from Touchstone Home Video will greatly enhance the experience. It is loaded with bonuses.

Besides an excellent widescreen version of the film, with its sharp, huge sound on Danny Elfman's musical numbers, the DVD boasts detailed information on how the film was made. Included is a 25-minute documentary free of hype, a comparison of storyboards to finished scenes, seven deleted sequences, a crisp feature-length commentary by Selick and cinematographer Pete Kozachik and 450 images of artwork.

A major gift is the inclusion of two of Burton's '80s shorts, the brilliant six-minute animated Vincent (which obviously inspired his artwork for Nightmare) and his macabre live action, 30-minute, family horror flick Frankenweenie.

Then there is the main event. Nightmare, which is a ghoulish musical about the King of Halloween's aching desire to take over Christmas from Santa Claus, remains an enormously imaginative slide over to the dark side.

The Omen: Graced by the sterling work of Gregory Peck, directed as a thriller and not as horror schlock by Richard Donner, this 1976 film has not diminished in its scare power.

The new Special Edition DVD from Fox Home Entertainment offers a good widescreen version of the film plus strong extras, such as an eerie six- minute featurette on the weird tragedies surrounding the film's shoot.

The Dead Zone: David Cronenberg's 1983 film remains one of the top five films inspired by a Stephen King story. Christopher Walken's precision-controlled, yet emotionally accessible performance as a teacher cursed by supernatural powers, is a career highlight for him. Cronenberg scares the wits out of us without resorting to gore. Paramount Home Entertainment's DVD offers the widescreen version but precious few extras. Which is a shame in this case.

Pet Cemetery: Another Stephen King story, this one adapted to the screen by King. It's an awful movie about stupid people fooling around with dead pets and people. Paramount Home Entertainment's DVD offers the widescreen version but, again, few extras. None is desired here.

The Amityville Horror: This is the haunted house story that created a box-office sensation in 1979. James Brolin, Margot Kidder and Rod Steiger co-star. Good early scenes give way to increasingly laboured passages that undermine the movie's credibility and scare factor. The DVD from MGM Home Entertainment (via Warner Home Video), offers both the widescreen and pan-and-scan versions (flip the disc). But there is little else.

Friday The 13th: The latest in the series to make it to DVD are Part 3 and Part 4: The Final Chapter (and that was a lie). Both movies are absurdly inept excuses for on-screen bloodbaths. Both DVDs from Paramount Home Entertainment contain few extras. Can't say as I care.

A Nightmare On Elm Street: New Line Home Video (via Alliance Atlantis) has combined all seven films in a stunning and exhaustive new box set that includes a bonus disc of extras, such as an innovative, interactive, labyrinth info-search game. Each of the seven movie discs has its own extras. The collection is an absolute must-have for Elm Streeters (I'll write more about it in the near future).