THE MOVIE:

I was a little wary of The Factory, a direct-to-video serial killer thriller starring John Cusack. Sure, the presence of Cusack gave me hope but then there was that whole ‘direct to video serial killer thriller’ aspect that could have gone either way. Having seen it, I can confirm that writer/director Morgan O’Neill’s movie is a lot better than I expected while still falling short of being something that I could whole-heartedly recommend to a fan of the genre.

Cusack plays Mike Fletcher, a weary cop who has been on the trail of a potential serial killer with little success. I say potential because none of the victims have ever been found, dead or alive. For three years, prostitutes have been snatched off the streets of Buffalo, N.Y. never to be heard from again. In the absence of any well-wishers, the only people who truly remember them are Cusack and his partner, Kelsey Walker, played by Jennifer Carpenter.

Dallas Roberts plays Gary, the man that Cusack has been looking for. This shouldn’t be considered a spoiler since we see him pick up and murder a hooker in the opening moments of the film. Now, he didn’t necessarily want to kill her but she was technically still a he (the operation was merely days away) and that just wasn’t part of the deal. No, Gary had something much more involved planned for her, just like all the other girls.

After successfully evading our hero for years, Roberts makes the critical mistake of kidnapping Cusack’s teenaged daughter Abby (Mae Whitman). With the stakes having turned personal, Cusack turns into a man possessed. He will stop at nothing to find his daughter, even if it means stepping outside the law that he has sworn to uphold. Meanwhile, Abby will have to keep her wits about her if she plans on escaping the clutches of a madman who has more than just murder on his mind.

On a purely superficial level, O’Neill’s film feels like a cookie cutter thriller. The ‘driven cop going after serial killer who struck close to home’ storyline has been seen umpteen times before and will surely be retold umpteen more. In this case, what keeps the film from being utterly rote and forgettable are a pair of engaging performances by Cusack and Roberts. Cusack brings his typical everyman quality to a role that requires him to be dour and desperate. As a result, he elevates the frantic dad role into a performance streaked with intelligence and emotion. Roberts is equally convincing as the cold, calculating villain who doesn’t understand why more folks don’t share his perspective of the world.

A stock thriller with a couple of solid performances should be an easy film to recommend on a pure popcorn level. However, something holds back The Factory and puts it in the unfortunate position of dividing its audience. I’m talking about the supremely dumb, bone-headed twist that detonates during the film’s climax and blows it to smithereens. Even though it is clumsily telegraphed early on, its execution still doesn’t make a lick of sense. O’Neill doesn’t just pull the rug out from under his audience. He forgoes all semblance of logic to create an ending that dishonors his own characters. What a shame.

THE DVD:

Video:
The widescreen image is presented without any noticeable defects. Other than a few shots that display intentional grain, the image is crisp and clear. It is bathed in icy blues and grimy greys that fit the dark tone of the film’s subject matter. Shadow detail and black levels are both acceptable.

Audio:
The audio is presented in an English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround mix with optional English, French and Spanish subtitles. The mix is clean and functional. Dialogue comes through without any issues as well. There isn’t much to rave about here but the mix certainly fits the material at hand.

Extras:
There are no extras to be found.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Writer/director Morgan O’Neill starts with an engaging (if familiar) premise for his thriller. He even secures two lead performances from John Cusack and Dallas Roberts that elevate his material. Just when you think the film will arrive at its logical conclusion, O’Neill takes a left turn into shock and awe territory where twist endings are valued above everything that preceded them. I suspect the finale will divide audiences. Although I didn’t appreciate how it tied things up, there are certainly enough positives to be found in the events leading up to it. I’m going to take the middle road on this one and suggest you Rent It.

The Movies:

Shout! Factory, though a deal with MGM, has unleashed four low budget B-grade action movies and bundled them together on two DVDs as the Action Packed Movie Marathon set. Though none of these are big time marquee hits, once you realize how many super rad cult movie stars pop up in this set you really won’t be able to help yourself. If you hold a special place in your heart for the low budget action films of the pre-CGI era, it’s pretty much a sure thing that this set will belong on your shelf. Here’s a look…

DISC ONE:

Cyclone:

The first of two films in this set directed by Fred Olen Ray, 1987’s Cyclone begins when a pretty blonde woman named Teri Marshall (Heather Thomas) leaves her friend Carla Hastings (Ashley Ferrare) after their work out at the gym. She’s got to head over to a used motorcycle repair shop (look for Huntz Hall as the man behind the counter reading porno!) to pick up some stuff for her man on the way home, but before she can split, she’s accosted by some punks who are up to no good. She makes short work of them and heads home where Rick Davenport (Jeffrey Combs), a man she claims is ‘too sexy to be an absent minded professor’ is waiting for her. It turns out that he’s been working on a super secret motorcycle called Cyclone that can run off of a fuel cell that converts oxygen into a viable source of energy and that he’s pretty much got this thing perfected. He’s also equipped it with rocket launchers and built some lasers into the helmet, just for good measure.

With his work done for the day, he and Teri head out to Lava, some sort of horrible punk new wave club for a night of dancing (look for obscure L.A. punk-metal band Haunted Garage performing!) – or so they think. While out on the floor Rick is stabbed to death. The cops show up and some investigators too but the only one who seems to be able to offer much help is Waters (Martine Beswick), but even she isn’t speaking. When Teri gets home she finds a pre-recorded message from Rick letting her in on what he’s been up to and instructing her to get the bike into the right hands. She follows his instructions but the contact he gave her winds up dead. Before you know it, Teri finds herself on the run with Cyclone as various factions close in on her and try to steal the bike out from under her. With a local gangster named Bosarian (Martin Landau) behind all of this, she’s soon in deep trouble. But as we know from the opening scene, Teri is a tough lady and she’s not about to let the bad guys win the day…

Cyclone is not particularly original, in fact it plays out like an episode of Knight Rider or maybe Streethawk with a bit more violence and some foul language put in to earn it an R-rating. It is a lot of good, dopey fun though. Heather Thomas isn’t the most charismatic actress you’ll ever see and her attempts to show sorrow when Rick is called are laughably bad but she handles herself reasonably well in the action scenes and there’s just something completely likeable about her here. Throw in supporting efforts from former Hammer glamour/Bond girl Martine Beswick as a mysterious agent, a sinister Martin Landau as a greaseball gangster, and yeah, Dr. Herbert West himself as the love interest and you wind up with a pretty awesome cast of B-movie veterans, the kind of cast who knows how to do this sort of material right.

Fred Olen Ray milks his budget for all it’s worth. Though some of the effects are goofy by modern standards we get a pretty great chase scene in which a station wagon is decapitated, we get some impressive explosions and car crashes all done the old fashioned way – with stunt drivers and explosives, and we get cameos from the likes of Robert Quarry, Huntz Hall, Troy Donahue, Michael Reagan (yes, that Michael Reagan, the adopted son of the late President!) and Tim Conway Jr.! Is it a good movie Not by the standards of most folks, no, but you didn’t come to a collection like this for mainstream thrills. This is a Friday night beer and snacks movie through and through. Oh, and no, Heather Thomas does not get naked. Admit it, some of you were wondering…

Alienator:

The second film from Fred Olen Ray in this collection is 1990’s Alienator which begins somewhere deep in space on some sort of prison planet lorded over by a nameless commander (Jan-Michael Vincent, who seems slightly intoxicated here) who is assisted by a cute woman named Tara (P. J. Soles) whose job it is to press the buttons that execute the various prisoners under their authority. As the movie begins, they’re about to send a criminal named Kol (Ross Hagen) to meet his maker but he manages to escape in a shuttle of some sort and make his way to Earth. It’s here that he’s promptly run over by a carload of obnoxious teenagers (Dyana Ortelli, Jesse Dabson, Dawn Wildsmith and Richard Wiley) who aren’t entirely sure what to do with the strange man clad in a puffy silver suit. With nowhere else to turn, they knock on the door of a game warden named Ward Armstrong (John Phillip Law), who lets them in and helps them nurse Kol back to health.

Everything should be hunky dory from here on out, right No dice! The prison commander has called in an Alienator to head down to Earth and bring Kol back regardless of who gets in the way. Wait… what the Hell is an Alienator Well in this particular instance it’s a female bodybuilder named Teagan Clive (you may recognize her from David Lee Roth’s California Girls video!) who runs around the woods in a black bikini with a metal faceplate and a powerful laser strapped to her arm. As it all starts to hit the fan, Ward decides they could use the help of a gun nut living not too far away named Colonel Coburn (Leo Gordon), who happens to have a healthy supply of AK-47s and landmines handy in case of emergency.

Man oh man, where do we start with this one We get toy space ships flying through the night sky, we get an obviously inebriated Jan-Michael Vincent slurring his continuous string of bad one-liners, we get a blonde She-Hulk blowing up piles of dirt with a laser gun and we get the girl from La Bamba running around looking scared. If that weren’t enough Robert Quarry pops up in this one too, playing a doctor, and Ross Hagen That consummate tough guy of TV and film credits galore He looks ridiculous here in a costume that looks like it was made out of a child’s snowsuit and with silver face paint smeared around his eyes. John Phillip Law just looks depressed but he does what he can while Leo Gordon chews through the scenery like nobody’s business. P.J. Soles shows off her cleavage and presses buttons and reminds us that no matter what, Riff Randall will always own our hearts, while the rest of the cast just sort of run around and try not to get killed. You’ll see the twist coming a mile away but you won’t care because it’s all just so awesome and horrible and great and terrible that the story barely even matters. This is one where the cast, so bizarre and eclectic, really make it but again, to Olen Ray’s credit, he keeps things moving at a good pace and throws in enough goofy action scenes and head-scratchingly bizarre dialogue that you can’t help but love it. Oh, and lest we forget, the late, great Robert Clarke shows up as an alien named Lund who is out to inspect the prison planet that Kol escapes from. How does he factor into all of this We can’t tell you but he wears a pretty cool red cape and watches P.J. Soles throw her shoulders back and press buttons!

DISC TWO:

Eye Of The Tiger:

Richard C. Sarafian gives Fred Olen Ray a rest as he gets behind the camera and calls the shots for 1986’s Eye Of The Tiger. Surely the man who directed Vanishing Points could do great things with Gary Busey headlining a movie about an ex-con taking on a gang of bikers, right Right!

When the film begins, Buck Matthews (Busey) has just been let out of the bighouse. He’s walking down a lone and dusty road on his way back home when one of his fellow former inmates, a Scarface wannabe in a fancy car, insists on driving him home. Buck finally accepts and is stoked to be back with his wife Christie (Denise Galik) and young daughter Jennifer (Judith Barsi). Buck chills for a bit, sucks back a cold Coors or two, and hopes to start a new life, putting the horrors of prison and war (he’s a Vietnam vet) behind him to build a better future for he and his family. All of this seems well and good until Buck is wandering around and finds a bunch of bikers raping a nurse (Kimberlin Ann Brown) – Buck’s not going to stand for that so he fights them and then they have the gall to not only kill his wife but show up on their bikes and trash her funeral!

Buck is understandably pretty pissed about all of this and wants to take matters into his own hands but the town’s sheriff (Seymour Cassel) has no qualms whatsoever about sending him back to the clink if he gets out of line. Things go from bad to worse for Buck when the bikers kidnap Jennifer, at which point another cop named Deveraux (Yaphet Kotto) decides to help him out. Buck figures out that the gang is lead by a man called Blade (William Smith) and sets about trying to find him, but before he’ll be able to pay him back in kind he’ll have to set up a trap to chop off some bikers’ heads and he’ll have to shove a stick of dynamite up a man’s ass while Deveraux flies around in a red biplane and shoots stuff. Oh and for the final showdown he’ll also have to trick out his truck, A-Team style, with a bunch of weapons that will definitely come in handy when it comes time to whip the remaining bad guys off of the face of the Earth.

Admit it, once you read Gary Busey shoves a stick of dynamite up a guy’s ass you were sold, right Eye Of The Tiger, which was not only named after the Survivor song but which also manages to play it ad naseum during the movie, takes about forty minutes or so to get going. The first half of the film is Buck just sort of wandering around getting used to having his freedom back and it’s not until the half way point that this becomes much of an action movie at all. Once it hits, however, the kid gloves come off and Busey wreaks holy vengeance down upon any bikers stupid enough to mess with he and his kin. The biker’s drag Christie’s coffin out of her grave and leave it on Buck’s lawn. Yaphet Kotto goes all Snoopy And The Red Baron on the fiends. Busey drives his truck through a pile of cocaine and William Smith scowls at everyone and swears a lot while looking not at all unlike Rob Halford from Judas Preist. This one might be a Death Wish rip off named after a popular song (the Scotti Brothers, who produced this movie, happened to be responsible for signing Survivor – go figure!) but Busey and the rest of the cast completely sell it and while it starts off slowly, the last half of the movie more than makes up for any sins the first half may commit. Eye Of The Tiger is truly and underappreciated gem of low grade action movie insanity.

Exterminator 2:

Last but not least we have Exterminator 2, Mark Buntzman’s 1984 sequel to James Glickenhaus’ awesome 1980 vigilante revenge film, The Exterminator. Buntzman produced the first movie and even had a small cameo role in it and he managed to get leading man Robert Ginty back to reprise his role as Vietnam veteran John Eastland. When the film begins, he’s really just sort of hanging out, doing his thing and taking out deadbeats and troublemakers aplenty with his handy flamethrower. When a drug peddling street gang lead by X (Mario Van Peebles) starts making trouble, John’s past starts to catch up with him and old habits truly prove to die hard. When he kills some of X’s gangsters after a liquor store robbery, they make him a marked man.

As X’s men start appearing around pretty much every corner, John befriends a kindly garbage man named Be Gee (Frankie Faison) and even meets a lady friend named Caroline (Deborah Geffner), a dancer at a gentleman’s club John pops in to from time to time. We all know what happens to lady friends of vigilantes, however, and before you know it Caroline’s been roughed up and then later stripped naked and eventually found dead with a big red X spray painted on her backside. At this point, John takes off the kid gloves and declares all out war on X and his crew. Thankfully he gets access to Be Gee’s seemingly indestructible garbage truck and manages to give it an A-Team style makeover complete with machine guns and other handy weapons. This won’t end nicely at all…

If Disc One of this set was the ‘Fred Olen Ray’ disc, then Disc Two is the ‘guys lose their lady’s and make A-Team vehicles’ disc. Fast paced and ridiculously violent, The Exterminator 2 doesn’t have quite the same amount of soiled seediness that made the original such a fascinating tour of the dirty old New York City that once was, but there are times where it does come close. Ginty busts out his flamethrower fairly often here, likely because the image of him with it became fairly iconic thanks to the oddball success of the original movie, and so he spends a lot of time roasting bad guys rather than just beating them up or shooting them this time around. You can’t take this film as seriously as you could the first but it’s definitely not wanting for chaos, carnage and good old fashioned violent entertainment!

Ginty is a bit wooden here, but that was the Robert Ginty way. He’s not a super charismatic guy, but maybe that works in favor of the character as he comes across as a bit of an everyman rather than a superhero. The real goofball star of the show this time out is Van Peebles, who looks ridiculous decked out in what appears to be some sort of football padding and a frizzy hair cut. Frankie Faison is amusing too, as are the random break-dancers that appear sporadically throughout the movie. All in all, this one works well. Like the rest of the movies in this set it isn’t in the least bit concerned with realism but is instead a gleefully over the top action fest, the kind that lets actions speak louder than words and that isn’t afraid to have a middle aged white guy beat up on a young black dude in football pads with some help from a middle aged black dude in a garbage truck. This is the type of movie where the hero romances the lady by taking her for a ride in said garbage truck and sharing some Miller High Life (the Champagne Of Beers), the kind of film where a man can date a stripper who isn’t crazy but who only dreams of one day dancing on Broadway. It’s the kind of movie where the bad guy’s hair sometimes takes on a completely different shape than that which it had in earlier scenes and the kind of movie where a man can run around with a flamethrower and a welding mask and makes the streets safer for folks like you and I.

The DVD:

Video:

Each of the four movies is presented in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen and for the most part, they all look pretty good. There is some minor print damage in the form of small specks here and there, each movie has this, but it’s not a problem and you won’t likely notice it unless you’re consciously looking for it. Black levels are strong and fairly solid, and as the four movies are split across two dual layered discs with minimal extras, there aren’t any serious issues with compression artifacts. No edge enhancement or noise reduction shows up while color reproduction tends to look quite good across the board – be it the fiery orange explosions towards the end of Cyclone, the goofy face paint on the alien in Alienator, the dusty locales of Eye Of The Tiger or the awesome tricked out dump truck in Exterminator 2. Most should be pretty pleased with the visuals here – for older, low budget B-action movies, all four films look quite nice.

Sound:

It’s English language Dolby Digital 2.0 across the board here, there are no subtitles or alternate language options provided for any of the four movies nor are there any closed captions. That aside, the sound quality here is also pretty solid. Levels are well balanced and there are no issues of note with any hiss or distortion. You’ve got to wonder if surround sound remixes might have been a bit more fun for some of the action set pieces scattered throughout this set but the tracks as they stand here are just fine. Dialogue is clean and clear in each of the four movies (a mumbling, slurry Jan Michael Vincent being an exception in Alienator but you can’t fault Shout! Factory for that) and the scores, as hokey as they can be at times, also sound good. Sound effects generally pack enough punch to work and all in all, there’s really nothing to complain about here in the audio department.

Extras:

Exterminator 2 includes a commentary track from director Mark Buntzman and actor Mario Van Peebles that offers up some fun insight into the making of the movie. It’s a decent talk that, when it’s happening, that covers some of the more eccentric characters in the movie but there are frequent pauses and moments of dead air throughout. Not enough to kill the track, but it does sometimes suffer from some pacing issues. Other topics discussed include Ginty’s involvement in the film, some of the locations and stunt work and what it was like following up the original picture. Van Peebles talked about how he actually auditioned for the role of Be Gee but wound up being cast as the lead villain, while Buntzman notes that in the movie he actually tried to make the vehicles seen in the movie into characters, the garbage truck in particular.

Aside from that We get static menus and chapter selection for each film. It’s a shame we didn’t get any trailers for any of the films, but life goes on.

Final Thoughts:

Shout! Factory bundles up for super entertaining B-grade action films and spreads them out over two discs in the Action Packed Movie Marathon collection. Though it’s light on extras containing only a single commentary, the four films here look about as good as you could hope they would on DVD and the amount of entertainment value that the films provide more than makes up for that. When you consider that this one is selling for less than ten bucks, it’s a no-brainer. Fans of low budget action films already know this one comes highly recommended, and you really can’t beat the price.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.

The Main Event:

Anyone who knows anything about wrestling knows that Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart has got a legacy to be proud of. Though there was a time when he had written off the WWE over various issues, those days are behind him now and since burying the hatchet he’s had some participation in a few interesting projects, the most recent of which is the new three disc DVD collection Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart: The Dungeon Collection. Comprised entirely of matches new to DVD (no repacked previously available material here, which is a nice change of pace for the WWE), this is one of those releases that belongs in the collection of every Hart fan out there. Not only does it offer up some legitimately rare matches (though not always in the best of quality – but more on that later), it also features input from Hart himself, who provides video introductions and insight on each and everyone one of the clips included in this set.

The set starts off with a quick introduction from Hart, who comes across here as quite gracious and proud of the legacy he’s about to present. His memory is quite sharp, even as the set starts out by exploring the early days of his career in the ring. Those expecting a biographical look back at how he got into wrestling and his rise to superstardom will be disappointed, this isn’t that type of collection, but anyone interested in checking out some of the earliest recordings of his work will appreciate what we have here on the first disc. Speaking of which, here’s what you’ll find spread across the three discs in the set:

DISC ONE:

-A Real Privilege
-Untapped Resources
-My Backyard
-2-Out Of-3 Falls Match For The British Commonwealth Jr. Heavyweight Championship With Bret Hart Versus Dynamite Kid, Stampede Wrestling, December 1978
-World Tour
-Bret Hart Versus Buzz Sawyer, Georgia Championship Wrestling, September 1979
-A Lot of Promise
-North American Heavyweight Championship Match, Bret Hart Versus Leo Burke, Stampede Wrestling, January 1983
-The Best It Gets
-Bret Hart Versus Dynamite Kid, Capital Centre, September 14, 1985
-Energy
-WWE Tag Team Championship Match, Hart Foundation Versus The Islanders, Philadelphia Spectrum, March 14, 1987
-A Sign of Respect
-Bret Hart Versus Andre the Giant, Milan, Italy, April 10, 1989
-The Right Formula
-Bret Hart Versus Mr. Perfect, Maple Leaf Gardens, April 23, 1989

The Calgary Stampede matches are great to see and presented here in reasonably good quality as well. Hart hasn’t taken on his ‘Hitman’ persona yet but you can tell even by this early footage that he’s taking what he does very seriously, and given his family and background, that makes total sense. He moves fast and his decisions are calculated. As we stroll down memory lane through these early years Hart explains how and why he wound up leaving the Calgary league to wind up in Georgia, then discusses his trip to Italy where he wrestled Andre The Giant. He notes his respect for The Dynamite Kid and discusses his influence on modern wrestling and he talks about his early tag-team match here with Jim Neidhart against The Islanders. Each one of the bouts on this disc is solid, and while some of the early stuff may not offer up the boasting and the showboating that a lot of fans more familiar with his WWF/WWE Superstar years would expect, this disc is a great way to chart his evolution as a wrestler.

DISC TWO:

-This Is For Us
-Hart Foundation Versus The Twin Towers, Duluth, Minnesota, May 17, 1989
-The Greatest Super-Card of All-Time
-Bret Hart Versus Tiger Mask II, WWE / New Japan / All Japan Wrestling Summit, April 13, 1990
-Change Of The Guard
-Intercontinental Championship Match, Bret Hart Versus Ric Flair, New Haven, Connecticut, November 13, 1991
-On the Threshold Of Greatness
-Bret Hart Versus Undertaker, Madison Square Garden, January 31, 1992
-The Best Big Man
-Bret Hart Versus Bam Bam Bigelow, Milan, Italy, April 25, 1993

As the second disc beings, Hart has been firmly established as a legitimate talent in the squared circle. The opening match with The Hart Foundation taking on The Twin Towers is a lot of fun with some great action not just from Bret but from his partner as well, while the fight in Japan against Tiger Mark II is nothing short of awesome – colorful, crazy, high flying and just ridiculously entertaining the way that good wrestling should be. Of course, when Hart takes on Ric Flair for the title there’s a lot at stack so both parties give their all. Obviously with those two in the ring giving one hundred percent we wind up with a seriously classic match but once Hart gets in the ring with The Undertaker, all bets are off. Closing things out with a rough and tumble bout against Bam Bam is a nice way to finish off the second disc, and again, as all of this plays out Hart treats us to some interesting behind the scenes stories and expresses his admiration for many of the men that he went up against during this part of his career.

DISC THREE:

-Evolution at That Time
-WWE Championship Match, Bret Hart Versus Diesel, King Of The Ring, June 19, 1994
-Masterpieces
-No Holds Barred, Bret Hart Versus Owen Hart, RAW, March 27, 1995
-Powerhouse
-Bret Hart Versus Jean-Pierre Lafitte, In Your House, September 24, 1995
-Time Off
-Bret Hart Versus Stone Cold Steve Austin, Sun City Superbowl, September 14, 1996
-Simultaneously A Hero And A Rat
-WWE Championship Match, Bret Hart Versus The Patriot, In Your House: Ground Zero, September 7, 1997
-Wrestling Injured
-WCW United States Championship Match, Bret Hart Versus Booker T, WCW Monday Nitro, January 25, 1999
-Misjudging Sting
-Semi-Finals Match For The WCW Championship, Bret Hart Versus Sting, WCW Mayhem, November 21, 1999
-Trip Through Memory Lane

As far as this third disc goes, the opening bout with Diesel is solid but more interesting is the next match against the late Owen Hart an Bret’s thoughts about it are more likely to grab you just because there’s a bit more sensitivity shown here. The match against Austin is a highlight of the disc, with Hart’s time in the ring having been substantially longer than Austin’s at this point, but with Austin’s star very much on the rise. The Patriot and Booker T both get respectable fights here and both men do fine work against Hart, and the disc (and the set in general) closes out with a really solid match against Sting with the WCW Championship title lingering closely. Once again, Hart’s input and recollections of his time in the ring are just as important and sometimes even more interesting than the matches themselves and throughout all of this he has a very laid back, likeable attitude towards things that makes him very easy to listen to.

Now is this the definitive set Probably not in all eyes – as it is with every set like this that the WWE puts out, someone out there somewhere is going to lament the absence of a particular match or two that didn’t make it onto the discs. It’s not surprising that there are no matches with Hart taking on Chris Benoit but overall, this is certainly a very respectable collection. The plus side is that there’s enough quality material in Hart’s legacy that hasn’t been covered here and that could benefit having Hart’s commentary that maybe, if we’re lucky and this set does well, we’ll get a second volume.

The DVD:

Video:

The 1.78.1 widescreen presentation looks pretty decent with two major exceptions – the match against Buzz Sawyer (which was sourced from a really rough tape source full of rolls and drops outs) and the match against Andre The Giant (which is compressed to Hell and back and looks like a youtube rip, it’s pretty horrible quality). Some of the other earlier matches are on the soft side and aren’t quite as clean and colorful looking as the later day content is, but this is generally quite a respectable looking presentation. There are times where the lights over the ring make skin tones look a bit off but this isn’t a fault of the transfer or the authoring, it’s simply the way the material has always looked. Nothing here really looks worse than when it was broadcast on television, and to some eyes it might even look a little bit better.

Sound:

The same comments apply to the audio on this release – some of the earlier stuff sounds a bit flat, but most of the newer stuff sounds just fine. Everything comes at you by way of a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track and aside from one or two instances where some of the archival clips have a small amount of audible distortion, there aren’t any issues worth complaining about here. There are no subtitles or alternate language options provided.

Extras:

Outside of chapter selection and menu screens, there are no extras on this three disc DVD set at all.

Final Thoughts:

Bret Hart’s had a long and storied career in the ring and The Dungeon Collection lets him relive some of the highlights in his own words, something that his numerous fans will certainly enjoy. The WWE hasn’t worked miracles with the quality here but having three discs worth of rarities and oddball matches alongside Hart’s miniature history lessons is something worth owning for fans of wrestling and this set comes recommended.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.

THE FILM:

I hate to throw a horror film that actually tries under the bus, but Smiley never shakes its designation as an ambitious failure. College freshman Ashley (Caitlin Gerard) comes to campus with raw emotions after the death of her mother, and bunks with laidback hipster Proxy (Melanie Papalia). The girls learn about Internet urban legend Smiley, who comes to kill unsuspecting online chatters after one party types “I did it for the lulz” three times. The movie grumbles along at a glacial pace before pulling the rug out from under the audience with an ending that is both ridiculous and strangely affecting. The resolution alone, which provides unexpected commentary on Internet behavior, almost makes Smiley worth watching, but the ending cannot redeem the preceding 80 minutes of boredom.

For a film with much to say about Internet culture, Smiley is curiously out of touch. The script, which was co-written by Director Michael Gallagher and Glasgow Phillips, treats the Internet like a great digital unknown where coeds come to chat with strangers daily. Ashley and Proxy first encounter Smiley at a party via a Chatroulette-esque program, and a friend shows them a video of someone getting killed that he swears is an elaborate hoax. Internet hacker Zane (Andrew James Allen) and outcast Binder (Shane Dawson) argue about the video’s legitimacy, but Ashley is immediately freaked out. What does she do next Ashley decides to test the Smiley legend with Proxy, and types “I did it for the lulz” three times into a video-chat window. The grotesque Smiley, with stitched-up eyes and mouth, promptly pops up and kills the man in their chat window.

Much of Smiley concerns Ashley’s personal demons, and the body count is limited. Ashley sees a psychiatrist to determine if she is going crazy, and begins having vivid dreams of the Internet killer. The film throws in some intellectual hooey during several extended scenes of Ashley’s ethics class, where her professor (Roger Bart) drones on about Occam’s razor and roller coaster logic. Smiley really wants to be a weighty thriller, but is too pedestrian to be effective. The thrills are mostly absent, as the kills come in tiny chat windows, and the novelty is gone after the first attack. The opening 80 minutes feel like an unending reel of Ashley going to parties, freaking out, waking up, and going to class. Although it runs a tidy 95 minutes, Smiley feels twice as long.

Once the slowly winding road to the ending is travelled, Smiley shows sparks of energy. The finale isn’t totally unexpected, but it’s surprisingly cruel. Parts of it don’t make sense – the film never sets rules for its antagonist – and Ashley’s situation is revealed to be far out of her control. A part of me admires what Gallagher did here, and the film should at least make you think twice about the information you make public on the Internet. Gerard plays wounded and scared well, and I suspect she’ll find better parts down the road. Smiley is ambitious but ultimately dull, and flaws in pacing and logic derail this train long before it reaches the station.

THE DVD:

PICTURE:

The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen image is serviceable, with decent detail and texture. Colors are well saturated and skin tones are natural. Black crush is limited, and detail is retained in darker scenes. There are some compression artifacts, and a few shots have a soft appearance.

SOUND:

The 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack is also good, with clear dialogue and adequate separation between effects and score. The subwoofer is called in on occasion to provide low-end support, and the surround speakers are used for ambient and action effects. English SDH subtitles are available.

EXTRAS:

The Audio Commentary from Director Michael Gallagher and actors Shane Dawson and Roger Bart is low key and chatty, and Gallagher reveals how he made the most of the film’s tiny budget. There’s also some Gory Outtakes, a Gag Reel and the film’s theatrical trailer.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Smiley is a by-the-numbers slasher with an interesting ending. This low-budget thriller from Director Michael Gallagher assumes college freshmen have nothing better to do than video chat online. Timid student Ashley hears about Internet urban legend Smiley, who kills people on a Chatroulette-esque program when one participant types “I did it for the lulz” three times. When Ashley decides to investigate the story, her life becomes a shambles. The premise promises eye-rolling, B-movie fun, but the execution is surprisingly boring. The film concludes on a high note, but the previous 80 minutes have already ruined the mood. Skip It.

William lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and looks forward to a Friday-afternoon matinee.

The Movie:

How to Survive a Plague may have barely missed out on nabbing the Best Documentary Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards, but this chronicle of the early years of AIDS activists and their impact on public policy in treating the disease (saving untold lives in the process) is a solid, penetrating watch.

Through a mass of wobbly VHS footage of activist meetings and demonstrations, news footage, archival interviews and the occasional contemporary reflection, How to Survive a Plague ushers viewers through that tumultuous period in neatly organized, strictly chronological fashion. Sure, this unadorned method might seem like something of a cop-out, but the director understood that the footage in itself conveys enough power to basically carry the documentary. It certainly helps the film’s “you are there” mojo as we witness these activists evolve from a band of fierce, passionate yet disorganized Manhattanites into a force capable of AIDS policy-shaping on a global scale.

Beginning in 1987, with a graphic that ominously racks up the number of AIDS deaths, How to Survive a Plague opens in a fragmentary manner befitting the founding of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). One gets a healthy sense of the pent-up sense of alienation and anger which led to the organization, which grew out of outrage over the lack of action taken on a city, state and nationwide basis over the looming heath crisis caused by AIDS and HIV. While ACT UP’s membership originally consisted of mostly younger white gay men directly affected by the disease, its makeup grew as the disease spread and people became more aware of the group’s ballsy protest tactics.

How to Survive a Plague accurately gives a sense of history unfolding and mounting dread in recounting the dark 1988-92 period as AIDS casualties piled up (the disease had a nearly 100% fatality rate). There’s also a great sense of community as well, however, when each protest results in the small victory of moving forward. When the traditional big pharma system let them down, the ACT UP members educated themselves on alternative and/or black market medications – the members are even shown being primed on how to be arrested correctly and the correct way to deliver a perfectly timed sound bite to the media. The participants also admit some of their shortcomings (in pressuring the FDA to speed up availability of the faulty drug AZT, for instance), and the internal strife of the group is vividly shown when a splinter activist group, TAG, is founded in the early ’90s.

The film is peppered with latter-day comments from those who were active in that scene, from the activist playwright Larry Kramer to unsung people like the nurse who couldn’t stand by while hospitals were turning away the sick and dying. A few other notable activists emerge in the archival footage, as well – people like the firebrand PR exec-turned-outspoken activist Bob Rafsky, or the articulate, boyishly handsome Peter Staley (who is seen facing off on a late ’80s edition of CNN’s Crossfire against Tom Braden and a surprisingly compassionate Pat Buchanan, one of the film’s highlights). Director David France deliberately keeps the fate of these subjects uncertain, making the film as much a “did he survive or not” game as much as absorbing history telling.

How to Survive a Plague achieves its goals in a plain-spoken, relatively straightforward manner that is generally free of the motion graphics, re-creations, ironically placed pop music and other gimmickry currently (over-) done in documentary filmmaking. It tells a story that needed to be told, succinctly and with a lot of heart. If the film gets a bit too smug and self-congratulatory towards the end, the participants still come away earning our admiration. The lack of HIV education in today’s landscape is still a widespread problem, but at least it’s now a manageable condition to those who have it (and can afford the cocktail of drugs used to contain it). We have all the people in this film to thank for that.

The DVD:

Video:

How to Survive a Plague relies heavily on vintage ’80s-’90s video, but the mastering on this 1.85:1 widescreen presentation is agreeably done with sharp detail and nice levels of dark and light on the contemporary-shot segments. The older footage varies wildly in quality, which strangely enough adds a lot to the film’s vibe of history unfolding before your eyes.

Audio:

The sole audio option on How to Survive a Plague is a pleasantly mixed track with clear dialogue and smoothly integrated vintage audio. The 5.1 Surround mix doesn’t use the surrounding channels in a showy way, but it serves its purely informational purpose well. Optional subtitles are available on the DVD as well, in English SDH and Spanish.

Extras:

A group audio commentary with director David France and several ACT-UP members seen in the film – Heidi Dorow, Joy Episalla, Bob Lederer and Ron Medley – supplies a lot of details that were glossed over or deemed not important to the main feature. The track contains a few dead spots when everyone is absorbed in the film, but for the most part it’s an interesting listen. Also included are about 12 minutees of Deleted Scenes and a Theatrical Trailer.

Final Thoughts:

David France’s acclaimed documentary How to Survive a Plague recounts the rise of activist group ACT-UP during the darkest days of the AIDS crisis in New York City. Heavy on archival clips and told in a refreshingly straightforward manner, the film serves as a dignified pedestal to the men and women who passionately fought for recognition and better treatment for those with AIDS. Recommended.

Matt Hinrichs is a designer, artist and sometime writer who lives in sunny (and usually too hot) Phoenix, Arizona. Among his loves are oranges, going barefoot and blonde 1930s movie comedienne Joyce Compton. Since 2000, he has been scribbling away at Pop Culture weblog Scrubbles.net. One can also follow him on Twitter @4colorcowboy.