The Movies:

Isn’t the American judicial system supposed to stand by the motto “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?” If that’s the case, why are Jessie Miskelly, Jason Baldwin, Damien Wayne Echols sitting prison, Damien on death row? That’s the question posed by the Emmy Award winning Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hills, a 1996 documentary from Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (who would later go on to make Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster) originally made for HBO. The film makes a pretty damn good case that these three kids got screwed by their community.

Better known as The West Memphis Three, Miskelly, Baldwin and Echols are currently incarcerated for the gruesome and horrifying murders of three boys in a rural section of West Memphis, Arkansas known as Robin Hood Hills. The three bodies were discovered on a river bank, mutilated and sexually abused in what appeared to be some sort of Satanic ritual. The film, shot over the span of a year during the time that the three accused murderers were on trial, goes about asking questions not only of the three suspects but also of the parents and families of the victims, members of the community, and members of the court including defense and prosecution attorneys. The picture it paints is horrifying not only because of the scope of the crimes they were put on trial for, but because of how shoddy the prosecution’s case was and the fact that they were able to convict them all guilty on all counts.

Make no mistake, Paradise Lost does not prove that the West Memphis Three are innocent, but that’s not what is important. What is important is that it sure as Hell looks like they’re not guilty – two very different things. Yes, it is possible that they did it but it has not been proven inconclusively that they did but now their lives are forever screwed up anyway. There are simply too many unanswered questions about the case for this to have been a fair trial. Why did the cops let a man seen near the murder scene on the night of the crime who was covered in blood at a restaurant just disappear without following up? Why wasn’t more thought put into the fact that one of the boys’ fathers gave the filmmakers a knife that may have contained his own son’s blood on it and that could have been used to make the wounds on the bodies? What about the witness testimony that conflicts with the actual proven events that took place that night? What about the fact that the first two hours of Jessie Miskelly, who has an IQ of only seventy two, were not recorded nor will any of those involved in said interrogation speak up about those two hours? Was Miskelly forced into speaking out against his friends under duress? It’s certainly possible.

In short, without wanting to sound like a wacko conspiracy theorist, it’s very possible and, dare I say it, very likely that these three kids were convicted not because they were guilty but because the local authorities screwed up and didn’t catch anyone and, under mounting pressure from an understandably upset public, pinned it on three kids who really didn’t fit in so well in the small Bible Belt community they had the luck of being born into. If that is the case, obviously that’s just wrong. Though I have nothing but the deepest of sympathies for the families of those who were killed and nothing but the utmost sadness at the completely unnecessary loss of three young lives, the families of those killed latched onto the idea of the three older boys being the guilty ones with such fervor and hatred that it’s literally frightening. Rage and anger over their children’s death is completely forgivable but to allow someone to film you using a pistol that leaves no marks on the bullet (rendering it impossible to identify with most ballistic testing) while practicing your target shooting on a pumpkin and calling out the names of the three accused doesn’t really do much to win anyone’s trust or compassion – it makes you look like a lunatic. It’s interesting to watch some of the parents pose for the cameras and add as much dramatic depth to their segments as they do, too. But that’s beside the point. The focus shouldn’t be on whether the parents are crazy or not but on the fact that there are three people in jail for something that it’s very possible they had no part in. They were linked to Satanic activities that none of them were proven to have partaken in and they were seen as outcasts because they listened to Slayer and wore black t-shirts (gasp!) in a community so closed minded that they couldn’t accept that.

Four years later, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky returned to familiar territory with their 2000 follow up film, Revelations: Paradise Lost 2. By this time, their initial film had helped to raise some needed attention to the events that had taken place and the case was quickly garnering support. The second film presents more evidence, catches us up on various investigations and legal issues that have come up since the first movie and more or less expands on what came before it.

The focus here is largely centered around Echols’ most recent (at the time) court date, scheduled as an appeal to get him off of death row. It doesn’t work, but the growing movement to free the West Memphis Three stars to gain national attention. We spend more time with John Mark Byers, who seems to be largely unhinged, and witness a load of interviews with various attorneys connected to the case. Like most ‘middle’ films, this one lacks the punch of the first and the closure of the third…

…which brings us to the third film in the series, Paradise Lost: Purgatory. Almost twenty years since the three were convicted, we once again head to Arkansas. By this point, the movement to reevaluate the case has gotten even bigger and new DNA evidence has arrived that goes a long way towards clearing the three. Testimony given under coercion is discussed and we spend a fair bit of time with Echols’ lawyer again. We also learn how Echols got married and more or less just catch up with the three accused, now fully grown men who have spent the majority of their collective lives behind bars.

Additionally, without wanting to head too far into spoiler territory, this third film goes a good way towards discussing and making the case for a key character who is more likely the actual killer given his association with and proximity to the victims in the case. This aspect of the story remains open ended for now. As the film comes to a close, the accused are given the opportunity to opt for an Alford Plea – this essentially means that by admitting their guilt they’ll be sentenced to time served and let out of prison. Given that Echols remained on death row when this was brought about, it made sense that they’d go for it and they did. Despite the fact that Jason Baldwin wanted to continue to fight to completely clear his name, he gave in and accepted the plea simply to save Damian’s life. As the film draws to a close it makes it pretty clear that there really are no winners here. Three boys are still dead and it would appear that the three people originally convicted are innocent and while they’re now walking around free men for the first time in eighteen years, that doesn’t take away from the fact that they spent so much time in jail.

Watched back to back as a trilogy this is a lot to take in but it’s never less than fascinating. It’s grim subject matter to be sure, and very often quite depressing but at the same time inspiring in that these movies stand as a testament to how film can change lives. Had the first film never been made – and keep in mind the filmmakers went to the location assuming that the three were guilty and only changed their minds after they started investigating – they’d probably still be locked up or worse.

The DVD:

Video:

Both films were made for HBO and intended for a home video audience so the 1.33.1 fullframe format makes sense, which is how both of the first two films are presented on this four disc set. The third film was composed for 1.78.1 widescreen and is presented that way, with anamorphic enhancement. The bulk of the footage for the two documentaries was shot on video and as such it has some of the softness usually associated with the format but for the most part, both films do look very good here. The colors are lifelike and very natural looking, time was obviously taken to light the interviews and recorded footage as well as possible and the end result is quite a decent looking picture. There’s some mild edge enhancement but no problems with mpeg compression artifacts or print damage.

Sound:

The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo tracks on both films are just fine. Some of the footage shot outdoors or in less than ideal environments such as courtrooms and the like sounds a little on the hollow side but that’s to be expected, really. Dialogue and background music (most of which is supplied by Metallica – Sanitarium from Master Of Puppets gets a lot of airtime here) sound nice and clean and while this is hardly home theater demo material, it doesn’t need to be either. It works just fine as it is. Subtitles are provided in French, Italian, Spanish, German and Japanese.

Extras:

The first disc include some Deleted Scenes And Bonus Footage not used in the feature version of the film. The best of this is the forty-two minutes worth of material from Echols’ trial, it’s quite interesting. Additionally we get a time line of the events and a trailer for the feature, some biographies for the filmmakers, menus and chapter stops. The second disc includes a still gallery and filmmaker bios.

The extras for the third film include Press Day Panel Discussion With The West Memphis Three which is a seven minute collection of clips, four deleted scenes totaling just under half an hour, and a couple of quick interviews with the filmmakers. Biographies for the filmmakers and some menus are also included here.

The fourth disc in the set includes a never before seen Full Interview With Jason Baldwin recorded by the filmmakers on the first m after he was released from prison. As stated above, Baldwin went in on the plea to save Echols’ life and holds no grudge towards Echols for that. However, he obviously hopes to someday clear his name. As he sits in front of the camera, seemingly and understandably quite nervous, he talks about what it was like spending so much time behind bars and about his appreciation for finally being granted his freedom. It’s quite an interesting and lengthy interview and a very nice addition to this set. Also included here is ‘Lost” 1993 Footage from the Filmmakers’ Archives which includes bits where Jessie meets with his lawyer before the trial, segments with Echols and Jason Baldwin and then a segment with West Memphis Chief Prosecutor Gary Gitchell. Last but not least, the fourth disc also includes a collection of deleted scenes from Paradise Lost 3 – three scenes in total running just under ten minutes.

Additionally, inside the case is a new twenty-page booklet of photographs taken from the filmmakers’ ‘personal archives’ shot during the making of the three movies that populate this set. Some writing from the filmmakers is also included.

Final Thoughts:

The Paradise Lost Trilogy Collector’s Edition isn’t the type of thing you’ll watch over and over again nor is it something you put on in the background as simple entertainment. These are heavy, weighty and important films that deal very bluntly with some grim subject matter. With that said, all three movies need to be seen and while the quality of the presentation may occasionally be a bit rough around the edges, the content of the features and the supplements make up for that. Highly recommended.

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

A Quinn Martin Production. Starring Karl Malden. Also starring Richard Hatch.

With Guest Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Desi Arnaz, Jr. Special Guest Star Pernell Roberts.

Tonight’s Episode: “End of the Line”

Act I　

By 1976, actor and budding feature film producer Michael Douglas had outgrown series television, especially after One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest premiered during the 1975-76 season of The Streets of San Francisco, and later won all five top Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay), a feat achieved only once before.

But to his credit Douglas remained grateful to the opportunities The Streets of San Francisco brought him, and though he decided to leave the series he agreed to stay on long enough to co-star in what originally was intended as the show’s feature-length fifth season premiere. That episode also introduced Douglas’s replacement, another up-and-coming talent named Richard Hatch.

The Streets of San Francisco might have continued indefinitely but the fifth season got off on the wrong foot. Originally Douglas’s departure was to have been a Big Deal. Instead, at the last minute the two-hour premiere, “The Thrill Killers,” was halved into a two-part story (broadcast a week apart), reportedly because ABC’s programming guru Fred Silverman wanted to use Part 2 to hopefully pummel CBS’s Barnaby Jones in the ratings. That strategy backfired, and Streets of San Francisco instead limped along and was finally cancelled at the end of the season.

A shame, really, because Hatch’s character had potential, and while the show’s writers don’t seize upon this nearly as much as they could have, the Season Five is really no worse than those that had proceeded it, with several intriguing episodes interspersed among more routine but still entertaining ones.

As with other recent CBS/Paramount releases, both volumes 1 and 2 arrived bundled together as a single unit. Retailers like Amazon are selling The Streets of San Francisco – Season Five as a complete season set and broken up into two volumes.

Act II

The season begins as before, following the investigations of plainclothes detectives Lt. Mike Stone (Karl Malden), an unpretentious, old school cop, and sophisticated, Berkeley-educated Inspector Steve Keller (Michael Douglas), whom Mike clearly loves like a son.

In the two-part (and inaptly titled) “The Thrill Killers,” all Hell breaks loose during the trial of Charles Manson-type figure when a group of his followers (led by Patty Duke Astin and including Susan Dey, Ron Glass, and Anthony Geary) kidnap the entire jury pool, threatening to execute them one-by-one until their leader is released. (The jurors include Tina Chen, Norman Fell, Jan Clayton, Dick Van Patten, Joseph Wiseman, Paula Kelly, James Hong, Barry Sullivan, and Doris Roberts).

Steve is critically wounded when Dey’s character, a single mother less dedicated to the cause, panics and shoots Steve when he spots her at a payphone. Dan Robbins (Hatch), a rising star at the SFPD, assists and consoles a distraught Mike through the remainder of the investigation and rescue of the surviving hostages.

(Mild Spoilers) It’s all an intriguing jumble of 12 Angry Men and Raid on Entebbe, with a dash of Helter Skelter tossed in for good measure, and with Steve’s wounding and ultimate decision to leave the force also similar to what happens to Reni Santoni’s character in Dirty Harry (1971). It’s also a well-written show, expressing one last time the father-son bond between Mike and Steve – their last scene together is actually quite touching – while at the same time serving as a strong introduction for Hatch’s character. Dan gets to interact with Steve quite a bit, the two discussing their mutual hesitations in possibly having to fire on a suspect, Dan mining Steve for information about Mike, etc.

Act III　

Dan is introduced as the department’s golden boy who immediately impresses Mike and Steve with his proactive style and investigator instincts. He lacks Mike’s and even Steve’s experience but the makings of a great cop are already present. Steve, having learned from the best, really no longer needs Mike’s fatherly supervision – he’s ready to leave the nest – so the transition to Steve moving on and Mike getting a new pupil is a natural and logical one. The teleplays often don’t take advantage of this unfortunately, with many playing very much like Dan’s part was written with the Steve Keller character in mind.

Although Hatch got his start in daytime drama, it was guesting on primetime policiers and detective melodramas, often playing clean-cut youths tangentially entangled in some crime, where producers first began noticing him. After this he co-starred on the heavily promoted but quickly cancelled Battlestar Galactica, which proved a ticket to nowhere – at first. Hatch stuck with it, appearing on one unmemorable TV show after another while spearheading a huge fan effort to revive “Galactica” in the 1990s. Around this time I was invited to speak at a Science Fiction Convention, and after my presentation wandered into a huge room where several thousand fans gave a positively thunderous standing ovation to Hatch. “Richard Hatch?!” I asked myself. But then the mostly dumb and unoriginal Battlestar Galactica was revived but completely revamped – without Hatch’s involvement – into the extraordinarily intelligent and creative 2004-2009 series. Hatch was by his own admission extremely bitter that all his hard-fought efforts had come to nothing, but eventually agreed to appear on the new series, as terrorist-turned-politician Tom Zarek. It was in many ways the best role of his career up to this point, an extremely complex, morally ambiguous figure quite unlike anything he’d played before.

Back on The Streets of San Francisco it was largely business as usual, but a few Season Five episodes stand out, none more than the fascinating “Dead Lift.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his first of just two series television appearances, plays Josef Schmidt, an Austrian émigré and body builder hypersensitive about his looks. When a young college student, an amateur sociologist, laughs uncontrollably when he oils up and poses for her, he becomes so enraged that he literally shakes her to death. Later he becomes romantically involved with a wealthy socialite (Diana Muldaur), an odd couple match anticipating Schwarzenegger’s own marriage to Maria Shriver. Muldaur and Shriver even resemble one another.

Watching Arnold blow his top over insensitive snickering directed at his “art” (he likens bodybuilding to Greco-Roman sculpture) has the makings of a high-camp classic but the show, written by Larry Brody, instead plays as remarkably authentic and is genuinely disturbing. Brody may not have known Schwarzenegger personally, but the Josef’s background and unhappy, insecure childhood probably coincidentally mirrors Schwarzenegger in some respects.

More intriguingly the show captures the simultaneous fascination-revulsion of bodybuilding, with Josef and others adopting it as an all-consuming way of life while others laugh it off as grotesque narcissism. Though steroids are never mentioned, and Josef (as Schwarzenegger had) insists his body is simply the result of a good diet and exercise, Josef’s short fuse and paranoia certainly plays as if steroids were a factor, and only make the episode more real and timely in retrospect. A prescient show.

Guest stars this season include James Shigeta, Hari Rhodes, Marion Ross, Kenneth Tobey, Van Williams Caitlin Adams, Tom Bosley, Howard Duff, Lisa Eilbacher, Max Gail, Arlene Golonka, Dabbs Greer, John Zaremba, Dabney Coleman, James Griffith, Mary LaRoche, Eugene Roche, Parker Stevenson, James Olson, Maureen McCormick, Desi Arnaz, Jr., Conrad Janis, Jessica Walter, Harry Guardino, Booth Colman, Tom Drake, Dorothy Malone, Guy Stockwell, Don Johnson, Darleen Carr (as Mike’s daughter), Gerald McRaney, Pat Hingle, Pat Crowley, Sherry Jackson, Gary Lockwood, Francine York, Tim O’Connor, Andrew Robsinon, Mark Goddard, Michael Strong, Richard Herd, Johnny Weissmuller, Jr., Marlyn Mason, Alan Fudge, Ellen Geer, Johnny Haymer, Noah Keen, Frank Maxwell, Robert Walden, Skip Homeier, Bruce Glover, Ned Beatty, Susan Oliver, Virginia Gregg, Richard Bakalyan, Christopher Atkins, June Dayton, Mark Hamill, Carl Weathers, Bill Quinn, John Rubenstein, Lois Nettleton, Linden Chiles, Paul Comi, Bert Freed, Pernell Roberts, Beth Holland, Linda Kelsey, Beverly Washburn, Herbert Jefferson, Jr., Jerry Hardin, and Dennis Patrick.

Act IV

The full frame format Streets of San Francisco looks great, bright with strong color and impressive clarity. Disclaimers note that “some episodes may be edited from their original network versions,” but the shows I looked at seemed complete, unaltered, and not time-compressed. The set we received is composed of two volumes containing all 24 episodes spread over six discs. The Dolby Digital mono is fine. There are no Extra Features.

Epilogue

It took time but this series really grew on my over time, and I’m delighted to see CBS/Paramount speedily getting these and other shows in their deep-catalog library out on DVD. Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features. Visit Stuart’s Cine Blogarama here.

The Movie:

Directed in 2010 by Mark Edlitz, Jedi Junkies takes on the fairly massive task of exploring the more obsessive side of hardcore Star Wars fandom. We’re not talking about the people who own the six films on DVD or Blu-ray and pull them off the shelf a few times a year to enjoy on a weekend for kicks, we’re talking about the guys who build life sized scale replicas of the Millennium Falcon in their backyard and then have sex inside it. We’re talking about the ladies who dress up like Slave Leia from Return Of The Jedi and then belly dance across a convention floor and we’re talking about the guys who teach courses in the proper uses of a lightsaber. What about a dude who builds custom made lightsabers in his shed and who has built a decent little business out of this talent He’s here too. Oh, and there’s a Star Wars inspired band here called Aerosith which is lead by a guy dressed up like Emperor Palpatine.

Additionally the documentary, which clocks in at just over seventy-minutes, features a look into the Star Wars fan film community. A popular movie about Darth Vadar’s brother, Chad, caught on some time ago and remains popular as it basically shows what it would be like working in a supermarket with Darth Vader. On top of that, we also visit the set of a fan film being made in New York City and witness the hard working crew setting up for green screen effects and the cast members getting into makeup for the shoot. An odd European fan film shows what can be done in terms of editing and effects as we watch two combatants duel only for one to fly away by way of some handy rocket propelled boots, and yeah, we see some Jedi Cats use lightsabers too.

We visit with a young man who lives in a small Manhattan apartment with his lady friend and young kid as he explains how he has had to tone down his collecting ever since he’s become more domesticated simply because he doesn’t have the room for everything he wants anymore and he’s got larger financial responsibilities. We also learn that he and his girlfriend sleep on an air mattress because there’s so much Star Wars stuff in the apartment they don’t have room for a proper bed. Another man has up to thirty pieces of the same toy simply because he feels he needs to own as many pieces of one particular piece as are mentioned in the movies. He also makes custom figures and owns an incredibly rare Toys-R-Us promotional Millennium Falcon toy of which only approximately five hundred were ever made. It’s big enough that it looks like you could sleep inside it. We also learn that Eduardo Sanchez, the man who directed The Blair Witch Project, is a fairly obsessive collector and that despite the fact that he’s got a huge room dedicated to his collection he still has to keep loads of it in storage.

We get commentary by way of interviews with actors like Ray Park and Peter Mayhew, both of whom seem to really and truly appreciate all of the Star Wars fans and who note that they basically owe their careers to them. Fan favorite Attack Of The Show hostess Olivia Munn pops up a few times to offer some comments, noting that she hopes the guy who built the Falcon in his backyard has at least touched a boob once in his life. Evidently he has, but she offers to let him touch hers if he hasn’t had that important life experience yet. A psychologist pops up here and there and offers fleeting and fairly rudimentary observations on why people collect in as hardcore a way as some of these people do, but this part of the documentary doesn’t go nearly as in-depth as it could have and you feel that it does fall short here. As it doesn’t offer much, it seems unnecessary and the space it takes up might have been better used for more interviews with the collector’s and cosplayers and amateur filmmakers who live, eat and breath Star Wars fandom . Ultimately though, this is a fun, if somewhat shallow, look at Star Wars fandom made by some people who have an obvious affection for it. It could have gone into more depth as to why these people latch onto the series the way they do and it could have made some more insight into the psychology behind it all, but what’s here is enjoyable enough for what it is.

The DVD:

Video:

Jedi Junkies arrives on DVD looking every bit the low budget standard definition video production that it is. Presented in non-anamorphic widescreen framed at 1.78.1 the picture is stable enough but soft and not particularly detailed. Much of the documentary was shot in convention halls and isn’t always professionally lit and some of the interviews look murky. It’s all completely watchable, however. Go in knowing that this was a labor of love more than anything else and that it’s shot on consumer grade video and you won’t be disappointed.

Sound:

The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix is on par with the video in that it’s not anything to write home about but it gets the job done. Some of the interviews sound better than others and a lot of this has to do with background noise and general convention chit chat happening around the microphone at the time. Levels are generally balanced well, however. There are no alternate language options or subtitles provided.

Extras:

The main extra on the disc is a commentary track with director Mark Edlitz who is joined by a few other crew members like the producers and camera man. This is a pretty active and jovial track with Edlitz leading the charge but plenty of input coming from his collaborators along the way. Topics discussed include setting up the interviews, some of the quirks that the interviewees showed, reception to the idea of the movie and where the genesis of the project started. There’s a nice mix of humor and information here and it’s worth listening to as some fun stories are relayed in a very casual, laid back manner.

Rounding out the extras are fifteen minutes of extended/deleted scenes (including more footage of Olivia Munn, a clip about building your own custom action figure, more on the cult of slave Leia and more) and the movie’s trailer. Menus and chapter stops are also included.

Final Thoughts:

Jedi Junkies isn’t going to win any awards for audio or video presentation and at just over seventy-minutes it feels like it could and should have been much longer and more in-depth. With that said, for a low budget independent production, the crew has delivered and interesting movie worth seeing that treats its subjects with the right amount of respect and good natured humor. Unless you’re a hardcore collector this isn’t likely something you’ll need to watch over and over again but it is worth seeing if you have an interest in Star Wars fandom. Rent it.

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.

Hours before the outbreak and eventual quarantine of a building in a nearby town, the friends and family of Clara (Leticia Dolera) and Koldo (Diego Martín) gather for their wedding. Unfortunately for the happy couple, one of their guests is Uncle Victor (Emilio Mencheta), a veterinarian who was recently bitten by one of his patients. By the time the newlyweds are having their first dance, Uncle Victor is vomiting blood, and it’s not much longer before the ceremony is trashed by vicious, bloodthirsty demon-zombies, standing between Clara, Koldo, and happily ever after.

The first two [•REC] films were of a pair, following the same story of a late-night TV crew, a couple of firefighters and police officers, and the terrified residents of an apartment who discover they’ve been labeled a health hazard and locked inside. The found footage flicks were co-directed by Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza, and were a huge success for Filmax, which excitedly greenlit two more sequels on the strength of [•REC]²‘s box office performance. The twist: this time, neither film would be found footage, and Balagueró and Plaza would direct each film separately. [•REC]³: Genesis is Plaza’s effort; Balagueró’s [•REC]⁴: Apocalypse is slated to shoot in early 2013.

Fans of franchises are always resistant to significant change, but let’s get this out of the way upfront: there’s nothing wrong with [•REC]³‘s stylistic change in principle. Although the premise is built into the title, there are plenty of ways Plaza could’ve naturally played with and branched out beyond the format. All artists strive for freedom and new ideas, and if Plaza and Balagueró feel that found footage no longer has anything to offer them or the series creatively, it’s understandable and commendable that they want to try something different.

At the same time, while it’s fine theory, it stinks in principle, because Genesis spends a significant amount of time refusing to commit to its new style, before finally failing to do anything particularly interesting with it once it does. The movie opens with the nice, tongue-in-cheek selection of the “PLAY” option on a wedding video DVD, but the segment of raw footage that follows goes on way too long before the title finally comes up and the film jumps to a traditional narrative style. Personally, the most exciting chapter of the was the second film, because it developed its baddies beyond generic zombies and into an interesting demon-zombie hybrid. Although Plaza has the creatures tear apart the wedding with a little flair (some of them literally fly out of the projection screen in the dance hall), the new technique reverses some of that creativity, trading first-person intensity for standard zombie death scenes. Plaza also ignores perfect opportunities to integrate some series flavor by refusing to cut to cell phone cameras, security cam feeds, etc., which feels like a big missed opportunity.

Some of this could be forgiven if [•REC]³ fully represented the change of tone it also seems to want to go for: the time-tested transition from horror into horror-comedy. There’s plenty of comic potential in nervous Clara and wimpy Koldo’s journey to becoming demon-slaughtering badasses, but Plaza and his writers spend more time on the mechanics of keeping them separated from one another (the film’s conflict) than the characters themselves, who remain woefully underdeveloped. Business with Koldo putting on a suit of armor and the package shot of Clara wielding a chainsaw really don’t amount to anything, much less Army of Darkness-style mayhem. Plaza also sets up fun characters like Koldo’s younger cousin Adrian (Àlex Monner) and goofy cameraman Atun (Borja Glez. Santaolalla) and then basically forgets about them once the mayhem starts.

Although the first 40 or 50 minutes of [•REC]³ are tolerable and keep the viewer hopeful the film will find a new twist on the series, as the film drags on into the second half, the characters suddenly get dumber and dumber, whittling away goodwill and patience by taking an eternity to make obvious decisions. If there was any hope of the film working even as a curiosity piece for fans, it decidedly dribbles away long before the film crawls to an inevitable conclusion. Plaza may have had good intentions with this one, but the result is more red-headed step-child than intriguing alternative.

The DVD
Sony released the first [•REC] in standard definition in the US, then let magnolia pick up the slack for the sequel. Although magnolia also brought [•REC]³ to theaters, Sony has home video duties again, offering Genesis on DVD only. It’s a pretty standard package: the poster art is retained, there is no insert, and the disc is housed in a plastic-reducing Amaray case.

The Video and Audio
Well, 21 minutes of this 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation are intentionally crummy-looking, with visible interlacing, weak color, etc. The other 59 are on the strong end of standard definition, appearing generally well-rendered and free of artifacts but exhibiting a noticeable softness that gets in the way of fine detail in anything but close-ups. Blacks might be a little crushed, but I didn’t spot any artifacts, and whites are a little hot, but that seems to be either intentional or part of Sony’s traditional transformation of whites to very light grays. Scenes drenched in red light also look a little oversaturated, but all in all, this is a fine effort.

Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 is fine but unimpressive, delivering across all channels but never really blowing my socks off. Perhaps more interesting things were being done in the previous two films, but the roaring and gnashing of teeth all seems fairly middle-of-the-road to me. Some bassy echoes during the wedding footage are nicely evocative, but that’s about it. English subtitles and English captions for the deaf and hard of hearing are provided.

The Extras
No interviews or behind-the-scenes material is included, but there’s a fair amount of extra footage here: an extensive reel of deleted scenes (23:15), and a chunk of outtakes (2:47). The only problem? 15 minutes of the deleted scenes are from the movie’s already overlong pre-title sequence, and the rest are not very interesting — the most you’ll get here is an unnecessary explanation of how the authorities find out about the incident.

A promo for Blu-Ray and trailers for Quarantine 2: Terminal, Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning, Resident Evil: Damnation, and “Breaking Bad”: Season 4 play before the main menu. No trailer for [•REC]³: Genesis is included.

Conclusion
Even for fans of the series, [•REC]³: Genesis is a disappointment. As a horror fan and sequel lover myself, I know that most of them are going to rent it regardless, but I have to recommend skipping it.

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THE MOVIE:

First of, there is really no boogieman in The Boogie Man Will Get You. Only the slightest hint of one. Which just goes to show you how slapdash this would-be slapstick comedy from 1942 really is.

Frankenstein-star Boris Karloff stars as mad scientist Professor Billings, owner of a historical homestead and a pile of debt owed to small-tow con man Dr. Arthur Lorencz (Peter Lorre, The Maltese Falcon). When a naïve young woman (Jeff Donnell, In a Lonely Place) decides to buy the rundown house and turn it into a hotel, the usual shenanigans that go on around the Billings place begin to compound. You see, the old Prof. is conducting experiments in his basement, luring traveling salesmen into his lab to be guinea pigs in his experimental procedure to create a flying super soldier to win World War II for the good guys. The girl’s estranged husband (Bill Layden) is a fumbling do-gooder who thinks his wife is being taken advantage of. Soon Billings and Lorencz turn their sights on him, thinking they can submit him to the experiment before he can tell the cops about the strange doings and all the bodies piling up in the cellar. Naturally, something goes wrong each time they try to put him or anyone else into Billings’ machine, but an endless supply of new salesmen keeps the movie chugging along.

The Boogie Man Will Get You is a short B-comedy meant to capitalize on and make hay out of Karloff and Lorre’s sinister reputations. It works in so much as they are the only real reason to watch this cold cinematic stiff. Both are gung-ho to go after the gags and mug for director Lew Landers, with whom the pair made a few other comedies, including The Raven, but based on how much else doesn’t work in The Boogie Man Will Get You, I won’t be checking out that or any of the others any time soon.

The film isn’t terrible, it’s just not very good. The scant plotting would be fine if the dialogue were clever or the pratfalls remotely agile. None of the rest of the supporting cast even belong in the same room as the two stars, and as a director, Landers is merely efficient, not effective. Horror and noir fans will probably enjoy seeing these well-known heavies applying a lighter touch, but even at a brief 66 minutes, expect to take a bathroom break or two–without having any real desire (or need) to hit pause on your DVD player.

THE DVD

Video:
The Boogie Man Will Get You is part of the Sony Choice Collection, the studio’s manufacture-on-demand label, and it is shown in black-and-white as a full-frame DVD transfer. The picture quality is basically average, with okay clarity and not too much by way of shimmer or jagged edges. There are marks on the film, but nothing egregious. Blacks are fine. Everything is fine.

Note: Though my Blu-Ray player ran The Boogie Man Will Get You just fine, my computer is refusing to recognize that there is anything on the disc. This is the first time this has happened to me on one of the Sony M-O-D titles, but I mention it as explanation why there are no screengrabs with this review.

Sound:
The mono soundtrack is free of dropouts and is mostly clear, though an occasional background whistle, like a wind blowing through a tin shed, can be annoying.

Extras:
None. Not even a menu.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Rent It. The Boogie Man Will Get You is harmless fluff, putting two horror regulars into slim comedic situations in hopes that they’ll manage to make something out of them. Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff are good in this would-be wartime chuckler, but the gags are as dead as the monster Karloff is most famous for playing. It would take some kind of mad comedic genius to stitch these set-ups together and make something living out of the pieces. Only for the most dedicated fans of classic noir and horror.

Jamie S. Rich is a novelist and comic book writer. He is best known for his collaborations with Joëlle Jones, including the hardboiled crime comic book You Have Killed Me, the challenging romance 12 Reasons Why I Love Her, and the 2007 prose novel Have You Seen the Horizon Lately, for which Jones did the cover. All three were published by Oni Press. His most recent project is the comedy series Spell Checkers, again with Jones and artist Nicolas Hitori de. Follow Rich’s blog at Confessions123.com.