How Good Does Mark Of the Witch Look?

Today we have another new release from Code Red - in fact, it was sold in the same bundle as Lord Shango.  This one's a little different, but sort of in the same vein as well.  It's a subtle, talky little chiller called Mark of the Witch; and while it was technically released in 1970, it's super 60s. This isn't it's first release (Code Red spine #84, if you're keeping track of these things... Wow. Even if you count the long-delayed Electric Chair, have they really released eighty-three previous blu-rays?), but it is the film's debut in HD.

Did I mention that this film was talky? This movie could easily be produced as a stage play. That's not necessarily a criticism, but if you're looking for cheap thrills, this is not your movie.  It reminds me in a way of Richard Matheson's Burn, Witch, Burn, but without the class.  After a prologue where a witch curses her coven for not intervening as she's being hung, we cut to a "modern day" (read: pure 60's) college campus, where a professor teaches his students about "the psychology of superstition." His best and perkiest student decides to hold a seance with the class to summon a witch, but it doesn't seem to work. Except of course it really did, and now that student is possessed by the witch from the opening, and it turns out her prof is the ancestor of one of the cursed coven.  Can he stop her before she performs she hatches her nasty Satanic plot, even though she's already enslaved him to do her bidding?

The fun of this movie is partly in the script, which feels like a smart but not ingenious TV movie, and partly in lead performance of Anitra Walsh, who goes from bubbly do-gooder to a 300 year-old murderous mastermind. It's not an amazing performance, but it sure is a great part.  The rest of the cast is all fine, and the film leisurely gets to a fairly rewarding conclusion.  It's not a great movie, but it's on par with a good episode of Tales From the Crypt.  The soundtrack has a kind of theramin thing going on, and the opening credits play an acappella "witch's rune," which is both interesting and irritating at the same time.

Now, there's been some talk about this being the "uncut version," which it is. But just the concept of this film having an uncut version might be surprising to viewers who've seen this film before, because it's so chaste.  However, there are two quick, successive shots, a split second each, of nudity that's often cut out of the film (the online version I'd watched before ordering this didn't have it).  They're both inserts of a woman who's obviously a body double, though they do a good job of matching the wardrobe and location.  Personally, I think it almost goes against the film's tone, which is selling ideas over shocks, but I know Code Red audiences don't want to be denied their to topless shots, so you'll be relieved to know they're in here.  Also a parakeet explodes.  That's a highlight.

So, like I said, this one's been released a few times before, including by Code Red.  It debuted on an old, 1.66:1 Image double-bill DVD, paired with The Bride Wore Blood.  And that was the cut version, by the way.  Then, in 2009, Code Red release the R-rated cut on DVD in 1.78:1 on a double-bill with the fullscreen version of Devil Times Five.  In 2014, they released it a second time, on their first 6-Pack DVD collection.  Personally, I never bothered to pick up this film before in any version, so I'm meeting it for the first time here on Code Red's new 2016 blu-ray.

And it looks great! Presented again in 1.78:1, this transfer is in excellent shape, and the picture is beautiful. It's a new 2k scan of the original negatives and looks it. There are the occasional specks and flecks, but it's surprisingly clean, and the colors are super vivid. Detail is strong. I mean, this film almost shouldn't look as good as it does here. I'm really impressed.

The original mono is presented here in DTS-HD and sounds very clear and untreated, maybe carrying a very slight, natural hiss with it. Occasionally the volume dips at random, and then pops back up, but that's the only real trouble. And it's pretty minor; you're always able to make out all the dialogue clearly. Oh, and of course there are no subtitles.

There also aren't any extras on here, except for the trailer, which is at least better than nothing. An interview or something might've been nice, but I can't imagine it would be very easy to scare anybody up from this film 46 years later. I was starting to get used to having Katriana wrap-arounds on all these Code Red titles, and while I was never terribly taken with them, I do kinda miss her.

So do I recommend this? It's a good little film that's worth a watch, and the blu-ray presentation is excellent. So it's a very respectable pick-up; I like it. But if you're holding out for really great or cool films to add to your collection, this ain't exactly Hellraiser, or even Burn, Witch, Burn.

I Get The Pit! (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

Sweet, I think Kino released this blu just for me!  =)  I'm a big fan of The Pit; but it's a pretty weird, under-appreciated little flick.  If you told me I was one of only five people on Earth who liked this movie, I wouldn't be at all surprised.  But I really like it!  It's just twisted enough to walk a very fine line of humor and darkness.  It's definitely one of those, "they sure wouldn't make this movie today" kinda flicks.  And this isn't just The Pit's blu-ray debut, it's the first time we're getting it as a special edition, with extras to attempt to explain the bizarre, unfathomable thinking that went into making this film what it is.

It's about this 12 year-old boy who everybody picks on and treats terribly, from the other children playing cruel tricks on him to the adults in his life treating him like trash.  It seems he's been stigmatized as a "troubled" kid, but the isolation's starting to turn him genuinely weird.  Plus, he's dealing with all the regular life issues we all face in our awkward tween years, becoming an adult.  Having to let go of childish things, developing a sexual nature, and having an evil teddy bear that tells him to act on all his worst impulses.  That's already enough for a movie, but we haven't even gotten to the titular pit, which he finds in the woods.  It's full of hairy monsters he calls "tra-la-logs," who eat people.  So, you know, he's got a lot going on in his life when his parents decide to go away on an extended trip, and leave him with a babysitter who's earning her psychology degree by babysitting problem children.  He develops a crush on her while she has no idea what kind of mess she's slowly unraveling.

This is a real "I can't believe what I'm seeing" movie, but it's also quite intelligently written.  There's some very interesting, honest human psychology going on here that most movies don't have the nerve to get into.  And there's also fun and dark flights of fancy.  According to interviews, both online and on this blu, the original screenplay went for a darker, more realistic approach, and the director gets some flack for playing fast and loose with the material.  But personally, I'm glad for all the changes, because it sounds like it would've been a more conventional psychodrama/ horror movie.  Still worth watching, I'm sure; but the fact that this movie travels even further in almost every direction makes it much more fun and surprising, going just far enough to not lose the strength of the core material, even if it does make some pretty liberal license.  The cast is solid (especially that kid), the music has a fun, old school Hollywood feel, and the cinematography and special effects are a little pedestrian, but fine in service of a story that doesn't need the attention being taken away from it anyway.

The Pit has only been released on DVD once before, as part of a 2004 double-bill with Hellgate (another weird, 80s horror that I'm not overly impressed with, but it does have its moments) from Anchor Bay.  It's a flipper disc and completely barebones apart from a stills gallery and a two-page insert with each film's poster art.  I had to get it, though, just to have this movie in my collection and at least see it in widescreen.  But now it's out in HD, and in a special edition thanks to this brand new blu-ray from Kino released just this week!

2004 Anchor Bay DVD on top; 2016 Kino blu-ray below.

This isn't the same old scan just slapped onto an HD disc, this is an all new 2k restoration.  It's clearly taken from the same print, though - note the identical bit of green vertical damage on the trunk in the second set of shots.  And boy, is it clearly taken from a print.  It's super contrast-y, grainy and probably crushing a few blacks.  It almost looks like 16mm here.  But it's still a huge step up from the DVD, which was really soft in comparison.  The blu is much sharper and clearer, and dials down the reds, which were a little too strong, I think, on the DVD.  I'm sure it could still look a lot, lot better if they had the original negatives, but again, compared to the DVD, it's a big step up.  The framing's adjusted slightly, too, and presented in 1.78:1 on the blu, where it was matted to 1.85:1 on the DVD.  And yes, I did point out a little damage earlier, but it's very sporadic.  You'll notice some flecks and scratches here and there, but it's not a terribly damaged print.

We're given a simple 2.0 track in DTS-HD.  There's a little bit of hiss, but the audio is pretty robust and the score sounds great.  No subs.  Sorry hearing impaired viewers; your money's no good here.

Possibly the most compelling aspect of this new release, though, is the collection of special features.  First, we get a pretty good, informative audio commentary by Paul Corupe of canuxploitation.com and Jason Pichonsky of depthsploitation.com.  The real coup, though, are the on camera interviews.  First, we get Sammy Snyders, the kid himself.  He has a long chat, telling us a bit about his career before and after the film, but mostly The Pit itself, which fortunately he remembers quite well.  We also get a fun, if shorter and breezier talk with his co-star Jeannie Elias.  Most fascinatingly, we hear from the screenwriter himself, Ian A. Stuart, who talks all about the ideas he put into the film, as well as everything they changed.  He seems to think nobody will understand the film without his original ending; but I disagree, I think people get it as-is, even if it's a little more abstract and there's no coda to spell everything out.  Still great to hear his take on it all.  And finally, we hear from the composer, Victor Davies.  This has a rather distinct, orchestral (for 80s horror) score, so I was glad to hear how that came about, though it was a little disheartening to hear that he didn't seem to care much for the film itself.  Neither did Stuart, for that matter.  But, I get it; this is definitely not a film for general audiences.  Anyway, that's about it except for a healthy collection of bonus trailers.  They stills gallery from the DVD was dropped, but there wasn't much terribly interesting in that one, anyway.  They actually had more interesting behind-the-scenes photos incorporated into the interviews.

So if you've got the DVD, go ahead and chuck it.  This is a huge improvement; and if you must have Hellgate, Arrow's actually released a much fancier special edition DVD of it in 2014, with a blu-ray edition coming out at the end of this year.  But I doubt very many people have the DVD, and I don't foresee this flick being a big seller on blu, either.  And that's a shame, because this is a delightfully insane film that's only appreciated by a teensy, tiny devoted cult audience, of which I am one.  So if anyone at Kino reads this, at least know that I'm super grateful for this release.  Thank you, guys.

Wow! My Best Blind Buy In a Long Time: Code Red's Lord Shango

Admittedly, calling something "my best blind buy in a long time" doesn't carry so much weight when you learn that I almost never blind buy.  It's fun to see people talking online about blind buying Scream Factory and Arrow titles like, "this sounds interesting," and guessing which will be the best to pre-order, when I grew up on all these movies and know exactly how good or not I think they are.  And when I don't know the movies but I think they're up my alley, I'll turn the internet upside down and shake out versions to test and see if I really need it in my collection or not.  But when Code Red announced Lord Shango as an upcoming title, it looked super interesting, and I just couldn't find a version to preview anywhere.  I saw the trailer and some clips, but that was it, so I took a gamble... and fucking won!

First, let me tell you what Lord Shango is not: blaxploitation.  Yeah, it's a 70s movie with an all black cast and crew (well, I'm not entirely sure about director Ray Marsh, who also worked on the recent Code Red release A Knife for the Ladies), and a lot of great music.  But this is to something like Sugar Hill what Ganja and Hess is to Blacula.  In fact, this stars Marlene "Hess" Clark, who commands the screen here as much as she did there, and she's surrounded by an equally strong cast.  And it's written by playwright Paul Carter Harrison; so yeah, come in looking for some serious, intelligent drama with a violent/ horror twist, not severed limbs and naked breasts.

Lord Shango is set in a small town... somewhere, where the community is divided between devout Christianity and an old voodoo-like religion that worships the titular Shango.  Clark's having trouble getting pregnant and thinks going with her daughter to get baptized may bring them luck, but the daughter's fiancee is a devout disciple of Shango and interrupts the proceedings.  So the Christian clergy drown him in the baptism waters(!).  The next night, the daughter thinks she's being visited by him, but it's really her stepfather/ Clark's husband, who gets her pregnant.  The plot gets more intricate, and I won't spoil it all, but it essentially boils down to a bit of a bloody back and forth with this crazy family drama caught in between two religions, one of which happens to call for a lot of blood sacrifices.  There's a supernatural element to the proceedings, and people get killed, so it does qualify as a horror film.  But it leans more towards the serious drama side, and it's definitely not an FX film.  I like how neither religion is demonized, like you'd usually see in a little film like this... they're both largely trying to do right but can't escape their member's human flaws.

Code Red's brand new blu-ray release is almost Lord Shango's debut on disc.  It's been included in a couple of those budget multi-pack sets from BCI, but that's it until now.  Code Red's given it an all new HD master for 2016, presenting the film to us in widescreen for pretty much the very first time since it's limited theatrical run back in the 70s.

The film is presented in 1.78:1, or 1.77 if you want to split hairs, and is generally a very strong HD transfer of some rather worn, dusty film elements.  The picture is steady, grain looks natural, but there's a lot of fading and aging.  The first twenty minutes or so sports a lot of dirt and damage, including vertical green lines through the picture, but that does tend to clear up as the film proceeds, only worsening again at the reel changes.  In other words, another of Code Red's patented "grindhouse prints," although it's not as bad as The Redeemer or is most infamous ones.  Obviously, a pristine picture from an immaculate OCN would be ideal, and this picture does at time get spotty, with colors fading in and out; but it's very watchable.  The audio's got a bit of hiss to it as well, which comes and goes, but it's perfectly fine.  Only one scene in the beginning as characters yelling at and over each other has it actually hard to make out the dialogue, and I do wonder if an ultra-high end cleanup by LucasFilm could've cleared that up a little, but that's obviously how the scene was designed.

It's impressive to see any extras at all on this off-the-track little film, so it's not surprising we don't get very much.  The main feature is an interview with Marlene Clark, which the case and opening title refers to as a "career interview," where she talks about her whole film career rather than Lord Shango specifically.  Okay, but it's not even really that.  She's just talking about Night Of the Cobra Woman and Black Mamba, and that's it.  Kind of random.  Is this an excerpt from her interview on Scorpion's recent Night Of the Cobra Woman release?  Or maybe Code Red was planning a Black Mamba release, but scrapped it?  I don't know, but something like that is going on here.  Still, Marlene was funny and it's a good interview.  It just would've been nice if she mentioned Lord Shango at least once.

The only other extra is the trailer, which is pretty low quality and probably taken from the internet.  But I'm still glad they've included it, because it's got some cool narration and gives you a glimpse of the film in a fullscreen version.  So we can kinda appreciate how far the blu-ray has taken us.

So overall, I'd say this is a pretty excellent blu-ray of a surprisingly good movie.  Ganja and Hess is a great barometer for if you'll like this.  Not just because Marlene Clark fans will be happy, but because the film has a similar tone and sensibilities.  If you're looking for more of a fun or trashy experience, this won't be for you.  There are no cool kills, and Shango doesn't reveal himself to be a laser-shooting demon at the end.  But I was very impressed with it, not to mention relieved that I didn't blind buy a dud.  I did that once.  It was called The Dead Hate the Living.

I Don't Know Jack, Rare Jack Nance/ David Lynch Documentary

We've got a lot of exciting new releases to cover this Fall, as you've seen with the Vestron titles and all.  But this site just wouldn't be DVD Exotica if I didn't find time to include the offbeat, rare and out of print DVDs, too.  So today we have a cool David Lynch documentary that isn't actually by or about David Lynch.  It's called I Don't Know Jack, from 2002.  And if you don't know who Jack Nance is, he's the titular star of Eraserhead and Pete on Twin Peaks; and this film tells his whole life story, interviewing all his relatives and co-stars, including his troubled relationships, theatrical & film career and his tragic death in 1996.

The film does get a little stuck in his early career in the theater, which is hard to stay involved in when you've never seen any of the shows they're talking about.  His personal life is fascinating - he shot someone for starters - and things pick again when they get to his films, which we can recognize and get involved in.  And you'll be gripped when they get to the circumstances of his death... Pretty much everybody talking about him has a very personal connection to him and get emotional, which definitely gives the film so heft, but I also think a consequence of that is it gets a little indulgently inclusive, too.  But there is a lull there you should be forewarned about.  Don't turn it off, though; it absolutely picks up.

It's mostly talking heads, with so many of his friends and family sharing personal memories.  Lynch, director Bob Logan, Dennis Hopper (who acted with Nance in Blue Velvet), and Twin Peaks costars Charlotte Stewart (Betty, Bobby's mom) & Catherine Coulson (the log lady, not to mention Nance's second wife) all appear to offer their stories as well, even his old casting director.  There's great, poignant clips taken not just from his famous roles with Lynch, but his lesser known films like Motorama and Meatballs 4.  They have photos from every stage of his life and some archival footage of him.  Every Lynch fan should check this out, even if the name Jack Nance doesn't a lot of bells for you.  Once you've seen this, you'll have a fresh appreciation for him and be sad he's gone.

The picture ain't pretty, and I don't imagine there's any point in waiting for a blu-ray edition.  This is a fuzzy, pixelated fullscreen DVD that looks like it was shot with early standard def digital cameras.  This was the age of Inland Empire and Rabbits, after all.  Even the film clips are soft and cropped, TV-standard fullscreen images.  And the overall film isn't interlaced, but some of the film clips are.  This is no technological showcase.  Audio is a basic but respectable stereo track and there are no subtitle options or anything.

And you don't want to just download or stream this film online; you'll definitely want to get your hands on the DVD for the extra feature on here: Unsolved Homicide, where they interview Twin Peaks actress Kimmy Robertson (Lucy), who says she has information about Nance's unsolved murder.  They interview the original homicide detective who handled Nance's case.  Then Robertson goes to a medium to channel Nance(!), to get to the bottom of his death.  It's a whole crazy other thing.

Apart from that, there aren't too many other extras.  There's an animated photo gallery, the trailer, plus some production notes and bonus trailers.  The DVD also includes a secret bonus code supposedly for a "DVD members area" of their website with exclusive footage of Jack Nance, but that section never seems to have been created on their site.

This was initially released by an indie outfit named Next Stop Studios as an exclusive on davidlynch.com, which you could order separately or in a set with Eraserhead and Lynch's short films.  But it, along with the other davidlynch.com DVDs, wound up getting a wider release a little later on.  It's since gone out of print and tends to get a little pricey among collectors online.  In theory, it still seems to be available directly from the film's official site, jacknance.com.  But I tried clicking their Paypal button and couldn't get it to work; so go ahead and futz with it, but if you want this one, you may have to jump into the EBay fray.

Now, you may've also spotted a 2-disc edition online and wandered what the difference is.  Well, the main DVD is the same, with the same version of the film and all the same extras.  The second disc is just a CD of the soundtrack with the folksy blues songs from the doc.  It's called the Movie-Music Edition.  So, you might be interested in tracking down that version, but if you're just interested in the best version of the film and all the special features, the single disc'll do ya.  And you should get at least one version, because it's a fascinating and even moving look at a great actor the industry mostly ignored.

A Smorgasmorgue of Horror: Blood Diner (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

Released concurrently with Chopping Mall is the second release in Lions Gate exciting, new Vestron Line: Blood Diner. Blood Diner is one crazy, campy, wacko semi-sequel to Herschel Gordon Lewis's most famous feature, Blood Feast.  It does have a lot of references to the original - including the basic premise of madmen gruesomely murdering women with the insane motive of resurrecting an ancient Goddess named Sheetar - but tonally it couldn't be much further removed.  It's one of the most 80s 80s movies you're likely to come across, and pretty much all of its differences from the original are what make it appealing.

A movie like this really relies on hip parents.  Because if you wait until you're at least 17 to see R-rated (or in this case, unrated) movies like this, or Deathrow Gameshow, you've kinda missed the boat.  Because most of the jokes in this movie really aren't funny, despite being really overt; but they are when you're a kid, and you're experiencing a film break the rules for the first time.  I took a 'Cult Films' course at University, and I could write a very dry paragraph about how cult films are really all about breaking taboos, and the most famous and successful ones have always tackled the most culturally feared of them, like cannibalism and incest.  But instead I'll just give you a very real, personal example from Blood Diner.  It opens with a news radio broadcast warning about an escape maniac on the loose, "armed with a meat cleaver in one hand and his genitals in the other."  Are you going to laugh, encountering that for the first time at 30?  I don't know, but I can still vividly remember telling all the kids that most hilarious moment ever on the playground the next day after I first saw it.  And now that I'm older, both my best friend and I immediately had film this on pre-order when it was first announced.

This movie is really a mess, but that's actually the best thing about it.  Blood Feast is a very simple movie, basically just moving from one set-piece of our antagonist murdering a woman in her home to another.  It's from the 60s, so there's not really any gore or special effects besides pouring fake blood on women's limbs, and there's not much story except for a little simultaneous police procedural of a couple cops trying to stop the guy we're watching on his killing spree.  In fact, to be honest, when I first saw it, it bored me to tears and I couldn't have been more disappointed, giving the lurid marketing and shocking reputation it had (although since he just tragically passed, I'll add that I've always been a fan of his Two Thousand Maniacs).  And I believe that 80s kid sitting on his couch wondering he could've been so let down by such a notorious film is the exact target audience for this film.  Because yes, those basic elements are still there, even the police arriving too late at every crime scene.

But, at least for underage sensibilities, Blood Diner is the least boring movie possible.  Tons of characters, locations, set pieces, inventive gore effects, a totally unpredictable story with one bizarre-o tangent after another, from a prolonged wrestling sequence to a rock star's brains blasting out of the top of his head in front of a packed house.  It's extremely over-the-top, it's extremely lively and high energy.  It's constantly trying to shock and make you laugh, and it's full of bouncy pop songs and upbeat doo-wop music.  At it's worst, it's like a Troma movie, always wallowing in the lowest common denominator pandering.  At it's best, it's an almost surreal, high-camp, gonzo horror comedy.  How much you get out of it definitely depends on how much you're willing to play along, and again, it really helps if you're naive and impressionable.  But even if you hate it, there's undeniably something there that's given this cult film legs to outlast most of its cult film peers all these decades later.

Blood Diner's had a surprisingly sparse history on DVD.  I held onto my VHS tape for the longest time.  It took a while to come out the first time, and throughout most of the format's history, it was still only available as a 2004 import from Dragon Film Entertainment.  It was never available at all in the USA until it quietly appeared on Lionsgate's 2015 Horror Collection 6 Movie Pack set, barebones, packed onto the same disc as two other films.  That same year, there was a blu-ray released in Germany, and now finally, it's gotten the high-end, domestic special edition treatment as one of the flagship releases in the new Vestron Video line.  Let's see how the new blu looks compared to the 2015 DVD.

2015 Horror Collection DVD on top; 2016 Vestron blu-ray below.

If you want to really appreciate this blu-ray, just hold it up against the DVD - wow, what a difference!  They're both 1.78:1, but the framing is slightly adjusted.  The color timing is different, too.  Look at the white walls in the first set of shots.  They look yellow on the DVD, to slightly blueish, which makes sense, as it's meant to be a nighttime scene with light coming in through the window and door.  So that's better.  Much more significant, however, is the fact that the DVD is a murky, soft, interlaced mess!.  It's so soft, it almost erases the interlacing by smudging it all together.  But thankfully the blu does not have those problems.  The HD transfer is so much clearer and attractive to look at.  It's actually not an amazing transfer on its own terms.  It still looks soft and kind of washed out with greyish blacks.  I suspect they may not have had access to the original negatives.  But, just on it's own terms, as a blu-ray, it's still a respectable B picture (no pun intended). But looking at that DVD, should you upgrade?  Oh, yeah!

For audio, we get the original mono audio in DTS-HD, and it sounds pretty great.  There are syncing issues, but that's not a flaw on the blu-ray's part; a lot of this movie is just, often poorly, post-synced.  Vestron also comes through with optional English subtitles.

But I'm most excited about the special features.  Blood Diner has really never had any extras before, but now Vestron has paired up with Red Shirt Pictures for some incredible stuff.  First, director Jackie Kong provides a cool audio commentary track.  But even more exciting than that is the feature length documentary, which brings together just about everybody who's still alive.  Kong, the producer, the screenwriter, creative consultant Bill Osco, stars Carl Crew, Roger Dauer & Drew Godderis, the composer and the director of photography.  It's all nicely edited, and everyone has great memories of the filming.  Honestly, if this documentary had been sold on its own, I would have happily bought it and been super satisfied.  And besides that, there's an additional on-camera interview with the film's creative consultant Eric Caiden, plus a healthy collection of trailers, TV spots and radio spots.  There's also a stills gallery, and like Chopping Mall, it comes in a cool, glossy slipcover.

This film isn't for everyone, but even if you're on the fence about adding this film to your collection, I think you'll find the documentary is absolutely worth it.  Definitely not the movie to impress your teachers with, but a fun time.  And the way this film has been treated is definitely keeping me excited for the future releases in this Vestron series... rumor has it that Parents and Lair Of the White Worm are next to be announced, and I hope so because both of those would be awesome!

Lionsgate Becomes a Force for Good, Starting With Chopping Mall (DVD/ Blu-ray Comparison)

Chopping Mall is one of the movies I lightly covered as part of Lionsgate's Horror Collection 8 Movie Pack.  But I think it's time we allow it to fly solo, given that it's just debuted as the inaugural release in Lionsgate's new Vestron Video line of cult horror collector's edition blu-rays.  And this is a very deserving title to start off with.  I mean, this isn't just the first time we're getting Jim Wynorski's all-time best film in HD (sorry, Busty Cops 2!); it's the first time we're getting to see it widescreen.

In the Horror Collection post, I described Chopping Mall as a crowd pleaser, and I stand by that.  It's cheesy and doesn't have a subtle bone in its body, but it's a perfect piece of 80s B-movie entertainment.  A group of teenagers stay overnight to party inside a shopping mall.  Unfortunately, they chose the same night that the mall installed their new collection of robot security guards and impenetrable metal doors sealing all the exits.  That would actually have been fine, if their luck didn't worsen as lightning strikes the building, turning the robots turn into berserk killing machines.  It becomes a small war of man versus machine, and there's plenty of casualties.

Cameos by Paul Bartel, Mary Woronov, Angus Scrimm and Dick Miller do a lot to elevate the proceedings, but this film is a good time on its own.  The production values are surprisingly high, with big explosions seemingly being set off in a real, working shopping mall; and the robots look great.  The soundtrack is a really effective and even catchy at times synth creation, and there's some pretty effective gore effects.  The characters are heavy-handed but cute, and the movie flies by at a brisk pace from one entertaining set-piece to another.  I'd hate to party with the person who couldn't get at least some enjoyment out of this picture.

Chopping Mall debuted on DVD as a fullscreen special edition back in 2004.  Why fullscreen?  Well, clearly not everybody behind the release cared as much as they should've.  At least it had some extras.  It was all we got for a very long time, though it did turn up again, completely barebones, in the aforementioned Horror Collection 2-disc set in 2012.  I've still got both of those, so we'll be doing an all-out comparison.  But don't expect them to hold a candle to Lionsgate/ Vestron's brand new 2016 blu-ray.

2004 DVD on top; 2012 Horror Collection DVD mid; 2016 blu-ray bottom.

Oh yeah, look at that.  Actually, it's interesting to note that the two DVD transfers are different in more ways than just the compression (they stick Chopping Mall on the same disc with three other movies in the set).  The framing is slightly different - the second DVD has a little more picture on the top and left-hand side.  And the original DVD's color timing is different: greener, compared to the Horror Collection's redder look.  Like, they actually went back at some point and made a new, equally unimpressive master from the same video source?  Anyway, it's all academic now, because thanks to the new version, there's no reason ever to look at the old DVDs again.

Like I said, the new blu is finally widescreen, matted to 1.78:1 (despite saying 1.85:1 on the case).  It turns out the old DVDs weren't entirely just open matte, as we do gain a little more picture along the sides, but it's mostly a question of matting out the extra vertical information.  We've got the most natural set of colors, somewhere in between the two poles of the past releases.  And the picture is so much clearer and more defined in HD.  It's a major boost since the old DVDs are soft.  It's not quite a perfect transfer.  Sometimes the picture's still a little soft, though I have a feeling that's more to do with the original film, since grain is often quite visible and natural looking.  But there's also what looks like a little funky macro-blocking or digital noise going on at times.  Like, look at this thumb.  So it's not a perfect five-star transfer, but compared to what we've had before it's amazing.  And even compared to other blu-rays, it's still safely at least in the "very good" range.

Vestron provides the original mono audio in DTS-HD, and it sounds great.  There are also optional English SDH subtitles, and they even include the isolated film score, also in DTS-HD.  They're really doing it right here.

I called the old 2004 DVD a special edition because, despite being fullscreen, it really was.  It had some solid extras, including an entertaining commentary with Wynorski and his co-writer Steve Mitchell, and a really neat featurette on the killbots, and the trailer.  And happily, all of that has been carried over to the new Vestron release.  Even more happily, there's also a whole ton of new stuff, that really does this film justice.  First of all, there are two new audio commentaries: one with Wynorski and Mitchell again, but this time joined by lead actress Kelli Maroney - and I think it's even better than the original, a perfect blend of entertaining and informative.  And then the other one's with horror critics Nathaniel Thompson and Ryan Turek, which you can honestly skip, as all they really do is talk about themselves and the 80s in general.  After about five minutes, they never really mention Chopping Mall again.  But I think the best extra of them all isn't even a commentary but the roughly half-hour retrospective documentary with Wynorski, Mitchell, and almost the entire cast, including Barbara Crampton.  It's a lot of fun and fairly comprehensive.

But there's a lot of other fun stuff, too.  There's a brief look back at an unfilmed deleted scene, with Mitchell and Wynorski explaining it and then reading from the original script (more with the Blands!), and interview with the film's composer and a new featurette on the composer.  Those are the must-see stuff.  Then there's some sillier things, like a gag interview with one of the robots, voiced by Wynorski (who also voiced them in the film), and an interview with a fan who actually has the last surviving killbot.  It comes in a nice, glossy slipcover, too.

I couldn't be happier with this release.  It's a fun movie given ideal, first class treatment.  They did everything right, and that's all the more impressive given how much Lionsgate didn't get right - with this film and their incredible back catalog they'd been callously sitting on for decades.  I'm thrilled thinking about all of the films I thought we'd never get finally not only coming out but getting amazing blu-rays in this stellar new line.  They've already got a bunch of great titles following this one up, and who knows how much more they continue to do if this line takes off.  I can't wait.