New Blu-Ray Releases: ‘Halloween’, ‘First Man’, ‘8MM’, ‘Hell Fest’
It’s 2019, but the films of 2018 are still trickling onto Blu-ray, and I’m here to help you sort through some of them. This week, we examine the Blu release of David Gordon Green’sHalloween, the underrated Neil Armstrong picFirst Man, Joel Schumacher’s sleazy Nicolas Cage thriller8MM, and the indie horror flickHell Fest. These are the new Blu-ray releases and their special features you should check out this week, and beyond.
(Now on Digital; On Blu-ray 1/15)
David Gordon Greensmashed the rotting pumpkin that was theHalloweenfranchise, and replaced it with a fresh new Jack-O-Lantern. Green’s film can’t compare toJohn Carpenter’s chilling original film, but very few movies can. Rather than try to ape Carpenter’s style, Green instead goes for something more modern, blending brutal kills with surprisingly funny jokes. At the center of it all is a killer performance byJamie Lee Curtis, returning as Laurie Strode. Laurie has spent the last 40 years waiting for Michael Myers to return, and sure enough, he heads back to Haddonfield on Halloween night. But Laurie is no victim this time. Instead, she reclaims her own narrative, and fights back. After so many lackluster sequels and reboots, watching the newHalloweenis all treat, no tricks. And the new score composed by Carpenter slams, as the kids say. It’s kind of weird that this movie is hitting Blu-ray in January, but hey, let’s just enjoy it, shall we?
Special Features To Note:
Most of the time, when deleted scenes are included on a Blu-ray release, they tend to be kind of lame. You watch them and you think, “Well, now I know why that was cut.” But many of theHalloweendeleted scenes are outstanding, and I wish they had ended up in the film. We see Allyson, Laurie’s granddaughter, out for a morning jog and encountering a dog Michael has killed. It’s a jarring and disturbing. We also get more time with the British podcasters, an explanation as to what happens to Allyson’s jerk boyfriend after their fight, and an hilarious extended moment with the so-called “Bánh mì Cops”, as they riff back and forth about their lunch. The best of the bunch, though, involves a chilling early scene with Laurie. After shooting off some guns at her homemade shooting range, she goes back inside, cleans some guns, and then very slowly puts a pistol beneath her chin, as if she’s about to commit suicide. As this happens, Green cuts to a wide shot, and we see Michael Myers standing in a doorway. Michael’s notactuallythere, of course – he’s yet to escape from the asylum at this point. And sure enough, when Green cuts back, he’s gone. It’s immensely creepy, suggesting how haunted by Michael Laurie is, and how depressed she’s become over the years. I really can’t figure out why this moment, of all the deleted scenes, didn’t end up in the final film.
Beyond that, we get a few very quick “making of” featurettes, where Green, Curtis, Carpenter and more talk about creating the film while also singing the praises of the original. Carpenter is, as always, the highlight, giving droll, no-bullshit answers to questions. There’s also a neat featurette on creating the new Michael Myers mask for the film.
Special Features Include:
(Now On Digital; On Blu-ray 1/22)
I feel a little bad for being so lukewarm toFirst Manwhen I saw it at TIFF in 2018. It’s not that I didn’t like the film. I even gave it a semi-good review. But revisiting the film on Blu-ray has made me appreciate it a lot more. Perhaps I was caught off guard by the intimate, deliberately stilted way the film portrays its characters. This is a movie about a very closed off man, and directorDamien Chazelleeffectively builds that feature into the film.Ryan Goslinghas made a name for himself playing quiet characters who clearly have something going on behind their eyes, and his work here as Neil Armstrong might be his very best performance. There’s a moment early in the film where Armstrong completely breaks down sobbing, and it’s jarring – because he spends the rest of the film so reserved and emotionless.First Manis ultimately about grief, loss, and letting go, and that might not be what you expect when you go into a Neil Armstrong biopic. But the result is rather wonderful.First Manunderperformed at the box office, and has been mostly ignored during awards season, and that’s a shame. Hopefully the film’s home video release will allow more people to reconnect with it, like I did.
Special Features to Note:
There are 8 featurettes here, but all of them areveryquick (we’re talking no more than 2 minutes). My advice would be to watch them all at once to get more bang for your buck. They take you through the production, and while there’s very little meat here, you get a sense of what Chazelle and company were striving for with the film – an intimate story that both put you inside the head of Neil Armstrong, and also highlighted howfucking crazythe idea of going to the moon was.
A behind-the-scenes look at how a giant LED screen projecting images was used instead of a green screen (see above) is the most interesting featurette, as it’s the first time any film production has done something like this. The actors comment on how it’s far more rewarding than just looking at a blank green screen, and it just might be the future of movie-making. Or not.
Joel Schumacher’s sleazy8MMhits Blu-ray from the fine folks at Shout! Factory. This ’90s thriller feels as if it’s been mostly forgotten, and while I wouldn’t exactly call it agreatmovie, it is often gripping. It’s also strange to think a major studio went ahead with this, and it’s hard to imagine that would happen in this day and age. It’s not that the film is overly-graphic – and indeed, if this were an indie picture, it probably would’ve pushed the envelope even further. But for a big studio release,8MMis unrelentingly bleak and nasty.Nicolas Cage, giving a very restrained performance, is a private eye hired to find out if a recently discovered snuff film is real. The case sends him down a pornographic rabbit hole where he encounters all sorts of colorful characters (including a youngJoaquin Phoenixas a porn store clerk, andJames Gandolfinias a producer). While I enjoy (is that the right word? Maybe appreciate is better)8MM, I think Schumacher was the wrong person to direct it, and had someone else handled it, it might have turned out even better.
A new, candid interview with Schumacher included on the disc is a hoot. As I said above, I don’t think Schumacher was right for the material. But it’s clear that he was committed to the film from this interview. He reveals that he wanted to get as far away from blockbusters and summer movies as possible at the time, and asked his agency to find him something different. They told him that there was a great script – fromSevenwriterAndrew Kevin Walker– floating around at Sony, but no one wanted to touch it because of the subject matter. Schumacher happily volunteered.
Schumacher wanted Russell Crowe for the lead role, and he wanted to shoot a “down and dirty” hand-held picture. Crowe was ready to sign on, but then Nicolas Cage became involved. Cage was at the height of his career at this point, and Crowe had yet to break out withGladiator. Schumacher said he was happy to make either a more grungy pic with Crowe, or a more studio-driven film with Cage – obviously, the studio went with Cage.The filmmaker also gives us a piece of trivia that you’re able to now use to impress your friends at parties: if you have a sex scene in a movie where a man is seen thrusting 4 times, you’ll get an NC-17 rating. If he only thrusts 3 times, you’ll get an R. Hooray for Hollywood!
Gregory Plotkin’sHell Festhas a neat premise: what if a real serial killer was stalking around a haunted attraction? No one would notice, because they’d think it was all part of the act! Cool! Unfortunately,Hell Festnever does much with that set-up. Here, a group of friends attend Hell Fest, which is a giant horror-themed amusement park (that Ireallywish existed, because I’d go there all the time). I could use this opportunity to explain who these young folk are, but honestly, they’re all pretty generic and only exist so they can be slashed or hacked. The only stand-out is the lead, Natalie, played believably byAmy Forsyth(Channel Zero). Forsyth has a very natural acting style here, and the way she delivers her dialogue sounds real – like a real college kid, not a college kid in a movie. It works. Other than Forsyth’s performance,Hell Festboasts some clever production design (the themes of the various haunts the characters stumble through are fun), and a few surprisingly nasty kills, complete with practical gore. There’s agoodmovie in here somewhere, but this ain’t it, chief. That said, if you’re looking for a simple, no-brainer horror pic with a few bloody moments, you might enjoy this.
Your standard “making of” featurette, where Potlkin and producerGale Anne Hurd(The Walking Dead) start off by talking about Hell Fest as if it’s a real place (it’s not, as far as I can tell). Then they breakdown the plot and a few behind-the-scenes details. Production designer Michael T. Perry had experience building both haunts and amusement park rides, which explains why these elements are probably the most interesting part of the movie.
