It does pain this reviewer to say that the extras on this DVD release do not match up pound for pound with the amount of bloody meat found in the actual feature. While the combination of commentary, bonus interviews, and a trivia game sounds like a lot, they somehow don't amount to something one would expect from a documentary that encompasses decades of horror films.
It goes without saying that the feature itself is something that could be watched over and over, but does it retain that same replay value with the commentary track playing? Producers Rachel Belofsky and Rudy Scalese join with editor Michael Bohusz to lay down the track that would hopefully shed some light on what went into making this film. Sigh. Well, it would have been nice to hear some new information, but these three folks regurgitate an abundance of the same facts and trivia the viewer has already seen in the documentary itself. The thrill-less talk about how interviews and footage had to be cut down to make it into the project also aids in watering down the audio track. Redundant is what best describes the commentary track ... redundant and tame.
If you make it through the commentary track and are in need a boost to keep the blood pumping, then it would be high time to check out the largest section of special features: the bonus interviews. It isn't really fair to call these bonus, as extended would be a much more truthful word, or even the term 'deleted'. When conducting an interview, there may be times that the interviewee may go off on a tangent and spill info that may not even pertain to the horror or slasher genre. In some cases the facts and trivia could be seen by some to be totally boring. We certainly get a mixed bag of that here.
John Dunning and Joseph Stefano provide some interesting material on their respective films, but it is obvious why these were struck from the final film. The same cannot be said about Bob Clark's segment. Clark dishes out the same quality observations and points as to why the original Black Christmas broke some molds in the slasher genre. Porky's fans should pay attention during the end of his segment for more info on the remake. Paul Lynch lets us all know, in less than three minutes, how Prom Night was invented and how the Canada of a few decades ago is not like the Canada we know of today.
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