5 / 10
score
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The Disc

Extra Features
There are two main featurette so long with a trailer under the extra features heading. The first of these is a slideshow of on set photographs and some publicity material which plays for nearly 27 minutes[!) with a soundtrack of music related to the film and filmmakers.

The next extra feature is a making of which isn't your traditional featurette as it cuts between Tim Sullivan sitting in his office talking about the film and the shoot and some footage from the filming to illustrate what he was talking about. If Sullivan is nothing else, he is a good talker and goes into detail about the more complicated scenes, casting and why he decided to make the movie. This is well worth a watch and I can't imagine a commentary track adding a great deal more detail than is included here.

Inline Image

The Picture
With bright colours, good contrast levels and skin tones, this high definition picture is better than some but is far from reference quality. Some of the SFX make-up is far from convincing and you can tell that it is a saw tearing into prosthetic flesh in one scene and, in another, the entrails aren't that much different to the ones that Tom Savini was using in George A. Romero's a zombie movies in the 1970s and ‘80s. Then again, this isn't a film with the biggest of budgets so you can understand that certain aspects were done 'on the cheap' and is really to be expected in an exploitation film like this.

The Sound
Just as with the visuals, the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround soundtrack (sadly, there is no HD option) is far from convincing as it seemed to be mixed badly in parts and I found myself switching from the surround soundtrack to the DD 2.0 stereo option which has the edge when it comes to clarity and crisp dialogue, although you do lose something in scenes when there are night time scenes with cicadas all around you.

This isn't a disc that you would use to show off your home cinema system so all that really want from it is to present the dialogue well and uses the surrounds when necessary to create a soundstage that is both aurally pleasing and fits the visuals. I didn't find that this did exactly that as there were several scenes when the sound just seemed 'off', but this was only the case with the surround sound option and wasn't so bad with the stereo soundtrack.

Inline Image

Final Thoughts
Reviewing a film like this is almost like preaching to the converted as, if you didn't like the first 2001 Maniacs film, there is no way that you're going to wastes time and/or money on this but, if you loved since the first film, then all you need to hear is "this one's like is the first". Of all the different genres around, horror-comedy is possibly the most difficult as the film needs to work as both a horror film and as a comedy without falling in between the two stills and failing to be either. I wasn't a big fan of Tim Sullivan's debut film, despite the impressive performances by Robert Englund and Lin Shaye (who, along with several other 2001 Maniacs alumni, reprises her role here).

Although I am a big fan of exploitation cinema, I much preferred Sullivan's second film, Driftwood, in which he seem to have matured as a filmmaker but this sees him right back where he was five years ago with many of the same actors and filmmakers and using the same type of humour and gore horror.

Taking this on its own merits, it works fairly well and is entertaining for the 80-plus minutes but, and this is from someone who has watched it twice, I don't think it has a great deal of longevity and is certainly not the finest horror film released this month, let alone this year.

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