This Week's Haul sees another quartet of Laserdiscs featuring a slasher classic, an underrated John Carpenter flick, an action film everyone needs to see, and an X-rated martial arts classic.
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During the last ten years of Laserdisc, studios were upping their game by making their releases more valuable to consumers by creating special features exclusively for their Laserdisc releases. Everyone talks about how Criterion was the end-all, be-all when it came to special features but, for my money, it was Universal doing all the heavy lifting. Sure, Criterion recorded a lot of commentary tracks but they didn't really do too much in terms of making ofs.
In 1995, Universal Home Video introduced a new line of premium Laserdisc releases under the "Signature Collection" banner. These releases would be packaged in either gatefold or "box" style packaging (I don't know what the second style is called but it is a thicker style packaging where, instead of opening up the packaging like a book, the front of the packaging can be lifted up and off to reveal the discs and booklet below.) Each of these releases would contain a wealth of special features that included commentary tracks, newly created making ofs (many of which were feature length), deleted scenes, and trailers. The line included classic films like JAWS, THE LAST STARFIGHTER, and FIELD OF DREAMS alongside more contemporary releases like THE FRIGHTENERS, THE MUMMY (1999), and BLUES BROTHERS 2000. By the time the line ended in 1999, there were 32 releases.
I have been trying to collect all of these releases and my latest acquisition is the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock classic, PSYCHO. I have reviewed PSYCHO before, hosting a week long appreciation of the series back when I first started this site. I have always been on the lookout for this Laserdisc release and I was so fortunate enough to find it recently.
Anyone who has owned any of the various home video releases of PSYCHO over the years will be very familiar with the special features found on this release. There is a feature length retrospective documentary that covers all aspects of the film from the original book all the way to the film's lasting legacy. There was also newsreel footage from the film's premiere, still galleries, the shower scene storyboards, and trailers. You can also switch over to a second analog track to listen to Bernard Herrmann's iconic (I used to correctly here unlike so many others nowadays) isolated from the other sounds from the film.
The packaging here is gorgeous. The front cover features some nice art that focuses on the house and Marian's screaming face. Inside, you find three laserdisc in individuals sleeves and a five page, fold out "booklet" with a brief history of the film, letter Hitchcock's daughter, Pat, and chapter selections for the film and all of the special features.
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John Carpenter is my favorite director. He makes films that I want to see and has a style that is instantly recogniable. He has made some of the best films of all time (THE THING) and is the father of the slasher film (HALLOWEEN). I did a run a few years ago of all his films in order of release, including his TV films and episodes of MASTERS OF HORROR, and I loved every second of it (even his lesser films like MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN).
I first saw ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 when I lived in Nashville, TN in the early 2000s. I had just gotten a job at a local Hollywood Video and I wanted to treat myself. I went to a local Media Play and bought the Image Entertainment Special Edition DVD of ASSAULT. I went home and watched it twice. I had fallen in love with the film on the first viewing and now I can watch it any time and enjoy the hell out of it.
Image Entertainment released ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 on Laserdisc in 1994 in fine fashion. The picture quality was really good for the time and Image gave the film a few extras. We got a really solid commentary from Carpenter who gives us a lot of great information about the making of the film. We also get Carpenter's amazing score on a seperate audio channel. Finishing out the extras is the film's original theatrical trailer. Image would later release this same edition on Laserdisc and Blu-ray before Shout Factory got their hands on it and released their own edition of the film complete with the Image extras. Shout has been sitting on a 4K restoration for years now with no release date in sight.
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I was in the video store in 1991 with my father looking for a new action film to watch. I had seen all of the classics like PREDATOR, LETHAL WEAPON, ROBOCOP, along with the Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Stallone, and Seagal films. I remember seeing the VHS box for STONE COLD sitting on the shelf. I picked it up and read the back. It seemed like it could be a good flick so I asked my father about the film's star, Brian Bosworth. The back of the box mentioned he was a football player so I wanted to know more. My father told me he was a "bad boy" who got injured then fired from the NFL. He said he didn't know if he would be a good actor but we could rent the film to find out.
To say the film was good is an understatement. This film is a masterpiece of the action genre. The film opens up with a grocery store robbery that makes the one in COBRA look like child's play. The film tells the story of Joe Stone, who goes undercover in a biker gang in order to get them on murder charges. The story doesn't really matter when you have some of the best action scenes to come out of the 90s. I mean, they shot the climax of the film in the capital building in Arkansas, complete with motorcycles, squibs, and an exploding helicopter right outside the building. Bosworth is able to keep up with Lance Henriksen and William Forthsythe, which is really impressive. If you haven't seen the film, you need to right now.
The film was released on Laserdisc in 1991 and it is an ok disc. It is not in widescreen, we wouldn't get the film in it's proper aspect ratio until the film's DVD in the 2000s. The picture quality is good for the time but there no special features whatsoever. We wouldn't get anything outside of a trailer until the film was released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber.
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The final disc today is a whopper. In 1974, the Sonny Chiba film, THE STREET FIGHTER was given an X-rating, the equivalent of an NC-17 today, for it's over the top violence. There is a scene where Chiba catches a guy raping a girl and proceeds to castrate the guy. That is just one thing out of so, many more. Since that original theatrical release, the film was cut down to receive an R-rating. That was the only way to see the film legitimately in the States for more than to decades.
In 1997, New Line Cinema, the studio that gave us A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, THE LAWNMOWER MAN, and the mothefucking classic, TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES, got the rights to the film and decided to give the film a proper release in it's full uncut form. I got the VHS (I can't remember why I chose the VHS over the Laserdisc) and was really impressed with the film. It is very entertaining and worth waiting all those years for the uncut version. Both releases offer the film in it's original aspect ratio while giving us both the film's English dub and original Japanese language tracks.
I want to thank you for reading this post. I am having a ton of fun writing them and I hope you enjoy reading them.
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