This Week's Haul: 4 Laserdiscs from My Favorite Film Year (1995)

I have said this many times before, but 1995 is my favorite film year of all time. I know, I know. What about 1982? What about 2008? What about 1999? All good years but none of them hold a candle to 1995, in my book. 

Why 1995? Well, 1995 saw the release of a ton of films that would become beloved by me. STRANGE DAYS, SUDDEN DEATH, CONGO, RUMPELSTILTSKIN, RUMBLE IN THE BRONX, ACE VENTURA: WHEN NATURE CALLS, ICE CREAM MAN, etc. All of these films I love unironically, along with the films below.

Speaking of the films below, I have chosen to spotlight four Laserdiscs from 1995 that have made their way into my collection.

TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS DEMON KNIGHT was one of the first films released in 1995, coming out the second weekend of the year. In fact, the film was released on Friday the 13th. The film is basically a big screen episode given feature length room to breathe. The film starts with a blonde taking a bath after having killed her husband. The problem is, he isn't dead. He makes his way all the way up to the bathroom from the basement, where he is about to kill the blonde, when we hear someone yell "Cut!" 

Turns out, this is a film being shot by our favorite living dead host, The Cryptkeeper. For those who don't know, The Cryptkeeper was the host of the HBO horror anthology TV show, TALES FROM THE CRYPT. Every episode told a different morbid story with The Cryptkeeper hosting wraparound segments before and after the featured story. The series ran for seven seasons, from 1989 to 1996. The show was a big deal as it was a playground for big name actors who refused to do anything on television because it was "beneath them." There was a divide between TV and film and none of the big name film actors crossed that line...except for TALES FROM THE CRYPT.

So, we see The Cryptkeeper is making a film but takes a break to introduce their first theatrically released film, DEMON KNIGHT. 

The film tells the story of a nameless drifter who is on the run from a bounty hunter. After landing at a hotel in the middle of nowhere, it turns out the bounty hunter is a demon who is trying to retrieve a key from the drifter that contains the blood of previous demon knights. This blood protects others from demons. The film turns into a single location siege film with the demon on the outside (the blood from the key can be used to create a barrier the demon can not cross) and the good guys on the inside.

DEMON KNIGHT is a gory bundle of fun. The cast, including William Sadler, CCH Pounder, Dick Miller, Thomas Haden Church, and Charles Fleischer (the voice of Roger Rabbit), are all amazing but it is Billy Zane who steals the show as the bounty hunter/demon. He knows exactly what type of film he is in and gives the role everything he has. He is scary, violent, and sexy. There are scenes where he creates a false world for a character based on their fears and then talks to them in this soothing, entrancing voice that would sway anyone to whatever his plan was. We had all seen Billy Zane before but this is the film that cemented for a lot of people that he was someone we needed to watch.

The film was directed by Ernest Dickerson who spent the 80s and  early 90s being Spike Lee's cinematographer. He is the guy who made DO THE RIGHT THING and MALCOLM X look so good. He was robbed at the 1990 Oscars out of the Best Cinematography Oscar. He directed the film with a free flowing camera with a lot of dutch angles and dolly shots. He and cinematographer  Rick Bota bathe  the film in darkness accented with blue lights. This is a great looking film. The film cost $13 million but looks like it cost a ton more.

DEMON KNIGHT hit VHS on July 25th, 1995, with the Laserdisc arriving a week later. The film was not a hit at the box office but was on home video. The VHS was in fullscreen (1.33:1 aspect ratio) while the Laserdisc was in the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The Laserdisc looks pretty good even today. The film would see a multitude of releases on DVD throughout the years but these releases were always barebones. It wouldn't be until the film's 20th anniversary in 2015 that we would get a worthwhile release when Scream Factory brought the film to Blu-ray as one of their Collector's Edition releases. This release featured a commentary with Dickerson, a commentary with the special effects artists, a making of documentary, and a few other features. This is the way to watch the film and hopefully we get a 4K Blu-ray release someday.

Stephen King is one of the most popular authors of all time, having written over 70 books since the 70s. He was such a huge author that Hollywood wanted to be in his orbit so they started buying up the rights to all of his books even if they hadn't been released yet. The first film based on one of his books was CARRIE (1976). The film was a huge success so we started getting Stephen King films every year. Some hit the big screen while some, like 1979's SALEM'S LOT, hit the television screen. Many of the films were successful. THE SHINING is considered a classic even if King (and I) don't agree. Some of the biggest names in genre films like John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Mark L. Lester all made their own Stephen King film. Hell, Stephen King even took a crack at it with 1986's MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE, which didn't pan out too well.

By the mid-90s, films based on King's work had become less than stellar in terms of box office takes. Sure, MISERY was a hit but GRAVEYARD SHIFT, THE DARK HALF, NEEDFUL THINGS, and THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION were all flops. King fared better on the small screen with a bunch of mini-series adaptations like IT, THE TOMMYKNOCKERS, and THE STAND, which felt like a series finale to all of the TV films in a way.

New Line Cinema decided to take a chance and adapt King's short story, THE MANGLER. The film tells the story of a haunted clothing press. Yes, that is what the film is about. There's a cop who is investigating the deaths caused by the laundry press but no one really looks at that aspect of the film. They hear "haunted laundry press" and nope out.  The fact that THIS is the King adaptation New Line Cinema made is one of the weirder things to come out of the 90s. 

The film was directed by Tobe Hooper, who gave us THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and is the only director of POLTERGEIST. He takes this film deadly seriously which gives the film a weird feeling. It contains some of the most ridiculous things you will ever see in a film but they are completely believable because of how Hooper tackles them. There is a scene with a haunted refrigerator that we buy because Hooper does.

THE MANGLER was a big ol bomb when it released theatrically in March of 1995. The film did much better when it was released on VHS in August of 1995. There is no listed release date for the Laserdisc but I am pretty sure it was either on the same date or within a few weeks. Both the Laserdisc were released in Unrated Versions with the VHS also getting a Theatrical Version as well. The Unrated Version adds back the gore that was cut from the film in order to obtain an R-rating. 

I have written about my first experience with the 1981 animated classic, HEAVY METAL. I have loved this film since I first watched it back in 1995. Now, I know HEAVY METAL is not a 1995 release but it is a film I first watched in 1995, so it falls into a "1995 adjacent" category. Since it was first viewed in 1995, it played a similar role to any film released in 1995.

HEAVY METAL did not see a home video release until 1996. This is because the film's soundtrack clearances did not cover home video, so the rights would have to be renegotiated. This has happened to many TV shows and films in the past including with BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD, what with all the music videos they watch. We got most of the episodes minus the music videos.

The film was released on VHS at the beginning of June 1996 and was a huge hit. This was a big deal and I know a lot of people who picked this thing up (thanks to me showing them the way). The film was released on Laserdisc a month later. The Laserdisc included a deleted scene that had been unseen. The film did see a few DVD releases including a Superbit release. Superbit was a Sony thing where they would strip all of the special features and increase the file sizes and bit rates to give the film more room to breathe. The regular DVD release added special features including a commentary track, a retrospective featurette, and the film's rough cut which features unseen footage. The film was then released on Blu-ray in February of 2011 as a timed Best Buy exclusive ('member those?). We then got an amazing 4K Blu-ray release, which looks absolutely beautiful in 2022. This 4K release also includes the very disappointing sequel, HEAVY METAL 2000.

1995 was the "Year of the Cyber Thriller." A cyber thriller is a film where computer technology plays a vital role in the plot. Think of films like THE LAWNMOWER MAN, SNEAKERS, or ARCADE. Films like the Michael Douglas/Demi Moore thriller, DISCLOSURE, fit the bill. The reason I say 1995 was the "Year of the Cyber Thriller" is because this was the year when we got the most of them. We got, to name a few, THE NET, VIRTUOSITY, JOHNNY MNEMONIC, GHOST IN THE SHELL, NEMESIS 2: NEBULA, HOLOGRAM MAN, EVOLVER, VIRTUAL COMBAT, EXPECT NO MERCY, STRANGE DAYS, and the film I am going to talk about right now, HACKERS.

Like most of the cyber thrillers that came out around this time, HACKERS is a film that could only be made in the 90s. From the way the characters dress, right down to the lingo they use, everything about this film screams 90s. This is not a film that has aged well in the most common sense. The film's core, a thriller about teenagers who are being frame by a corporation and have to use the talents they have to clear their names while also sending the bad guys to prison, is timeless. We have seen these kinds of films for decades now. The computer and internet stuff is what dates the film and makes it somewhat inaccessible to people born after the 90s. 

Like the 50s films we 80s kids watched when we were kids, HACKERS seems like a joke. There is no way things were like this and in some ways they would be right. Hacking is almost nothing like what it is in this film. There are things the film does get right like how laborious hacking can be along with how it's not just typing until you are in but also tricking people into giving you access. These things the film gets right for the most part. The idea of what the internet looks like and many of the other hacking tools are not. Even the tech talk dates the film. The characters are amazed by the specs of another's computer, but those numbers are fractions of what they can do today.

Watching HACKERS as a straight-up thriller or as a relic of what the 90s were kind of like makes the film a lot more entertaining for those who had not experienced it back in the day. For me, I view the film as if I were still in the 90s. Sure, the dated stuff can feel a bit weird but I don't view it in that manner. I watch the film as 15 year old me did. I watch these "teenagers" talk shit to each other, play games with law enforcement, and then save their friend from "The Plague." The film is a lot of fun and is incredibly well made. Even back then I knew this film probably didn't deserve the level of filmmaking it got. Look at this film and then look at the Sandra Bullock film, THE NET, which was released a few months before HACKERS. THE NET is as basic a thriller as one can get. There isn't very much style to it and it gets lost in a sea of other thrillers released around the same time. HACKERS feels original. It feels alive. The soundtrack builds on the visuals in a way that makes the film feel like a music video without being one. The soundtrack for the film was so good, there are three volumes of it on CD. HACKERS is one of my favorite films to come out of 1995.

HACKERS was a huge flop when it hit theaters in September of 1995. The film cost $20 million and only made back $7 million. It opened ok then tumbled down the box office rankings every week. HACKERS hit VHS and Laserdisc in February of 1996. I remember when this thing hit because I was waiting for it to come out. I really wanted to see the film in the theater but my dad wouldn't take me (understandable) and it never hit the dollar shows around me. I remember watching the Laserdisc with some of my friends and becoming obsessed with it. I have seen HACKERS so many times, I have lost count. I have owned it on every format it has ever been on, from VHS to Laserdisc to DVD to Blu-ray to 4K Blu-ray. The film didn't get the kind of love it deserved until its first Blu-ray release from 88 Films. They gave the film a commentary track and a making-of documentary. Shout Factory released the film on 4K Blu-ray with amazing picture and sound but the documentary from the 88 Films release is noticeably absent.