DVDs
Election giving you the heebie-jeebies? Turn to comfort of pretend horror

By Mark "Rotten" Rahner
Seattle Times staff reporter

PAUL SCHMID / THE SEATTLE TIMES

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By now, you're probably so case-hardened from the horrors of election-year campaigning that a Halloween DVD seems a little anemic.

After all, you may not scream at "Van Helsing," but you just might the next time someone says "... and I approved this message." And who needs "The Masque of the Red Death" when you've got members of Congress getting flu shots that aren't available to everyone?

Still, there's nothing like a little shocker to escape all the real-world rhetoric surrounding Dan Rather's stem-cell research while attending a gay wedding in the Iraq war — or issues to that effect. It's all enough to make you dispense high-velocity pea soup from your spinning head. But I'm dedicating this rotten roundup to a controversy in our own back yard: the Puyallup school district that showed blood-curdling political correctness by banning Halloween because ... wait for it ... it might be offensive to witches!

Hey, nobody wants to get on a witch's bad side, so I've listed these recent DVD releases with careful consideration of everyone's delicate sensibilities.

I am your host, and I approved this sewage.

Offended party: zombies, aka the decompositionally challenged

The stereotype of bad table manners is particularly offensive to me, and I detest open-mouth chewing.

"Rotten Rentals" With your host, Mark "Rotten" Rahner. View video

"Dawn of the Dead" (Universal, R and unrated versions): They remade George A. Romero's bone-, I mean ground-, breaking classic. Surprise: It's a hoot. The basics are the same: carnivorous zombie outbreak, fleeing survivors, shopping mall. New elements in the update: faster zombies, a budget, actors (including Sarah Polley, Mekhi Phifer, Ving Rhames).

The original "Dawn of the Dead" (Anchor Bay, 1978, R) is now in a definitive four-disc "Ultimate Edition" that should sate even the most ravenous nerds. Three different versions of the movie, a couple of documentaries, audio commentaries and tons more. When there's no more room in hell, the dead will crowd your shelf.

"Zombi 2" (Media Blasters, 1980, R): The zombie-shark fight is only one of many delights in Italian director Lucio Fulci's effective "Dawn" rip-off — now in two-disc 25th Anniversary Special Edition.

Offended party: heterosexual married couples

Does the Defense of Marriage Act happen to cover "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" (Paramount, 1958, unrated)? Homicidal aliens passing as humans are clearly a threat to our way of life. Not nearly as campy as its title, the film vibes "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," has snappy dialogue, and the worst female barfly in history.

"Vampyros Lesbos" (Image, 1971, unrated): The title says it all about hack director Jesus Franco's "sexadelic" Eurotrash cult classic — almost. There's also groovy sitar music and cutaways to the insect world during the naughty bits.

"The Hunger" (Warner, 1983, R): Director Tony Scott's stylish look at modern-day bloodsuckers Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie. Note that vampires still score with the old spilling-wine-on-the-blouse ploy. Blouse-shedder Susan Sarandon does audio commentary with Scott.

"The Fearless Vampire Killers" (Warner, 1967, unrated): A gay vampire chasing young actor/director Roman Polanski is a highlight of his outstanding spoof of the Hammer classics. He plays young sidekick to a loopy old vampire-hunting professor. His real wife, Sharon Tate, is the love interest.

Offended parties: pro-life AND pro-choice

"It's Alive" (Warner, 1974, PG) and the DVD double-bill "It's Alive 2: It Lives Again" (1978, R)/"It's Alive 3: Island of the Alive" (1987, R). I am firmly against killer mutant babies and the people who support them.

Offended party: mental-health professionals

"Gothika" (Warner, 2003, R) in a two-disc special edition. Prison shrink Halle Berry winds up behind bars, blamed for her husband's murder — and pestered by a little ghost girl. The set includes Berry getting "Punk'd" on MTV.

"Asylum of the Damned" (Columbia Tristar, R): A young new doctor at a nut house finds inmates falling sacrificial victim to The Harvester. And he's not from Farm Aid.

Offended party: satanists. Satanism's a religion, too, right?

"Hellboy" (Columbia Tristar, unrated) in a three-disc director's cut. So it's not that scary, but director Guillermo del Toro sure has fun with the comic-book hero — a demon who's busted off his horns and fights monsters for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense.

"The Sentinel" (Universal, 1977, R). One of the underrated '70s fright flicks for grown-ups. Telling who the Sentinel is and what he's guarding in the eerily-populated apartment building would spoil it, but the ending remains terrifically unsettling.

Offended party: cosmetic surgeons

"Eyes Without a Face"(The Criterion Collection, 1960, unrated). Even after a few seasons of "Nip/Tuck," The Big Scene in Georges Franju's otherwise elegant classic packs a face-peeling punch.

	"The Alligator People," 1959, is about a guy changed by strange medical experiments.

"The Alligator People" (Fox, 1959, unrated): A race of people obsessed with luggage! Or a guy changed by strange medical experiments, the woman who loves him, and the hook-handed redneck who wants to get that woman out of her wet clothes.

Offended party: quality film lovers

Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" (Touchstone, 1994, R) immortalizes the worst director of all time, his angora sweaters and his cast of strange friends. One of them, fake psychic and horrible actor Criswell, hosts the Wood-penned "Orgy of the Dead" (Rhino, 1965, unrated), a movie to be pitied, despised and laughed at until you're hoarse.

"The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies" (Media Blasters, 1965, PG) is in a new "Forty-First Anniversary Edition." And it's the best 41st anniversary edition of an inept zombie musical I've ever seen. Shocking true fact: Oscar-winning cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond shot the production in "Terrorama." Not that you could tell.

Offended party: film snobs

"Millennium" (Fox, 1996, unrated): "X-Files" creator Chris Carter's series about a gifted FBI profiler (Lance Henriksen) was as creepy and well-crafted as anything on the big screen. Season two's on the way to DVD in January.

Offended party: people against xenophobia

John Carpenter's "The Thing" (Universal, 1982, R) in a new Collector's Edition. Not a big hit at first but considered a masterpiece now. The "Halloween" dude updated the old Howard Hawks/Christian Nyby paranoia original with bearded Kurt Russell and ground-breaking alien effects.

Offended party: carnyfolk

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" (Disney, 1983, PG): Darker Disney fare, from Ray Bradbury's tale of a sinister carnival that blows into town and a frail old dad (Jason Robards) fighting for his son's respect.

"The Funhouse" (Universal, 1981, R): "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" director Tobe Hooper, Mozart's wife from "Amadeus" (Elizabeth Berridge) and a homicidal freak. Downsides?

Offended party: spendthrifts

The best boo for your buck are these Legacy Collections from Universal. Listing for $29.98 and selling for $20.99 at Amazon .com, they're packed with the originals, their sequels, documentaries and more: "The Creature from the Black Lagoon: The Legacy Collection," "The Mummy: The Legacy Collection" and "The Invisible Man: The Legacy Collection" (unrated).

And let's not forget those thin-skinned witches

"The Legacy" (Universal, 1978, R): That's not a broom, that's Sam Elliott's giant mustache. He's boyfriend to Katharine Ross, and they're captive in a dying rich guy's English estate. Guests begin dropping as she learns her role in a mysterious black-arts ceremony. Directed by "Return of the Jedi's" Richard Marquand, with a theme song by Kiki Dee!

"Mark of the Devil" (Blue Underground, 1970, R). Power-abusing inquisitor Herbert Lom goes all Patriot Act on accused witches in 18th-century Austria. They gave out a vomit bag with it at theaters because of the torture scenes.

"Witchboard" (Anchor Bay, 1987, R): Tawny Kitaen finds out what happens when you mess with a Ouija board. You marry a Whitesnake guy and batter a baseball player.

That ought to get you through pulling the lever — that is, the election. Meanwhile, that drama queen P. Diddy may have beaten me to the "Vote or Die" slogan, but I say, why wrap yourself in the flag when you can wrap yourself in a shroud?

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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