16th March 2009

QUARANTINE Sony Pictures Home Entertainment £24.99 Available now.

The US virtual shot by shot remake of Spanish modern horror masterpiece REC comes to the dvd and Blu Ray home entertainment formats.

Quarantine boasts a pristine BR transfer whilst retaining the hand held camera look of the original. Those unfamiliar with REC should be left shaken by the jump out of your seat shocks that come after the first 30 minutes of set-up sequences. Fun is also to be had for fans of REC as you can spot the variations in this new remake.

Extras include commentary, making of, make up FX and anatomy of a stunt featurettes.

A heartily recommended release.

THE PUNISHER Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Release TBD.

This hugely under-rated Thomas Jane starring comic book adaptation from 2004 is coming soon to BR disc.

An underwhelming transfer features inconsistent flesh tones and a slightly dark transfer although this may be due to some shortcomings in the original cinematography.

Excellent extras include a commentary track, an alternate 4 minute 27 second opening sequence which is superbly animated in the style of the comic source material, deleted scenes and a music video.

MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN Lions Gate Films £22.99 Available now.

It’s almost as though RAWHEAD REX and UNDERWORLD never happened.. Following those 1980’s Clive Barker adaptation disasters comes one of his BOOK OF BLOOD short stories in fine film form, MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN from VERSUS director Ryuhei Kitamaura. Vinnie Jones gives a career best performance (with just a few words of dialogue) as Mahogany a crazed night train murderer.

This well rounded special edition includes commentary, a 14 minute 54 second documentary Barker : Man behind the myth, Mahogany’s Tale focusing on Jones’ character and Anatomy of a murder scene.

JOHN CARPENTER’S GHOSTS OF MARS Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Release TBD.

Coming to BR is Carpenter’s 2001 mis-fire GHOSTS OF MARS. The picture and sound are both pristine and razor sharp on this release with superb detailing at all times. Set your expectations to low and you should enjoy a fun slice of low rent science fiction featuring Natasha (SPECIES) Henstridge, Jason Statham and Ice Cube who both compete for worst actor prize. One of the major problems is the films score – God awful heavy metal monstrousness from Buckethead and a bloke from Anthrax, which just leaves you begging for the more evocative synth stylings from his earlier works.

The disc includes commentary, video diaries, SFX deconstruction and a film scoring featurette (!?!)

This at times laugh out loud debacle comes with a Friday night with friends approval rating from me.

Keep watching.

Paul.