16th July 2008

A very warm welcome to this month’s slice of HD magic. Let’s start with a couple of new releases from FrightFest’s past…

ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE. Optimum Blu Ray. Release date 21/07/08. RRP £24.99

Still criminally unreleased theatrically in the US ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE is an entertaining cross-breed of stalk and slash horror meets HEATHERS style teen drama that hits all the right beats from the offset.

The Blu Ray is a very nice transfer of this low budget film that through Jonathan Levine’s ultra stylised direction contains many colour saturated and brightly lit scenes along with some intentioned graininess of image.

The extras on the disc are disappointing, a making of or some deleted scenes would have been a nice addition, but included are the theatrical trailer and a UK interview with Mandy Lane herself - Amber Heard which runs 28 minutes.

THE ORPHANAGE. Optimum Blu Ray. Release date 21/07/08 RRP £24.99

Juan Antonio Bayona’s modern horror masterpiece that brought last years FrightFest to a terror and tear stained close is no less terrific on the home screen.

A stunningly rich and beautiful film that loses nothing in this immaculate transfer, with exceptional picture and sound quality throughout.

The extras are truly sensational and in fact take up two entire pages of menu screens. Included are various making of features, trailers, deleted scenes – including an alternate opening and ending to the film, a brief Bayona and Del Toro featurette and a 40 minute on-stage Q and A session with Mark Kermode.

A wonderful package for a truly wonderful film. Highly recommended!

RAMBO 2008. Sony Pictures Blu Ray. Available now RRP £24.99

Sylvester Stallone’s self directed ultra violent First Blood follow up could never live up to its own balls-to-the-wall trailers that wowed us on the internet. In fact I noticed that some of the spray splatter scenes that were highlighted in the teaser were disappointingly not included in this theatrical cut.

The disc is a predictably punchy affair especially in the surround sound stakes and the picture is solid throughout, even when dealing with the difficult to capture night, rain and smoke elements.

Overall I found this a joyless and wholly predictable affair with the 62 (!) year old Stallone pumped up on steroids and drawling incomprehensibly throughout a bit of a bore, enlivened only by some flashes of extreme comic book violence.

The extras are pretty good however with commentary and deleted scenes, most of which feature the bad girl from TV’s ANGEL Julie Benz – soon to star in SAW 5 and the PUNISHER sequel.

Until then, keep watching.

Paul.