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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
Flixmix: Boogeymen-The Killer Compilation

Flixmix: Boogeymen-The Killer Compilation

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Released 3-Oct-2002

Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General Extras
Category Horror Main Menu Audio & Animation
Trailer-12
Notes-Legends (11)
On-Screen Information Track
Audio Commentary-Robert Englund
Biographies-Cast-Robert Englund
Game-Name That Frame
Trailer-Flixmix Ultimate Fights
DVD-ROM Extras
Rating Rated MA
Year Of Production ?
Running Time 56:41 (Case: 55)
RSDL / Flipper Dual Layered Cast & Crew
Start Up Menu
Region Coding 2,4 Directed By None Given
Studio
Distributor

Universal Pictures Home Video
Starring None Given
Case ?
RPI $29.95 Music None Given


Video Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame Pan & Scan English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio None
16x9 Enhancement No
Video Format 576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures No
Subtitles English for the Hearing Impaired Smoking No
Annoying Product Placement No
Action In or After Credits No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

    I suppose that with the proliferation of slasher flicks from the 1980s that have done more to hinder the credibility of the horror film than help it, it was only a matter of time before someone made a compilation of them. Flixmix have done exactly that with Boogeymen - The Killer Compilation, combining trivia and excerpts on the leading antagonists of eighteen recent horror films, some of them great, others decidedly ordinary. Among the more memorable horror films featured in this compilation are Scream, A Nightmare On Elm Street, Hellraiser, Candyman, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Some of the more forgettable entries included here include The Guardian, The Wishmaster, and I Know What You Did Last Summer. What makes these films great or ordinary can be tied down to a number of factors, but the documentary itself is concerned with the antagonists, with such legendary ones as Pinhead (Doug Bradley) and ridiculous ones as Chucky (Brad Dourif).

    The collection is basically a group of "memorable" scenes from eighteen different horror films, complete with a dossier for that film's villain, and some of the scenes are really quite memorable. However, the only, and I do mean only reason to indulge in this effort is the audio commentary from Robert Englund, who in spite of his appearances in numerous horror films, always stands out in my mind as Willy, the friendly alien from V. Englund shares anecdotes about the making of each film, giving an unparalleled insight into how horror film franchises work, and some of the effects used to pull off a certain sequence in A Nightmare On Elm Street. With the highly variant video and audio quality of the disc, however, it does come across as rather disjointed. I also question the validity of the statistical information given at the end of this compiled documentary - for one thing, one of the tables lists Jason Vorhees (played in the snippet that features in this documentary by Kane Hodder) as having the most on-screen kills, or something to that effect. When your character has appeared in nine films and the kills are so ordinary, that's hardly impressive - I can't remember a single death in a Friday The 13th film, but the ones in Hellraiser will probably stay with me until the day I die.

    For those who are interested, what follows is a table of all the "boogeymen" that appear in this documentary:

01. Pinhead (from Hellraiser) 09. Simon (from The Ugly)
02. Freddy Krueger (from A Nightmare On Elm Street) 10. Fisherman (from I Know What You Did Last Summer)
03. Wishmaster (from Wishmaster) 11. Camilla (from The Guardian)
04. Leatherface (from Texas Chainsaw Massacre) 12. The Dentist (from The Dentist)
05. Ghostface (from Scream) 13. The Tall Man (from Phantasm)
06. Leprechaun (from Leprechaun) 14. Blade (from The Puppetmaster)
07. Chucky (from Child's Play) 15. Norman Bates (from Psycho)
08. Candyman (from Candyman) 16. Jason Vorhees (from Friday The 13th)
17. Michael Myers (from Halloween)

Don't wish to see plot synopses in the future? Change your configuration.

Transfer Quality

Video

    The footage comprising Boogeymen - The Killer Compilation has been culled from a number of sources, ranging in age from about three or four to nearly forty years, and as a result, the quality is rather variable.

    The transfer is presented in two aspect ratios, with most of the film footage in 1.33:1 while the graphics that introduce each character are in 1.78:1, and they are not 16x9 Enhanced. This affects the footage presented in different ways, with A Nightmare On Elm Street seemingly having been composed for a 1.33:1 ratio, and films like Hellraiser and Candyman appearing to merely be open-matted, while wider films such as Scream and Halloween look so cramped and lose so much information that Robert Englund can often refer to something happening in the shot that simply isn't visible to the viewer.

    The sharpness varies from being acceptable to being very good, except for the footage from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which looks every bit of its age. This is because the majority of the films were shot on thirty-five millimetre film stock, some of them with very professional set design and lighting, whereas others had poor lighting, poor processing, and in the case of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, simply poor film stock. The shadow detail also varies, with older films such as Hellraiser or A Nightmare On Elm Street being quite murky (but much improved compared to old VHS cassettes I have seen), while more contemporary films such as Scream have very pleasing graduations between the light and dark. Low-level noise was occasionally present in some footage, but only in short, mostly acceptable bursts.

    The colour saturation also varies quite a lot, with each film having a different colour balance that, while well-represented in the documentary, was a little off-kilter considering the fact that these are all supposed to be horror films. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in particular sees a lot of colour bleed and smearing, but there are no composite artefacts on offer.

    MPEG artefacts were not noticed in this transfer, although grain is frequently visible, especially during the footage culled from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Film-to-video artefacts consisted of some minor and occasional aliasing on such things as blades and car chrome, usually only for a few seconds in establishing shots. Film artefacts were found in abundance, however, with numerous black and white marks on some of the older footage giving the documentary the look of an old World War II doco rather than one of a subindustry that has made Hollywood a lot of money in the past thirty or so years. Suffice it to say that while this transfer is nowhere near reference quality, it does look a hell of a lot better than any other consumer format, particularly VHS, has to offer.

    English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles are present on this DVD, but they unfortunately only cover the culled footage from the documentary, which mostly consists of screaming and glib one-liners. Hearing Impaired viewers who, like me, feel that the commentary is the best way to watch this presentation, will have some problems.

    This disc is dual layered, with no apparent layer change during the main programme.

Video Ratings Summary
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are three soundtracks on this disc, all of them in English: a Dolby Digital 5.1, 384 kilobit per second soundtrack, a Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded, 192 kilobit per second soundtrack, and an Audio Commentary by Robert Englund in Dolby Digital 2.0 with surround-encoding and 192 kilobits per second. I mostly listened to the audio commentary, doing some A-B comparisons between the 5.1 and 2.0 soundtracks during my favourite scenes.

    Like the sharpness of the video, the clarity of the dialogue in each individual scene varies considerably, and the modern films such as Scream fare a lot better in this regard than do older pieces such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Since a lot of the scenes consist of incoherent screaming, anyway, there really isn't much to complain about here. I did not detect any discernable audio sync problems.

    The music in this compilation is also taken from numerous sources, with the between-scene dossiers of the bad guys accompanied by unique music that is from some piece of dross by White Zombie. Needless to say, none of the music contained in this film left much of an impression upon me, be it because there was little of it, or because the most frequently featured music was just plain terrible.

    The soundtrack encoded on this DVD claims to be Dolby Digital 5.1, but to quote one fellow reviewer's pet hates, it sounds just like 2.0, really. The surround channels had very little to do, with only the most minimal of ambient sounds redirected into them, while the subwoofer made a few pulses every now and again. The Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack really sounds little different to its discrete cousin.

Audio Ratings Summary
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

Menu

    The menu is heavily animated and accompanied by Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. It is not 16x9 Enhanced.

Audio Commentary - Robert Englund (Actor)

    Presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 surround, this audio commentary features Robert Englund sharing his thoughts about each and every piece of footage used to comprise the documentary. The things he has to share about the films he worked on, as well as those of good friends of his, such as Wes Craven or Gunnar Hansen, are actually quite fascinating, far more so than the actual documentary itself. In fact, this audio commentary makes the montage as interesting as it is, and it may well be the only good reason to indulge in this effort.

Notes - Legends

    This is merely a collection of two-page biographies for eleven of the monsters featured in this documentary, most of which have a little to pique the interest of the viewer, but do not go into any great depth.

On-Screen Information Track

    One of the better uses of seamless branching I have seen recently, this feature inserts a small field of text at the bottom of the frame, which gives a little bit of historical information about the films. However, it does occasionally bring about contradictions, especially at 1:19, with Robert Englund's commentary describing Grace Kirby as the sister of Clive Barker, while this information track claims she is his cousin.

Biography - Robert Englund (Actor)

    This biography is also very cursory and none too revealing.

Game - Name That Frame

    A game in which a random frame is selected, and one has to guess which film it is from.

Trailer - Flixmix Ultimate Fights

    A trailer for another compilation of scenes from other films which runs for sixty-two seconds. It is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound.

Trailers

    A collection of trailers for twelve of the films presented in this documentary, all of which are in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. These are:

DVD-ROM Extras

    Having installed the PC Unfriendly software yet again and fired it up, I found a choice between Play Movie, Trivia Game, Sound Effects, and links to the Flixmix sites in England and Australia. The trivia game asks a series of questions about the films that appear in the main feature, but its delivery is utterly annoying. The Sound Effects menu allows you to download some commonly-used sound effects from horror films onto your computer. All in all, this is a reasonable collection of extras, and one that just manages to justify being included as DVD-ROM material.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

    The Region 4 and Region 1 versions of this title are fundamentally identical, with the only real differences being a wider choice of subtitles on the American disc.

Summary

    Boogeymen - The Killer Compilation is more like a deleted scenes extra than an actual feature, although it does contain a very amusing and revealing commentary by Robert Englund, who obviously had the time of his life recording it. All it does for me, really, is stir up my annoyance that such classic films as A Nightmare On Elm Street and Hellraiser remain unavailable here.

    The video transfer is acceptable, but highly varied.

    The audio transfer is distinctly ordinary.

    The extras are of more value than the main feature.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Dean McIntosh (Don't talk about my bio. We don't wanna know.)
Saturday, March 02, 2002
Review Equipment
DVDToshiba 2109, using S-Video output
DisplaySamsung CS-823AMF (80cm). Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 576i (PAL).
Audio DecoderBuilt in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum.
AmplificationSony STR DE-835
SpeakersYamaha NS-45 Front Speakers, Yamaha NS-90 Rear Speakers, Yamaha NSC-120 Centre Speaker, JBL Digital 10 Active Subwoofer

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