The Carters become stranded in the desert. And when night falls they are set upon by a vicious family of cannibals.
Now what have we got here then? A 54-minute making of doc. The same one from the double-disc special edition Anchor Bay release, I presume? Yay…I guess… In the same vein as their Madman release Arrow gives us some insight into the soundtrack of the cannibal cult classic. While these segments are enjoyable in their own way, they are not as musically in-depth as I wanted them to be. What did they do to make that sound? What inspired their approach to the composition? These questions go unanswered.
Martin Sheer gives us a fairly well-rounded interview, starting with the audition process, filming, his thoughts on Wes as a director as well as the aftermath. Meanwhile, we also have a blooper reel thrown in there. Most of them did nothing for me, 1 or 2 chuckles achieved, at best, out of nearly 20 minutes of footage. There’s an Image Gallery too. Does anyone else ever wonder what is the fucking point of those? Google not good enough for you?
For those of you who’ve loved the director of this movie since you were a kid, I have to say there is a potent bittersweet-ness to be felt whenever an interviewee utters the words “Wes Craven was”. Admittedly I’ve been avoiding the full sting of his passing like the plague. Still it’s good to see him again in the Anchor Bay featurette, with that grin that is somehow both mischievous and warm at the same time.
LAST WORDS:
There have been so many DVD re-issues of this movie, I certainly don’t feel like any part of me was asking or waiting for yet another release, regardless of picture quality. Then again I’m one of the dirty little blighters who had the sheer, disgusting, reprehensible audacity to think the 2006 remake rocked balls. But even I can respect the fact that it wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as it was without Craven’s involvement in the project.