Offbeat director David Lynch has created some of the most nightmarish and surreal films of the last 30 years, including "Eraserhead," "Blue Velvet" and "Lost Highway." But one of Lynch's most inspired and enjoyable offerings was "Twin Peaks (CBS DVD)," a TV series that lasted two seasons (1990 to 1991) before it was dropped by the network. Unlike some of Lynch's more bizarre films, which make about as much sense as a Pakistani game show without subtitles, "Twin Peaks" was rooted in reality, then laced with touches of the eerie, absurd and supernatural.
The series, which explores the sinister underpinnings of small town America, stars Kyle McLachlan as Special Agent Dale Cooper, an FBI man hired to investigate the mysterious murder of all-American high school girl, Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). It doesn't take long for McLachlan to realize that Palmer wasn't the good girl she was believed to be, and that Twin Peaks isn't the rural utopia he mistook it for.
During his misadventures, Cooper meets a cast of strange characters including: Pete Martel, a dim, scruffy lumberjack wonderfully played by the late Jack Nance (star of "Eraserhead"); the Log Lady (Catherne E. Coulson), a schizophrenic local who foreshadows events while talking to a log; protective local Sheriff Harry S. Truman (Michael Ontkean), Laura's neurotic father, Leland (Ray Wise) and psychic mother, Sarah (Grace Zabriskie); the malevolent spirit, Bob (Frank Silva) and a host of other eccentric, often amusing characters, whose lives create numerous subplots, that inject even more life into the spectacular, perplexing series. Confused? If not, you will be as soon as you start watching the groundbreaking show, in which nothing is as it seems and seemingly essential clues only lead to more questions.
The 10 DVDs in "The Twin Peaks Gold Edition" feature both seasons of the show, U.S. and international versions of the pilot episode, the full-length documentary "Secrets From Another Place," the documentary "A Slice of Lynch," a chronicle of "Peaks Freaks" at the 2006 "Twin Peaks" Festival called "Return to Twin Peaks" and lots of previously unavailable footage. For the uninitiated, "Twin Peaks" is essential viewing -- a new frontier for network television that, unfortunately, few have dared to follow. For the rest of us, there's finally a DVD box worthy of the stellar show.
The Mario Bava Collection: Volume 2 (Anchor Bay) -- The first volume of the Mario Bava Collection came out in April and featured five of the director's most popular films, but Anchor Bay certainly saved some of the best for the second box. The new edition contains eight movies on six DVDs. The most influential to the horror genre, "Bay of Blood," is a giallo/slasher film about a mad killer who kills a countess, her husband and pretty much everyone who gets in the way. Several scenes from the movie -- including one of a spear impaling a couple on a bed -- were allegedly stolen and used in the "Friday the 13th" series.
The Bava collection also includes: "Lisa and the Devil" a weird, psychedelic tale of an American tourist (Elke Sommer), who has a dangerous rendezvous with a man who resembles a local painting of Satan (Telly Savalas); "Baron Blood," a haunting story about the resurrection of the sadistic Baron Otton Van Kleist; and "Five Dolls For an August Moon," a wicked spin on Agatha Christie's murder mystery "Ten Little Indians." In addition to the violent and spooky stuff, the box features a sex farce ("Four Times That Night"), a western ("Roy Colt and Winchester Jack") and a gritty crime thriller ("Kidnapped") that demonstrate Bava's mastery of more than just the giallo/horror genre.
Night Watch/Day Watch (Fox) -- A visually stunning and thought provoking horror thriller shot for Russian TV by director Timur Bekmambetov, "Night Watch" was edited into a full-length feature in 2004. The sequel, "Day Watch" hit stores in 2006 and now both are available in one mindblowing package. Sometimes confusing, frequently disarming, "Night Watch" and "Day Watch" are most comparable to action-packed, effect-filled, philosophical sci-fi/fantasy adventures like "The Matrix," "Lord of the Rings" and "Brazil." Only, this one's darker and more apocalyptic, blurring the lines between good and evil and turning the world into a chess board on which beasts from another dimension control the fate of man.
In "Night Watch" the movie's hero, Anton, visits a witch who tries to cause his former girlfriend to have a miscarriage. What he doesn't know is that the curse failed and his son has become a pivotal character in a prophecy capable of unsettling the balance in a cold war between vampires and creatures of the light. The bleak, chaotic film includes a subplot about a cursed female doctor who turns all of the world's misery into a vortex that could trigger Armageddon. The sequel, "Day Watch" is more of a love story about Anton's quest to win back his nefarious son, but it's every bit as compelling and almost as violent. Between the two, Bekmambetov has created an epic world brimming with magic, creativity, conflict and death.
The Janitor (Elite) -- Fitting in somewhere between Herschel Gordon Lewis' gore fests and Troma Films tongue-in-cheek romps (Troma President Lloyd Kaufman even plays a role), "The Janitor" is a splattery revenge movie that never takes itself too seriously and achieves maximal results on a nonexistent budget. For the most part, directors Andy Signore and TJ Nordaker succeed with flying colors (and entrails and arterial spray). The movie stars Signore as Lionel, a disgruntled janitor who hunts down and kills everyone who insults or offends him. Lionel works in an office building and sleeps in a closet with a fellow janitor, Mr. Growbo, who covers for him and his antisocial acts. But when Lionel receives a lead on his dream job -- working as a janitor in a sorority house -- an ugly rivalry erupts between he and Growbo that ends in showers, fountains and waterfalls of blood. The acting in "The Janitor" is typically horrific low budget slasher fare, and the effects range from terrible to pretty damn impressive. There's plenty of nudity and lots of off-color jokes that should appeal to fans of the raunchy, ridiculous and just plain disgusting. Come armed with a sense of humor -- and a mop.
Bacterium (Shock-O-Rama) -- During a paintball war in the wilderness, a group of friends accidentally enter a building site where a rogue scientist is working on a deadly biological weapon. It isn't long before the oozing, gooey contagion breaks its glass container and proceeds to grow and multiply, killing everything it touches. And when the paintball players try to escape, a batch of government scientists step in with orders to kill anyone who tries to leave. "Bacterium" is fast-paced, exciting and totally absurd -- a glowing tribute to drive-in films and monster movies of the '50s and '60s that'll leave you suspending disbelief and thrilling to every stilted line of dialog and cheesy special effect.
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