Robert's Video: Afterschool

The fun of Vinegar Syndrome's "Partner Labels," is it's always a complete string of unexpected surprises what's going to pop up every month.  From stuff you've never heard of and would never want to watch, to long-awaited favorites that you'd given up hope of ever seeing on blu.  It's like a special edition randomizer.  Last month, the buzz was all about Ghost Keeper, which we'd known was coming from CIP for a long time, and then IFC totally knocked me out of my chair The Last Mistress and Afterschool, with no fanfare, all finished and ready to replace my old DVDs.

2008's Afterschool is the debut, and possibly still the best, film from Antonio Campos (Simon Killer, Christine).  And yes, it's also the shining debut of Ezra Miller, who after this and the equally dark and excellent psychological nightmare We Need To Talk About Kevin, was becoming the Scott Jacoby of his day, before things took a rather infamous turn.  It's a shame not just because of whoever got hurt by that behavior, but because these early films were great, and now they exist under a dark cloud.  But then again, existing under a dark cloud couldn't be more thematically appropriate for this nihilistic examination of dysfunction and murder.  The Haneke influence is strong and obvious - they could easily have titled this Benny's Video Part 2 if Miller's character hadn't been named Rob - but they've crafted it so well that, rather than a knock-off, it manages to stand right alongside with his body of work

2010 MPI DVD top; 2026 IFC BD bottom.

The aspect ratio is corrected from 2.32:1 to 2.39 (despite the back of IFC's case saying 1.78:1)... except for the film-within-a-film clips, which are pretty extensive in Afterschool, and windowbox the aspect ratio most frequently to 1.70:1 (see that close-up shot of Addison Timlin, further up).  You'll notice the picture quality shifts, too.  The bulk of this film was shot on film, but that footage was shot, I think, on DV tape, and there are also some clips from cell phones and internet videos.  But yeah, the bulk of this film was shot on 35mm and looks great in HD.  If anything, there's still room to grow, because grain is light.  It looks like this is an old master being used; and a new 2k scan, or even a full blown 4k restoration on UHD, could look even better.  But even what we've got here is a nice upgrade over the DVD, which was pretty good for its time.  It's like tuning the focus knob, and it also color corrects a little bit, giving them a stronger separation (notice how the the stone walls in that first set of shots, for example, have a yellow hue to them on the DVD, which the BD fixes).

Both discs have a 5.1 mix with optional English subtitles, but the BD bumps the audio up to DTS-HD.  The DVD also had Spanish subtitles, which the blu drops.

So the DVD has a sizeable chunk of extras, though your mileage may vary in terms of how compelling you find much of it.  The bulk of it is "unused footage from the film," as well as deleted and extended scenes, outtakes, "Stuhlbarg Uncut" and "Virgil Montage," all of which boils down to the cutting room scraps, preserved.  A lot of it, frankly, is "I guess you had to be there" stuff.  "Stuhlbarg Uncut" is just five minutes of a tight close-up of the actor who plays the principal silently waiting for the camera crew to be ready for a take.  You know the testimonial Ezra is making throughout the film?  Well, you get to see the whole raw thing here; but for most of us, I think seeing it within the movie was enough.  There's an interview with Miller, but it's just another quick five minutes filmed on set.  And you have an early student film by the director called The Last 15, which is interesting if you're a serious fan, but not a movie I'd recommend otherwise.  Then there's storyboards, trailers and posters.  But the best extra isn't even mentioned on the back of the case: an audio commentary by the director, producer and cinematographer.  It's illuminating and kinda the only piece worth your time.

Still, I'd rather have the scraps than not; and happily, IFC's blu carries everything from the DVD, including the uncredited commentary.  They also brought the director back for a new solo commentary, which manages not to be complete repetition.  Also, if you first run direct from Vinegar Syndrome, it came in a limited edition slipcover.

So all together, this is a pretty solid blu of an underrated film that was dying for a new edition.  A 4k restoration would've been nice, and a retrospective on-camera interview with Miller would've been amazing, but I think we all knew better than to expect that.

A Spectacular Bay of Blood

1971's A Bay Of Blood may have slowly wormed its way into being my favorite Mario Bava film.  The last segment in Black Sabbath is the most artfully shot, and Black Sunday is his most overtly stylish giallo.  But for just being the all around most rewarding film, the one I appreciate more and more with each revisit, it's Bay of Blood.  It's still got fancy photography in spades, from the opulent opening scene of the countess's murder to its inventive combination of zooms pushing in and out of focus.  A lot has been made of how this film is a proto-slasher, inspiring the Friday the 13th series in particular.  And it's true, this has some great kills, truly cutting edge for their time, and a high enough body count to keep the grumpiest teenager from getting bored.  But it's also got a pretty great, completely wild and utterly entertaining story courtesy of the underrated Dardano Sacchetti, full of betrayal, passion, plot twists and an array of colorful killers even the Scream franchise can't match.

A Bay of Blood has had a crapton (to use a technical term) of releases over the year.  Simitar first released a non-anamorphic in 1999, which Image then corrected with their own edition under the title Twitch Of the Death Nerve in 2001.  I got the 2005 Raro DVD because it had the Italian language version for the first time, and also a neat little documentary, which I'll get into later.  Anchor Bay released it, and a whole Mario Bava collection, in 2007, and their were plenty of other DVDs around the world.  Arrow was the first to give us an HD version, releasing their limited edition blu-ray in 2010.  They put out their non-limited version in 2013; and that same year, Kino released it in the US.  And again, there were plenty of other BDs released subsequently around the world.  But there hasn't been a major progression until now that Severin has restored the film in 4k and issued it as whopping a 4-disc BD/ UHD combo-pack.

1) 2005 Raro DVD; 2) 2010 Arrow BD, English version;
3) 2010 Arrow BD, Italian version; 4) 2026 Severin BD English version;
5) 2026 Severin BD Italian version; 6) 2026 Severin BD longer Italian version;
7) 2026 Severin BD shorter Italian version; 8) 2026 Severin UHD English version;
9) 2026 Severin UHD longer Italian version; 10) 2026 Severin UHD shorter Italian version.

Wondering why the second set of shots don't always match?  It's because that's a shot that differs between the English and Italian cuts.  Different cuts?  Yeah, I'll just briefly explain.  Unlike the usual I-horror title, there isn't just an English and Italian dub track that can be applied to the same video. Bava actually shot alternate takes with the actors speaking English and Italian.  So they're still dubbed, but the English and Italian versions actually include different footage, too.  And to be real completionists about it, Severin has released a third but, basically a second Italian cut that's a few seconds shorter.  So they're all featured here in the comparisons above; though as you can see the two Italian cuts in the Severin set are identical, picture quality-wise.

So, okay, beginning at the beginning.  Raro's DVD is anamorphic widescreen at 1.86:1, and obviously taken from a print, with its strong over-contrast and yellowed colors.  And Arrow's presentation of the Italian cut, though upconverted to HD, is clearly based on the same yellow transfer, 1.86 framing and all.  But their English version looks much better.  It's worth noting the back of their case only promises a "brand new transfer" of that version.  Kino did the same thing, which is one of the reasons the new Severin release is such a big deal; it's the first time anyone's made an effort to bring the Italian version
up to modern standards.  Colors are much more natural and film grain is captured surprisingly well for a blu as old as 2010.  It's matted to 1.89, revealing more on the left side in particular.

But now of course, we come to the Severin, which we're told have been restored in 4k "from superior vault elements."  I believe that's left a little vague because the Italian cuts seem to be composite cuts.  You can see how the first set of shots, which uses the same footage across all three versions, is virtually identical, but the second set of shots, which has distinct footage between the English and Italian versions, has a shift in quality.  Look how much more faded and orange the woman's shawl looks in the Italian cut, as opposed to the deeper red in the English.  All three versions are precisely matted to 1.85, now, tightening back in on the sides than Arrow's, which showed more on both, plus along the bottom.

But comparing the best of each world - Arrow and Severin's English versions - this is a clear improvement, even just looking at Severin's BD.  Their colors are better separated; Arrow's BD doesn't look nearly as yellow as the older Italian versions, but it still has a yellow hue cast over the whole thing which Severin has cleaned up.  That gives Arrow's version a flatter feel, making Severin's play as more vibrant and alive.  Detail is fairly equivalent though, until we switch over to the actual UHD.  We still can't quite make out the title of that yellow book on the table in the first set of shots, but the letters look rounded and photo realistic as opposed to how pixelated it is on the Arrow.

Raro's DVD has the Italian mono in Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles.  Arrow has both the Italian and English mono tracks in LPCM, with optional English subtitles for both versions.  And Severin has the all three versions in DTS-HD with optional subs for all of them.

So the original Bay of Blood DVDs were barebones, apart from the trailer or the odd radio spot.  Raro's 2005 DVD was the first one with a real, important extra: a half-hour documentary called The Art Of Crime, which got interviews with Lamberto Bava, Roy Bava, Sacchetti, the original set photographer, a couple Italian critics and even Joe Dante, who they point out wrote one of this film's very few rave reviews during its original theatrical release.  It's a great piece that fortunately has stayed with us through future releases.  That and the trailer is all Raro had, but it was enough to round it out to a very satisfying release at the time.

But Arrow really turned it into a special edition.  And yes, they have The Art of Crime.  They also have one of Tim Lucas's famous Mario Bava commentary tracks that originated from Anchor Bay's 2007 DVDs.  Then they introduce some brand new stuff, including on-camera interviews with Lamberto Bava, cinematographer Gianlorenzo Battagalia.  And they conduct a new, audio-only interview with Joe Dante, and include the two Trailers From Hell for this film, hosted by Edgar Wright.  They also add two radio spots, though, apart from the TFHs, they don't have the actual trailer proper.  It came with an 8-page booklet by Jay Slater and a double-sided fold-out poster, with reversible artwork and one of those windowed slipboxes Arrow used to always do.

And now Severin comes with the most loaded edition yet.  For starters, yep, The Art of Crime is still here, as well as that Dante audio piece.  They don't however, have any of the other Arrow extras.  But before you get too bummed about that, there's a good reason for it.  They got all new, better interviews with Lamberto and Battagalia, which are more focused and are more professionally shot with HD equipment.  In fact, there are two new Bava interviews, the second one being just about Lamberto's memories of his father.  And they brought back Lucas to record an all new, improved commentary, where he corrects some errors from his previous track.  So, it's a bit of a shame to lose the Trailers From Hell, but otherwise it's all an upgrade.  And they've added plenty more, including an interview with Nicoletta Elmi, who played the little girl, and a new, much fuller interview with Sacchetti.

There are also two expert interviews, with Stephen Thrower and Stephen R. Bissette, although I have to say, both of them and Tim Lucas mostly say much of the same things, covering the film's many alternate titles, campaigns and release history.  It becomes a redundant grind, so I'd recommend just picking one of the three, and only delving into the others on later rewatches.  Severin also has two trailers - English and Italian - the radio spots, a brief introduction by Lamberto Bava filmed at some festival and a brief look at the storyboards.    

This initial limited edition also includes some neat bonus goods, including the soundtrack as a fifth disc.  It comes in a black amary case with reversible artwork, which is then housed in an embossed slipbox.  There's also a lobby card insert with the CD track-listing on the back, and a reproduction of the film's original barf bag that was given out at screenings when it played under the title Carnage.

Before I leave you, a final note about "V2."  Severin's Bay of Blood debuted as a pre-order in their Black Friday sale, and it shipped in 2026.  But it shipped with a problem.  Disc four, the BD with the Italian cuts, has a replication error, messing with the playback of both cuts (the extras play fine).  It's just the blu-ray version, not the UHDs, so it's not the worst thing in the world.  But for the price they charge, you expect every disc to work.  And they're aware and are fixing it.  Anyone who already has it will be getting V2 mailed to them.  If you don't already have it, though, you have to wait; V2 is currently on pre-order so it will only be sold with the fixed disc.  So if you're wondering what's the hold up, that's it.  But it'll be worth the wait.

Two Unsung Recommendations from Dark Force

Yaknow, nobody asked me, so I thought for today I would share two really neat titles from Dark Force that I haven't seen anybody really talking about online.  These aren't brand new, but they're both from the last two years and seemed to have slipped out virtually under the radar.  Like, I'm sitting here getting tired of all these posts about John Woo 4ks, thinking: why is nobody giving these titles some fanfare?

So let's begin with 1996's The Ex.  Do people realize this is a Larry Cohen movie?  It just came out this past October, right in time for Halloween.  And it's one of those titles Dark Force released in conjunction with Kino, so it's easy to find inexpensive if you're allergic to the Dark Force Superstore (though I found it there the cheapest, personally).  If you appreciate his more off-beat fare, like the kind of titles Scream Factory included in his Mystery and Misdirection set, this should be right up your alley.  In fact, it's a little closer to his traditional horror output than any of those; though objectively, you'd probably categorize it as a thriller.

And it's a fun thriller.  Here, Cohen is adapting a novel (John Lutz's The Ex, which had just come out that year), so despite the fact that it went direct-to-video and has a super generic title, it's actually smarter and better made than you would've thought spotting it on Blockbuster's New Releases wall.  It's directed by Mark L. Lester (Commando, Class of 1984) with some solid production values: big fire effects, plenty of locations, a constantly sweeping camera.  Yancy Butler (Witchblade) is delightful as the titular ex, a woman who must've seen Fatal Attraction and thought, I can top that.  She's constantly prevaricating between cleverly twisted mind games, classic femme fatale speeches, and rocketing up her body count.  Nick Mancusco (Nightwing, Stingray and the original prowler from Black Christmas) is her unfortunate love interest who's sort of brought it all on himself and Suzy Amis (a.k.a. Mrs. James Cameron) has the fairly thankless role of the stoic, put-upon wife.  Oh, and the kid they have playing their son is pretty great, too.

2025 Kino/ Dark Force BD.

Given that The Ex was a direct-to-video title from the 90s, and it never got a DVD release, this is already a treat just because this is the first time any of us are able to see it in widescreen.  One might quibble why this is 1.78:1 instead of 1.85, but it's clear this film was always intended to be seen wide.  it looks great, almost suspiciously good.  I was starting to look at this like, is that gain fake?  It turns out, this isn't the old master retrieved from Live Entertainment's basement like you'd expect.  Apparently Lester is supervising restorations his films these days, and the A-list results speak for themselves.

That also goes for its lossless DTS-HD 2.0 sound mix with optional English subtitles.  And there are some solid extras.  They got Yancy Butler and Nick Mancuso to come in for a pair of great on-camera interviews (well, Yancy's is better).  They also include the trailer, to give a taste of its old, boxy 4:3 home video framing, and seven(!) bonus trailers.  And it comes in an attractive slipcover.  First class all the way.

And for our second recommendation, this one was a real surprise, in the sense that I went into it with my expectations on the floor.  Deconstructing Dunning, about obscure but talented cult actor Douglas Dunning, is presented as the first "Dark Force Original," though it becomes clear listening to the commentary that Dark Force bought the documentary after it was completed for distribution.  They were selling this for just five dollars, so I threw it in my cart with something else.  It's like when Code Red used to sell their DVDs of A Day At the Beach for $2.99, desperate to get rid of them.  Frankly, I was expecting a real piece of crap, but it's actually a very good, and quite entertaining, documentary, and you should totally get it!

It's certainly flawed; but it's flaws are rolled into its appeal.  Some of these interview subjects are beyond "off the cuff."  John Landis looks like he was stopped on the street, surprised but still happy to be on camera; and the film begins with director Nicholas Meyer (Time After Time, Star Trek 2) complaining about how they ambushed him for this interview.  But that's a heck of a lot more entertaining than your average talking head!  Dunning gives the filmmaker tremendous access as he's kicked out of his home by his roommate, living in a storage space and getting extensive oral surgery.  We also get Dunning reconstructing his time in prison like a sequence from The Act Of Killing, and Laurene Landon being perfectly candid, and still a bit puzzled, about how Dunning stalked her.  Some of the people interviewed really hate him, and at certain points we find out why; but most people who've worked with him remain genuinely supportive, and this film had me feeling the same.

2024 Dark Force BD.

Deconstructing Dunning is presented in 1.78:1 and the HD footage looks great when it does.  Like many docs, this is composed of mixed media, including some vintage rapes, interviews shot on lower quality cameras, and some sections where Dunning is given the camera and allowed to film what he likes on his own... which tends to be completely out of focus.  But that's the film, not the transfer, which is surely taken from the official DCP and looks as good as it possibly could.  Audio is a lossless stereo track in DTS-HD, but there are no subtitle options.

And there's a collection of great and terrible extras.  First up, we get "Savage Tracks Vol. 6" where "Demon" Dave DeFalco keeps walking away from the mic, calling Vinegar Syndrome on his phone, and everybody is talking over each other about god knows what.  A good chunk of the time is devoted to somebody "sneaking" into the recording session dressed as an ape?  I've never listened to a Savage Track before, but this one was enough for me.  BUT, they did get Dunning and the film's producer to join them, and when they get a word in edge-wise, the producer adds some good tidbits of information, and Dunning continues to be a wild character.  They also include the entire, unedited interviews with Bert I. Gordon and Franco Nero, which Dunning himself interview, and are quite something.  Dunning keeps asking them questions about his life, and they are baffled.  Finally, we get the complete collection of abusive phone messages Dunning left his former boss, which we heard highlights from in the film.  There are also a couple promo trailers under the previous title Resurrecting Dunning.

These are what I've been having a great time with lately.

Frederick Wiseman, Restored!

You may recall, in the summer of 2022, I shared the announcement that blu-ray restorations for all of Frederick Wiseman's films shot on film were coming "by the end of the year."  That year end obviously came and went, and in 2025, it came out that he was still in the process of restoring them.  But now at the top of 2026, we've finally got our first taste: five of his early works (but not, strictly speaking, his first five films) in a tight 3-disc boxed set from the BFI entitled 'Cinema Expanded: The Films of Frederick Wiseman.'

Previously, these have all only been available on DVD.  In the US, they were DVD-Rs distributed by Zipporah Films, Wiseman's company, primarily sold directly through their website.  There have been foreign editions of some of these, most notably in France by the label Blaq Out, though I've also seen a Korean Titicut Follies DVD floating around.  I suppose the upshot of importing those is that they'd at least be pressed discs.  But as an American, I dutifully ordered my copy of each of these five films from Zipporah.

1967's Titicut Follies is Wiseman's first, and still probably best known, film, if only because it was banned for twenty-four years, and so it would often show up in cult film catalogs on bootleg VHS and the like.  It's the Wiseman film you might've seen even if you don't care at all about vérité documentary or academic cinema.  It's certainly chock full of full frontal male nudity (atypical of Wiseman's oeuvre) and deeply disturbing images of death and, arguably, torture.  But the reason it was banned was because of how awful it made its subject, Bridgewater State Hospital of Massachusetts, look (stay tuned after the credits for a pair of amusing disclaimers), which is ironic, because these places only ever agree to let Wiseman film in them because they think it's going to be a boon to their public image.  But that dichotomy between the horrors onscreen and the enactors' confidence in their own nobility is what makes this film so fascinating.

Wiseman's second film, 1968's High School, didn't get banned, but Philadelphia's North East High wasn't much happier with the final product of their film.  Still, this is a much more relatable, normal look at the typical drudgeries of the American public high school experience.  What stands out the most about this one today is how dated the period has become.  I'm not exactly gen Z, and even I couldn't believe it when one of the teachers organized a fashion show by and for her female students, pointing out which ones have a "weight problem" or "too heavy" legs.  Even the filmmakers themselves are uncomfortably leering at the underage girls' gym class bodies.  Tensions are also subtly rising as issues of the day involving the Vietnam war and assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. seep into the school.  It's certainly interesting to compare, and see how much things have changed, by the time of Wiseman's High School II in 1994.

His next film was Law & Order, but the BFI now skips ahead to his 1970 film Hospital for their next inclusion.  Wiseman's catalog generally gets less and less controversial as it goes forward, to the point where is modern documentaries could be said to be the very picture of milquetoast.  Even as early as 1970, you feel Wiseman has turned the corner from exposing his subjects to being firmly on their side.  I mean, Menus-Plaisirs Les Troisgros is virtually a four-hour advertisement.  If you screenshot the closing credits and show it to them on your phone, the staff at Le Bois sans feuilles have probably been instructed to give you a 5% discount.  But in Hospital, there are several points where you'll be grateful for the black and white photography, because he doesn't shy away from some grisly and upsetting images that fall before his lens.  Still, this is mostly valuable as a detail rich look at how a modern (for 1970) metropolitan hospital works, and the people you'll find there.  And this is where he won two of his three Emmy Awards (the BFI-skipped Law & Order being the third).

But they skip several more films now to arrive at 1973's Juvenile Court.  This is the film, beyond all the others i his long career, that really had my jaw dropping at the access he was granted.  At one point, he's filming a hearing about child sexual abuse, and they decide to move the toddlers' testimony to the judge's private chambers to protect their privacy from the rest of the courtroom staff.  And his cameras follow them right in!  I don't know if we should be seeing all this, but these stories are all fascinating.  And I guess that explains the shift in Wiseman's body of work.  He's got so much material you just couldn't imagine cutting out, so while all of his previous films had been coming in at 90 minutes or less, Juvenile Court jumps to almost three hours, an indulgence in length that would persist through his documentary work for the next 50+ years.  His longest, Near Death, is a whopping six hours.  But I wouldn't cut a second out of any of them... well, at least until the 2010s.  I wouldn't mind a breezier Boxing Gym.  But here, every second is riveting.

Finally, we jump over Primate to land on 1975's Welfare, a bureaucratic purgatory constantly sending people up and downstairs like a two circled Dante's Inferno. There's one scene where an employee feels like a damn Homeric hero when he goes upstairs himself to sort out an error on a poor soul's behalf.  Otherwise, this is a harrowing testament to how heartlessly this country treats our poor and disabled.  And I have to credit the booklet that comes with this set for a fascinating discovery here.  I've seen these films several times over the years (after all, I am double-dipping my DVDs for these blus), and I never realized that the Mrs. Hightower we meet in this film is the same Mrs. Hightower who was stonewalling the social worker over the phone five years prior in Hospital.  It's a small, cruel world, but another fascinating doc.

Zipporah DVRs top; BFI BDs bottom; films in sequential order.

So, I'm lumping these comparisons together because it's essentially the same story every time.  All of these discs present the films in their original 1.33:1 aspect ratios, except for Titicut Follies and Welfare, where the DVRs (which to be clear, means yes, they're consumer-grade burned discs) is 1.30:1, and the BDs has been slightly widened out to the more correct 1.37:1, revealing a little extra on the sides.  All of these BDs have been restored in 4k from the original 16mm camera negatives and look fantastic.  Grain is perfectly captured, detail is clearer and the fuzzy edges of the old discs have been sharpened right up.  Also, all of the DVRs are interlaced for every two out of six frames - you can see an example in the first set of shots from Titicut Follies at the top, above.  There's also what looks like some unwelcome edge enhancement or unsharpening tool used on Zipporah's Welfare that the BFI has dropped.  Contrast levels are more pleasing across the board, too, with the DVRs looking a little washed out in comparison.  Furthermore, you can see the restorations have cleaned up print damage, like those white spots in the High School and Juvenile Court comparisons above.  In short, these are truly impressive, massive upgrades, which blow the old and frankly disappointing Zipporah discs out of the water.

All of the Zipporah discs just offer the basic, though reasonably clear and strong, mono audio tracks in Dolby Digital 2.0.  BFI has restored them all and included them in LPCM, with optional English subtitles.

Extras aren't much, but they're not nothin'.  Well, on the DVRs they are a hundred percent barebones.  But BFI has included two new featurettes, a first for a filmmaker who previously went out of his way to forbid special features from appearing on his releases.  The first is a nice visual essay by Ian Mantgani, which serves as a strong introduction to Wiseman's work.  I only wish it was longer, but maybe BFI are holding out for a second volume.  The other is a twenty-minute panel discussion by BFI's Southbank curator and a couple of people... frankly none of whom have anything interesting to say about Wiseman's work.  They take one question from the audience and don't know the answer.  Feel free to skip that one.  We do also get the nice booklet I mentioned earlier, though, which includes seven essays by different experts, including the hosts of The Wiseman Podcast.  The three discs are packaged in a standard amary case housed in a stylish slipbox.

So, I sure hope there's going to be a Volume 2 and beyond, though the fact that they skipped some films rather than just tackling the first five in a row suggests they're not aiming to be comprehensive and give us all of these restorations on blu.  Maybe another label in another region will pick up the slack.  But if we're going to be stuck with the DVDs for the rest, at least we got some of his heaviest hitters here.