I wasn't sure what to expect from this one, but reviews said it was a pretty good series overall. I am a fan of horror flicks, so I Netflixed it. It is a colletion of shorts from various directors in said genre for those who haven't heard of it. The first disc contains 3 shorts, all of which were pretty decent. The PQ is good overall.
I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that it had a lossless PCM track for it, though there are only a few times where it really drew attention to itself. One of note was when someone opened a door an it literally panned from front right to left and sounded awesome. A few other times during some "someone else is in the room with me" scenes there were some nice effects in the back of the room.
The first one is by Carpenter called
Cigarette Burns and was the most disturbing of all. It is about a guy who finds prints of old films for collectors and a collector asks him to find the most intense movie ever made for him. It was screened once and riots broke out in the audience during the screening and many were killed. So the movie has a bit of mystery surrounding it. As he starts to look for it, he gets more drawn into the mania that seems to surround everyone who has anything to do with it. Most of the cast and crew are dead and even those who saw it and lived (30 years later) are still scarred by it. I thought this one was pretty good, though it did have a few scenes that I was not prepared for. Gore doesn't tend to bother me, but there was some intense stuff in this one. There are comments within this film about "You know that it isn't real, but you trust that the director will not go TOO far." and I think that was sort of the point that was trying to be hammered home in those scenes. It is rare that a horror movie has the ability to truly shock me these days. It was an interesting one.
The second was pretty average. Well acted, interesting premise, but never really got beyond a little weird. It had a pretty heavy feel overall, so it managed to convey good mood, but it was the weakest of the 3 IMHO.
The third was predictable but still done pretty well. A pretty good story and decent acting, but so-so effects. It was probably the lightest of the 3 and that was good, because I was still digesting the first one, so this one actually had the effect of allowing me to relax a bit. Though the story became predictable, I still enjoyed this one more than the second.
Not a lot of extras on this disc aside from director commentaries for each which I did not listen to (don't know if it is multiple discs since Netflix only sends the primary discs). These came out last year I believe, so it isn't like they are new, but since I watched it and this particular forum has been pretty quiet, I figured I'd post a review. I don't have Showtime, so I wasn't aware of the series.
Recommended Halloween rental
