Updating the old "release list" allows the Cap'n to correct one erroneous statement from a few weeks ago: The Stepfather will in fact be on dvd, just not until two weeks after Stepfather II arrives. Sticklers must remember to be patient, lest ye ruin the chronology of pre-Lost/X-Files/Millenium Terry O'Quinn. But don't worry, that's what I'm here for; to keep you on track.

A cursory glance also reveals the following "Really? That's Going to Be on Blu-Ray?!" movies: The Postman, Ichi the Killer, Starman, Over the Top, The Quick and the Dead, Blue Thunder and Cutthroat Island.

On the other hand, you'll finally be able to say you own Torso, Stunt Rock, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, and Werewolf: The Complete Series on dvd before the end of the year. Who says a new format's not good for bringing you every single "cult" film or tv show left in the archives*?

Still no sign of that Troll 2 Blu-Ray though...
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As of right now, the only HD-DVD disc to arrive is The Frighteners, which looked pretty nice. By watching it, I've been able to confirm a suspicion I had about the other discs and the player itself: there's an ever so slight "jerky" motion to the picture. The sound is pretty great and generally the image looks good, but when things get very busy on-screen (as the beginning of The Frighteners does) the image can kind of lag or jerk for just a hair of a second.

I'd need someone else to double check it, but I'm pretty sure this is not an isolated phenomenon. This may have something to do with the HD-DVD drive or the video encoding, I don't know. Truthfully, it's not really distracting, except perhaps on a subliminal level, telling you "this is a smidge off, hoss", until you shrug it off. It's something I've never noticed on Blu-Ray discs, but then again we're dealing in uncharted territory here.

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Maybe the only good thing to come out of Shit Coffin was the BD-Live availability of a scene from Trick R Treat, which Warner Brothers has been sitting on (for no apparent reason) for almost two years. Everyone who sees it seems to love it, and as a sucker for anthology films anyway, I've been waiting patiently.

The clip involves Brian Cox as "grouchy old dude who probably hates Halloween" being terrorized by that little sack-headed kid you might have seen in the artwork. Once you get past the sack kid looking a little silly, things get quite violent. There's a better back and forth than I was expecting from the "non-believer gets scared" story, and the violence isn't nearly as one-sided as it normally is. If anything, the nine minutes I watched really got the Cap'n jonesing to see the whole thing in context, plus the other two stories alluded to in this here trailer:



Look for it to join Let the Right One In at Horror Fest in October, provided Warners ever picks a release date.

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Off to fiddle around with some digital media and see if the game systems can see them. Then packing. I have to be out of this apartment by, let's say, next week. Ack.

* Except for Monsters. What must I do to get Monsters on dvd? Do I have to buy Friday the 13th: The Series? Poltergeist: The Series? Do I need to petition Freddy's Nightmares so I have to buy that too?