In a change from my current Halloween theme for reviews, I wanted to drop a few comments on the Simpsons First Season DVD set, especially since I comapred the Futurama First Season Box to it.

Unlike the [Futurama DVD Boxed Set](/2002/10/03/futurama-season-1-dvd/), there was never really a question for me: I ordered The Simpsons Season One as soon as it came out on DVD, not caring for the relatively high price (30 Euro at the time, see below). It arrived quickly, too. The disappointment was big: While the silvery box looked really rgeat, it had two disadvantages: One, it’s really easy to get the great box smeared with fingerprints. And two, the glue on my box was really crappy, and the upper side was loose. For 30+ Euros, I really expected more.

However, most of these gripes were quickly forgotten when I played the DVDs. The menues are simple but functional. There are some extras; animations and deleted scenes; various language clips; and some short features about the creation and history of the simpsons. They’re quite a bit longer than the featurette on the Futurama Season One box, and I didn’t feel cheated. (Note that the Futurama Boxed Set actually was published a year later.) But the main attraction, of course, are the episodes themselves. The picture quality is sharp and clear, good sound too as far as I can judge. Definitely a huge improvement over my old VHS tapes.

Once you’ve watched the episodes, you’ll want to watch them again, and this time, enable the audio commentary by Matt Groening and his fellow writers, directors and producers. And what can I say except this: The commentaries are great. They tell the story of the first year of the simpsons with all the highs and lows; how the show was almost cancelled, and so on. It’s simply a joy to listen to these tales, and I’ve probably watched the Episodes mroe often with the commentary than without. If you are a Simpsons fan at all, then you will not want to miss these, at any rate.

The bottom line is that, while it’s still expensive, I never regretted the purchase of The Simpsons Season One. I certainly got my money’s worth out of these discs, and I can only recommend them to anybody who likes The Simpsons and owns a DVD player. I would recommend that you compare priuces, though. Amazon.de’s current listed price for Season One is 40 Euros, which I find is way too much for this set. 30 Euros, which I remember paying for it, sounds about the correct upper limit for this set.

607It’s Halloween Time, and I had wanted to post more reviews this year. I’m really behind schedule, but tonight I watched the first scary movie of the season: The Quatermass Experiment, written by Nigel Kneale and directed by Val Guest.

The Quatermass movies are actually a loose series of movies and TV shows from the 1950s and 1960s; it’s classic sci-fi from Great Britain “end of the world looms” type science-fiction. I noticed the series first on amazon.co.uk. I was just browsing for old Sci-Fi movies and I found [Quatermass and the Pit](/2002/10/11/quatermass-and-the-pit/). I was so tempted that I bought it, and I have not once regrettet shelling out all that money for the import DVD.

I am not quite sure, but I think Quatermass Experiment predates The Pit. The stories are not connected and never reference each other, except by the title hero’s character. Where in the Pit, Alien horrors are excavated at a construction site in London, they come crashing down to Earth in the first rocket to be launched by mankind and constructed by Quatermass. There’s only one survivor, and when things start taking a turn for the worse, the Professor has to investigate and fight the horrors that threaten London and the world.

Quatermass Experiment shines – like The Pit – not because of it’s special effects.The creatures are obviously rubber and won’t scary even a kindergarden chid; and the way the rocket sticks out of the ground at the crash site made me laugh out loud. The story isn’t very original either, not by 1957 standards and certainly not by today’s standard. What the movie excels at is presentation, a tight script, and especially a very good performance by the main actors. Especially Quatermass and the man who plays the astronaut-victim Carroon are simply great. If I had to pick a favorite for this movie, then it’s the astronaut actor. Very good, simply wonderful.

The atmosphere of the movie is semi-scary. it’s a little behind [The Thing from Another World](/2002/10/14/the-thing-from-another-world-1951/) or the above-mentioned [Quatermass and the Pit](http://nils.jeppe.de/2002/10/11/quatermass-and-the-pit/). Still, I think you won’t be disappointed by this movie if you like old sci-fi/horror/suspense movies at all.

The DVD’s presentation is decent as well. I reviewed the German edition which is part of a collector’s series of Hammer movies. It includes the movie with English and two German sound tracks; one being the original movie dubbing of 1957; the other being the TV dubbing from the late 60s. (The TV version is much closer to the English original.) Also present on the DVD are a US trailer, an interview with Val Guest (which looks like it was taken at a hobby convention by an amateur cameraman) and a short documentation about Hammer movies.

All in all, I think the DVD is a good value for the current amazon.de price of about 13 Euros and a decent – if somewhat light – start for the 2003 Halloween season.

_Update, October 26th 2003:_ I should point out that I watched the German edition of the DVD – and that it has a noteable different set of features than the UK version. Above all, there seems to be an audio commentary included on the British DVD. If that is truely the case, then there is no excuse at all for the German DVD to miss this feature. Subtract a good notch from my rating. I’ll consider buying the british DVD but unfortunately it’s quite expensive (15 pounds).

It’s a slow evening, so here we go with the third review of a scary movie for Halloween. Granted, the setting – a seaside town in California – is not really Halloween-ish, but the movie is otherwise right on.

Continue reading →

613It’s October – Halloween time! That’s why I decided to review some of the scary movies I own. First in this series: Quatermass and the Pit, written by Nigel Kneale and filmed by the BBC in 1957.

Chances are you never heard that name, so what’s Quatermass and the pit all about?

During construction in London, a skull is found. Police seals off the area, and a team of archaeologists is brought in to investigate. Eventually, Dr. Bernard Quatermass, founder of the British Rocketship Group, is called in, when events take a turn for the weird.

I’m not going to give away anything of the plot here, I always hate when people do that. You do have to think of Quatermass as a sort of precursor to Mulder & Scully, though, and you’ll get the right idea: In the end, the fate of the world hangs in the ballance.

Quatermass, like all old Sci-Fi movies, has to be taken with a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief. We all know the true history of spaceflight by now, and we’re all used to ultra-realistic special effects. Still, if you’re willing to give it a try and to just enjoy this movie, you’ll be in for a wonderful thriller, mainly because the creators realized their limits, and much of the horror is implied and not shown in close-up.

I recommend to watch this very late on a friday night, when you’re home alone, in a dark apartment. Preferably in the autumn, during a rainstorm or foggy evening. I do admit, when I first watched this movie, it scared the hell out of me. Of course I have been known to be scared by E.T., too. Okay, so that was a long time ago.

Quartermass was a sort of loose series of two or three miniseries in the 1950s, performed live on TV. This DVD contains the restored and almost complete version. It contains no extras, but at least it’s Region Code 0 – you can play it with any DVD player.

I bought this DVD a while ago. I had never heard of it before, but I came across it while browsing the web. I bought it from amazon and I certainly didn’t regret it. In fact, I really enjoyed this DVD. I wish there had been a few extras, and I really wish the series had been complete, but still Quatermass and the Pit is worth the money. If you’re a fan of old Science Fiction / Horror movies, you’ll definitely want to give this one a try.