BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR

The above synopsis may let Beyond Re-animator sound like inspired lunacy, but one keeps on feeling that the end result could have been better. It digs for the same comic vein that the excellent Evil Dead 2 successfully mined, but is let down by some bad acting and not making more use of the brilliant Jeffrey Coombs.

Still, this is much better than most straight-to-video horror fare. B-movies aficionados and fans of the original film will find much to enjoy in this over-the-top and black-humored affair.

Those with a more sensitive disposition would want to give Beyond Re-animator a skip though: it is quite gory.

THE DISC: Usually South Africa and the rest of the world only get to see movies long after they have opened in the States and Canada. Or at least that’s when it comes to Hollywood movies – occasionally we’d get lucky and get to see non-Hollywood pics before they are distributed in the States. One example is the Brit post-apocalyptic zombie pic 28 Days Later.

Another is Beyond re-animator, which even though it is supposedly set in America, was a Spanish movie production. States-side Beyond Re-animator will go straight to home video on the 31st of December of this year, courtesy of Lion’s Gate distributors.

Here in South Africa, the movie has also made its way directly to the video shelves thanks to Nu Metro, the second largest movie distributor in the country. As far as I can make out the movie hasn’t been released in the UK either yet, just regionally in a few European countries - Spain being one of them.

So this is a very localized DVD probably exclusive to South Africa, where it was also physically manufactured. Most DVDs distributed are manufactured locally now, but are essentially the same as the discs found in the other Region 2 countries in Europe and so forth. A lot of DVDs are still imported though and only packaged locally.

The chances are that you won’t find this disc anywhere outside South Africa’s borders unless you specifically import it from a South African Internet-based retailer.

But you wouldn’t want to do this unless you are very desperate to see this before your fellow countrymen because this is a real bare bones affair. You get the movie, scene access, an option to set the audio, and a static menu. To add insult to injury, the movie is presented in pan ‘n’ scan mode and not even optimized for 16X9 televisions.

This is the type of lazy sloppiness one has however come to expect of local South African distributors (Nu Metro is a particular culprit) when it comes to the overpriced DVD market. Profit before customers seem to be their slogan and they have no shame in hoisting inferior produce unto an unsuspecting public.

If you’re a South African DVD movie buff then don’t be too despondent: I’ve heard Australian DVD-philes complain about the very same issues when it comes to their local distributors. It would seem that the former British colonies are just made to suffer when it comes to this sort of thing . . .

The image though is crystal clear and so is the sound.

But because the movie is presented in the wrong aspect ratio one could see audio microphones bobbing at the top of the screen several times – I counted about four times. Yes folks, when one sees mikes like this it isn’t because the film crew were unprofessional but mostly likely because the film you’re watching is being shown in the wrong aspect ratio. (What am I talking about? Click here for an article about all this.)

WORTH IT? A rental if you live in South Africa. Nu Metro DVDs have a reputation for being vastly overpriced and it would probably be cheaper for you to import the Region 1 DVD when it becomes available thanks to the weaker dollar.

RECOMMENDATION: Curse your black heart Nu Metro – may you be overrun by a swarm of locusts, and that’s only for starters, for bringing out this sort of substandard product . . .
 

• See also: Movie Gurus