Darkness Falls [Special Edition]

Audio :
The sound department allowed for listening in either English or French Dolby Digital 5.1. Of course, the French mix surrendered very quickly to the English mix in sound quality. The 5.1 multi-channel surround format is pushed nicely by Darkness Falls. Notably, the .1 LFE channel and rear surrounds were ideally utilized to follow the movements of the Tooth Fairy and to accent when danger was abound. When the subwoofer started to rumble, you knew there was going to be trouble! Dialogue was clear and intelligible, even if some of the lines being spoken were high in cheese content. The musical score was carried very nicely by the soundtrack and mixed perfectly with ambient effects. The closing credits featured a nice little rock tune that sounded great at loud volumes. English and French subtitles are also selectable.

Extras :
I agree that the film was certainly not an excellent picture. It certainly will not win any Oscars, but it was good enough that the Razzies will leave it alone. Columbia TriStar has added a lot of value to Darkness Falls with an excellent collection of supplemental materials. These materials cover all the usual bases. Commentaries, deleted scenes and informative ad fluffy promotional pieces, the value-added content of Darkness Falls both entertains and informs. I was really surprised that the creators of the DVD were able to fit all of this material onto a single-sided disc that contained two version of the film, but to their credit, they did.

The film contains two Audio Commentary Tracks. The first commentary track features director Jonathan Liebesman, producer Jason Shuman, producer William Sherak and writer James Verderbuilt. These four gentlemen are extremely entertaining and vary their commentary by giving entertaining stories and informative bits on the production to ramblings about odd items that has little or nothing to do with the film. The purpose of a commentary track is to entertain and to inform and they succeed easily. The second commentary features the other two writers for the film, John Fasano and Joseph Harris. These gentlemen are more subdued than those in the first commentary and they stick much closer to what is happening on screen. I only listened to portions of the second track, but it always had something informative to say.

Roughly ten minutes of Deleted Scenes are included on the DVD. A notorious scene involving a classroom that added to the history of the Tooth Fairy is not included and may disappoint some and the director claims that a plethora of material was deleted, but it doesn´t appear here. Perhaps all of this is being saved up for a two-disc set down the road. The seven deleted scenes contained are "Dr. Murphy´s Advice," "The Specialist," "Kyle Decides to Help," "Dr. Murphy Sticks with the Group," "Young Caitlin´s Necklace," "Hallway of Lights" and "Final Confrontation." These scenes are shown in rough form, but in widescreen. They add a minor amount of character development, but are mostly just additions to scenes that survived the cutting room floor.

Two documentary featurettes are included as well. The Legend of Matilda Dixon is an amusing attempt at bringing credibility to the Tooth Fairy mythos depicted in the story. This documentary has a definite Blair Witch Project feel to it, but it never even comes close to being genuine. Sadly, it only lasts for about ten minutes and when it comes to closure, you are left with a definite taste of cheese in your mouth. The other featurette is the typical talking-heads, HBO-Style documentary. Unoriginally titled The Making of Darkness Falls,, this nearly twenty-minute foray into the talent behind the picture is very vanilla and run-of-the-mill and definitely was designed to add hype to the movie. Unfortunately, after watching the film, I tend to not agree with much of the comparisons to classic horror pictures made during the featurette. A handful of Storyboard Comparisons, Production Notes and Cast & Crew Information finishes off the included bonus material.

Summary :
Darkness Falls was an entertaining little film that is typical of a B-Movie horror pic. However, it is clearly a lower-budgeted film that is extremely predictable and falls flat in the face of horror, or at least in its attempts at creating horror. Still, regardless of the films shortcomings, I enjoyed watching it. When it first hit theaters, I had anticipation in seeing the movie, but never made it to the multiplex to enjoy it. In all honesty, the film is a better DVD purchase. For the price of a popcorn, soda and movie ticket you can own the disc and it comes with a nice complement of extra features. It is a better value as a DVD disc, and is truly a better value as a rental than what you would have paid to see it in the theaters. Columbia TriStar has done well with the supplements and the transfer. Buzz around the Internet is that there are some greatly anticipated, but sadly missing cut scenes. They would have been nice. The theatrical trailer (which is included on other DVDs) is not included here and hints at one of these scenes. Still, the picture and sound are very good and I don´t feel too bad in recommending this one.

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