Gasps followed the announcement that Rick Rosenthal had landed the directing gig for Halloween: Resurrection (well, in Almar's house - ed.). If you need reminding this is the man who brought us Halloween II, a sequel that forever sealed the demise of the franchise into cheap scare tricks. If the film passed the time amiably enough in an axe-to-the-head-way for you, then the good news is that it's well presented on a disc with good picture quality and a creepy 5.1 sound mix. But for those of us keen to explore just why Rosenthal sucks so much, he provides acres of proof as to why on the DVD.

Rosenthal by the Numbers?

Rosenthal clearly has been watching some decent horror as he admits to paying homage to Goblin, the band behind the music of Dario Argento's best films, in one particular scene. This little fact escapes in a chatty enough commentary from Rick and his editor Robert A Ferretti, but frankly they come across as completely passionless about their creation.

Rosenthal Out of Touch

Surely not, but as other horror filmmakers explore the future Rick is busy playing catch-up. Proof is to be found in the Webcam Special extra feature, where Rick promises that one day he hopes to bring us an interactive DVD where we can view the film from the character perspective courtesy of all the mini-DVs used in the shoot. A bit like the My Little Eye DVD did months ago, Rick? Until he can bring us this DVD, he has roped together 40 minutes of footage that is so jumpily edited together it brings on waves of nausea.

Rosenthal Indecisive

The deleted scenes do enough to reveal a director unsure of what he is trying to achieve, but the nail in the coffin is a section where you can view three alternate endings. The incompetence of these scenes just has to be seen to be believed, and from Rosenthal's commentary it's clear that he was out of his depth and this DVD proves it.

EXTRA FEATURES

This DVD was reviewed on a JVC XV-N5 DVD player.