Essentially a big budget version of Celebrity Deathmatch, Alien Vs. Predator unites two of cinema's nastiest beasties for a "wham-bam-thank-you-m'am thrill ride," courtesy of British director Paul WS Anderson. Not surprisingly it was savaged by critics before shooting straight to the top of the worldwide box office.

Alien Resurrection

Aside from an extended cut of the film (featuring only two minutes extra bloodshed) this two-disc edition DVD comes chock full of behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and effects demos. In Conception, director Paul WS Anderson explains that he pitched the movie "just for fun", of course there was a lot of work involved in defining the premise as evidenced by myriad storyboards and concept art. Complementing this featurette are two galleries and video footage of the ADI Workshop where the face-huggers et al were put through their paces.

An hour-long 'Making Of' documentary chronicles the production at an abandoned sugar factory in Prague. Here, non-CG stars Sanaa Lathan and Lance Henriksen offer their thoughts between bouts of alien ass-kicking. "He's like a big kid and we're his action figures," says Lathan of Anderson. Meanwhile, the stress is clearly getting to Henriksen who throws out bizarre profundities like, "When you look into the mouth of a crocodile, you see a lot of things." Um, perhaps Steve Irwin knows what he's talking about...

Also included in this section is a chance to get up close and personal with the Alien face-huggers (be warned though: don't watch this while eating your lunch) and Trouble At The Mouth Of The Tunnel where behind-the-scenes cameras catch the moment when "a controlled explosion" sets off a raging fire on set. More horrifying than that is the reaction of cinematographer David Johnson who frets over the fate of his "B-camera" instead of the actors trapped inside.

Extra Terrestrial Bits

According to visual effects supervisor John Bruno, "real is better," but a half-hour featurette dedicated to the art of digital jiggery-pokery somewhat undermines this philosophy. Among the scenes under scrutiny are the flying face-huggers and the last showdown. You can hear more about how these effects were achieved in a feature commentary, hosted by Bruno and other members of his effects team.

Anderson also hosts a track - accompanied by Henriksen and Lathan - in which he actually criticises the work of the visual effects team. Besides that, this is a rather fluffy commentary where Henriksen spends a lot of time gushing about how "great" everything looks (presumably trying to repair the damage done by Anderson) while Lathan moans about looking fat. "That jacket is bulky," she whines, "I just don't like the way it looks!"

Eleven deleted scenes don't add much to the finished film except for a few bland cutaways and a little grizzly humour eg a predator tweaks the nerve of a dead alien causing its second head to pop from its mouth. It's sidesplitting - literally. Putting all this gloopy, disgusting stuff into context are two featurettes focussing on the original comicbook and a standard, studio-produced behind-the-scenes featurette. Altogether it's a comprehensive selection of extras that will surely have fans glued to the screen like an Alien face-hugger on John Hurt.

EXTRA FEATURES

DISC ONE

DISC TWO - ONLY AVAILABLE AS PART OF THE SPECIAL EDITION

The Alien Vs. Predator: Special Extreme Edition DVD is out to buy on Monday 7th March 2005.