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Way Out, on the other hand, is an amazing movie, a brash indictment of the entire drug culture, posing as a very successful experiment in avant-garde filmmaking. Don't get the wrong idea from that last statement: This is not some manner of performance art passing itself off as reality, or a combination of editing tricks and narrative misdirection. No, director Irwin S. Yeaworth, Jr., famous for helming the original The Blob in 1958 and The 4D Man in 1959, took a potent, underground play by real life recovering addict John Gimenez, transported the story to the mean streets of the Bronx and populated his cast with ex-junkies. The result is Way Out, a sublime, substantial look at the everyday struggles of Hispanic heroin addicts.

This is not your typical Tinsel Town fare, nor does it completely fit into the exploitation mold. More powerful than the standard mainstream walks through the mire of drug dependence, but with none of the outrageous elements that tend to undermine most art house titles, this is a frank and forceful discussion of the desperate lives of sad, strung-out people. Using the barest of plots to illustrate its pro-God points (this is a film that argues for faith as the cure-all for addiction), the reality of the performances combined with the sense of authenticity given off by the environment gives this film a true aura of apprehension and melancholy. The players, all ex-users themselves, bring the pain, the pathos, and the precariousness of abuse to vivid life, never once undermining the illusion or accuracy. Not quite a complete example of cinema vérité (there is too much artifice in Yeaworth's blocking and color scheme), Way Out avoids many of the pat answers offered in a typical Hollywood drama. The result is an amazing and moving picture, far better than other examples of mid-'60s social scare films. Way Out doesn't need to make up nightmares to warn young people about the dangers of dope. It offers up pragmatism in gritty, grotesque bucketfuls to illustrate its horrors.

Like scholars unlocking a long-lost secret tomb of time capsule treasures, Something Weird has really outdone itself with these two titles. While Ghetto Freaks fails in its flower power, Way Out more than makes up for those hopeless hippie missteps. The result is a real dichotomy of cinematic style and motion picture communication. Ghetto Freaks wants to waltz around the issues with acid rock ridiculousness. Way Out addresses the problems up front and personally. The same could be said for the tech specs as well. Both color transfers come in 1.33:1 images that suffer from age defect and negative issues. Yet Way Out looks a thousand percent better than Ghetto Freaks. It doesn't have the latter's washed out, ultra-grainy grubbiness. Way Out looks surprisingly good, with bright vibrant hues dancing around the otherwise dark and dirty streets of New York. Yeaworth also has the better artistic sense. Robert J. Emery, the director of Ghetto Freaks, is too lost in his own world of wild angles and pointless montages to make his movie work (though the "caught in the act" panhandling sequence does have a nice, innocent eavesdropping quality to it). Both movies feature the same type of tiny, muffled soundtrack that occasionally makes the dialogue indistinct. But for the most part, these long-lost films look and sound fairly good.

Sadly, Something Weird really lets us down in the extras department. The ads for other drug/dropout films are fine, with the Cameron Mitchell starring vehicle Monkey on My Back looking like manic, must-see dementia. But the only other bonus beside the four trailers (none for either film offered) is 10 minutes of cautionary claptrap about the evils of drugs. Pulled directly from some sixth grade health class, and doing nothing to either shock you out of or support your use of illegal narcotics, this vague overgeneralization about the dangers of dope is just dumb. You know you're in trouble when a weenie roast is the naughtiest thing about your anti-addiction rant.

While Ghetto Freaks / aka Love Commune / aka Signs of Aquarius is about as cogent as a freshly smoked banana peel and twice as tempting, Way Out is one hell of a film, as emotional as it is memorable. Together, this duo combines to form a DVD of divergent directives. Way Out wants to scare you straight. Ghetto Freaks hasn't sobered up enough to figure out what all the fuss is about.

Lino wrote:I admit it helped a bit having read about Doris Wishman's life and career and, particularly, her very own brand of filmmaking techniques before watching any of her movies.

DVD Video Quality

Basket Case fans will know what to expect, but the uninitiated should be warned: this film was shot on a ludicrously small budget on 16mm - and, to make matters worse, virtually all of it is set after dark, with lighting that could politely be described as somewhat basic. In other words, there is clearly an absolute upper limit in terms of quality that anyone can realistically expect - indeed, Frank Henenlotter apologises for the picture quality less than five minutes into the commentary!

So why have I given it such a high rating? It’s because this transfer is a genuinely staggering achievement. When I first saw the film in the cinema in the early 1980s, the print was so grainy that it looked more like Super 8 than 16mm - but on this DVD it’s actually quite hard to tell that it wasn’t 35mm. It’s certainly not grain-free, but apart from a few shots (chiefly those shot in obviously very low light) the grain is rarely obtrusive and never distracting - indeed, it suits the deliberately scuzzy feel very well.

Surprise number two is that the print is in exceptionally good condition. It’s not absolutely pristine - there are occasional spots and scratches (splice marks can occasionally be seen as well), but no more than I’d accept on a far more recent release, and the near-total absence of digital artefacting is equally welcome. Surprise number three is that the colours are gorgeous, particularly the all-important reds, whether we’re talking Duane’s rucksack, the Hotel Broslin’s neon sign, or of course spurting gouts of blood. Black levels are dead on, while even shadow detail is surprisingly good - assuming it was ever visible in the original footage.

Apparently this DVD was transferred from the original negative and electronically colour-corrected under Henenlotter’s supervision... and it shows. As for the lack of anamorphic enhancement, Henenlotter himself confirms on the commentary that it should be 4:3, something that apparently surprised him during the transfer - he didn’t actually realise that cinemas cropped it to 1.85:1 on its original release or even that he should have shot a potential theatrical release in a wider ratio!

All in all, this transfer is pretty close to ideal - and an absolute revelation even for a longterm Basket Case fan like myself. Obviously, no-one is going to mistake this for, say, the Superbit version of The Fifth Element, but my only real criticism is that it would have been nice if Something Weird had gone the extra mile and digitally scrubbed out the few white dust spots. But otherwise, you can rest assured that every other problem is firmly inherent in the original materials, and nothing short of a reshoot is going to solve that.

DVD Audio Quality

The sound is the original mono, with no attempt at a remix, which I think was a wise decision - I’m really not convinced by the current trend to add DTS surround remixes to films originally shot for about ten cents and recorded on a portable cassette deck. Obviously, this is pretty basic (limited dynamic range, audible distortion at the top end), and I didn’t expect it to be anything else, but I’m happy to confirm that dialogue comes across clearly enough, and that it’s probably safe to say that any shortcomings are, as with the picture, squarely down to the original materials.

DVD Extras Quality

Proudly touted as a 20th Anniversary Special Edition, it’s clear from just a glance at the back cover that Something Weird’s devotion to this film doesn’t stop with the transfer: in fact, they’ve outshone even their already excellent Herschell Gordon Lewis discs in terms of archive-trawling for rare and wonderful extras.

First of all, there’s the publicity material: two trailers, a TV spot, two radio spots (these are particularly good) and two radio interviews with actress Terri Susan Smith. The quality of all of them is pretty ropey (the trailers are far grainier than the main feature and reminded me of what I originally saw in the cinema), but that doesn’t really matter. The interviews, unsurprisingly, are the strongest items - awful recording quality (Smith is recorded on the other end of a not especially good phone connection), but her sheer enthusiasm for the film is infectious. The first interview is seven minutes, the second is far skimpier at three (and it essentially recycles the same material).

Things get rather more interesting with the outtakes and behind-the-scenes footage, a rapid-fire montage of clapperboards, between-shots clowning, people cracking up (particularly entertaining when they’re covered in blood, goo and elaborate wounds) and - bliss! - special effects shots of Belial that manage to be even worse than what actually ended up in the film. All this footage is silent (Something Weird have added a musical accompaniment) and there are no explanatory notes or commentaries, but it’s great fun to watch - a fair bit more entertaining than similar items on some of the Herschell Gordon Lewis DVDs. It runs just over six minutes.

An impressively large stills gallery blends production and behind-the-scenes stills with lobby cards and poster designs from around the world. These are presented sequentially with a music backing track - you can’t navigate them yourself. The whole thing lasts just under five minutes.

“In Search of the Hotel Broslin” is a nostalgic 15-minute documentary, made this year (2001), in which Frank Henenlotter takes us on a tour of the film’s locations. This is hilarious - shot on a wobbly camcorder, it was obviously improvised on the spur of the moment, failing to gain admission to the building that doubled as the Hotel Broslin but successfully breaking into the location of the Hellfire Club, while Henenlotter regales us with a stream of production stories. There’s also an interview with actor Joe Clarke, one of Belial’s most memorable victims (“So, Joe, what was it like being attacked by a rubber monster?”), and Henenlotter is generous enough to point out locations used by such diverse filmmakers as Marco Ferreri (Bye Bye Monkey) and Lucio Fulci (The New York Ripper) as well. Best of all, we get to see the original Belial - the stop-motion puppet version (who’s not in the best possible condition, but it’s nice to see he survives in some form) - along with a load of merchandise from various international distribution campaigns.

The weirdest extra is “Beverly Bonner’s Laugh Track”, a selection of excerpts from a cable TV comedy show presented by the film’s co-star. This has no connection with Basket Case whatsoever apart from Ms Bonner’s involvement, but it’s amusing enough (in a very early hours of the morning on Channel Four kind of way), not to mention handy for truly obsessive completists. It runs just over seven minutes, at the end of which you’re rewarded with her website address and phone number, though I didn’t check the latter to see if it was genuine.

But the high point, as usual with Something Weird’s releases, is the commentary, by Henenlotter, producer Edgar Ievins and co-star Beverly Bonner. Although already a seven-disc veteran of the company’s commentary tracks, this was the first I’d heard that didn’t feature Herschell Gordon Lewis (to whom Basket Case is dedicated, incidentally), so I wasn’t totally sure of what to expect - but, happily, it turned out to be pretty much the same formula: a non-stop mix (and I mean non-stop: Henenlotter is such a motormouth that I’m amazed Ievins and Bonner get a word in edgeways) of lively production anecdotes (most of which are hilarious), gleefully irreverent piss-taking and copious apologies for technical and artistic shortcomings (“Oh, look at that - an attempt at lighting! Gee, it almost looks moody!”, plus plenty of all-too-audible groaning and indeed laughing at the less successful special effects). Anyone familiar with Herschell Gordon Lewis’ or John Waters’ commentaries will be absolutely in tune with this one, and it’s well worth a listen - I particularly relished a story about an audience member at an early screening being overheard solemnly claiming that all the humour was unintentional and that “the director simply lost control”, which subsequently became Henenlotter’s personal motto.

Finally, there’s a reasonably lengthy printed essay by Vince Bonaviglia (a fair bit longer than the essays included with Criterion discs), included in a four-page pullout leaflet that also contains a list of the sixteen chapter stops.

Matt wrote:I think you can't go wrong with The Herschell Gordon Lewis Collection, even if it doesn't include the "Blood" trilogy.