CHANNEL ZERO: BUTCHER'S BLOCK - SEASON 3 (2018)
Label: Via Vision Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: MA 15+
Duration: 270 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
Director: Arkasha Stevenson
Cast: Rutger Hauer, Holland Roden, Olivia Luccardi, Krisha Fairchild, Brandon Scott
The third season of Channel Zero: Butcher’s Block follows Alice Woods (Olivia Luccardi, It Follows) and her schizophrenic sister Zoe (Holland Roden) who have moved to a small town to start fresh, leaving behind the memories of their suicidal mother who's been committed to an asylum. On the edge of this small town lays Butcher’s Block, a shady, run down neighborhood with an overgrown park in the center, a place of urban legends, where the locals tell of an white ominous staircase that is said to appear from nowhere. At the top of the stairs appears a door, a door you should never enter.
It's at the top of these stairs where a man named Joseph Peach and his strange family live, a surreal world that is not what it at first appears, flowing green fields shroud the worship of a dark god, who requires that the Peach's abduct people from the neighborhood, and to that end have a pint-sized minion who wanders the park, looking like jawas. This season takes a bit of inspiration from Candyman with an urban folk lore complete with creepy murals painted on the crumbling city buildings. The story of the sisters who fear falling into a chasm of mental illness like their mother connected with me, and the gory trappings surrounding it definitely appealed to my horror sensibilities.
This season we have a phenomenal cast, beginningwith Mr. Rutger Hauer (Hobo with a Shotgun) as the patriarch of the Peach family, the guy always classes up a picture, and he's got a great role to chew on here, his best in years. Nipping at his heels we have Andreas Apergis (X-Men: Days of Future Past) as his lunatic son, stealing damn near every scene he's in, and I love the gap-toothed charm of Olivia Luccardi here, she pulled me right into the story from the get-go, there's just something about her I find so appealing.
Three seasons in and Channel Zero still manages to come through with visually amazing tales of the strange, the level of unease and dread throughout this season is at an all-time high, this is by several measures my favorite six-episode arc of the series so far, so get yer TV creep on and check this series out if you haven't done so yet.
All six episodes of Channel Zero: Butcher's Block arrive on a single-disc, region-free Blu-ray from Via Vision Entertainment presented in 1080p HD widescreen, but with only a lossy Dolby Digital surround option, though the Dolby Digital handles the dialogue and score just fine, including some vintage Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra and Riz Ortolani's haunting theme from Cannibal Holocaust, which is used in the first scene of the first episode! Subtitles are advertised on the sleeve but are not on the disc. There are no extras on this release, it's bare bones with only the option to select an episode or play all. The Via Vision website indicates this is a 2-disc set, but like Channel Zero: No-End House it's a single disc-er.
