MANIAC COP 2 (1990) (Blue Underground 4K UHD Review)

MANIAC COP 2 (1990) 

Label: Blue Underground

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: R

Duration: 87 Minutes 

English: English Dolby Atmos; English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English SDH, Français Canadien, Español Latino Americano, Português do Brasil, Español Castellano, Français Parisien, Deutsch, Italiano, Mandarin (Traditional & Simplified), Korean, Japanese, Russian Subtitles 

Video: 2160p UHD Widescreen (1.85:1), 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: William Lustig 

Cast: Robert Davi, Claudia Christian, Michael Lerner, Bruce Campbell, Laurene Landon, Robert Z’Dar, Clarence Williams III, Leo Rossi, Charles Napier

You Have The Right To Remain Silent… FOREVER!

Matt Cordell the Maniac Cop returns from a watery grave in this action-packed sequel from director William Lustig (Maniac) alongside writer Larry Cohen (Q the Winged Serpent). Having somehow survived being impaled through the chest at the end of Maniac Cop (1989) the big guy is back on the beat and patrolling the streets of NYC with a vengeance. His first order of business is to interrupt a robbery in progress at a bodega where a junkie with the gnarliest teeth you've ever seen is holding a shotgun to the face of the cashier. When he finds that the cash drawer empty the junkie directs the cashier to start scratching off lottery tickets looking for an instant winner. Funnily enough the cashier scratches off a 5 grand instant winner, and that's when Cordell arrives on scene. The shopkeeper cannot believe this fortunate turns of events, and plans to pocket that winning ticket for himself, but things don't go the way he thought they would and the Maniac Cop blows him away, much to the surprise of the disbelieving junkie. As cop cars arrive the undead cop disappears leaving the armed junkie there trying to explain that he's not the one who killed the clerk, but the NYC cops blast him to pieces just the same. It's a great opener and the film rarely let's up from there.

Also returning from the last film are officers Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell, Mindwarp) and Theresa Mallory (Laurene Landon, The Stuff), whom after passing a psych evaluation have been placed back on active duty by Commissioner Doyle (Michael Lerner, Barton Fink). Forrest is happy just to be back on duty but Mallory is convinced that Cordell will return again (and she's right!) and causes quite a fuss about it. For my tastes Campbell and Landon exit the film far too early at the hands of the grudge-holding Cordell, and they're replaced by new protagonists cop psychologist Susan Riley (Claudia Christian, The Hidden) and hard-boiled Detective McKinney (Robert Davi, The Goonies). 

Minor spoiler alert, Forrest is taken out by Cordell with his patented knife-baton, stabbing him through the neck in  brutal fashion, but Campbell deserved better! Afterward Cordell steals a vintage police cruiser and chases after Mallory and Riley, there's a great chase sequence with bare tire rims sending sparks flying off the street with plenty of vehicular carnage. In the aftermath the Maniac Cop snaps Mallory's, neck but only after she attacks Cordell with friggin' chainsaw! With Mallory out of the way Cordell handcuffs the psychiatrist to the steering wheel of the car and sends it careening out-of-control down a busy street!  The action sequences in this first sequel are fantastic, with a bit of a larger budget it's great fun to see what Lustig is able to throw up on the screen! 

There's an weird subplot with a serial killer named Turkell (Leo Rossi, Halloween II) who's murdering strippers around NYC, Maniac Cop shows up during one of his attacks and the two become fast friends, with the serial killer leading Cordell back to his pad for some psycho-bonding between like-minded killers, it's a weird team-up but somehow it works.  I have to hand it to Larry Cohen for a wacky but awesome script on this one. We have this weird buddy psycho-killer pairing and a demented Bride of Maniac Cop subplot here that never gets boring, it's weird as all get out but never dull. When Turkell eventually lands in a jail cell he tells the cops that his buddy Cordell is coming to bust him out and he ain't just blowing smoke up their asses. Maniac Cop arrives and completely destroys the police station, it's a bloody massacre with terrific action oodles of bloodshed and broken glass. Lustig seemed to really enjoy breaking glass in this film, and setting people on fire, but more on that in a minute.

Somehow all the major players end up back at Sing Sing Prison so that Cordell can have his revenge on the death row inmates who fucked-up his face and killed him in prison years earlier. It's during this killing spree that Maniac Cop is bombarded with Molotov cocktails and engulfed in flames, but that does not deter him in the slightest - he just keeps killing the inmates who mutilated him! The man-on-fire stunt work during the last 10 minutes of this film are worth the price of admission all on their own, it's awesome! Manic Cop 2 is a bad-ass revenger, and even when it gets a bit silly it never get's too silly for it's own good, I loved it. 

Audio/Video: Blue Underground previously issued Maniac Cop 2 (1990) on a 2-disc Blu-ray back in 2013, this utilizes the same 4K scan of the OCN with the benefit of Dolby Vision HDR 10 color-grading supervised by Director of Photography James Lemmo. The first thing that struck me was how nice the grain structure looks, with very nicely resolved, details and textures that are more defined and the primaries have a nice HDR pop to them, but not in an overcooked sort of way. Additionally the HDR offers deeper blacks and better more layered contrast, slightly improving depth over the Blu-ray counterpart. 

We get a Dolby Atmos remix that is robust, offering a fully immersive experience that comes to life during the action sequences, plus Jay Chattaway's creepy and atmospheric score sounds great. Also included is an uncompressed DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles.  Fans of the score will enjoy the isolated music track on the disc presented in uncompressed DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo. 

Blue Underground carryover the archival extras from past releases beginning with an Audio Commentary with Director William Lustig and Filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, plus the Back On The Beat - The Making Of Maniac Cop 2 making-of documentary featuring director William Lustig, writer Larry Cohen, actors Robert Davi, Leo Rossi, Robert Z'Dar, Michael Lerner, Claudia Christian and composer Jay Chattaway. Davi is great fun as he talks about being hoodwinked into taking on the role by Lustig, while Lerner laughs about playing an Irishman. Director Lustig and actress Claudia Christian sorta take a few jabs at each other during their interviews, neither seem enamored with the other. During the Cinefamily Q&A from back in 2012 Lustig let's loose a ton of great anecdotes about Larry Cohen, Joe Spinell, Leo Rossi and Robert Z'Dar plus the great crew who worked on the film and the possibility of a sequel/reboot. 

Finishing-up the special features we have Trailers, a deleted scene featuring Sam Raimi (Evil Dead), a Gallery of posters and pics plus an uncompressed Isolated Music Track and it's D-Box Motion Code Enabled. Sadly no booklet with words from Michael Gingold celebrating the film or soundtrack CD to accompany this one, but still a great set of archival extras. 

The 2-disc UHD/BD combo arrives in an oversized black Scanavo keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. It also includes an embossed slipcover, basically the same design as the 2013 Blu-ray edition this with the same artwork on the discs inside. 

Special Features: 

Disc 1 (4K UHD Blu-ray) Feature Film + Extras:

- Audio Commentary with Director William Lustig and Filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn

- Theatrical Trailers: International Trailer (2 min), UK Teaser Trailer  (1 min), French Trailer (2 min), German Trailer (2 min)

- Isolated Music Track (DTS-HD MA 2.0) 

Disc 2 (Blu-ray) Feature Film + Extras:

- Audio Commentary with Director William Lustig and Filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn

- Back On The Beat - The Making Of MANIAC COP 2 (47 min) 

- Cinefamily Q&A with Director William Lustig (29 min) 

- Deleted Scene (2 min) 

- Theatrical Trailers: International Trailer (2 min), UK Teaser Trailer  (1 min), French Trailer (2 min), German Trailer (2 min)

- Poster & Still Gallery

- Isolated Music Track (DTS-HD MA 2.0) 

Maniac Cop 2 (1990) is a fun, violent and kick-ass revenger with some fantastic action, brutal deaths and a finale that's engulfed in flames. This sucker is action-packed from start to finish and a shit-ton of fun, this is definitely a 90's horror entry that doesn't gets it's proper due! As with all of the Blue Underground 4K UHD catalog upgrades this another gorgeous presentation that is to please fans, and hopefully it will earn it some fresh eyes from those who haven't seen it yet. 

RUNNING TIME (1997) (Synapse Films Blu-ray Review)

RUNNING TIME (1997)

Label: Synapse Films
Region Code: Region FREE
Rating: Unrated
Video: 1080p HD Full Frame (1.37:1)
Audio: English DTS-HD MA English 2.0 Original Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Director: Josh Becker
Cast: Bruce Campbell, Jeremy Roberts, Art LaFleur, Jeremy Roberts, William Stanford Davis, Gordon Jenison Noice

Directed by Josh Becker (Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except) Running Time (1997) is a low-budget heist-gone-wrong caper which was clearly inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948). The black and white film runs a lean 70-minutes and is shot and edited to make it look as if it were shot in a single continuous take without in real-time. It stars  cult-icon Bruce Campbell (Bubba Ho-Tep) as a ex-con named Carl, who at the start of the film is being released from prison after a five-year stint, being seen off by the the warden, (Art LaFleur, The Blob), who offers him a Cuban cigar and kind words about his exemplary behavior while incarcerated. Carl however has no intention of going straight, no sooner has he walked out of the front gate and he and his pal Patrick (Jeremy Roberts, The People Under the Stairs) already have a plan to knock over the prison's corrupt laundry operation within the next hour! The target is a money laundering racket operated by the prison's warden, a place flush with a quarter million dollars of the mafia's cash in a safe. Having worked in the prison's laundry facility for the last five years, Carl has the inside scoop on when and where to hit it, knowing that he and his pals have twenty minutes to get in an out without a hitch. 

Patrick meets him outside the prison in a stolen delivery truck, in the back Carl finds a hooker-with-heart-of-gold named Janie (Anita Barone, The Rosary Murders), a gift to his friend so that he can get his post-incarceration rocks off. It turns out that Janie is an old flame of Carl's from highschool, which results in a potential love interest for the cocksure con.  

After busting his nut and getting her digits they drop her off and proceed pick up the rest of the crew which Patrick has assembled per Carl's instructions, these include a safecracker named Buzz (William Stanford Davis, TV's Snowpiercer) and a drug-addled getaway driver named Donny (Gordon Jenison Noice,  Head of the Family). While Carl is sure this heist is gonna go off without a hitch he is less than thrilled with the team that his pal has assembled to execute it, and rightfully so. Almost from the get-go the caper is fraught with incompetence, beginning with a flat tire and a cagey drug addict in need of a fix. As the plan devolves into complete panicked chaos people are hurt and he ends up on the run from the law, with Carl forced to choose between filthy lucre and the possibility of love. 

Hats off to Synapse for bringing this gem to the masses, I honesty had never even heard of before they announced this Blu-ray, so I was pretty excited to check it out. Not just because Campbell is starring either, director Josh Becker, who is part of Sam Raimi's inner-circle of filmmaker friends, has made a handful of cool indies, like Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except and Lunatics: A Love Story, and this might be his best work, at least of the handful that I've seen so far. What we get is a  micro-budgeted crime caper that is shot in black and white and starring Campbell is a somewhat rare non-horror role, and he kills it! While the lack of budget is evident throughout it is a solid nuts and bolts crime thriller with a simple, straight-forward plot that focuses on character interplay more than plot contrivances to entertain, and on that level it succeeds. It might lack the polish and razzle-dazzle of a big-budget caper but it's got plenty of spunk and delivers the goods. 

Audio/Video: Running Time (1997) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Synapse Films sourced from a new 2K scan of the original 16mm camera negative. The 1080p black and white  image is framed in the original 1.37:1 full frame presentation, the flick looks near flawless and showcases a well defined layer of medium grain. It's not razor sharp but it resolves fine detail in clothing and facial features very nicely, depth and clarity are fine, and the contrast is solid throughout. The black levels also look great with deep shadows that enhances the noir-ish tendencies of the lensing. 

Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo with optional English subtitles. We get a clean sounding mix that is dialogue heavy with a score by Joseph DeLuca (Evil Dead). This is advertised as being presented for the first time on home video with the original theatrical 2.0 stereo mix. 

Extras kick-off with an audio commentary with writer/director Josh Becker and star Bruce Campbell that offers plenty of production notes and making-of anecdotes about the film, including the Saul Bass-style opening credits. As they are lifelong friends they have a good rapport, which makes for a solid listen.

We also get the 20-min Run and Gun, a new interview with Bruce Campbell that is shot in full screen, black and white with an opening credit that mimics the movie's title credits, which I thought was a nice touch. The star gets into his life long friendship with director Josh Becker, and what it was like making the film during the ten day shoot.

We also get 20-min of vintage Q&A footage from the Freaky Film Festival Premiere at the University of Illinois back in '97 with Josh Becker and Bruce Campbell. Its an impromptu Q&A that was actually a tactic to stall for time when the film print for the screening failed to show and they had to make other arrangements to view the movie. You really get a feel for guy's friendship, laughing, having a great time cracking wise about Zena: Warrior Proncess . The disc is buttoned-up with a 2-min trailer for the film. 

The single-disc, region-free Blu-ray release arrives in a standard keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring art by  artists Wes Benscoter and Gerry Kissell, the disc itself featuring a scene from the film with star Bruce Campbell. 

REVERSIBLE ARTWORK 

Special Features:
- All-New 2K scan and restoration of the original camera negative
- Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.
- Presented for the first time on video with the original theatrical stereo mix
- Audio commentary with writer/director Josh Becker and star Bruce Campbell
- “Run and Gun with Bruce Campbell” – All-new interview/featurette (20 min)
- Q&A footage from the Freaky Film Festival Premiere at the University of Illinois (20 min) 
- Original Trailer (2 min) 
- Reversible cover art from artists Wes Benscoter and Gerry Kissell

If you're a Campbell fanatic I think that Running Time (1997) is a no-brainer, this is one of his best dramatic performances and a diamond in the rough among his filmography. I hope this Synapse Blu-ray gives this indie thriller some new life as I think it's one some of you might not know about. I consider myself a huge Bruce Campbell fan and I'd never even heard heard of it, and I know I can't be the only one. 

Screenshots from the Blu-ray: 

Extras: 

ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996) (Scream Factory Collector's Edition Blu-ray Review)

JOHN CARPENTER'S ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996)

Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 100 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: John Carpenter
Cast: Kurt Russell, Steve Buscemi, Stacy Keach, Peter Fonda, Cliff Robertson, Valeria Golino, Pam Grier, Bruce Campbell, Georges Corraface, Michelle Forbes

Synopsis: Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) takes on Los Angeles after a 9.6 earthquake decimates the city. His job: wade through L.A.'s ruined landmarks to retrieve a doomsday device. Don't miss the excitement as Snake surfs Wilshire Blvd., shoots hoops at the Coliseum, dive bombs the Happy Kingdom theme park, and mixes it up with a wild assortment of friends and foes including Stacy Keach, Steve Buscemi, Bruce Campbell, Peter Fonda, George Corraface, Cliff Robertson and Pam Grier. Escape from L.A. is a "go-for-broke action extravaganza" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times)!

Back in '96 I was stoked for a re-teaming of director John Carpenter (Assault on Precinct 13) and actor Kurt Russell (Big Trouble in Little China), having been a big-time fan of their pairings in The Thing and Escape from New York (1981). At the time his film was released I was a bit out of touch with horror and had been more into arthouse and foreign films, I think I was of the mindset that 90's horror was a bit anemic and just couldn't compete (and I was right) with the stuff I grew up on in the late-70s and '80s. Sure, there were bright spots in the nineties with stuff like Richard Stanley's riff on Terminator with Hardware (1991) and it's follow-up Dust Devil (1992), but I hadn't yet seen Scream (1996) or Guillermo del Toro's Mimic (1997), the genre seemed stunted. I didn't dive headfirst back into horror until '99 when we got that sweet wave of millennial horror. That said, I was actually excited for this film, Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (1994) just a few years earlier was awesome, and a the idea of re-teaming the director and actor to revive one of the coolest anti-heroes of the '80s was promising stuff, so I was at the theater the day this hit the cinema.

It was great to see Russell channeling the anti-authoritarian cool of Snake Plissken once more, but I would be lying if I didn't admit I was not only disappointed by film, I hated it. The main beef initially was how much of a slave it was to the original film, it hit all the same beats, it felt uninspired and lazy.

The other issue I had with it was how bad the digital effects were, and while most digital effects in movies were bad in the mid-to-late 90's these were bad even my the norms of the era. everything was too-cleanly rendered with no texturing or shading, with maybe the worst offender being when Snake takes a mini-sub for a spin from the mainland to the island of L.A., along the way skirting the submerged Universal Studios theme park where a shit-looking digital shark tries to take a bit out of Snake's sub, a clumsy nod to Jaws no doubt. The entire 5-min scene is digitally rendered and looks a bit worse that a first generation PlayStation cut scene. Then there's a scene of Snake surfing a tsunami down Wiltshire Boulevard and leaping onto a moving car, don't get me wrong, I love me some campy action but when combined with the bad digital FX and dated '90s aesthetic it just didn't come together in a very satisfying way.

The main baddie of the film is named Cuervo Jones (Georges Corraface) who is basically a Che Guevara knock-off, who captures Snake and forces him to play a timed game of basketball to save his life ...WTF!?! Carpenter and his co-writers had fifteen years to come up with something cool and this is the best they could come up with?

Something I did enjoy was all the cool actors that show up in various roles, we have Steve Buescemi (Ghost World) as Map of the Star Eddie, Pam Grier (Foxy Brown) who completely wasted as transgender gang-leader Hershe Las Palmas, Cliff Robertson (Obsession) as a religious zealot POTUS, Peter Fonda (Easy Rider) as an aging apocalyptic surfer-dude, Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead 2) as The Surgeon General of Beverly Hills, plus Stacey Keach (Cheech & Chong's Up In Smoke) as Commander Malloy. All of the characters are basically analogs for characters from the first film. It's fun in a 'hey, look who that is' sort of way but no one has got any meat on their plate, though Cambell's is probably my favorite of the bunch, appearing a deranged plastic-surgery doc, lampooning L.A. stereotypes with some cool make-up effects at least.

Like I said, I totally hated it the first time I saw it, and I still don't love it, but as I am getting soft with age it has grown on me a bit, but not a lot. It's still a trainwreck of a film that was lazily written and totally scarred by some bad digital effects. Even the 90's metal soundtrack, which at the time I liked quite a bit, featuring 90's stalwarts White Zombie, Toadies, Ministry and Butthole Surfers among others, sounds severely dated. Carpenter scored this one too but I couldn't even hum a bar of it for you right now after watching it twice today, other than to say it has more of a western They Live (1988) vibe than the original film, which is still an outstanding platter of synth driven atmosphere.

It's not great, but watching it today I did have fun with it, I've long let my hostilities toward it slide and can actually have a good time watching this and enjoying it in a 'let's get the band back together' sort of way. I don't think Plissken's dialogue (co-written by Kurt Russell) is that great, but I did love hearing Russell deliver his lines with that gravelly-cool inflection, and even Carpenter's typical anti-authoritarian themes are fun if ham-fistedly delivered.

   



Audio/Video: Escape from L.A. (1996) arrives on Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a new 4K scan of the original camera negative, framed in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Originally landing on Blu-ray in 2010 from Paramount the new edition is a bit darker than the previous version, this probably being a bit more accurate to the theatrical than the slightly over-bright Paramount release, which exposed way too much of the digital FX. Grain throughout is filmic looking, the colors are nicely saturated, skin tones looks natural, and the blacks are solid, it's a good-looking scan. Pleasing fine detail comes through in clothing textures and the stubby facial features of our anti-hero, but the increased resolution also draws attention to the iffy
looking digital renderings, everything's a bit too smooth, there's no shading, the lighting is off, the less of it seen the better off. There's a screenshot comparison of the Paramount and Scream Factory releases at the bottom of this review. 

Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with optional English subtitles. It's got some nice oomph too it. The dialogue and score are clean and crisply delivered with plenty of low-end, the John Carpenter score and 90's metal soundtrack (White Zombie, Butthole Surfers, Toadies, Ministry, Tool) sounds terrific.

Onto the extras I will start by saying I am disappointed we did not get a new commentary from Carpenter/Russell or an interview with either. I am sure Scream Factory attempted it, and Justin Beahm's Revered Entertainment offer up plenty of new bonus content for the fans. The special features kick-off with 'A Little Bit Off Beat – an interview with actor Stacy Keach' where the actor talks about working with producer Sandy King on Walter Hill's The Long Riders, before working of Body Bags (1993) with Carpenter, and then getting cast in Escape from L.A., describing Carpenter as a skilled technician who knew where to put the camera. He gets into his character Malloy and how he played it, as well as touching on his knee replacement surgery and the legacy of the film.

'Beverly Hills Workshed – an audio interview with Bruce Campbell' is a telephone interview with the Evil Dead star who talks about what it was like working with Carpenter, describing him as a bossy guy who knew what he wanted. He gets into his character The Surgeon general of Beverly Hills, and the Rick Baker make-up for the character which took five hours to apply, and the difficulty of removing it at the end of the day. He talks about working with Kurt Russell and how having been a child actor nothing fazed him, he was a mellow guy, and that he was straight forward. He also tells a fun story of how Russell's kid was a fan of the Evil Dead films, and how he requested that Campbell recite a flubbed line from it.

'Part of the Family – an interview with Peter Jason' is a 26-min interview with Peter Jason who begins with catching the acting bug in college, pursuing it as a career with the begrudging approval of his family. Getting cast in Rio Bravo (1959) without having to screen test, and being cast in Prince of Darkness (1987) after working with Sandy King on The Long Riders (1980), and then becoming part of the Carpenter family. He relays a story of working double-duty on Village of the Damned (1995) as an assistant caterer, dailies driver, baby wrangler, and second unit set and office P.A. after he expressed interest in being a producer to Carpenter, which set him straight from that career path in short order. He also talks about helping to get Russell's son Wyatt Russell (Overlord) a part in the film as a featured extra, he's a great storyteller and I love it when we get an interview with him.  
   

'Miss A Shot, Get A Shot – an interview with George Corraface' is a 15-min conversation with the bilingual actor of stage and screen who has worked on Greek, French, German and and Spanish films, and how that sort of drifting from one country to another probably worked against establishing himself as a more know actor at the time, but that he had great experiences working that way. He touches on working with Christopher Columbus on The Discovery, and describing the lively audition for Escape from L.A., and creating the character of Cuervo Jones, based on Che Guevara, and ending with his views on what the legacy of the film is.

'One Eye is Better Than None – an interview with special effects artist Jim McPherson' who begins by talking briefly about his background as a puppet sculptor, moving from the East Coast to the West, and working with Rick Baker, which is how he came to work on Escape from L.A., and how excited he was to work on a film featuring Peter Fonda and Pam Grier. He gets into some issues regarding wardrobe and make-up appliances on-set, and into the legacy of the film, and how the plastic surgery disaster make-up have held up.

Maybe the most interesting for me of all the extras was 'The Renderman – an interview with visual effects artist David Jones, who for 19-min gets into the creation of the digitally rendered special effects of the film, which are not well remembered by most fans, myself, included. He begins my telling how he went from Michigan to L.A., sleeping on the couch of his lawyer sister, and then landing a gig at Disney's Buena Vista Special Effects, who worked on this film. He's very candid saying that there was a bit too much digital stuff in it, that he wasn't as skilled as he is today, and how they don't really hold op all that well. He gets into the digital sub and the whole underwater sub-journey from the mainland to the island of L.A., and the surfing scene, admitting that they "overreached madly".

The disc is buttoned-up with a theatrical trailers, several TV spots and a gallery of stills, promotional images, lobby cards, press book and movie posters. 

  

Special Features:
- NEW 4K film scan from the original negative
- NEW A Little Bit Off Beat – an interview with actor Stacy Keach (8 min)
- NEW Beverly Hills Workshed – an audio interview with Bruce Campbell (9 min)
- NEW Part of the Family – an interview with Peter Jason (26 min)
- NEW Miss A Shot, Get A Shot – an interview with George Corraface (15 min)
- NEW One Eye is Better Than None – an interview with special effects artist Jim Mc Pherson (18 min)
- NEW The Renderman – an interview with visual effects artist David Jones (19 min)
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
- TV Spots (2 min)
- Still Gallery (8 min)

Escape From L.A. (1996) is not great watch but it has grown on me, and while I cannot give it a high recommend, I do give Scream Factory high marks for the transfer and the new extras, I am stoked to see it added to Scream Factory's Collector's Edition series, it's a fun bit of Carpenter junk food..

Top: Paramount Blu-ray (2010)

Bottom: Scream Factory (2020)