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Released by: Synapse Films
Released on: July 12th, 2016.
Director: Michael Felsher
Cast: George A. Romero, Tom Savini, Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins, Ed Harris
Year: 2007
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The Movie:
Originally included on the second disc of the two disc Creepshow special edition DVD release in the UK back in 2007, Michael Felsher's feature length documentary on the making of George A. Romero and Stephen King's collaborative effort now gets its own deluxe Blu-ray release from Synapse Films.
Not surprisingly, the movie starts the beginning. Romero is interviewed here about his love of E.C. Comics and his admiration for King's work, which clearly led to them working together on Creepshow. Comic book legend Bernie Wrightson shows up here to talk about some of the illustrative work that he did for the project, while Tom Savini gets a lot of screen time to discuss the effects work and all that went into that. Composer John Harrison also talks here about the score he created for the film, as does editor Pasquale Buba
We spend a good bit of time with a few cast members as well - Adrienne Barbeau, Tom Atkins and Ed Harris all chime in and look back pretty fondly on the work they did here. We also talk to some of the grips that worked on the project and a few other people affiliated with the film. The end result is a ridiculously thorough look at the making of a film that has rightly become regarded as a classic among horror movie fans - and it's an interesting story.
A lot of Savini's behind the scenes footage is included here, showing off how some of the effects work was accomplished. We get a lot of archival stills and related materials included too, to make this more than just an assembly of talking heads. There are some great stories here - a few people look back on Leslie Nielsen's involvement and share a few laughs about working with him. We also learn how the scene in which Ted Danson was buried up to his neck and then left to be drowned in the tide was pulled off (complete with some pretty cool footage showing it all). There's some interesting insight into King's performance in the movie as well. And of course, the movie's infamous cockroach story is explained in all its creepy, crawly glory - if you've ever wanted to know what goes into dealing with hordes and hordes of nasty bugs and what can and will almost inevitably go wrong when doing so, this is the movie for you!
The picture is nicely paced and well edited. It's slick looking and put together with some obvious care. There's a good sense of humor running throughout the piece as well that makes it as entertaining as it is enlightening. If you haven't seen this before and have even a passing interest in Creepshow, check it out. It's basically the last word on the history of that movie.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Just Desserts arrives on Blu-ray in AVC encoded high definition framed at 1.78.1 widescreen. The newly shot interview footage looks nice and clean, very colorful and well detailed. The archival footage varies a lot. Much of the VHS sourced stuff is a bit worse for ware, but it is what it is. For the most part, everything here looks just fine. There aren't any compression problems and really, it just varies here and there because of the different sources used.
The same can be said of the movie's English language DTS-HD 2.0 track - most of the material sounds just fine, some of the archival clips not so much. But again, the vast majority of this is properly balanced and crisp as crisp can be.
Extras start off with a commentary track from directo/editor Michael Felsher that is worth checking out. Here he talks about how he wound becoming one of the industry's 'go to guys' for extra features after doing time at Anchor Bay during their glory days. Eventually that led to his taking on this project and here he tells us how he wrangled up as many people as he could, where some of the clips and archival materials were culled from, and quite a bit more. A second audio commentary interviews actor John Amplas, property master Bruce Alan Miller, and makeup effects assistant Darryl Ferrucci. They were interviewed separately and this track is pieced together from those audio recordings with Felsher popping up to put things into context and ensure that the track flows properly - and it does. There's a lot of good information here not covered as thoroughly in the documentary and each of the interviewees does a good job of sharing their experiences from the set.
From there, check out the featurette called Creepshow Days which interviews director of photography Michael Gornick (who would later direct Creepshow 2) in which he talks about his work on the film for roughly eight minutes. His talk concentrates a fair bit on dealing with the effects set pieces but he also talks about his experiences working alongside Romero and Savini. Speaking which, both of those men pop up in some extended Interview segments along with Bernie Wrightson - there just short of twenty-five minutes of material here. More Wrightson is always a good thing, particularly for comic book fans. The on-set footage that Savini shot that is used in the feature is also presented here in a more complete form with Behind The Screams, a collection of twenty-six minutes of that material. As mentioned, the video quality here is a bit rough but the content is great.
Sean Clark hosts another entry in his Horror's Hallowed Grounds series, taking us on a modern day tour of some of the locations that were used for the shoot. These are always interesting to see and a lot of fun. The disc also includes Scream Greats Volume One: Tom Savini, Master of Horror Effects which was released by Fangoria way back in the mid-eighties. This thing clocks in at a few minutes short of an hour in length and if you haven't seen it before, it's basically a greatest hits reel of some of Savini's greatest and goriest work up to that point in his career. Savini provides optional commentary over this too, which is pretty fun. If you remember renting (of even owning) this on tape back when it first came out, it's a nice trip down memory lane. Also on hand is a vintage Evening Magazine Segment shot on the set of the film in 1982 that contains some cast and crew interviews. This runs for about seven minutes and it gives us a nice look at what it was like on set.
Rounding out the extras is a behind the scenes still gallery, animated menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
The Warner Brothers domestic Blu-ray release of Creepshow really short-shifted fans in the extra features department. This solves that problem. Just Desserts: The Making Of Creepshow is a ridiculously thorough and entertaining look back at the making of the film. Put it on your shelf next to your Creepshow disc and enjoy - not only is the documentary well worth checking out but the extras are all pretty great too.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
The Scream Greats doc was a great trip down memory lane. Used to watch it all the time. And to include a commentary track on it? Fucking stellar work.