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In 2014, we will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of everyone's favorite child murderer, that bastard son of a thousand maniacs, the clawed one himself: Freddy Kruger. One assumes that would be when we were going to get an updated boxset from the one that was released way back in the golden age of DVD(1999), but it would seem that the UK cannot hold it in any longer and have decided that NOW is the time to strike. Of course not only are we getting a new DVD boxset, but a blu-ray one as well.
I'm very late to the game when it comes to blu-ray, but that was all because of an annoyance over it being a rushed-out format combined with people drinking the "Blu Kool Aid" a little too fast, hastily replacing the collection that they had spent years putting together. It all rubbed me the wrong way. I have since lightened-up on my feelings against BD(blu-ray) this past year, considering I now own a BD player(PS3) and an HD television, so moving on to the next step in technology was a no-brainer.
The BD set will be 7 movies(no Freddy vs Jason) bunched together over 5 discs, which is kind of a drag. This means 2 movies per disc, all except for New Nightmare and the disc of bonus features. Whether or not the discs with the 2 films will be dual-layered has yet to be seen. This isn't a bad idea as a cost reducing measure(the set runs about $50 I believe), but as a fan of film and a total DVD junkie(yes i still refer to BD as DVD), I prefer my films spread out, leaving plenty of room for the gobs of bonus material that I know exists.
As far as the proverbial bonus features go, this one is both interesting and lacking to say the least, as it includes a 1988 MTV show aptly entitled "The Freddy Kruger Special"(which can be found on youtube), two episodes of the Freddy's Nightmares tv series, neither of which is the first episode "origin story" that is laughably bad(maybe that's why?), and a whole section titled "Welcome to Prime Time" which I can only assume is a bunch of interviews. If this set does include new interviews, I can't help but feel that it's all a waste of space, what with the awesome 4 hour documentary NEVER SLEEP AGAIN that came out last year that left no stone unturned in the series. Any new interviews on the set would just seem redundant, and I know for a fact that their is a ton of deleted scenes, old making-of footage, trailers, tv ads, various clips from old tv shows, music videos, etc. etc. that NEEDS to be unearthed.
All in all, this set could be worth the pick-up since it's cheap enough, but hopefully the U.S. will release a better set as we edge ever closer to the series' birthday.
Scary thing is, the UK boxsets are almost always superior to the U.S. release. Let's hope that this time it's not the case.
*BTW the boxset is region 0, so despite being from the UK, it'll play on any player worldwide.
