Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Howdy. Saw a screening last Monday night of David Gregory's new horror film Plague Town at the A.F.I. campus up on Western Avenue. I was very favorably impressed -- it's as violent as the new breed of horror but also develops some genuine chills based on other sources of unease and dread. David filmed the Dark Sky release in Connecticut over a year ago, insisting on Super-16 film instead of digital video. Plague Town is a highly effective variation on the basic story of a troubled family lost in an unfamiliar rural setting -- in this case somewhere in Ireland -- and enduring a bloody onslaught.

David Gregory probably has more famiiarity with classic 70s horror than anybody, having produced and directed docus on everything from Tobe Hooper classics to gorefests by Lucio Fulci and Pupi Avati -- he's in touch with more European horror personnel than anyone. That sensibility comes through strongly in Plague Town, which frankly betters many well-known 70s pictures in this particular genre backwater. Comparing the intense & richly photographed visuals to Bava doesn't say enough, for after Gregory has sprung some particularly nasty gore surprises (engineered with superior, imaginative makeup effects), he trots out a sequence in a rustic cabin that relies on strange behavior and expressive design sense. Something enters from the dark back room ... slowly ... and we're not sure we want to see what it is. That kind of original morbid thrill is remarkable in a genre that has been substituting effects for imagination far too long.

Plague Town stays true to its nihilistic 70s roots but also to its own interior logic. Gregory's pacing is excellent and his direction knows which buttons to push to extract the maximum in squeamish delirium. I'll be looking for the show on disc sometime soon and hope it will be available in Blu-ray.

Now to go back and advise David that his next movie should be an adorable children's story, to inspire hope and goodwill in gentle hearts everywhere!

On another front, I'd like to loudly publicize two one-of-a-kind screenings at the Arclight's Sunset Blvd. Cinerama Dome early in September. A 70mm print of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and a rare screening of the true-Cinerama How The West Was Won are each being given one-time-only presentations with special guests and Blu-rays to be given out to the first hundred ticketed viewers in line.

According to Dave, the shows are not sold out. In fact, they're trying to arrange for extra screenings. These promise to be fun and unique trips to the movies for many viewers. Incidentally, the Arclight's 2001 page lists a 160-min running time, which surely is a mistake.

All of this only inflames my curiosity to see the upcoming How The West Was Won Blu-ray due out in less than a week. The image above comes courtesy Cinerama authority Dave Strohmaier; it's a shot from the 1957 Cinerama production Search For Paradise in the new "Smilebox" format that approximates the effect of 3-panel Cinerama. Note the vertical areas where the panels blend -- we're told that this new transfer format makes the panel junctions nearly invisible. Dave will appear on the HTWWW disc in a commentary with John Sittig, Rudy Behlmer, Loren James and Jon Burlngame. He's hoping that the response for the special screenings will lead to more authentic 3-panel screenings of other shows originally filmed in Cinerama.

Finally, Film.com has just put up a new Savant review up for a Blu-ray "Propaganda Film From the Future" -- Starship Troopers. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson