More junk from Little Dizzy Home Video. Hollywood - The Dark Side: Death & Scandal follows on the heels of that laughably bad doc, Hollywood - The Dark Side: Frank Sinatra & Marilyn Monroe, for another piss-poor compilation documentary that supposedly reveals "more shocking true Hollywood stories," but which really just flashes some pictures of Hollywood stars and tells you how they died. Purporting to lift the lid off Hollywood's biggest secret - some stars actually drink and do drugs (!) - Hollywood - The Dark Side: Death & Scandal certainly made me reconsider such a lifestyle change after enduring its utterly pointless, utterly worthless 68 minutes.

This may be the shortest review I've ever written (to the cries of "Thank God," from my three regular readers) because literally, there's nothing to review here in Hollywood - The Dark Side: Death & Scandal. A roll call of dead stars and celebrities (O.J. is reportedly still alive) are ticked off the list as the narration tells us what they died of: drugs or alcohol. And that's it. There's no effort to make even the slightest statement about how or why these scandals may be concentrated in Hollywood, let alone any effort to get to know these celebrities on any level other than reading their name and telling us what kind of sin they were into when they were still alive and kicking. I've seen better high school video projects than this hack-and-paste job, and that's no joke. Of the handful of celebrities that get more than a cursory sentence or two about their death - such as Fatty Arbuckle, John Belushi, and of course, Elvis - the "secrets" revealed are of such an obvious and time-worn nature that one is struck dumb at the inanity of the project. Did anyone involved with this junk not watch all those E! True Hollywood Stories about a lifetime ago? Celebrities insulted by Hollywood - The Dark Side: Death & Scandal include the Rebel Without a Cause/Anyone Remotely Connected With This Movie is Going to Die gang, George Reeves (they say suicide), Sharon Tate, Elizabeth "The Black Dahlia" Short (including far too many lingering shots of her horrifically mutilated corpse), Bob Crane, Dorothy Stratton, Alfalfa from the "Our Gang" comedies, Gary Coleman, Mackenzie Philips, Errol Flynn, and a bunch of other stars whose manner of death you've already heard a hundred times before. Again, as with Hollywood - The Dark Side: Frank Sinatra & Marilyn Monroe, a complete and utter waste of time.

The DVDs:

The Video:
The full-screen, 1.33:1 video transfer for Hollywood - The Dark Side: Death & Scandal is also junk (just like Hollywood - The Dark Side: Frank Sinatra & Marilyn Monroe), with crappy multi-generation dupes source material and macroblocking to beat the band. Colors are way off, too. Really poor presentation.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English split mono is squelchy as all get out, with hiss thrown in as an added value. No subtitles or close-captions, obviously.

The Extras:
The "extra" here is yet another incompetent mini-doc entitled, Rock 'N' Roll Deaths, which just lists rock stars and how they died. It runs 13 minutes, 29 seconds, which is 13 minutes, 28 seconds too long.

Final Thoughts:
Just as bad as Hollywood - The Dark Side: Frank Sinatra & Marilyn Monroe. Anyone who's ever seen an E! True Hollywood Story should consider themself a Rhodes Scholar compared to the level of info given in this abysmal celebrity documentary. Skip Hollywood - The Dark Side: Death & Scandal.