Blu-ray Review – Evil Ed – Arrow Video

Evil Ed

Director: Anders Jacobsson 

Screenplay: Anders Jacobsson, Göran Lundström, Christer Ohlsson

Minutes: 93

Year: 1995

Score: 7.40

Release: Arrow Video

Holy, holy, cats, readers. This flick is bonkers good and I will tell you why but I’ll gladly say “recommend” now, before I go any further. Buy it.

From ArrowVideo.com:

WHEN HIS MIND BLOWS, ANYTHING GOES!

A blood-soaked love letter to the splatter films of the ’80s, video rental favourite Evil Ed returns in a brand-new Special EDition featuring an extended cut of the feature and hours of stomach-churning bonus features!

Mild-mannered film technician Edward enjoys his job. That is, until he finds himself transferred from his regular post to the “Splatter and Gore department”, where he’s forced to edit hours upon hours of grisly video nasty footage. Traumatized by the onscreen violence, Ed starts to lose his grip on reality – with ghastly (and bloody) consequences…

Owing a debt to films such as The Evil Dead, Re-animator and the early splatter classics of Peter Jackson, Evil Ed is a veritable smorgasbord of flying limbs, exploding heads, busty babes and creepy creatures!

The last paragraph tells you why this movie is so good. It is dripping with the gore effect memories of Bad Taste and Dead Alive, two movies that I absolutely love. They are terrible films by peer standards but they are fantastic pieces of cut cinema which are both criminally under-available. (Yes, Bad Taste is on Prime, but I was a pretty blu).

This isn’t those, but Evil Ed is a treat to be sure. It is clear that Jacobsson loves the same films I do in every blood-drenched clip collected here-in. But. How do we quantify a love letter film? At what point do we just sit back and watch the originals (when available) and then at what point does a love letter have to defend itself for its own fandom?

Evil Ed, while it is a love letter, does stand on its own. Perhaps it is because you can find the film without seeing the others and still fall in love with comedy-horror pictures. To me, it lifts a lot from my own personal film history but that does not lessen my enjoyment of it. Clearly there is a large enough audience that Arrow put their money where their mouths are to give us fiends a gorgeous release.

They definitely succeed there. The picture and the sound are wonderful. They know their job, and I’ve said this before, and they do it well. As earlier started, I highly recommend this film, especially to genre fans, but I think anyone can enjoy this over-the-top gore-fest horror flick.

Special Features

• 3-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
• Two versions of the film!
• Original Stereo and 5.1 Audio Options
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys
• Collector’s booklet with new writing on the film by critic James Oliver
• DISCS 1 & 2 (BLU-RAY + DVD) – THE SPECIAL ED-ITION CUT
• World premiere of the newly-extended version of the feature [95 min]
• Keep ’Em Heads Rollin’ – making-of documentary
• Reconstructing Edward – featurette on the creation of the Special EDition cut
• Deleted scenes
• Bloopers
• Teasers and Trailers
• Still Gallery
• DISC 3 (BLU-RAY) – THE ORIGINAL CUT [LIMITED EDITION EXCLUSIVE]
• Original Cut [93 mins]
• Lost in Brainland – never-before-seen extended 3 hour version of the making-of documentary
• PLUS OTHER SURPRISES!!!

Director: 7 – Cinematography: 8 –  Edit: 7 – Parity: 1 – Main performance: 8 – Else performance: 4 – Score: 8 – Sound: 7 – Story: 8 – Script: 9 – Effects: 10 – Design: 8 – Costumes: 6 – Keeps interest: 10 – Lasting: 10