When you are creating a film to honor a genre you have a real passion for, you have two responsibilities as a creative entity. First, you owe it to the fans to create something that honors what they know and love about the genre. But more importantly, you have an obligation to elevate the genre to bring something fresh to the proceedings rather than just regurgitating exactly what has come before. In Aaron Koontz and Cameron Burns new anthology comedy horror film Scare Package, they mostly fail on the second point. Mixing comedy with horror has resulted in some of the most entertaining films in recent memory. Works such as Shaun of the Dead and Cabin in the Woods lovingly poked fun at the horror genre while proving to be strong films in their own right. Scare Package tries to take a similar approach, but instead chooses to point out tropes in horror films rather than truly explore them in a meaningful way.
Scare Package uses a horror video store called Rad Chad’s Horror Emporium as a framing device to stuff in a vast array of short films of varying quality. Chad (Jeremy King) is a virtual walking encyclopedia of everything horror, and his shop has subgenre upon subgenre of bizarro horror films for your perusal. One of the better implementations of the format actually occurs at the beginning of the film before we get to the video store. In the “Cold Open” we have Mike Myers (Jon Michael Simpson), a stock horror movie background character who has dreams of being an actual character in the movie. The short offers an amusing take on the actual machinations of the genre in which characters are ultimately led to their demise. When Myers makes the bold move to make himself an integral part of the film, gory chaos ensues. The short is fun enough, but it does not feel like essential commentary.
This is the main problem with Scare Package as a whole. Each segment explores a different horror movie trope, but you are left saying “Yep, that was a trope. And..?” Perhaps these would have gone down a little easier if they had played things a bit more seriously like the previously mentioned films. Oftentimes the biggest laughs come from a comedy played like a drama, such as Airplane!. The majority of these actors are likely not actually bad actors, but the way in which they were directed to act poorly really put a damper on things. The least egregious example of this would be Noah Segan’s “M.I.S.T.E.R.” about a men’s rights group that transitions into a werewolf tale. This segment had the best acting in the entire film, which at least kept me more engaged than some of the others. This film also would have greatly benefitted from cutting a segment or two from the runtime, because things really start to drag at an hour-and-forty-seven-minutes.
I do not mean to disparage the hard work that all of the cast and creative figures put into this tale. There are really clever and enjoyable narrative moments throughout the film, but these can be buried in the midst of some lazy tales. There are certain aspects that all of these shorts get right. The area where the film really excels is the disgustingly gory kills and practical effects at play. Even when practical effects are not believable, they are still usually preferred to digital effects in a horror film. The makeup and costumes in the film are truly top notch efforts that bumps the film up a couple of points. If you are a hardcore horror fan, you may enjoy sitting back and letting this film take you on a journey that touches on everything you know about horror movies. If you need more than a film recreating what you have seen before in a jokey manner, you may want to avoid this one.
Video Quality
Scare Package arrives on Blu-Ray with an excellent AVC encoded 1080p transfer in its original aspect ratio. With this film being an anthology film, you get multiple different cinematographers with their varying stylistic choice. These may look a bit different from segment to segment, but the transfer looks as excellent as you could hope for a brand new movie to look. There are a lot of vibrant colors to showcase here, and the transfer captures the visual palette of the film accurately. Black levels are appropriately deep and give way to a nice amount of detail in shadows. The bright whites during exterior daytime scenes do not fall victim to any blooming in this presentation. Skin tones appear very natural across the entire cast, and compression artifacts and other such digital nuisances are nonexistent. The Blu-Ray presentation is pretty wonderful in its technical accuracy.
Audio Quality
This Blu-Ray comes with a stellar DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track that captures these stories perfectly. Once again, sounds can differ from segment to segment, but all seem rendered accurately in the mix. Dialogue is the driving force of the film, and it always comes through crisp and clear without being clipped by any competing sounds. The score provides a pleasing low-level texture to the sound design. There are sudden bursts that provide a quick jolt to the mix, but this is not anything that the track cannot handle. Ambient sounds are precisely placed in the rear channels. The audio track is not pushed to the limit with this content, but it nonetheless proves to be an excellent sounding presentation for this feature.
Special Features
- Audio Commentary: Co-creators Aaron Koontz and Cameron Burns gives an insightful track in which they discuss the development of the film, their relationship with the other directors, fun cameos and more.
- Locker Room Z: An additional nine-minute short that was unable to be included in the film that actually works better than some of the included shorts. This one involves zombies in a gym, and it is only hampered by the ridiculous dude she is texting who deserves a swift kick to the sack.
- Rad Chad’s Rad Ad: An amusing minute-and-a-half commercial for the video store featured in the film.
- Blooper Reel: A five-and-a-half-minute collection of flubbed lines, ruined takes, bloody messes and general on-set shenanigans that is a blast to watch.
- Original Not-As-Good-Ending: A minute-and-a-half featurette that speaks for itself.
- The Last Drive-In With Joe Bob Briggs: A 2 hour and 24 minute episode of Joe Bob Briggs’ horror appreciation show in which Briggs gives some entertaining commentary on the film between segments and indulges in some general ramblings about Elvis and other such craziness. There is also some fun with Briggs close to having a meltdown when his team switches out the planned second feature he is supposed to discuss on the program without telling him. This is probably the more entertaining way to watch the film, and it is a great addition to the set.
Final Thoughts
Scare Package is a film made for intense horror fans that crams in tons of references and tropes, but fails to produce anything resembling a satisfying film There are elements to really enjoy such as the gnarly gore and fascinating practical effects, but this is not a project with much appeal beyond its base. RLJE Films has provided a Blu-Ray disc with a stellar A/V presentation and some excellent special features. The included episode of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs will probably be a bigger selling point to some fans.
Scare Package is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray, DVD, On Demand and Digital.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: RLJE Films has supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
Dillon is most comfortable sitting around in a theatre all day watching both big budget and independent movies.
