Starring:	George Clooney	104min
	Quentin Tarantino
	Harvey Kietel	1996
	Juliette Lewis
	Cheech Marin
		Thriller /
Screenplay:	Quentin Tarantino	Vampire
Director:	Robert Rodriguez	Colour

Region	2	Studio:	Buena Vista
Format	Single Sided, Single Layer	Subtitles	English
			English Closed Captions
Aspect ratio	16:9		French
Anamorphic	Yes	Case type	Amaray
Soundtracks	Dolby Digital 2.0	Extra Features
	French Dolby Digital 2.0

The DVD * 1/2		The Movie * *
Tarantino's revered dialogue always sounds better when it appears to be coming out of the mouth of the person that speaks it. Several times here - most prominently at around the 33 minute mark - the sound slips sync badly, simulating the old "dubbed by Russians" routine. This fault is common to all machines, and with no projectionist to abuse on DVD, you're just stuck with it. The soundtrack itself is here only 2 channel surround, despite being made in 5 channel Dolby Digital, but is otherwise effective (the voices in the head trick is just what the format was made for). The picture seems a tad less stable that the other Disney releases - a close up look at the bunting in the opening shot reveals some very weird stuff occurring. The framing too is odd - not all the headless bodies in this movie were intentional, methinks. Presumably it was shot "open matte", with the framing we see on this transfer the same as in the cinema, but it's down to the camera operator to make sure the picture works in both versions. Not so here, and a quick scan of the credits reveals the camera and Steadicam operator to be - Robert Rodriguez. For the most part though, the West Texas desert looks great and the nightclub suitably seedy. Even with this disc's great many faults (and the sync problem is common to the US version, I understand), it still tops VHS.		The less interesting side of what happens when you work for years in a video store watching cult movies, this bizarre butt-joining of two totally different scripts is high on tastlessness, but low on fun. Two criminals (Clooney - good, Tarantino - hmm), rape, pillage and take hostages in Texas, but meet their match when the topless bar they end up in turns out (and we all saw this one coming) to be run by vampires. Despite some choice dialogue from Tarantino's script and Rodriguez's customary virtuoso editing, it's just too unpleasent to be fun - simmering mysogyny doesn't help - and too stupid to ever really engage. Still, never mind, ay - it's different.