Deathwatch

Deathwatch finally comes to American shores in this solid DVD release from Lions Gate Home Entertainment. With an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen image and 5.1 Dolby Digital sound, the film has been given a fine technical treatment that should help this scary little flick pump out the goods on your home theater. Extras include almost ten minutes of deleted scenes (including an alternate but not finished over-the-top death scene for one of the main actors) and two commentaries -- one with the director Michael J. Bassett and stars Jamie Bell and Laurence Fox, while the second one is a lone track by none other than Gollum himself, Andy Serkis. Given the choice, the group commentary is much livelier and enjoyable track to dig into, with Serkis' bordering on the kind of serious pretentiousness that tend to kill single-person commentaries. A slew of trailers have been included, though strangely not one for the actual film -- something that could be chalked up to rights issues between Lion's Gate and the original U.K. distributor Pathe Pictures. All in all, a fine release for a film that didn't get half the chance that it should have in America.