Had he ever lived to see fame and fortune through his art — let alone the iconic embrace of his works via college room dorm walls across the United States — Vincent Van Gogh would almost certainly shake his head in disbelief. His was a hard life, full of turbulence and disappointment. The warmth of embrace — either critically or commercially — would likely be discombobulating to him. All of which makes Van Gogh: Brush with Genius, a short-form documentary originally created for exhibition in IMAX theaters, an even more telling glimpse into his life and work.

Though it runs only a relatively scant 40 minutes,  Van Gogh: Brush with Genius delivers a superlative, condensed
biography of the famed artist, providing viewers with a dazzling, visually sumptuous tour of his works, while also retracing his life through his letters and other writings, and showcasing some of the wondrous locations that inspired him. Given its IMAX roots, of course, there’s plenty of edu-tainment pop and a touch of gloss (I’m sure this played in heavy rotation for visiting school audiences), but the slurry beauty of Van Gogh’s feverish brushstrokes are highlighted in engaging fashion too. This is a short-form title that strikes the right balance between glorification and explication of its subject.

Housed in a regular Blu-ray case, Van Gogh: Brush with Genius comes to Blu-ray presented in 1080p high definition, in a beautiful 1.78:1 widescreen transfer, with DTS-HD master audio 5.1 tracks in English, French, Spanish and Japanese. The review copy with which I was serviced came, amusingly enough, with a miniature foam severed ear, but thankfully that’s not the only supplemental feature; a brief slide show and a HD-shot making-of documentary, running just under 20 minutes, are also included here, making for a total package that feels robust, but is still condensed. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. B+ (Movie) B- (Disc)

I don’t yet need Peggy Cappy‘s Easy Yoga for Arthritis, thankfully, but one day I might, so I granted a perfunctory spin to her fifth sell-through yoga DVD special, and came away fairly impressed.

It’s said that one in three adults suffer from arthritis, so this sort of title would seem to service an important niche. (Of course, if I were being a smart-ass, I’d question whether elderly, chronic arthritis sufferers could figure out how to get their DVD player to work let alone master yoga poses, but I’m trying to cut back on my unleavened snarkiness so I’ll let that point lie.) A 30-year veteran and advocate of yoga, Cappy demonstrates movements to use at home to help strengthen muscles and increase mobility for people who are challenged by either arthritis, joint injuries or the general stiffness that comes with aging. This new special is divided into seven easy-to-use segments. The first section highlights gentle warm-up exercises to loosen the shoulders, neck, back, legs and feet, while a secondary segment spotlights separate warm-ups for the hands, wrists and arms. Standing poses, seated poses and reclining poses are then covered, followed by bits on deep relaxation techniques and meditation.

The routine Cappy presents is appropriate for people of all ages and abilities, allowing three modifications for each pose: standing, seated or using a chair for support. It’s also nice that the viewer can basically pick and choose which exercises work best for them, depending on their own personal areas of physical trouble. Finally, the inclusion of meditation techniques, which are medically proven to increase one’s ability to deal with stress, is also quite nice.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Easy Yoga for Arthritis comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen. Somewhat surprisingly for a title like this, a clutch of bonus footage is also included, in the form of a featurette that runs about 40 minutes in all, and follows Cappy as she travels to back to her hometown of Peterborough, New Hampshire, to meet folks whose lives have been improved by her
classes. While it sometimes plays a bit like an extended infomercial add-on, this is a well-intentioned supplemental feature that connects solidly enough with its demographic. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or click here; if Amazon is your thing, meanwhile, click here. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

It seems silly now, but for generations of sports fans either scattered to distant time zones or locked into commitments that ran counter to the schedules of their favorite teams — in particular college basketball’s March Madness, and conference tournaments — listening to games on the sly, on a Walkman, became a special sort of clandestine art. Wires were run up shirtsleeves, innocuous languid poses perfected — it was its own sort of game, defying authority to indulge in the exploits of your favorite athletic heroes. Or maybe someone had a portable TV, in which case said item was shielded by a fortress of books, or tucked into a locker, or corner workspace.

The advent of TiVo and other digital recorders forever changed the landscape of sports viewing in America, and would seemingly provide a death blow to the sort of specialized DVD release that Los Angeles Lakers: 2010 NBA Finals Series Collector’s Edition represents. But if Americans love their sports, they also love reliving the contact highs of athletic events, and so gussied-up commercial releases of Super Bowls, Final Fours and the like continue to do well (provided the winners aren’t regional weaklings or complete one-off underdogs), even as the traditional DVD market recedes.

An eight-disc DVD set celebrating the Los Angeles Lakers’ NBA championship run earlier this summer, this definitive box set features all seven games of the 2010 NBA Finals series in their entirety, chronicling an epic rivalry renewed, and a hotly anticipated rematch two years in the making. The 2010 Finals series actually exceeded the considerable hype, as the Lakers and Boston Celtics — the two most successful hoops franchises in NBA history, accounting for a combined 33 of the sports’ 64 championships — picked up where they left off in 2008 when the Celtics defeated the Lakers to earn a first title for stars Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. After splitting the first four games, the Lakers put themselves in a double-elimination-game hole before smoking the Celtics 89-67 in Game Six, led by Finals MVP Kobe Bryant. Taking the series to a Game Seven at home, Los Angeles found themselves down by 13 points in the third quarter, only to claw their way back and eventually prevail 83-79, repeating as champions in what would be the most watched NBA game in over a decade.

Housed in eight slimline cases in turn stored in an attractive cardboard slipcover, Los Angeles Lakers: 2010 NBA Finals Series Collector’s Edition comes presented on DVD in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, enhanced for 16×9 televisions, with a Dolby digital 2.0 surround sound audio track. As anyone who is familiar with the high-definition presentation of sports telecasts knows, the image tends to be fairly crisp, while there is a slight bit of fuzziness to some of the graphics packages. Regardless, the sound is crisp, and certainly an upgrade over almost any homemade digital transfer to disc. In addition to reliving all the dramatic in-game action of this epic
series, this collection comes with a separate bonus DVD that includes
postgame press conferences, and celebratory mini-movies partially
comprised of locker room footage.

The only thing that would have given this set more value-added punch — something beyond a wallow in purple-and-gold glory for diehard Lakers fans — is more “color packages” (interviews with fans at the arenas) and some postmortem interviews from any of the vast array of ex-hoopster talking heads that populate ESPN and sports talk radio during the month-long NBA playoff season. Sell more aggressively the league’s history, NBA, and then even when your dynastic franchises stumble, you’ll be able to move units of that Oklahoma City Thunder Collector’s Edition. To purchase the DVD set via Amazon, click here. Or to purchase the DVD set via Half, click here. B+ (Collection) B (Disc)

Cat lovers turn away — this isn’t the documentary for you. Dan Child’s fawning, hour-long Dogs Decoded examines the unique relationship we have with “man’s best friend,” and how hundreds of years of domestication have made dogs nearly human.

While feline companionship is lauded in some segments of popular culture, we mostly tend to regard cats with bemusement, and a cool detachment. Humans have undeniably developed a unique relationship with their other furry friends, meanwhile, owing largely to the fact that dogs have been domesticated for longer than any other animal on the
planet. When people talk about feeling that their pet can understand them in a way that other animals can’t, they’re almost always talking about their dog. Now, new research is revealing what dog lovers have suspected all along: many mutts have an uncanny ability to read and respond to human emotions.

Though thin and suffering a bit from preaching-to-the-choir syndrome, Dogs Decoded digs into this incredible relationship between humans and dogs, and why, even though they are so closely related to wolves, canines by and large behave differently. In engaging fashion, Child delves into new discoveries in genetics that are helping to illuminate the
origin of dogs. (He’s less convincing with research that humans, in turn, respond to dogs with a release of oxytocin, the same hormone responsible for
bonding mothers to their babies.) For enthusiastic dog lovers, this is a slice of manna you can watch with your pet. Others may engage it with a bit less native interest.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Dogs Decoded comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, with an English language stereo audio track. Unfortunately, there are no supplemental bonus features. To order a copy of the DVD, call (800) PLAY-PBS or click here. To purchase DVDs with public
performance rights, meanwhile, click here. Or, if Amazon and only Amazon is totally your thing, click here. C+ (Movie) C- (Disc)

As a country, Cuba has been alternately vilified and ostracized by the United States for the past five-plus decades, even long after its important role-player status at the center of Cold War politics has expired. The result is a Caribbean island with tremendous natural beauty that remains an enigma to almost every American who isn’t of Cuban or Latin-American descent, despite the fact that the tiny country is only 90 miles off the coast of Florida. As the possibility of the U.S. lifting its trade embargo looms, the first entry in the 29th season of PBS’ amazing Nature series examines one of the richest and most unusual natural environments of the hemisphere.

Written and directed by Doug Shultz, Cuba: The Accidental Eden is jointly a beautiful travelogue, nature film and glancing snapshot of the business of science in a more regimented society. Decades of relative isolation have allowed Cuba’s diverse landscapes and intriguing indigenous creatures to flourish, the island nation’s miles of untouched tropical forests, intact wetlands and unspoiled coastlines serving as an ideal incubator for a wide variety of unique lifeforms. As the largest of the Caribbean islands, Cuba boasts an extensive collection of the smallest animals of their kind — including the world’s smallest bat, smallest owl, and the tiny bee hummingbird, the smallest bird known to humankind. It’s also home to one of the most extensive coral reefs in the Western Hemisphere.

Along with just documenting the country’s rich natural beauty, though, Cuba: The Accidental Eden explores the critical conservation work of dedicated Cuban scientists, some of whom make less than $30 a month. Among the passionate conservationists is biologist Emma Palacios Lemagne, who’s researching how polymita, Cuba’s beautiful painted snails, evolve. Herpetologist Roberto Ramos, meanwhile, has the dangerous duty of tracking the rarest of crocs, the “jumping” Cuban crocodile. Another specialist, Leonardo Valido, monitors nesting sea turtles whose hatchlings’ chances of survival are one in a thousand. All of these biologists, and many more, are fantastic ambassadors for their country. If and when the travel embargo on Cuba is lifted, they stand to reap some of the benefits of a wildly increased eco-tourism sector.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Cuba: The Accidental Eden comes to DVD presented in 16×9 widescreen, with an English language 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound audio package that more than adequately handles the relatively straightforward aural demands of this hour-long title. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included. A few downloadable screensavers or some extended interview clips would have been nice but, alas, are not included here. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or merely click here. Or if Amazon and only Amazon is absolutely your thing, click here. Also, it’s worth noting that the title is available on Blu-ray too, in a stunning 1080i high definition transfer that only enhances the rich, colorful biodiversity on display. To purchase the Blu-ray, click here. A- (Movie) C+ (Disc)

The life and wondrous work of Stephen Sondheim, one of Broadway’s greatest legends, gets its due in this stirring concert celebration of the master composer and lyricist’s 80th birthday, a gathering which brings together some of the musical theater’s brightest stars to perform more than two dozen sensational numbers from Sondheim’s unsurpassed songbook.

David Hyde Pierce hosts this one-of-a-kind event — many of these enduring songs are rarely heard, and several are performed
by the original Broadway cast members — with Sondheim’s longtime collaborator Paul Gemignani conducting the New York Philharmonic in accompaniment. Directed for the stage and television by Lonny Price and filmed live over two evenings in March at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, Sondheim! The Birthday Concert is a real treat, regardless of one’s level of familiarity with the material. The cast, with a treasury of Tony Awards among them, delight in performing classic as well as less often heard gems from Sondheim’s many Broadway shows. Joanna Gleason and Chip Zien reunite from Into the Woods, Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin perform chilling pieces from Sunday in the Park with George and Patti Lupone, George Hearn and Michael Cerveris team together for a special take on their Sweeney Todd showstoppers, among many others. Patinkin’s hearty renderings, two West Side Story tunes, and the “Beautiful Girls” sextet of performances alone are reason enough to give this superb offering a spin.

The full track listing is as follows: “America” and “Something’s Coming” (West Side Story), “We’re Gonna Be Alright” (Do I Hear a Waltz?), “Don’t Laugh” (Hot Spot), “Johanna” (Sweeney Todd), “You’re Gonna Love Tomorrow,” “Love Will See Us Through,” “Too Many Mornings” and “The Road You Didn’t Take” (Follies), “It Takes Two” (Into the Woods), “Growing Up” (Merrily We Roll Along), “Finishing the Hat” and “Move On” (Sunday in the Park with George), “Pretty Women” and “A Little Priest” (Sweeney Todd), “Theme from Reds,” with Pas De Deux, “So Many People” (Saturday Night), “Ladies Who Lunch” (Company), “Losing My Mind” (Follies), “The Glamorous Life” (A Little Night Music), “Could I Leave You” (Follies), “Not a Day Goes By” (Merrily We Roll Along) “I’m Still Here” (Follies), “Sunday” (Sunday in the Park with George) and an all-cast sing-along of “Happy Birthday.”

Housed in a regular Blu-ray snap-shut case, Sondheim! The Birthday Concert is presented
here in 1.78:1 widescreen in stunning 1080p HD resolution, with two audio options — English DTS-HD master audio 5.1, and uncompressed PCM stereo. There aren’t any additional bonus features, but Sondheim! The Birthday Concert will be available on DVD and Blu-ray — as well as digital download, for those interested — before its national television premiere on
PBS’ Great Performances series on November 24. Special liner notes by director Price also accompany the physical release. To purchase the Blu-ray via Amazon, click here. B (Concert) C+ (Disc)

The Daily Show‘s Jason Jones and Samantha Bee costar in this low-budget comedy, which filters the unique torture of holiday familial bickering through the rubric of a Blair Witch-style collection of captured footage.

Set on Christmas Day in 1985, the movie centers around a dysfunctional suburban clan, the Cooper family, headed up by Gordon (Jones) and Nancy (Bee, Jones’ real-life wife). After accepting a secondhand VHS camcorder from a perverted neighbor (NewsRadio‘s Dave Foley, who bares a lot for the film) in order to settle an outstanding debt, Gordon cedes control of the (then-newfangled) device to his youngest son Teddy (Dylan Everett), who in good kind proceeds to torture his curiously stunted 17-year-old brother, Marcus (Nick McKinlay).

More chaos ensues, naturally. When the kids’ gregarious uncle Nick (Mike Beaver) shows up at their door, normalcy becomes lunacy, and the rest of the family — including Nancy’s sisters Bev (Jennifer Baxter) and Joanie (Jenny Parsons), Joanie’s new African boyfriend Okeke (Onyekachi Ejim), and disgruntled parents (Jayne Eastwood and Jock McLeod) — is hardly any more sane. The most disruptive influence, though, is Gordon’s estranged brother Tim (Peter Keleghan), who used to date Nancy in high school, and hasn’t seen his brother in, oh, 17 years or so. As they say, some memories should never be recorded.

The script for Coopers’ Christmas is co-written by Jones and Beaver, which gives the project a certain streamlined efficiency. In addition to plenty of comedy of the sort one might expect from a period piece (Star Wars and Facts of Life references, say, along with terrible sweaters), there’s no small amount of amusement in the dialogue (Marcus’ sourly notes that the gift from his grandmother is addressed to “older boy”). The ceiling for this type of tossed-off entertainment may be fairly low, but all the participants here are game and on the same page regarding the type of movie they’re making, and director Warren Sonoda and his behind-the-camera collaborators actually come up with inventive staging tricks to keep the gimmickry of the conceit from getting stale. Coopers’ Christmas doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but neither does it aim to; instead, it just delivers a fairly solid supply of laughs… who knows, perhaps even enough to make you think your own family is completely sane.

Housed in a regular, white, plastic Amaray case, Coopers’ Christmas comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track, and optional English SDH subtitles. A feature-length audio commentary track with director Sonoda and producer Sean Buckley gives plenty of amusing and interesting insight into the film’s brisk, 11-day shoot, with anecdotes about Jones raiding the deep storage of his nearby parents’ garage to help complement the movie’s domestic clutter, and co-editor Aden Bahadori working just offscreen during filming. There is also a 17-and-a-half-minute making-of featurette, full of cast and crew interviews and behind-the-scenes footage. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)

The sheer size of the United States — with all its geographical subcultures — and the attendant variety of American life helps create and sustain a rich and vibrant culture of music that encompasses many different genres, each of which in its own way seems wholly and inimitably American. One seeking proof need look no further than America’s Music Legacy, a series produced and recorded by 20th Century Home Entertainment from 1983 to 1985, and only now seeing a proper DVD release.

Each of the quartet of titles first seeing release runs two hours, and is comprised of color
and black-and-white archive footage, along with interwoven stills, in
montage format. While other sub-genres will get a date in the public arena later this year, the initial batch of releases spotlights gospel, country and western, rhythm and blues and, of course, rock ‘n’ roll. The rock DVD — with cuts from Fabian (who hosts the proceedings), the Coasters, Chubby Checker, Lou Christy and more — is the most surface-level engaging, probably because it presents a history with which almost every American after and inclusive of the boomer generation is familiar. It’s interesting, though, to see different versions of the same song (most notably “Johnny B. Goode,” which finds Bo Diddley laying down filthy licks later in the program), and chart rock’s headstrong course from “primitive” fad to mainstream bottled teenage rebellion.

The rhythm and blues entry shows how the narrative form and rich tradition of jazz, ragtime and old spiritual standards commingled to winning effect, also laying the groundwork for much of today’s hip-hop. And the gospel DVD in particular — hosted by Levar Burton, and including cuts from Andrae Crouch, Marion Williams, Mel Carter and the Walter Hawkins Family — is an eye-opener. For those who have the pleasure of living in or having visited Los Angeles and checked out the House of Blues gospel breakfast, the “good news” uplift of this title, at once Christian-specific and also somewhat secular, will have you hungering for a toe-tapping return. It’s revivalism through communal sharing and witnessing — no tent necessary.

Housed in regular plastic Amaray cases, each America’s Music Legacy title comes to DVD on a region-free disc, presented in Dolby 2.0 stereo. There are no additional “talking head” bonus interviews or anything, which would have been nice inclusions, but given the enormous wealth of material that’s only a small ding in the collectibility of these titles. To purchase the discs, either individually or collectively, click on any of the links above, or visit your online retailer of choice. B (Movies) C+ (Discs)

In the early 1970s, Nikkatsu, Japan’s oldest movie studio, launched a line of erotic films, known as “roman pornos,” aimed squarely at the Asian adult marketplace. In advance of Impulse Pictures’ 2011 DVD release of a couple dozen of said films, Nikkatsu Roman Porno Trailer Collection presents a taste of these Japanese sexploitation flicks.

The stylistic diversity of the offerings is readily evident in the 38 trailers assembled here, which collectively run just over an hour. While a lot of the settings, set-ups and characters seem selected from a limited grab-bag (nurses, teachers and schoolgirls figure prominently into the proceedings, unsurprisingly), the visual modes of expression seem to vary wildly — sometimes shot in an expressionistic, color-saturated fashion, and other times a grimy, realistic nature.

Tonally, the movies seem quite different as well. Some of the titles are brutish and unpleasant (Rape Across the Drenched Wasteland… really?), while others are humorous (Zoom Up: Beaver Book Girl and Painful Bliss! A Surprise Twist). Regardless, the English translations included here, under Japanese textual interstitial inserts and overlays, are sometimes questionable, or at least disconcerting at best (a rape is shrugged off with “The moment of darkness passed…”). If there is one thing that is clear, however, it’s that certain kinks and bondage fetish — as well as the rough enforcement of male will — are particularly Asian preoccupations, tied up in subjugation and the anxiety attached to any deviation from more readily fixed gender roles. Oh, and for those wondering, none of this material is hardcore, though it certainly skirts the edges.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Nikkatsu Roman Porno Trailer Collection comes to DVD presented in anamorphic widescreen, with a Japanese language 2.0 mono soundtrack and optional English subtitles. Individual trailer selection is enabled via a main menu collection of chapter stops, or one can play the entire hour-long presentation straight through. In addition to a four-page color insert with a superb overview essay by Behind the Pink Curtain author Jasper Sharp, a full-screen presentation of the half-hour, video-shot short film Ryoko’s Lesbian Flight is included, in which a pair of flight attendants lotion themselves up, and then explore each other’s bodies, only to eventually be interrupted by a guy. The hardcore action, or even any presentation of downstairs genitalia, is pixelated, however. C (Movie) B (Disc)

Nature documentary Ocean Odyssey follows renowned underwater cinematographer Feodor Pitcairn as he traverses the depths of the seas to bring stunning clarity to that alien environment.

Commissioned by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the hour-long Ocean Odyssey takes viewers on an undersea journey to remote and magical places. Pitcairn, a pioneer in underwater high-definition cinematography, explores marine ecosystems of the Galápagos Islands, Raja Ampat in Indonesia, the Maldives, the Azores, Hawaii, the Caribbean, the Bahamas, the Channel Islands, British Columbia, the Gulf of Mexico, French Polynesia and Belize. Filmed in high definition, with commentary by Pitcairn and fellow cinematographer Bob Cranston, Ocean Odyssey is a stirring film. In showcasing the wide variety of life — from hammerhead sharks and otters to sea anemone and brine shrimp — and revealing some of the most amazing underwater footage ever seen, it implicitly points out some of the many great biological mysteries that remain on Earth, as well as offering insightful working reflections by two of the most prominent specialty cinematographers of today’s age.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Ocean Odyssey comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track that more than adequately handles the title’s rather straightforward aural demands. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included, as well as, nicely, a half-hour behind-the-scenes featurette that delves into the making of the movie but also shines a certain light on its makers, and what first inspired their occupational interests. To purchase the DVD, phone (800) PLAY-PBS, or simply click here. Or, if Amazon is totally and irretrievably your thing, click here. B+ (Movie) B (Disc)

No, Steven Seagal does not star in this, somewhat shockingly. As he’s transitioned to a career in acting, ex-wrestler Steve Austin has tried to branch out a bit, without much success. Hunt to Kill, however, is a meat-and-potatoes ass-kicker, with all the lack of subtlety and nuance that its title implies.

The plot here finds U.S. Border Patrol agent Jim Rhodes (Austin), a divorced single dad still mourning the loss of his partner (Eric Roberts) in a meth lab shootout, going about his business, trying to corral the headstrong instincts of his spitfire, know-it-all teenage daughter Kim (Marie Avgeropoulos). When a crew of trigger-happy fugitives led by the psychotic Banks (a scruffy-faced Gil Bellows, menacingly nursing suckers and toothpicks) takes Rhodes and his daughter hostage, the rugged wilderness of Montana serves as a backdrop for beat-downs and vengeance.

Scripted by Frank Hannah and directed by Keoni Waxman (The Keeper), Hunt to Kill is a steady-as-she-goes programmer, through and through. Brows are furrowed, threats exchanged, and bones snapped, but one never feels terribly invested in the proceedings, mostly because the characterizations are so thin and the dialogue so lame. Stunt coordinator Lauro Chartrand comes up with some scenarios that help generally spotlight Austin’s rugged physicality, but Waxman doesn’t exactly set imaginations on fire with
his yawning slow-motion stagings, as well as editing that occasionally works against the artful balleticism that informs wrestling’s hand-to-hand combat.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Hunt to Kill comes to DVD presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, with an English language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track. Bonus features include a feature-length audio commentary track with Waxman
and actor Michael Eklund, as well as a short behind-the-scenes featurette with a couple cast and crew interview snippets. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C- (Movie) C (Disc)

The feature directorial debut of Brett Anstey, Australian import Damned by Dawn represents a stab at homage to the classic Hammer Horror films of yore. It does not succeed terribly. Or, rather, it is terrible… but just not in a successful way.

Claire (Renee Willner) takes her new boyfriend Paul (Danny Alder) home to meet her family, who live on an isolated property in the country. The family reunion begins well enough, but Claire becomes increasingly uneasy with the medicated mumblings of her ailing grandmother (Dawn Klingberg), who is convinced that an evil spirit is coming for her during the night. Later that evening, the family is awoken by piercing shrieks, and Claire’s worst fears become a waking nightmare as the Screaming Banshee (Bridget Neval) and her army of undead return to unleash blood-soaked fury on them all.

Horror is especially a director’s medium, but since the story here is so simple and straightforward, execution is additionally paramount. The problem is that Damned by Dawn‘s acting, composition and editing work decidedly against any artfully elicited tension. As well as writing and directing the film, Anstey also created more than four hundred visual effects shots for the film, though the amount of digitally added fog eventually becomes absolutely risible. While some of the effects shots are technically quite accomplished, their deployment in overly affected “intense” shock cuts (along with accompanying soundtrack squeals and peals) becomes wearying quite quickly, even before the 40-second-long tea kettle scream that announces the movie’s monstrous siege.

Damned by Dawn comes to Blu-ray presented in 1080p high definition in 1.78:1 widescreen, with a DTS-HD master 5.1 audio track. In addition to separate cast and crew audio commentary tracks and the movie’s trailer, there is an extremely comprehensive 55-minute making-of featurette, which tracks the movie through inception (Anstey cites Taste the Blood of Dracula as an early inspiration), production and post-production, and is actually more interesting than the finished product. To purchase the movie’s Blu-ray or DVD via Amazon, click here. D (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Its conceit would be a great horror movie to some (and I’m sure it will be the claustrophobic setting of some enterprising low-budget genre breakthrough, if it hasn’t already), but Trapped in an Elevator, the latest PBS Nova title to premiere on DVD, just lacks enough inherent intrigue or narrative meat on its bones to make it interesting or worthwhile to any reasonable slice of a mainstream audience.

The release’s back cover text peddles statistics as ominous-factoids-in-waiting (“Across North America, elevators move 325 million passengers every day, and most of the time people don’t give them a second thought…”), but Trapped in an Elevator is chiefly a look at the brainy, nuts-and-bolts makeover of elevator computer control panels. Writer-director Joseph Seamans attempts to paint this as potentially dangerous for our individual and collective future (entrusting our vertical movement to, gasp, technology!), and narrator John Lithgow gamely breathes concern into voiceover text. But this is all a big yawn, really. On his Comedy Central show last year, Daniel Tosh did an amusing “web redemption” segment on a guy that got trapped in an elevator for 41 hours, and that three-minute bit is more entertaining and engaging than all 56 minutes of Trapped in an Elevator.

Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case, Trapped in an Elevator comes to DVD presented in 1.33:1 full screen, with an English language stereo audio track. There are no supplemental features, or stickers of the most over-elevatored buildings in the world. To purchase the DVD, click here, or phone (800) PLAY-PBS. Or, if Amazon is totally and irreversibly your online retailer of choice, click here. C- (Movie) D (Disc)