The "director and writer" of TERROR OF FRANKENSTEIN do a commentary track for a film that ended with murder and tragedy.
The minds behind ROOM 237 took an old, and pretty good, adaption of Frankenstein and created a new commentary track where the director and the screenwriter come together to talk about the film and end up talking about the "real life" horror that ensued during and after filming. Its an extremely clever idea and for the most part works as an interesting experiment. I'm not sure it gets past the clever idea stage.
The problem for me is it never feels natural, it feels scripted all the way through. I've heard enough commentary tracks to know that some that try to be off the cuff are scripted, and DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY has that down for the early bits as Clu Gallagher's director tries to remain on point against Zack Norman's onslaught. However as the conversation goes more and more pear shaped the two continue to sound like they are reading off a script, it never really sounds like two guys talking, its two guys reading lines of dialog. For me it was like watching a horror movie while I had on adequately acted radio show on at the same time.
As an idea I love this film a great deal, especially when you have Leon Vitali star of the original film come in for some mind bending meta moments. But, not to beat a dead horse, the problem is the talk never seems real. It never crosses the threshold into even its own reality.The result is that while we're interested in the "behind the scenes" story there is never enough suspense generated to really thrill us. There is no horror. I was no more engaged than I am in an episode of a really good TV mystery series or cable true crime documentary.
This isn't to say that the film is bad. Its not. Rather I think the idea behind it is greater than the execution. Definitely worth seeing at some point but not something you need to rush out and see.
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