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Own Second Sight Films’ Blu-ray of “Monster.” Order Here!

Aileen had big dreams and big ambitions to be someone in life. Growing up, she did what she had to do to get ahead, even if that means selling her body at a young age when she had no advantages unlike her peers. Now getting longer in the tooth, Aileen still unhappily hooks to live hand-to-mouth, day-by-day, just to survive cruel circumstances. When she meets Selby, a young, lonely lesbian looking for friend, the two become attached at the hip becoming exactly what each other need at that moment. The two become intwined was not only friendship but passion as Aileen promises to quit the streets and make a better life for her and Shelby but when one of the last nights of prostitution winds up almost killing her and her unloading bullets into attacker, Aileen succumbs to a taste for murdering sleazy men in order to satisfy Selby’s love. How far will Aileen go to achieve her dream?

The sad story of Aileen Wuornos life is much more than the serial killer segment she’s most infamous for. Wuornos unlucky dealt hand could be considered the archetype of white trash narratives being born to teenage parents, practically raised without role models or stable parents, sexual and physically abused by those close to her, impregnated during the middle of her high school teen years, kicked out of her grandparents’ house, and learned to survive through the old profession of prostitution. Yet, all that tragedy is not in the story that is about to unfold before you in “Monster,” the 2003 biopic thriller from “Wonder Woman” director Patty Jenkins. Mostly authentic with bits and pieces adjusted to protect individuals from the public eye, “Monster” accounts for what Aileen is responsible for, the multiple slayings of clients who were accused by Aileen as rapists and abusers during their sexual transaction. Also touch upon, and in a very heart-rending sense, is Aileen’s love for another woman and how their relationship crumbled under the stress of life’s tremendously unfair hard knocks. Jenkins writes-and-directs the film with Wuornos’ blessing under the multiple production umbrella of Media 8 Entertainment, New Market Films, Denver & Delilah Films, K/W Productions, DEJ Productions, and, in association with, MDP Worldwide.

To play labeled America’s first female serial killer, Patty Jenkins sought after Charlize Theron who, at that time of the early 2000s, was hitting the height of her career having starred alongside Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino in “The Devil’s Advocate,” Johnny Depp in “The Astronaut’s Wife,” and Mark Wahlberg in the remake heist film “The Italian Job.” Theron, a stunning woman who became the epitome of glamour and beauty in the eyes of Hollywood, put herself through a transfiguration for the role of Aileen Wuornos. Gaining weight and capturing Wuornos mannerisms and thoughts-process to play, as close as possible, the woman who would go on to murder 7 men in late 80s, early 90s. Play is perhaps too broad of term for Theron who depicts a drastic overhaul of her looks and her idiosyncrasies to recreate Wuornos in the flesh and in the mind, creating a lifelike illusion of Wuornos on screen that garnered her an Oscar. Theron’s costar, however, did not dress the part of Aileen’s real-life lover who opted to remain in the shadows of a private life, disconnected from her past sordid by true life crime. That costar is none other than Christina Ricci. The “Addams Family” and “Sleepy Hollow” star adds a slender, petite, fictional companion as lonely-lesbian Selby Wall against, who we know more about today, was a heavier set and butch woman that was Aileen’s romantic partner, Tyria Moore. Jenkins invokes a sense of loneliness between the two women who find each other when they need each other the most, at the lowest point in their lives, and when their journey together seems hopeful, bright, and prosperous, life’s muck and judgement comes raining down life hellfire. Aileen’s series of johns make up the rest of the cast and a few have familiar faces, such as Pruitt Taylor Vince (“Identity,” “Constantine”), Scott Wilson (“The Walking Dead”), Marc Macaulay (“Wild Things”) and Lee Tergensen (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning”) with Tim Ware, Brett Rice, Marco St. John, and the Oscar winner Bruce Dern (“The Burbs’) rounding the cast out.

Having been released over two decades ago, “Monster” still retains relevance even when the real-life Aileen Wuornos no longer breathing after her execution in 2002. “Monster’s” focus isn’t about the episodic killings of a laundry list of varietal behavioral clients who either seek sex out of loneliness or seek it for other devilish, wicked means as Patty Jenkins hones in on a more strung along motif of loneliness that connections not just our principal characters but, in a way, most of the Aileen’s men, the clients. Baked and weathered by the hot Floridan sun and about as vocally turbo-charged as they come, Aileen isn’t the most beautiful street girl, and not even the most pure and refined soul, but provides a service, a service of warm skin, closeness, and pent-up relief. In turn, that same service becomes her jailor and her undoing, shackling and imprisoning her growth form an early age, stemmed by a childhood she didn’t have, that didn’t allow her to become somebody and to make something of her downtrodden existence. The murders are in a backseat, second fiddle to that blossoming love story between her and Selby that engulfs and drives the violence that seeks no end. Itty-bitty details shine through into Aileen’s humanity, as a perk of the person rather than the monster she’s perceived after the fact, after the trail, and after her capitalized death. Patty Jenkins sought to make an homage as the reason rather than just the basic news coverage of Aileen Wuornos and achieved eye-opening success.

Second Sight Films invests into a new Blu-ray release with new content encoded onto AVC, 1080p resolution, 50-gigabyte disc, scanned in 2K from the original 35mm film and presented in a 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio. What’s impressive about the Second Sight release is retaining the natural looking grain of celluloid film. Hues are approached organically without an overabundance of grading and this release sees to preserve “Monster’s” hard-edge and enough definitional nooks-and-crannies, especially around the weathered skin and fibrous features of Aileen Wuornos biological appearance. The Blu-ray comes with two lossless, English audio options: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and a LPCM stereo 2.0. Both offers true fidelity through the layers of range and depth but whichever A/V setup you have will dictate the format you choose. However, the Stereo option is a good, well-rounded, full-bodied option for all as “Monster” is more a talking narrative than a caffeinated spear of action, but the rear and side channels due funnel a nicely diffused environmental ambience of highway traffic and some supplementary crowd noise underneath a well-verbose and amply clean and clear dialogue track. New, exclusive content line the special features option on the fluid menu, such as a new interview with Patty Jenkins Making a Murderer that goes into depth about her relationship with muse Aileen Wuornos through conversation and letters as well as Charlize Theron’s transformation and performance, a new interview with producer Brad Wyman Producing a Monster, and a new interview with Director of Photography Steven Bernstein Light from Within that captures a late 80s-early 90s without infusing artificial concealer. Other supplementals available are an audio commentary with director Patty Jenkins, actress Charlize Theron, and producer Clark Peterson, the evolution of the score featurette, deleted and extended scenes with Patty Jenkins commentary, a making-of featurette that bases the film out of being a true story, and the original theatrical trailer. For a standard Blu-ray release, Second Sight provides a ton of content; however, there are no physical goodies, nor does the standard release come in a rigid box. Inside a green Amary case, the single sided front comes, in what has become a prolonged motif amongst Second Sight releases, with a two-tone of black and blue or black and purple and austere cover art of Theron’s portrayal of Wuornos looking worn down. The UK certified 18 release for strong violence and sexual violence has a runtime of 109 minutes and is hard encoded region B locked so you’ll need either a region B or region free player for playback in the Americas.

Last Rites: A beaut of a Blu-ray for the now over 20-year-old “Monster” that sees new content and insights that cast less shade over a troubled existence that inflicted real life killer Aillen Wuornos. Patty Jenkins and Charlize Theron do the story justice and Second Sight Films just follows suit with enhancing its story told quality.

Own Second Sight Films’ Blu-ray of “Monster.” Order Here!

An insane asylum located in the North West region of the United States attempts an experimental test to root out Vietnam soldiers faking signs of psychosis. A new commanding officer, a military psychiatrist named Colonel Kane, will take the lead of the experiment. But Kane’s methods are unorthodox and Kane himself seems distant from what’s expected from him, leaving the military patients, and even some of the personnel, wondering about his state of mind. Kane lets the committed soldiers live out their most outrageous fantasies and the further his practice plays out, the more that there might actually be something terribly wrong with the new commanding colonel.

“The Ninth Configuration” is the big screen adapted version of William Peter Blatty’s novel entitled “Twinkle Twinkle Killer Kane.” Blatty, who wrote the screenplay and directed the film, dives back into motion pictures once again after the success of another previous adapted novel; a little piece of work you may be familiar with called “The Exorcist.” In the span of seven years, Blatty was able to cast again the versatile Jason Miller, who had portrayed a much more serious Father Karras in “The Exorcist,” as one of the leading asylum inmates in “The Night Configuration.” From then on, the hired case was forming into a formidable force of method actors including Stacy Keach (“Slave of the Cannibal God”), Scott Wilson (The Walking Dead), Ed Flanders (“The Exorcist III”), Robert Loggia (“Scarface”), Neville Brand (“Eaten Alive”), George DiCenzo (“The Exorcist III”), Moses Gunn (“Rollerball”), Joe Spinell (“Maniac”), Tom Atkins (“The Fog”), Richard Lynch (“Invasion U.S.A.”), and Steve Sander (“Stryker”). This cast is a wet dream of talent.

What’s unique about Blatty’s direction of this film is the non-displaying of action and dialogue off screen. Whether it’s character narration, dialogue track overlay, or slightly off camera view, the spectator, for more about half the film or perhaps even more, isn’t being directed to focus on the current action or dialogue and this creates the illusion of hearing bodiless voices or activities, as if you’re part of the ranks in the mentally insane roster. Only until the truth or catalyst is reveal is when more traditional means of camera focus is applied.

To make this technique work and to make it not become tiresome to the viewer, Blatty had to write some amazing dialogue and with him being a novelist and all, the dialogue was absolutely, 100 percent brilliant. Lets not also neglect to mention that with unrivaled dialogue, out of this world thespians must be accompanied to breathe life into the black printed words that are simply laying upon white pages. Scott Wilson’s and Jason Miller’s craziness is unparalleled while, on the other side of the spectrum, Stacy Keach delivers a melancholic performance that balances out the tone of the film from what could have been considered an anti-Vietnam war comedy at first glance that spun quickly with an unforeseen morph into a suspenseful thriller about the consequences of war PTSD and the affect it has on those surrounding.

Gerry Fisher’s cinematography encompasses the Gothicism of the remote Germanic castle to where every ghastly statue and crypt-like stone comes alive like in a horror movie. The setting couldn’t be any of an antonym for a loony-bin set. Even though the film is suppose to be set in North West America, the location used was actually in Wierschem, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany at the medieval Castle Eltz and the story subtly explains how the castle came to be in “America.” To the opposition of such a barbarically beautiful castle, the score by Barry De Vorzon (The Warriors) in the first act into the second is playful, lighthearted, and childish in an appropriate story tone, but turns quickly sinister and angry during progression, building upon the revealing climax.

Classic film and TV distributor Second Sight brings this cult classic onto DVD and Blu-ray in the UK. Since this was a screener copy of the DVD, I’m unable to provide any audio or video technical comments, but the screener did include the generous amount of bonus material including interviews with writer-director William Peter Blatty, and individual interviews with Stacy Keach, Tom Atkins and Stephen Powers, composer Barry De Vorzon, production designer William Malley and art director J. Dennis Washington. There are also deleted scenes and outtakes and a Mark Kermode introduction. A substantial release for Second Sight and a fine film for any collection so make sure you pick up or order this Second Sight release today!