When I first started getting into more obscure horror films outside the “Friday the 13th” bandwagon, one of the first films I found was J.R. Bookwalter’s The Dead Next Door. A local video store had a tape, and immediately I fell in love with the film. It looked like a group of friends had got together and made a violent of loving homage to zombie cinema, and if they could do it, so could I (Postscript, I couldn’t).

Years later, when the internet became more of a presence in my life I began to haunt the Tempe Forums and sites like Allen Richard’s legendary B-Independent, and in doing so discovered more of Tempe and Bookwalter’s output including films like Robot Ninja, Polymorph (my personal favorite), and the film just released to Blu-ray this month Ozone.

The premise of Ozone is pretty straight forward. There is a new drug hitting the streets, called Ozone, and it makes all those other drugs look soft by comparison. The film follows Eddie Boone (James Black) who is injected by the drug early on, and has to find his kidnapped partner Mike while high on the drug and dealing with the zombie-esque addicts of the drug along the weay.

The film was shot on VHS-C and zero budget, Bookwalter does what he does best. This film is loaded up with apocalyptic atmosphere and gore that stands up against some of the best of the era. James Black really owns the film from a performance perspective, and really treats the material with a seriousness that makes everything all the more effective. Ozone is a totally wild ride, that I highly recommend to fans of lo fi zombie cinema and SOV horror.

The film is presented on BD-R in 4:3 and OK, so it’s an SD lensed VHS film so it’s going to look as strong as a VHS shot film, but honestly Bookwalter put some work into the restoration process here, and it shows. There is some interlacing and artifacts around, but they are limited, and mostly everything looks solid, and this is the best I’ve seen Ozone ever look. I wish more SD content would be ported to Blu-ray in a similar manner. The sound is presented in a 5.1 HD sound mix that sounds really solid and comes through clear and crisp. Extras include commentary tracks, interviews, featurettes alternate VHS versions, to such a degree Criterion would blush. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Ozone

Director- J.R. Bookwalter

Cast- James Black, Tom Hoover

Country of Origin: US

Writer: Scott MacDonald