Watchmen is nearly out on DVD. Isn't it exciting? Are you going to buy it? I am. Well, maybe not this time, but I'll definitely be picking up one of the fourteen or fifteen releases scheduled for the next year or so. I'm planning on holding out for an 84-disc Blu-ray Ultra-Mega-Amazo-Wonder-Edition that features a special fourteen hour version of the film with additional scenes inserted of the Comedian sexually assaulting tearful fanboys who have been clogging up the Internet with pointless, punctuation-free rants about giant squids and cartoon pirates.

Apparently, it's also going to feature full audio commentary from one of the caterers who'll be telling us how Zack Snyder likes his mashed potatoes ("lumpy"), how the CGI was integrated with the live-action recordings ("with all computers and that") and his thoughts on how the film turned out ("yeah, alright"). Sounds brilliant, doesn't it?

I remember a time when re-releasing a film on DVD was referred to as ‘double dipping', but that doesn't really seem to cut it anymore. Simply releasing the same film twice seems quite tame by current standards. Ask any fan of the Evil Dead series how many times they've bought Army Of Darkness on DVD. They probably won't even answer. More likely, their eyes will gloss over, their body will start to violently shake and they'll lose bowel control, noisily shitting on the spot while their head explodes, Scanners style.

I'm not averse to the charms of re-released films myself. I've already bought The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 times. The first on the cheap, then one in a snazzy chainsaw-shaped package which featured a German and ultimately useless disc, then the Dark Sky version with the cleaned up picture. The only reason I'm yet to buy the Blu-ray is because of region coding (which reminds me, will someone hurry up and start selling affordable multi-region Blu-ray players?). So what's my problem? Why would I keep buying the same violent horror film again and again, like an obsessive compulsive sociopath?

I think the problem is simply that I've been outsmarted by the film studios. Their first step was to overwhelm me with bonus features. Oh, the bonus features. Interviews about special effects, friendly chats about costume design, documentaries about documentaries. They bombarded me and for a while I couldn't get enough. I gorged myself until I felt physically sick and couldn't consume another second of the stuff. I've become so jaded by bonus features that you'd now be hard pressed to get me to watch an extra even if it's shot by Martin Scorsese and features Tom Cruise fisting a runner while Dame Judi Dench spontaneously combusts in the background.

Also, who has the time? I look back fondly on the days when I had three and half spare hours to give to learning bullshit nonsense trivia about Wrong Turn, but those days are gone. Now I barely have time for the films. So unless they're looking to start flinging films at me for basically no money, these companies will have to find some way of making watching the film a better experience or they're going to have extremely limited access to my wallet.

Well, they've done both. A quick glance at HMV's website and you'll notice that you'd be hard pressed to spend more than £5 on any DVD bar the most recent releases. Then there's Blu-ray. Much like basically everyone, I initially treated Blu-ray with a mixture of disdain and indifference. Maybe I'd get into it one day, but not yet, and there's no way I'll be replacing any of my collection. It's just another trick to get us to keep buying the same films again and again, until they can remake them and get us to buy the remakes multiple times as well. It's a bloody con.

It's taken about three months for me to do a complete turnaround, to such a degree that I'll now aggressively mock anyone who holds the same opinion I held three months ago. In my defence, they are being unreasonable bastards. If you're not sure about moving on to Blu-ray, then I thoroughly recommend it. The improved picture quality really does make a difference and I'm informed (by people whose neighbours aren't so sharp of hearing that they're happy to complain about excessive whispering or malicious pin dropping) that the sound is something to behold too.

Whenever I put on a DVD now a sickness descends over me, my throat fills with a concoction of bile and liquid hatred. I start to sweat heavily and blood slowly drips from every orifice on my body. In other words, I limit DVD playback entirely to pornography. My proper film collection (as opposed to the previously mentioned one I keep in a tatty shoebox under my bed) has been afforded a fresh start. Every shit film I've ever bought on DVD because it was cheap or because it was cheaper to buy than rent, they can be swept to one side now. I'll stick to only buying good films on Blu-ray, and never more than once.

That is, until they start rolling out different versions of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'll obviously have to keep up with those. Oh, and have you seen that they're releasing Army Of Darkness? I should probably pick that up too. I've only got it on DVD twice. I hope it's a good transfer. And maybe I'll get one version of Watchmen now to hold me over until the proper... 

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