Worms, Worms In the Deep

This article was originally published on Ferretbrain. I’ve backdated it to its original Ferretbrain publication date but it may have been edited and amended since its original appearance.

Let me make a little confession: I like multi-film box sets, and I like them cheap. I’m not the sort of person who really cares about special features or commentary tracks or especially nice packaging when it comes to a DVD. They’re nice if they are available, but I’ve not watched a single one of the bonus features on something like 90% of my DVD collection, and as far as packaging goes I just want something which doesn’t look horrible and won’t take up too much space on my shelves. All I want from a DVD of a film is a reasonable picture and sound quality, a more or less complete cut of the film, and content that’s enjoyable, either through being good or being so-bad-it’s-good. This being the case, I’m currently living in what for me is a golden age of DVD collecting; multi-film sets are coming out all the time, most of the stores are cutting their prices so that they’re a good way of collecting a lot of films for your money, and the discs used in such collections are often the same ones that are offered in the individual packages or the more fancy box sets anyway.

The absolute best sets, for the me, are the ones where the films are in little individual slipcases that are like slimline versions of normal DVD cases, with pretty much exactly the same artwork but about half the thickness. They look good on the shelf, and the second-hand DVD store down the street is willing to buy the individual ones second-hand, so if I like half the films and don’t like the other half I can sell on the ones I don’t want and in the long run I still save money on the ones I want to keep. The next best sets, to my mind, are the ones which offer several films in a series in a package no larger than a standard-sized DVD case, so even if I only want to keep hold of one or two of the films it’s not taking up more space than a single DVD would. The three-disc set of the first three Tremors movies falls in the latter category. It’s not the prettiest of packages. But if the films are any good, it will serve my purposes nicely.