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InterVision is quickly mak­ing itself syn­ony­mous with that 1980’s/1990’s era of straight-to-video hor­ror schlock.  Much of the mate­r­ial they release is weird to the point of being unin­ten­tion­ally funny but the label has taken an abrupt 90-degree turn with their release of The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer.  Despite its vin­tage direct-to-video sta­tus, this is a dif­fer­ent kind of film for InterVision — and the result is a dif­fer­ent kind of disc from what InterVision is becom­ing known for.

The trans­fer is taken from a full-frame video ele­ment.  As a result, the color and detail lev­els aren’t as sharp as what you’d get from a film or neg­a­tive trans­fer.  That said, The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer was shot on film and edited on video so it’s an accu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what VHS own­ers saw from this film back in the day — and it gets an added bump from the height­ened res­o­lu­tion of the DVD for­mat.  There are no prob­lems with dis­tor­tion in either the video or audio depart­ments and the fin­ished prod­uct is as good as this film can look or sound.

The extras are sur­pris­ingly aus­tere when com­pared to the last few InterVision releases.  Basically, there is a trailer for the film (with a few unnec­es­sary and annoy­ing “VHS glitch” effects added to it), some trail­ers for other InterVision releases and a com­men­tary track.

As you might expect, the com­men­tary is the most sub­stan­tial item here.  It pairs direc­tor David Bowen with writer/star Carl Crew.  Bowen is the guid­ing voice on this track and he reveals a lot of behind-the-scenes info, includ­ing how the L.A. riots inter­fered with the pro­duc­tion of the film and the research involved in chron­i­cling Dahmer’s crimes.  You’ll also hear about the inter­est­ing career path Crew has taken since work­ing on this film.  The first half of this com­men­tary is more inter­est­ing than the sec­ond half but there’s enough worth­while info here to make it worth a lis­ten for fans.

In short, InterVision’s disc of The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer isn’t as elab­o­rate as their other recent releases but it shows they can rein in the camp-horror humor to give a seri­ous film an appro­pri­ately seri­ous treatment.

The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer TRAILER from Intervision Picture Corp. on Vimeo.