The Corner Penthouse

Arrow Video recently released Wild Things (1998) on 4K UHD. Read on to find out more about it...

[ SYNOPSIS ]

Popular and charming, student counselor Sam Lombardo (Matt Dillon) is no stranger to being the focus of female attention within the moneyed cliques of Florida's Blue Bay. His fortunes are about to change dramatically, however, when one of the wealthiest students at his high school, sultry siren Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards), accuses him of rape. The charge looks sure to stick when another girl from the other end of the social spectrum, Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell), steps forward with her own allegations, but Detective Duquette (Kevin Bacon) smells something fishy, and the truth is as murky and dangerous as the alligator-infested swamps in the hinterlands of this affluent beach community.

[ SPECIFICATIONS ]

The movie is presented in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio with a runtime of 1:48:15 for the Theatrical Cut and 1:54:47 for the Unrated Cut. (Check out Movie-Censorship's comparison between the two cuts.) The movie has been rated R for strong sexuality, nudity, language and some violence. Audio languages include English. Subtitle languages include English SDH.

[ SPECIAL FEATURES ]

All of the content listed below can be found on the 4K UHD disc.

• Audio Commentary - by John McNaughton and Steven A. Jones.
• Audio Commentary - by John McNaughton, cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball, producers Steven A. Jones and Rodney Liber, editor Elena Maganini, and score composer George S. Clinton.
• Interview with John McNaughton (26:20)
• Interview with Denise Richards (14:04)
• On Set Interviews (4:18) - An archival featurette with quite a bit of candid footage.
• "An Understanding Lawyer" Outtakes (0:27) - Bill Murray ad-libs responses to Matt Dillon.
• Trailer (2:23)
• Stills Gallery

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

This is one of those beautiful "Limited Edition" releases from Arrow Video, which includes an illustrated collector's booklet featuring essays (by Anne Billson and Sean Hogan) and photographs, six double-sided postcard-sized lobby card reproductions, and a dual-sided fold-out mini-poster, with everything housed in a sturdy slipcase. The mini-poster, and the reversible case artwork, feature the original poster artwork on one side and newly-commissioned artwork (by Sam Hadley) on the other. So, if you prefer the original poster artwork showing Neve Campbell and Denise Richards sexily peering out of a pool, instead of this new artwork that has a murder-mystery feel to it, you can reverse the case artwork and have it.

[ NOTES ]

I remember when Wild Things first came out, it caused quite a stir in the Ghostbusters Online Community. Bill Murray's role in it was unlike anything most of us had seen him do before. So, when the DVD came out in 2000, I bought it right away. (I also bought the 2004 Unrated Version DVD, though it did not include the Theatrical Cut or any of the other content from the original DVD.) The DVD includes three "Scenes From The Cutting Room Floor": "Jalapeno Platter", "An Understanding Lawyer", and "Feeding The Gator". You may notice that there are no "Deleted Scenes" listed on this disc. That doesn't mean that these are missing. "Jalapeno Platter", a scene showing Tom Baxter (Robert Wagner) and Ken Bowden (Bill Murray) eating at Cafe Under The Tree, has been inserted into the Unrated Cut of the movie. As you can see from the Special Features section, "An Understanding Lawyer" is included as "outtakes". It was never a true deleted scene, but really just Bill Murray ad-libbing some alternate lines. That leaves "Feeding The Gator", a 12-second silent clip of an alligator being fed in close-up. As far as I can tell, this wasn't inserted into the Unrated Cut of the movie, and it isn't anywhere to be found on the disc; not even as an Easter Egg (which Arrow doesn't usually do). To be fair, the clip plays like stock footage and isn't of any importance, so it's no great loss.

However, if you want it, I uploaded my original MPG DVD rips to my Internet Archive account. I also scanned in the booklet and insert from the Theatrical and Unrated DVDs, and screenshot the Filmography images from the Unrated DVD, for the sake of archiving what little bits remain from the old DVDs. Long story short, Arrow ported over the important things (commentary, deleted scene, outtakes), and included both versions of the movie on one disc.

Wild Things is available on 4K UHD and Blu-ray. Unlike DVD, where you had to buy two separate DVDs to get both cuts and the special features, it's all on one disc here, whether you get the 4K or the standard Blu-ray. The movie was so successful that Sony created a mini-franchise out of it with three direct-to-video sequels: Wild Things 2 (2004), Wild Things: Diamonds in the Rough (2005), and Wild Things: Foursome (2010). (Click on the titles to buy the Blu-ray of the fourth film and the DVDs of the other two films, which are not available on Blu-ray.) Do be aware that although all of the films are set in Florida and presumably take place in the same cinematic universe, they are not related to either other and each contains a completely different set of characters.


This item has been provided by Arrow Video for review on this site.