Those seeking a break from cute animal animation are in for something completely different with today’s home video release of director Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly. In addition, there are some cool digital vfx by ILM to be found in M. Night Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water, which also hits retail today.
Based on a novel by famed science-fiction author Phillip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly takes place seven years in the future as a new designer drug sweeps the nation and causes an epidemic of addiction. Keanu Reeves stars as Fred, a drug enforcement agent whose own use of Substance D has caused a split personality disorder. Half of the time, Fred thinks he’s Bob Arctor, one of the junkies occupying a suburban California home he’s been assigned to infiltrate. Robert Downey Jr. is Jim Barris, a fast-talking, paranoid member of Arctor’s motley crew of burnouts, filled out by Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder), Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson) and Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane).
The film was shot live action on digital video then rotoscoped using RotoShop, the interpolated rotoscoping software Bob Sabiston developed for Linklater’s innovative 2001 feature, Waking Life. But whereas Waking Life presented a dreamlike, painterly world, Scanner is more grounded in reality, looking more like a comic book brought to life. Made for around $8 million, the film only earned $7.5 million through limited worldwide releases.
The Warner Home Video release features commentary by Linklater, Reeves, producer Tommy Pallotta, author Jonathan Lethem (The Fortress of Solitude) and Isa Hackett Dick (daughter of Philip K. Dick). There are also two making-of featurettes titled One Summer in Austin: The Story of Filming A Scanner Darkly and The Weight of the Line: Animation Tales. The disc carries a suggested retail price of $27.98
Lady in the Water is a not-so-well-received follow-up to Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village. Described as a bedtime story, this latest supernatural thriller stars Paul Giamatti as a building superintendent who finds a strange woman (Bryce Dallas Howard) in the pool of his apartment complex and is soon introduced to menacing creatures of the night. While Shayamalan’s other films all crossed the $100 million mark, this entry only grossed around $42 million domestically.
The DVD includes a six-part documentary titled Reflections of Lady in the Water, as well as deleted scenes, auditions, a gag reel and a featurette titled Lady in the Water: A Bedtime Story. The Warner Home Video lists for $28.98 and is also available on HD DVD and Blue-ray for $39.99 and $34.99, respectively.
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