Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Eli Roth's History of Horror: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Randy Miller III September 26, 2022

AMC's accurately-named Eli Roth's History of Horror treats viewers to an ongoing informal tour of the popular genre. Each 40-odd minute episode is hosted by the polarizing torture porn director, who's surrounded by plenty of big names (some of whom are returning from Season 1) including Stephen King, Quentin Tarantino, Jordan Peele, Greg Nicotero, Rob Zombie, Nancy Allen, Piper Laurie, James Brolin, Slash, Bill Hader, Rachel True, Chris Hardwick, and several others. Grouped together by subject, this sophomore season includes "Houses of Hell", "Monsters", "Body Horror", "Witches", "Chilling Children", and "Nine Nightmares", and a third season is already available on Blu-ray because I was swamped last year. Although still hampered by ego-related issues, History of Horror continues to skate by on the strength of its source material and should entertain just about anyone who doesn't know all this stuff by heart.

Wish you were here.

Not surprisingly, most of these six episodes are self-explanatory, offering the series' usual mix of first or second-hand contributors who explore specific films within each category and offer trivial tidbits, fluffy praise (and light criticism), or deeper psychological insights that try to get at the root of their intended subjects. Obvious picks are here, of course: The Amityville Horror in "Hell Houses", Godzilla and King Kong in "Monsters", and David Cronenberg's resume in "Body Horror", just to name a few... but deeper cuts show up as well, making History of Horror more of a decades-spanning celebration than a surface-level journey. "Nine Nightmares" is the lone outlier, a collection of uncategorizable films that get some love including Jordan Peele's Us, Mary Harron's American Psycho, Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man, Ari Astor's Midsommar, George A. Romero's Creepshow, J. Piquer Simon's Pieces, Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill, Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust, which was also just covered in Cursed Films II. Though some of these could have fit into separate episodes (The Wicker Man and Midsommar in "Religion" or Creepshow in "Anthologies", for example), it's nice to see most of them get time in the spotlight.

Aside from subjective criticisms like "You didn't include my favorite film!" or "That movie's trash!", my only two real complaints about History of Horror have always been there. The first is Eli Roth's forceful insertion into various parts of the show; yes, it's his baby and he has creative control, but his random reaction shots during interviews and forced voice-over narration are just tacky. The second is its bleeped swear words, which is just ridiculous when paired with close-ups of rotting, decapitated heads and bloody corpses. Seriously: what the fuck, America?

Otherwise, History of Horror remains a perfectly decent time-waster for casual and hardcore fans alike and, if nothing else, will encourage horror hounds to dig a little deeper when assembling their upcoming October playlists. That alone makes this Blu-ray package from RLJ Entertainment worth looking into: at its current price point, this is a no-brainer if you liked Season 1 or just want to grab it along with the recently released third and final season.

Eli Roth's History of Horror: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

History of Horror divides its total running time neatly between interview footage and film clips, with only the latter showing unavoidable room for improvement. For the most part, these highlights appear to match their best home video versions -- at least by 2020 standards -- but some are in surprisingly poor shape, while others are curiously riddled with compression artifacts, excess noise, or just pulled from an old DVD when the Blu-ray or 4K release was right there. So while it's no surprise that the end result is a visual mixed bag (though not always a fault of the filmmakers or RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray), most of these clips at least preserve each film's original aspect ratio; though some are slightly opened up to 1.78:1, many of them -- especially those shot in 2.35:1 -- thankfully haven't been panned and scanned. This is actually rare for documentaries of this type, and I'm glad the exception was made.

In contrast, all of the digitally-shot interviews are framed at 1.78:1 and look a bit more consistently attractive with suitably spooky backdrops, creative lighting choices, and no shortage of shadowy corners. They share a lot of visual similarities with James Cameron's The Story of Science Fiction, to the point that I wouldn't be surprised if some of the behind-the-scenes names were identical. Black levels run nice and deep in these cases, with "special effects" limited to vintage interviews where the deceased subject is usually projected on a wall. Skin tones look very natural, contrast levels are spot-on, and there are no severe compression issues to be found. Overall, this Blu-ray offers a pleasing but obviously scattershot production that, under the circumstances, leaves only a little room for complaints.

Eli Roth's History of Horror: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Much like the first season, History of Horror is still saddled with a largely unimaginative DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio mix. It certainly feels good enough for the "talking head" interview segments (as well as older mono/stereo film clips), but obviously comes up a little short where more modern fare is concerned. Still, dialogue is key here and it sounds very crisp and clear, with solid channel separation and plenty of room for occasional music cues, jump scares, and other not-so-subtle background touches. I'd argue that a more ambitiously enveloping mix -- yes, during the interviews -- might have gone a long way towards History of Horrors' overall spooky effectiveness, but it's still hard to be too disappointed with what's essentially a made-for-TV production. Optional English (SDH) subtitles are included during the main feature and select extras, but they're full of annoying little typos and missing letters that may cause confusion.

Eli Roth's History of Horror: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This two-disc set ships in a standard keepcase with Roth-heavy cover artwork and a promotional insert. Bonus features are less substantial than Season 1, with only a few grouped interview clusters that play like deleted scenes.

• CGI vs Practical Effects (4:52) - Amalgamated Dynamics co-founder Alec Gillis, Greg Nicotero, and others debate the pros and cons of both visual design practices as well as changing trends over the decades.

• The Chilling Children of Horror (6:47) - Actors Milly Shapiro (Hereditary), Patty McCormack (The Bad Seed), Linda Blair (The Exorcist), and Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense) speak about their separate but somewhat similar experiences playing creepy or unusual children in horror films during different decades.

• Seeing Classics in Theaters (7:08) - Filmmaker John Landis, Bill Hader, SNL actor/writer Laraine Newman, film critic Leonard Maltin, Eli Roth (of course), author Victor LaValle, and others speak about terrifying theatrical trips to see films like Halloween, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Alien, and Evil Dead 2.

Eli Roth's History of Horror: Season 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In its second of three short seasons, Eli Roth's History of Horror is still very much a "what you see is what you get" production, providing a surface-level but watchable overview of the genre by someone who isn't exactly regarded as a top-tier name. But some of the interview subjects are and, while many of their stories lean much closer to fan service than deep-dive analysis (which ultimately makes History of Horror more fluffy than fascinating), it's still worth a good look (whether you're brand-new to the genre or a seasoned veteran) and the occasional "deep cuts" are appreciated. RLJ Entertainment's Blu-ray package offers a good A/V presentation of its limited source material, but the bonus features are noticeably slimmer this time around. Still Recommended at its current price point.