Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.5

Holliston: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Grindhouse Sitcom

Reviewed by Michael Reuben October 7, 2012

If the former UPN network had let series creator Adam Green do Holliston his way, we might have seen this semi-autobiographical comedy series about two aspiring horror directors thirteen years ago. However, as broadcast networks tend to do, UPN bought Green's idea, then proceeded to neuter it. By the time UPN merged into the current CW network in 2006, the project had been shelved indefinitely, and Green was ready to move on to other ventures. In the process, he graduated from "aspiring" to "established" horror director, with credits that include the Hatchet films, the anthology of horror shorts entitled Chillerama, various short films and webisodes and the ski lift thriller Frozen, which my colleague Martin Liebman called "one of the genre's all-time great pictures".

In the same year that Frozen was released, its producer, Peter Block, was tapped as president of FEARnet, the cable channel specializing in horror. Block asked his Frozen director to create the network's first original broadcast series, and Green seized the opportunity to dust off his Holliston premise and do it the way he'd originally wanted. The result debuted on April 3, 2012, and was such an instant success that FEARnet ordered a second season the following week. Shooting on the new season just wrapped, although it won't be seen until 2013.

Written and directed by Green, Holliston takes its name from his Massachusetts home town. Green stars as a much less successful (one might even say pathetic) version of himself, who shares a rundown apartment with his best friend, Joe, played by Green's real-life best friend, horror director Joe Lynch (Wrong Turn 2: Dead End). The buddies never pay their bills, are perpetually broke, and scrape by making amateurish commercials at a local cable network run by Lance Rockett (former Twisted Sister frontman, Dee Snider), a middle-aged heavy-metal big-hair rocker whose every word is a performance. Joe's long-time girlfriend is Laura (Laura Ortiz), a sweetly demented Colombian-American artist who paints canvases filled with dead babies. Adam spends his free time pining for Corri (Corri English), a nurse, and The One That Got Away. No matter how many times Corri tells him otherwise, Adam believes they'll get back together.

Rounding out the regular cast is Adam's imaginary friend, who lives in his closet and materializes to offer advice, usually bad, when Adam is at his lowest. Consistent with Adam's horror interests, his imaginary friend is Oderus Urungus, lead singer of the horror-themed heavy metal band Gwar, and he's played by the real Oderus Urungus a/k/a singer Dave Brockie in his stage get-up consisting of fifty pounds of latex, plus fishnets and a thong. No one but the real Oderus could play him, but among the extras is a mock screentest that is hilarious, because it consists of Oderus reciting famous movie quotes ("I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!").

The throughline of Holliston is an effort by Adam and Joe to raise funds to make their debut feature, a horror film about an undead soccer team to be called Shinpads. For now they've lowered their sights to making a trailer to show potential investors, but even the smallest savings have a way of slipping through their fingers. (Joe's Home Shopping Network addiction doesn't help.) This, plus the friends' constant bickering and Adam's pining for Corri, supply classic comic material, but the plots get a distinctive Holliston stamp from the copious citations to horror movies courtesy of the horror film cable show hosted by Adam and Joe and their daily horror-nerd existence, in which everything becomes a reference. Because Holliston isn't a network sitcom, it can be more explicit in all respects, including gore. Right away in the pilot, Green and Wright let you know the difference by recreating perhaps the most famous scene from David Cronenberg's Scanners. (If you don't know which one I mean, you're not a horror fan.)

Stage blood isn't the only fluid on display in Holliston. Copious amounts of vomit, spit and other revolting substances make regular appearances. Indeed, after watching these initial six episodes, I doubt there's any depth to which Green and Wright wouldn't sink in search of a laugh or a groan. At the same time, Holliston can become almost precious in its meta-commentary on the mechanics of filmmaking. The show routinely breaks the fourth wall. For example, in one episode a running gag has the camera regularly reversing to the crew, where the sound man is appalled by the episode's plot. Pay attention and you'll notice director Adam Green sitting at the monitor behind the sound guy, at the same moment when he's also supposed to be in front of the camera playing the part of "Adam". In another episode, "Adam" interrupts a scene to chastise a guest star for improvising. People die at the end of an episode, only to be miraculously alive at the beginning of the next (which, come to think of it, sounds a lot like a horror franchise).

One advantage of the thirteen-year gestation was that Green and Lynch got to know a lot of famous faces they were able to recruit as guest stars. Ray Wise of Reaper and Twin Peaks appears as a creepy landlord renting an apartment to Laura and Corri in a house straight out of The Amityville Horror. Robot Chicken co-creator Seth Green portrays Gustavo, a make-up effects artist who is willing to do Shinpads for free. As it turns out, he has no other projects, because his multiple personality disorder makes him unhireable—and dangerous.

An entire episode is built around Tony Todd, star of the Candyman films, who dozes through an interview on Adam's and Joe's cable show, then turns into the guest who wouldn't leave. When the visiting celebrity puts the moves on Corri, Adam's humiliation is complete. In the season finale, director John Landis appears as himself attending a local horror convention, where Adam and Joe break every rule of appropriate fan behavior in order to slip him a copy of their trailer for Shinpads. Other attendees include Kane Hodder (Jason Voorhees since Part VII: The New Blood and Victor Crowley in the Hatchet series) and Danielle Harris (the Halloween remakes, Hatchet II and the web series Fear Clinic). Completing the self-reflexive circle, when Adam and Joe enter the convention, they pass a large booth for Image Entertainment, the studio that is issuing Holliston on Blu-ray.

By the second or third episode of Holliston, fans were inquiring about an actor who appears in the title sequence but who hadn't yet appeared in the series. Rest assured that he does eventually show up, and when he does, he makes an impression.

Holliston: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The cinematographer (and also a producer) for Holliston is Will Barratt, with whom Green has worked for many years. An expert in digital cinema, Barratt also shot every segment of Chillerama, with its variety of styles. Holliston is shot with multiple Red cameras from several angles simultaneously, and the scenes are then constructed in editing from various angles and takes. (A deleted scene from episode 2 confirms that one particularly disgusting joke involving a piece of gum was indeed performed by the cast without interruption by presenting the entire take from a single angle.)

The image on Image Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray reflects Holliston's jokey sitcom aesthetic, in which horror movie images and situations are played out in brightly lit settings. As Green and Lynch note in their commentary during a parody of a famous scene from Poltergeist, the make-up effects are essentially the same, but theirs look cheesy and ridiculous, because they're in bright light instead of darkness. The entire series has the same flattened, de-glamorized appearance, which isn't to say that the image lacks detail or definition. On the contrary, the apartment inhabited by Adam and Joe is crammed full of toys and horror memorabilia, and the Blu-ray image is sufficiently detailed that you can make out all sorts of objects, posters and bric-a-brac in the background. Similar levels of detail are evident in locations like the TV studio, the make-up "factory" of Gustavo and the horror convention in the final episode. These are sets that were made for freeze-framing and studying the background.

Colors tend to be dusty and washed-out. This reflects the state of Adam's and Joe's life, and it also allows for sharp contrast with Lance Rockett's brightly hued spandex outfits, whenever the sexually ambiguous rocker strides in or backs out of a scene. (Lance can't leave a room like a normal person.) Black levels frequently display a shift toward gray, but this appears to be deliberate, perhaps as an aide to weakening the color without desaturating it, because in some scenes the transfer demonstrates deep, true black. In any case, most viewers are unlikely to notice the difference.

Video noise and other artifacts (including those that might be compression-related) were non-existent. I didn't see Holliston during its initial broadcast, but I doubt, given the vagaries of cable and satellite transmission, that it ever looked this good.

Holliston: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Holliston's DTS-HD MA 5.1 track isn't especially flashy, but it's very good. Like the imagery, the track adheres to a sitcom aesthetic, and sitcoms aren't known for elaborate surround mixes. The most notable presence in the surrounds is the laugh track, which has been carefully created to match Holliston's off-kilter vibe, including an occasional yelled-out comment and the requisite sighs of "Aww!" at emotional moments. The track is entirely fabricated, because there's no studio audience, and it's been thoughtfully mixed at just enough volume to supply the appropriate style without becoming intrusive or obnoxious.

The track contains a few departures from the front-centered sitcom approach, but to identify them would mean giving away various plot developments, because their effect comes from the surprise of being suddenly immersed in a surround field or having a noise come from somewhere unexpected. Just go with the experience.

Dialogue is always clear, although when Laura Ortiz breaks into Spanish (helpfully subtitled), she speaks so fast that one can barely make out separate words. The score by Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead and Battlestar Galactica) is an appropriate blend of real and fake horror music, and the closing theme by his brother Brendan, together with the opening theme by Kirk Miller, sets the perfect tone for the series. The lossless track reproduces them in all their glory.

Holliston: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The disc comes fully loaded with a complement of extras covering all aspects of the production.

• Commentaries with Adam Green, Joe Lynch, Laura Ortiz and Corri English: As executive producers and long-time friends, Green and Lynch dominate the discussion, but Ortiz and English have some of the best zingers. Running continuously throughout all six episodes, the commentaries provide a wealth of detail.



• The Road to Holliston Promos (HD; 1.78:1): All of these are put-ons.
• The Pitch (1080i; 2:29): No doubt payback for every meeting that Green and Lynch have ever endured with bored executives.
• Corri English Audition (1080p; 9:03): English pretends to be meeting Green for the first time, and Green pretends that he really is his sitcom character. The results are every bit as squirmy as any episode of Holliston.
• Network Notes (1080i; 2:47): This feels like Green's "dish best served cold" revenge on UPN for their treatment of his concept.
• Oderus Urungus Screen Test (1080p; 2:15): Oderus isn't a bad mimic.
• Dee Snider Make-Up Test (1080p; 1:11): Some of these looks made it into the show. All of them are priceless.
• On Set with Laura Ortiz (720p; 1:18): Who exactly has the "casting couch" on this show?



• Deleted Scenes (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1): Each scene is introduced by Green and Ortiz. The most intriguing is the alernate ending to episode 4, which is further explained in the commentary to that episode. Episode 4 was the first one shot, and Green filmed the alternate ending as insurance against the possibility that Holliston would not be renewed. If that had happened, episode 4 would have been shifted to the end, and the alternate ending would have been used to provide a kind of closure.
• Ep. 2: "The Gum Scene in One Shot" (5:21)
• Ep. 4: "Alternate Ending" (4:41)
• Ep. 5: "Alternate Opening" (3:24)



• Behind the Scenes (HD, 1080i; 1.78:1): These short featurettes provide a closer look at various aspects of creating the world of Holliston and introduce several key craftspeople.
• Holliston History (3:08)
• Meet the Cast (5:01)
• Art Direction (3:33)
• Make-Up and Wardrobe (3:19)
• Guest Stars (5:45)
• Horror Convention (4:19)
• Bathtub Scene (3:42)



• Sneak Peak TV Special (HD, 1080i; 1.78:1; 19:51): This promotional piece aired on FEARnet as part of the buildup to the series premiere.



• Bloopers (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1; 5:30): Well chosen.

Holliston: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It is fashionable in some circles to compare Holliston to The Big Bang Theory—there's even a quote on the back of the Blu-ray cover—probably because both feature characters that you might find at Comic-Con. But many different people go to Comic-Con, and it's been quite a while since the geeks inherited the earth. The boy-men of Big Bang may have difficulties in their personal lives, but they're accomplished scientists with careers, titles and steady paychecks. The guys in Holliston are broke nobodies with little else but dreams. Their weekly failures are especially painful, because, when these particular tribulations pass, the life that resumes won't be much better. Still, somehow they keep pushing forward. Someday they may break through. Someday they may become the producers and stars of a show like . . . Holliston! Highly recommended.