The commentary and feature-length documentary on the Divimax release of this film provide a vivid account for how this film was made. It's a seminal horror film that started the wave of slashers in the 80s, and owes (and pays) a lot of debt to Hitchcock's Psycho. The filmmakers involved illustrate how much you can do with a limited budget, how necessity is the mother of all inventions. In fact, those interested in low budget horror will find this and The Blair Witch Project as perfect examples of doing more with less - a lot less, in fact.

Created originally for the Criterion Laserdisc, everyone here (even the producer, which is rare) has a lot to offer, due to the fact that everyone was involved with the entire making of the film, due to the low budget. Very fun to listen to, and very interesting tidbits on the making (and meaning) of the film make this a worthy addition to any low-budget horror fan's collection.

This was my listening experience of a Carpenter commentary. Obviously a great first listen would be with The Thing, since it got all kinds of hype - but I felt I should start with a film that really put him on the map. This was a wonderful listen from every single participant. It's edited quite well and everyone provides insight. What I enjoyed the most is listening to Carpenter's bits where he gave a very nice sense of where he was coming from. Carpenters narrates some of the scenes, but it's different from "describing what's on screen" - he walks you through some sequences and explains the intention. Debra Hill is also extremely interesting to listen to as she also goes into filmmaking aspect which I always love hearing about. You'd expect John to be doing the bulk of that, but it's actually the other way around. Overall it's a solid track. Do not miss it, I learned a lot through it.

John starts the commentary by saying that critic gave it a good kicking when it released the first week. But when it was getting successful, they re-watched it and liked it.

Jamie makes fun of the movie, laughing at the "The evil has gone." and how fast Michael's sister and boyfriend has sex really fast. She also admits that she hates horror movies and when she wanted to see Silence of the Lambs, a crew member gave her a piece of paper telling her what parts to cover her eyes. "Silence" isn't a horror film.

35th Anni. has two commentary tracks; the other:
featuring director of photography Dean Cundey, production designer/editor/jack-of-all-trades Tommy Lee Wallace and The Shape himself, Nick Castle.