Once upon a time, the promise of an unrated or extended cut was exciting. The advent of DVD and the attendant special features opened up a whole new world of rare behind-the-scenes material, excised bits and alternate takes we had only heard about. Now, more often than not, it’s simply a sham. Two more seconds of barely noticeable gore? Oh, cool.

On the commentary for the DVD and Blu-ray of THE NEW DAUGHTER, conducted solo by director Luis Berdejo, he walks us through his beautifully lensed feature. He mentions the lack of cell phones and Internet. “It’s not a period movie,” he says. “But the feeling of it…I wanted it to be like one of those classic movies from the ’80s.”

NEVER SLEEP AGAIN; THE ELM STREET LEGACY certainly has an apt title; at a total of eight hours, this two-DVD set from 1428 Films (released via CAV) will keep you up all night. How appropriate given the subject matter: Wes Craven’s 1984 classic A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and its big- and small-screen follow-ups, and this survey from the people behind the FRIDAY THE 13TH documentary HIS NAME WAS JASON does it full justice.

Now that the horrible winter of 2009-10 has passed into the record books to become fodder for future stories, it’s safe to look at a recently released title that captures all the things wrong with the season: large amounts of snow, spotty electricity and no escape route. Oh yeah, and another group of stupid young people waiting to get killed in horrible, nasty ways.

This is how the meetings go around FANGORIA’s office: “Hey, guys,” says the big boss, “I’ve got a new title that features naked men in it. Any takers?” When nobody goes for it, the consensus is, “Give it to the new girl.” I don’t know how long I’m going to be “the new girl,” but I get the distinct feeling I’m going to continue to get most, if not all, of the titles with serious male nudity and bisexuality involved.

Bring it on, suckers.

Do any of these titles sound familiar? SNAKES ON A TRAIN? THE DA VINCI TREASURE? PARANORMAL ENTITY? These cheap knockoffs of theatrical blockbusters all came from The Asylum, whose mission has been to create straight-to-video movies capitalizing on the strength of their major-studio “inspirations.” Some of the Asylum gang recently branched out to form Night Light Films, which just had four DVDs hit the shelves via Echo Bridge Entertainment, all for the low price of $6.99 each.

This was always going to be tricky to pull off. When a sequel to perhaps the first horror film of the 21st century to likely be regarded as a classic was announced, the filmmakers basically threw themselves into their own figurative uncharted cave system, ready to be devoured by a mass of lurking genre fans. With its Stateside releases this week on Lionsgate DVD, however, the good news is that it seems they’ve been able to escape with only a few missing limbs and flesh wounds to contend with.