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DVD SCANS

Doomed at the box office, resurrected on home video

rrodriguez@MiamiHerald.com

Every time you think there isn't a movie left that Doomsday hasn't ripped off, writer-director Neil Marshall proves you wrong. A cheeky melange of Escape From New York, The Road Warrior, 28 Days Later, Gladiator and Braveheart, Doomsday has everything except a singular identity, but the story moves so quickly, and often in such outrageous directions, that the derivativeness becomes a pleasure of its own.

Having proven his chops with the low-budget hits Dog Soldiers and The Descent, the post-apocalyptic spectacular Doomsday was supposed to be Marshall's entry into the mid-budget leagues. But the movie was dumped into theaters by Universal Pictures in March with little publicity and no critics' screenings, and it died a near-instant death.

It is destined to fare much better on home video, where it is being released in an ''unrated'' cut (Universal Home Entertainment, $30 DVD, $40 Blu-ray) that offers even more mayhem than the theatrical version. Set in 2037, the film stars Rhona Mitra (a veteran of TV's Boston Legal and Nip/Tuck) as Eden Sinclair, a one-eyed badass who travels to Glasgow, now a walled-off no man's land, to find a cure for a virus threatening to wipe out London.

This turns out to require much fighting against tribes of cannibals fond of Fine Young Cannibals, showdowns inside medieval arenas against hulking brutes and high-speed car chases scored to Frankie Goes To Hollywood songs. Pretty much anything goes in Doomsday, and the movie's breakneck insanity -- not to mention its copious, breathtaking gore -- seems guaranteed to earn it a cult following on DVD.

Even though Doomsday bombed at the box office, it still receives nice treatment on DVD and Blu-ray, with the latter including a picture-in-picture feature that allows you to examine the weapons and vehicles seen in the film and a handy pop-up guide to the various tribes and factions trying to kill each other inside Glasgow's walls. Both versions include a boisterous commentary track by Marshall and several of the cast members, some of whom are shocked to see how bloody the film actually gets at times. And they were there when it got made. Take that as a warning.

`VAMPYR'

Danish filmmaker Carl Theodore Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc is widely regarded as one of the best silent films ever made, and the lavish DVD set of his 1932 classic Vampyr (Criterion Collection, $40) should help cement that film's reputation within the horror genre.

More of a surreal nightmare than a straightforward vampire flick, the movie centers on a young traveler (Julian West) staying at a remote castle where exceedingly creepy things happen. There is a plot of sorts, but Dreyer is more interested in mood and atmosphere, using intentionally hazy cinematography and images that hint at evil and menace without explicitly illustrating it. Watching it, you start to understand where David Lynch gets many of his ideas.

The two-disc set presents the film in as good of a transfer as anyone could hope for (only a few prints of Vampyr remain in existence). The set also features several excellent extras that help deepen your appreciation of the film and what Dreyer was up to, a beautifully illustrated collection of critical essays on the film and a 200-page book containing Dreyer's original screenplay and the Sheridan Le Fanu 1872 short story that inspired it.

`COCAINE COWBOYS 2'

Colombian drug kingpin Griselda Blanco, aka ''The Godmother,'' was one of the most fascinating characters presented in 2006's Cocaine Cowboys, Miami filmmakers Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman's entertaining documentary about the 1980s cocaine heyday in Miami. Blanco takes centerstage in the sequel, Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin' with the Godmother (Magnolia, $27), which uses animation, still photographs and news footage to illustrate a feature-length interview with Charles Cosby, an Oakland drug dealer who made Blanco's acquaintance after writing her a letter while she was imprisoned and ended up as both her main lieutenant and lover.

Cosby's stories are just as wild as anything in the first Cowboys documentary, although without that film's expansive view on how the cocaine trade shaped Miami's development, the movie plays a lot closer to sensationalist exploitation than documentary. The film is accompanied by the usual set of extras, including a making-of featurette and a commentary track by Corben and David Cypkin, who directed the film's animated sequences.

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