A deliberate brain twister that took years to make and seems designed to be seen at a midnight screening, The Attic Expeditions is a bumpy but engaging mixture of horror, dark comedy, and surrealism from first-time writer and director Jeremy Kasten. After its completion, this film received some festival play and essentially headed straight to DVD where it was originally one of those annoying Blockbuster exclusives for nearly a year. Though it never quite found the audience it should have, the film has been championed by its cast over the years and paved the way for more work for Kasten. In 2020, Severin Films delivered a Blu-ray special edition that should give it a better shot at recognition. Given the fact that the film was partially shot on short ends and had its production halted midway for a very long time, it looks quite nice in HD here with eye-popping colors (especially the House of Love interiors) and fine but unobtrusive film grain throughout.

A new making-of doc (39m45s) is built around a 2020 Zoom reunion between many of the cast and crew members wrangled by Kasten, mixed in with production footage, 1998 EPK interviews, early shorts, and individual Zoom calls with Jones and Cleary. Green in particular is a riot here with other participants like Combs, Hauck, Bates, and producers Dan Griffiths and Daniel Gold all swapping stories about putting this film together under extremely trying circumstances with most of the main cast (in particular Raimi and Alice Cooper) coming board on the strength of Combs’ commitment. Combs and Cooper also get together for a separate video reunion (4m44s) in a very lighthearted chat with Kasten about the production including the three-year gap before the two of them set foot in front of the camera. Finally Adam Rockoff does a new Zoom interview (6m35s) with Kasten about the background of the film’s genesis, his intentions, the genre climate at the time, and the legacy it’s left behind. Read more at: mondo-digital.com