There is a pair of 3D glasses in the box. The Barn Part III comes to Blu-ray in mid-October with an anaglyph 3D version of the film on the disc, and preorders opened this week at Scream Team Releasing.
The first Barn arrived in 2016, and Justin M. Seaman has spent the decade since building out a trilogy set in a town called Helen’s Valley, where something comes out of a cursed barn on Halloween night. Courtney Gains plays Josh Harper, who has given years to keeping the creatures away from his sister Heather (Kelli Maroney). Part III puts a darker force in the shadows, working to resurrect the legend.
The trailer puts the monsters out front instead of holding them back, which is the right instinct for a film with this much rubber and syrup in it.
The Cast Is a Genre Reunion
These films have always run on faces horror fans already know, and this one stacks them up. Gains was Malachai in Children of the Corn. Maroney carried Night of the Comet and Chopping Mall. William Ragsdale was Charley Brewster in Fright Night. Felissa Rose was Angela in Sleepaway Camp. John Kassir is the voice of the Crypt Keeper. Ari Lehman was the first actor to play Jason Voorhees, in the original Friday the 13th.
Four Covers and a 79-Minute Documentary
The standard Blu-ray is $19.99 and comes in four cover options. The slipcover edition runs $24.99 with art by Graham Humphreys, the painter behind the British quads for The Evil Dead and A Nightmare on Elm Street. A signed slipcover edition is $69.99, and VHS is $39.99. Every format is listed as shipping mid-October.
The extras run to two commentaries, one with Seaman and his first AD and another with Seaman and the effects crew, a 79-minute making-of called One Last Hurrah, two music videos, a timelapse of the poster art, a premiere Q&A, bloopers and deleted scenes. Rocky Gray’s score is a separate CD at $20. All of it is at the label’s own store, Scream Team Releasing, rather than a retailer.
Five Festivals Gave It Best Effects
The film played FrightFest, Popcorn Frights, Panic Fest, Salem Horror Fest and Sitges before any of this, and it came off the circuit with Best Feature at GenreBlast and Requiem Fear Fest, Best Director for Seaman and Best Cinematography for Zane Hershberger at NJ Horror Con, Best Poster Design for Mariano Mattos at Days of the Dead, and Best Special FX at five separate festivals.
Anaglyph 3D is a gimmick, and on a trilogy that has spent ten years building creatures by hand it is exactly the right gimmick. Whether the red and blue version is the one anybody watches twice is a separate question, and the answer arrives in October.
