I had never seen J.R. Bookwalter's Ozone before this, but I had, of course, heard all of the positive buzz surrounding it: how it had been shot fast and cheap on video and gone on to be quite successful and to inspire many other independent filmmakers. Now, ten years after it was produced, I've finally seen Ozone, and I now know what all the fuss is about. I must say, it's quite deserving of its prestigious reputation.

The movie starts itself off with a bang (of the exploding cranium variety), showing us the negative effects of the newest illegal street drug, Ozone. With the knowledge of this threat in mind, we move on to join cop Eddie Boone and his partner, Mike Weizt, who are together on a stakeout. An informant has helped them orchestrate a drug bust, and as he prepares to buy, the two cops move in to make their arrest.

However, things go horribly wrong. It seems the informant is addicted to Ozone, and the price of his next fix was delivering these two cops to the pusher. A gun battle erupts, and in the resultant melee, Boon, after being shot, is injected by the pusher with a hit of Ozone. Mike, meanwhile, runs off after the traitorous informant, chasing him into an abandoned building, where he finds himself accosted by Ozone-addicted mutants.

Back at headquarters, Boone is put on probation for his roguish ways (in a scene that seems much less cliched than it probably should) and sent home. It's not long before he's having hallucinations wherein his flesh melts from his face and his body is reduced to a skeleton. He copes fairly well with these though, and so, with access to the plentiful amounts of free time that come hand-in-hand with unemployment, Boone sets off to look for his missing partner.

From this point on, the film enters a 'fever-dream' kind of state, with Eddie being led from one adventure to another while the world around him turns decidedly more surreal. Along his journey Eddie is forced into gladiator-style combat with another man, turns into a mutant, makes love to a mutant woman and is finally attacked and captured by Ozone mutants.

Dragged into the abandoned building where his partner disappeared, Eddie is forced to fight off the zombie hordes and save mankind from the sinister plot that revolves around Ozone.

I found Ozone a refreshing and exciting example of what independent movies should be. The liner notes explain that it was made for $3,500, which is almost unbelievable considering the quality of the film. While quite obviously shot on video, Ozone is nevertheless a professional-looking production, shot and edited with style and artistry. The acting is much better than it should be, and the effects, considering the movie's budget, are simply astonishing. Ozone is a fantastic illustration of the fact that talent, not budget, makes a good movie, and J.R. Bookwalter should be commended for his achievement. Had I not known any better, I would have guessed this film's budget was at least ten times what Bookwalter says it is.

Tempe's presentation of Ozone does this fine film justice in every sense of the word. The image, while not perfect (there is grain, edge distortion between light and dark boundaries, and a few video glitches) is definitely as good as it will ever get, and thus more than acceptable. Some of the DVD extras present un-restored shots from earlier releases, and these demonstrate how much better Ozone looks in this form than it ever did before. Let's face the facts: this is an eleven-year-old, $3,500 movie that was shot on the worn out videotapes that were used to edit Humanoids from Atlantis and Chickboxer. Ozone is never going to look perfect, and Tempe should be commended for putting as much effort into this film's restoration as they did. I promise you, it shows.

Along with the fantastic image improvements, Tempe has also, in its usual fashion, packed this disk full of great extras that really add to the experience of seeing this fine movie, whether as a neophyte (like I was) or a long-time fan.

Things start off with a great commentary by director Bookwalter and star James Black. Quite informal but very fun, the commentary covers a variety of topics ranging from the production of the movie to the backgrounds of all of the principle participants to various other ridiculous topics like hair loss and Bookwalter's answering machine. The whole affair is very casual but ends up being a lot of fun. Both Bookwalter and Black seem to be very cool guys, and it's nice to feel like you've spent some time with them.

Moving on, Tempe has also included the film's score isolated on a third audio track. This I wasn't particularly interested in before I listened to it, but it actually proved to be a pretty cool addition. It's said that the great scores are either the ones you love hearing during the movie, or the ones you don't notice at all. The music of Ozone definitely falls into the later category, and it's interesting to be able to focus on it alone and to see how subtly effective it is in building the film's mood.

Continuing, we come to Paying for Your Past Sins: The Ozone Story a half-hour documentary that covers a lot of ground and manages to work in interviews with pretty much all of the film's major players. Everyone seems to have very fond memories of the project, and the crew's enthusiasm is contagious. Next on the disk is an 8-minute segment called Into the Black: James Black and Ozone which would be good, aside from the fact that 90% of it is recycled from the previous featurette. If there's anything wrong with this fine DVD, it's this feature, simply because of its repetitiveness.

Continuing down the long list of features, we next come to 7-minutes of behind-the-scenes footage with commentary by Bookwalter. The majority of this footage concerns special effects, and it is definitely worth a view for anyone shocked by the film's infinitesimal budget. It's quite fascinating to see how all of the film's explosions and pulsing veins were accomplished with so little money.

Speaking of accomplishing much with little, a 5-minute location tour, which is another extra, provides an illuminating glimpse at how such an epic film was produced almost entirely in and around one location, which was ironically an old rehab center for drug addicts. It's rather shocking to see how much the audience is fooled by settings throughout the movie, and this feature is a fascinating demonstration of the power cinema has to redirect focus and attention.

The bonus footage is wrapped up with 13-minutes of test footage from an aborted shoot of the opening scene; 12-minutes of clips from Ozone: Droga Mortal the Spanish-dubbed version of Ozone; and the 6-minute B's Nest Video Magazine that was included with the film's original video release in 1994. I thought that all of these eclectic little archival extras made great supplements. If you have an interest in B-movie history, you'll probably enjoy them as much as I did.

A trailer gallery, containing previews for Bloodletting, Townies, Witchouse 3: Demon Fire, Skinned Alive, Polymorph, and Eddie Presley, and FOUR Ozone trailers (original, re-release, re-release as Street Zombies, and Japanese), is included as well, along with three still galleries (production stills, conceptual art & box covers, and press & reviews).

Finally, as though all this weren't enough, the disk also contains one hell of an easter egg: the commentary from the first DVD release of Ozone (a mass-market disk that went under the title of Street Zombies.) This track, while expectedly overlapping quite a bit with some of the other extras on the disk, is still a valuable addition. It errs more on the technical side than the other commentary, allowing Bookwalter to cover a lot of interesting territory relating to the production of this low-budget film. Worth a listen, this is an easter egg that's definitely worth hunting for.

In the end, there's really no question about Tempe's Ozone DVD; the movie itself is great, especially considering the circumstances it was produced under, and its presentation is simply phenomenal. The only bone some fans might have to pick is that there have been some minor changes made to the movie (e.g. digital effects enhancement, new sound effects, and a few lines of dialogue excised). While this may anger some purists, I instead chose to consider this J.R. Bookwalter's true director's cut of his groundbreaking independent classic. While purists might not want to throw out their old tapes, they'd still be well advised to pick up Tempe's new DVD as well. Ozone, even if a little modified, will certainly never look better, and what's more, it is accompanied by a myriad of fantastic supplements. Perfect for longtime fans and newcomers alike, Ozone comes highly recommended.