From the beloved best-selling series of books comes an extraordinary fantasy adventure revealing the unseen world that exists all around us. From the moment the Grace family moves into a secluded old house peculiar things start to happen. Unable to explain the accidents and strange disappearances the Grace children Jared Simon and Mallory start to investigate and find the unbelievable truth of the Spiderwick Estate and the amazing creatures that inhabit it.System Requirements:Running Time: 101 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: PG UPC: 097361326047 Manufacturer No: 132604
There are loads of extras on The Spiderwick Chronicles (Two-Disc Field Guide Edition), beginning with a charming overview of the film's supernatural species conducted by director Mark Waters. Waters leads viewers through a primer describing such magical creatures as brownies, ogres, and fairies, taking the whole matter very seriously in the event anyone watching should ever encounter their like. "It's a Spiderwick World!" introduces Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black, creators of the The Spiderwick Chronicles book series. The authors discuss the strange inspiration for the story: a letter they received from three siblings who claimed to have gone through exactly what the characters in Spiderwick endure. "Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide" is a text- and illustration-based list of creatures in the film, with lots of fascinating factoids. "Field Guild In-Movie Mode" allows a viewer to enjoy the benefit of a pop-up guide that appears at times during the film and lets a viewer click onto helpful information.
"Spiderwick: Meet the Clan!" is an introduction to the film's cast, with a special emphasis on young star Freddie Highmore's precocious talent, a British child playing twin American brothers with unique speech patterns. "Making Spiderwick!" is a behind-the-scenes documentary on production of the film, focusing on production design, location, cinematography, and so on. Among the revelations is that everyone involved was looking for a place to film that could evoke a horror movie yet not be so scary as to turn off youngsters. "The Magic of Spiderwick" is a remarkable tour of the special-effects process that made this film work so well. Waters says his directing chores continued all the way through post-production, when he had to switch from directing actors to directing animators, often acting out the defining behaviors of the various mythic characters. "A Final Word of Advice!" brings Waters back in front of the camera, reminding us all how to deal with hobgoblins and other spooks (keep a lot of honey, crackers and red tomato sauce around). Finally, "Deleted Scenes" includes some material that didn't make the feature's final cut, but which is shown in context with scenes that were on screen. The result is a more satisfying and enriching experience of deleted scenes than is usually found on DVD special features. --Tom Keogh