Sleepless

Presented in Anamorphic Widescreen, with a 5:1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, this "special collectors edition" DVD from MIA looks and sounds good, with vivid colours, solid contrast and reasonable oomph when the soundtrack kicks in.

The disc one extras kick off with promotional stills, biographies, and the Italian theatrical trailer - the usual.

The main extra on this disc is a 15 minute promotional featurette, intercutting brief interviews with Argento and selected members of the cast with sequences from the film and behind-the-scenes footage, all cut MTV-style to cheesy metal music.

Other than Argento's playful pseudo-confessions - the role of artists and musicians in his work, the secret rules of the giallo - there's not much here and you're unlikely to watch it more than once.

The hour-long documentary on disc two, Dario Argento - An Eye For Horror, is a lot better, although hardcore fans will likely already have seen it, whether on Channel 4 in the UK, or as a DVD in its own right in the US.

Hosted by Mark Kermode, who seems to be on a mission to corner the market here, it takes a chronological look at the director's career from his early days as a film critic through to Sleepless.

The contributors - including fellow directors George A Romero and John Carpenter, critic Maitland McDonagh, Argento's daughters and actresses Asia and Fiore - are worthwhile for the most part, while the film clips are well chosen, though perhaps overemphasising US-friendly releases, such as Trauma, at the expense of earlier Italian productions, like Tenebre.

Bearing in mind that many of Argento's films would warrant hour long documentaries in their own right, An Eye For Horror cannot be regarded as much more than an introduction. But, taken as such, it succeeds admirably.

All in all, this region 0 DVD from MIA is good value, the best release of Sleepless presently available and a worthwhile addition to any Argento fan's collection.