DVD Of The Week: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008)

Ah, who I am kidding? What reader of HeroPress, worth his geek salt, hasn't already seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog?

Show of hands... okay, you two at the back, go off and find it on the Interwebs, watch it, then come back and join the rest of us cool kids...

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was Joss 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' Whedon's free-to-view Internet tragi-comedy, musical superhero mini-film in three parts, put together during the Writer's Strike.

Directed by Joss and co-written with his two brothers, Zack and Jed, and actress Maurissa Tancharoen, it stars Neil Patrick Harris, Doogie Howser MD himself, as Billy, aka wannabe supervillain Dr. Horrible, who is smitten with the lovely Penny (the equally lovely Felicia Day).

Penny in turn, rather sadly - for Billy - is taken with Dr Horrible's nemesis, the arrogant superhero Captain Hammer (Nathan Fillion).

Wackiness, romance, singing and sadness ensues...

The DVD (still not released in the UK and with no date in sight) contains not only the 42-minute movie, with the standard cast commentary, but also Commentary! The Musical which is, unsuprisingly, a musical commentary - which, in all honesty, has very little to do with what's going on on screen, but is still very funny in that Joss Whedon way we've come to know and appreciate.

Complementing a trio of "making of" featurettes is also a half-hour of "Evil League Of Evil Application Videos", submitted by fans of the film.

Having endured more than my fair share of fan-movies over the years, I went into this particular extra with great reservation and gritted teeth. However, barring a couple, these are very funny, especially the ones who made the extra effort to compose songs in the Dr. Horrible style, to improve their "job" applications.

If you don't have a multi-region DVD player, then the three acts of the story are available on iTunes to download, along with the soundtrack.