The Film (5/5)

    Dear Reader, you will probably get this from me a few times in coming months, but I cannot help but be thrilled that Arrow Academy is finally crossing over to the U.S. Criterion has held the U.S. arthouse market for so long, and while Kino Lorber occasionally does arthouse releases, we arthouse and advocates for interesting cinema in the U.S. have had for too little outlets for DVD and Blu-ray, so it is fantastic to finally see another label throw their hat into that arena, and fortunately it is one as amazing as Arrow Films.

    When Arrow Academy announced their initial slate I was excited, their was Borowczyk, Visconti, Cinema Paradiso, and some oddities I had never heard of. That always thrills me, as one of the great things about an addiction to cinema is finding those wonderful and strange things you have never heard, and Arrow's initial months of releases appear to have a few of those in there including this 2014 documentary, on mold, The Creeping Garden.

   The Creeping Garden is one of the beautifully bizarre documentaries I have seen in recent memories. The directors Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp interview scientist, researchers, and enthusiasts about slime mold, and on one layer the viewer gets to learn about this microscopic mold that we cannot see. On another almost more interesting level we discover about these people and their obsession with the mold. The whole thing is scored by  Jim O'Rourke, which adds an extra layer of ambiance to the film. There is also amazing time lapse footage of mold that is stunning to watch and adds a sort of neo-science fiction layer to the whole thing.

Audio/Video (4/5)

    The Creeping Garden is presented by Arrow Academy in a 2:35:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer. Everything looks solid here detail is fine, colors are flat looking and stable, It just looks like a recent documentary though the mold footage looks exquisite.

    Audio is presented with a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track in English. The track works for what it is dialogue from the participants comes through clear as does the O'Rourke score.

Extras (4/5)

    We get an informative commentary with the directors, multiple shorts films, featurettes, galleries, trailers, a CD of soundtrack music, and more.

Overall

    The Creeping Garden is one of the  most bizarre, beautiful, and overall interesting documentaries I have seen in recent times. The Blu-ray looks and sounds fantastic, and is loaded with extras HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.