Product Details

• Actors: Elisabeth Harnois, Grant Show, Sam Page, Aubrey Dollar, Dina Meyer
• Writers: John J. McLaughlin, Marti Noxon
• Producers: Rick Rosenthal
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Surround)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Dubbed: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• DVD Release Date: October 25, 2005
• Run Time: 585 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (90 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000A9QKT6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #109,339 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Point Pleasant - The Complete Series" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Combine elements of The O.C., Dawson's Creek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Desperate Housewives, to name just a few, and you have the slight but diverting Point Pleasant. And for those frustrated by Fox TV's decision to cancel this 2005 series after just eight episodes, the good news is that this three-disc set includes the five episodes that never made it to the airwaves. The show centers on blonde teenager Christina Nickson (Elisabeth Harnois), who's pulled from the surf off the beach at Point Pleasant, New Jersey, and is soon taken in by one of the town's troubled families. It's not for nothing that Christina is, well, a bit mysterious; we learn that she is "the child of darkness," daughter of Satan himself, endowed with malevolent powers that she neither understands nor can control. Sleepy little Point Pleasant, meanwhile, will soon be "home to the greatest coming of evil since the angels fell from heaven," and Christina has arrived to usher in the End of Days, with a little help from the smarmy Lucas Boyd (Grant Show), ol' Mr. 666's errand boy. To that end, all sorts of bad stuff starts to happen: Insects attack! The church's stained glass window breaks! A dance marathon brings out the worst in the townsfolk! Teenagers get jealous! Horny adults flirt… and maybe more!

If all of that sounds pretty tame, that's Point Pleasant's principal problem: good premise, less than stellar execution. The show looks great, including the actors; the teens all appear to have stepped out of a Gap commercial, and the grownups are model-beautiful too. But their acting isn't nearly as hot as they are. Same goes for the dialogue (ten episodes in, people are still saying things like "This may sound crazy, but…"). And the special effects. And the excruciatingly slow pace of the story development. Most of all, even though the body count and the fear factor rise in the last few episodes, Point Pleasant (which was co-created by former Buffy writer-producer Marti Noxon) just isn’t scary enough. In trying to be titillating and concentrating so much on the characters' various personal problems, even those brought to light by Christina's appearance, the producers seem to have forgotten that when the Devil comes to town and the apocalypse is at hand, mere melodrama just won't cut it. In the end, those looking for genuine thrills have any number of other series and films to turn to. On the other hand, if a supernatural soap opera sounds like your cup of karma, then Point Pleasant is for you. The box set includes a "making of" featurette as well as the 13 episodes. --Sam Graham

Product Description

There are two sides to every soul... Delve into the sexy, supernatural world of Point Pleasant on DVD. The complete series, includes 5 unaired episodes that fans are dying to see!

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Something Wicked Has Washed Ashore October 14, 2005

By prydain16

Format:DVD

**MAY CONTAIN SLIGHT SPOILERS*

"Point Pleasant" is a gothic soap opera created by Marti Noxon, best known as the woman who writes great depressing stories on The WB's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". I am a huge fan of "Buffy" and "Angel", but I personally enjoy "Point Pleasant" better.

Now don't get me wrong. This show has serious problems, it's biggest one being that the pilot was specially designed to best ensure a pickup by FOX. It has many elements of "The OC" and FOX was right in thinking it would work best with "The OC" compared to the other shows on their schedule.

"Point Pleasant" has loads of potential. Everything is there. A great premise, capable actors, beautiful locations, character backstories, everything that was there could have become a huge ongoing battle between good and evil, with the forces of heaven and hell battling on Earth. And I do believe that's what it would have become if the writers were able to run with it.

What 13 episodes there are, however, are still good even with their faults. The actors aren't exactly award-winners, but they get the job done quite nicely. Elisabeth Harnois, our protaganist, is the perfect choice for the daughter of Satan and a God-fearing woman. She's beautiful, and usually angelic but can become overcome with her hellborn powers in an instant. Harnois is good at instant transitions and I love the scenes where her character knows that she's too weak to drown her evil nature but doesn't know what to do. Anyway, the series opens up on Point Pleasant, New Jersey, although we're not sure if this is Point Pleasant or the town of Point Pleasant Beach. There's a difference. But it's a nice day with hot girls sunbathing on the beach, but an otherwordly storm quickly gathers and runs everyone off the beach.... Jesse, a young lifeguard, spots something floating in the ocean and swims out. It's Christina. He takes her to the Kramers since the roads are closed so the doctor can look at her.

Soon Christina is living with the Kramers, and befriends their daughter Judy, whose older sister died years earlier. Her mother still has not gotten over it.

The show begins to shed its allusions of "The OC" immediately, although it does not completely do so until about the fifth episode. We see the characters evolve. The town whore soon stops her ways and tries to make things right, the love triangles become actually important to the actual story, etc. The series uses LOTS of symbolism and is very, very smart with it, proving that it is not the shallow waste of time people claim it to be.

The character relationships and the things that happen are important to whether the townspeople will be on the side of evil or the side of good. Judy's mother realizes that she is not crazy like people believe, but she has a connection with the spirit world and may be psychic. We also discover that Jesse died as a child but came back, and he is destined to kill Christina, the Antichrist, even though they have an unbearable attraction for one another. This adds much flavor and promise to the show, as Christina does not WANT to be evil and tries fighting it, yet people keep having visions of what she's destined to do to the town, and it's not pleasant. (Pun not intended.)

As different as the two shows are, "Point Pleasant" could be compared to "Dark Shadows". Both are a part of an extremely rare breed. How many gothic/horror soaps appear on television? Not many at all. "Dark Shadows", both the 60s and 90s versions, are also favorites of mine. And the short-lived CBS horror drama "American Gothic" was similar in style to "Point Pleasant", so if you like those shows you might want to check out "Point Pleasant".

Other things I'd like to point out is the EXCELLENT music used in the opening title sequence. It was written by Danny Elfman, who also did the "Desperate Housewives" theme song and has done nearly every Tim Burton film. The music used throughout the show, while not written by Elfman, is also good and sets up the atmosphere nicely. The filmwork is also nice, and looks great in widescreen, and a blue film is used quite a bit and it can be effective.

Overall the show is good, but it's no surprise many "Buffy" fans were displeased, because the two shows are completely different. However, if you are into dark, religious themed shows and movies or you just like creepy supernatural adventures, "Point Pleasant" is definitely worth a buy or rent. Read more ›

97 of 112 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Cancelled way too soon!!! July 24, 2005

By Buffy

Format:DVD

"Point Pleasant" was just another one of the wonderful, original shows FOX is known for--known for introducing and then barely giving a chance before cancellation, i.e. "Wonderfalls", "Firefly", "John Doe", "Tru Calling". This show got better and better with each episode and had me hooked, even though there weren't nearly enough episodes. Unfortunately, FOX decided to cancel it before we could see the 'scariest episode yet' that was advertised. What a shame. I was hoping that it would be released on DVD so that I could watch the episodes over again and see the ones that were never aired for the first time. This show was clever and inventive. It had mystery, horror, interesting relationships and great chemistry between the main teenage characters. Grant Show also did a wonderful job of playing the show's villian. I hope this show does well on DVD. I'm definitely looking forward to the release of this DVD set.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "She is the child of Darkness..." August 17, 2005

A Kid's Review

Format:DVD

In this compelling gothic, modern-day comedy/thriller television show, Christina (the child of the devil and a mortal woman) comes to Point Pleasant, New Jersey to search for her mother (whom she thinks abandoned her). Christina soon discovers her true identity as the devil's own child. With this discovery also comes Christina's new ability to make people and events act on her behalf. It is through the love of the Kramers, however, that Christina's good side is strenghtened as her evil side awakens. Now it's an all-out battle between good and evil. As Boyd, a once mortal man-turned devil's advocate, says of Christina and the world, "...she will bring it to it's knees."

CHARACTERS (contains a few spoilers!):

CHRISTINA NICKSON (played by Elisabeth Harnois)- Devil's daughter

BEN KRAMER (Richard Burgi)- Meg's husband; local doctor; takes Christina in

MEG KRAMER (Susan Walters)- Ben's wife; has delusions due to Isabelle's death; can see the future becasue of her detachment to reality

JUDY KRAMER (Aubrey Dollar)- Ben and Meg's daughter; becomes like a sister to Christina

ISABELLE KRAMER (unknown)- The late eldest daughter of Ben and Meg; died in a surfing accident

JESSE PARKER (Samuel Page, a.k.a. Sam Page)- Christina's love intrest; rescued Christina when she washes ashore on Point Pleasant

PAULA HARGROVE (Cameron Richardson)- Popular girl; Jesse's ex; Terry's new love intrest

AMBER HARGROVE (Dina Meyer)- Paula's mother; works with Boyd

LUCAS BOYD (Grant Show)- Works as devil's advocate; tries to seduce Christina to the evil side

TERRY BURKE (Brent Weber)- Obsessed with Paula; falls in love with her; has a critically-ill father; works with Boyd....

RANDOM FACTS:

-created by BUFFY, THE VAMPIRE SLAYER co-producer Marti Noxon

-shot on location in Vancouver, Canada

-Christina's mother was born in Point Pleasant

-Christina's conception was immaculate Read more ›

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but flawed November 30, 2005

By M. Botha

Format:DVD

This show never aired in my home country, and all I knew about the show was what I'd read on the Internet. When it aired in the US, it got mediocre reviews at best. Even the Buffy fans, who tuned in because of Marti Noxon's involvement, seemed largely disappointed.

So when I decided to order it anyway, I didn't have extremely high expectations.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. While the show was far from brilliant, I did find myself being drawn in from the first episode and eagerly wanted to find out what happened next.

The premise of the show is very interesting. I think that the way in which the plot was set up was quite well done. The gothic look and feel was also different from what you see in other shows, and provided the perfect setting for the plot. The show was also quite "gutsy" in its use of religion, which is not something that you would normally find in a TV show.

However, there were also some major flaws. Firstly, the show's blending of soap opera and supernatural drama often didn't work, with some episodes focussing too much on the soap elements. Yes, the show's exploration of how the supernatural elements would affect human relationships was interesting and essential, but could simply have been done a bit better.

The show's second major flaw was the pacing. The show started off very slowly, with the focus clumsily shifting between different characters. Luckily, this was resolved by episode five, at which point things started moving comfortably. Unfortunately, again, the pacing flaws returned during the last two episodes when the writers tried to cram too much into each episode.... This is however somewhat understandable, given the fact that the show had been cancelled and they only had a few episodes left in which to resolve the story.

Another flaw was the writing. The writing wasn't bad per se, but there were certain points where the dialogue was really atrocious, almost the kind of lines that you would expect in a low-budget daytime soap. Also, character motivations were often forced and not allowed to develop realistically. As I've already mentioned, towards the end of the series the writers tried to cram way too much into too little time. Given the show's premature cancellation, one couldn't really expect a total resolution of all plotlines, but I was still disappointed with the ending. While the build-up to the final ending was commendable, the payoff wasn't worth it as no plotlines were really resolved, with a mostly open ending. This does leave quite a bit of room for the series to continue in some way or another, but given the show's lack of success this is quite unlikely.

The show's biggest flaw was the casting, particularly that of the teenage characters. The two lead actors, Elizabeth Harnois (as Christina) and Samuel Page (as Jesse) give lacklustre performances at best, not really managing to pull off the emotional depths required of their characters. Brent Weber (Terry), Cameron Richardson (Paula) and Marcus Coloma (Father Tomas) are almost laughably bad, giving the kind of terrible performances you would expect from a really LOW-budget show (such as 'Passions').

The acting isn't all bad, however. Aubrey Dollar (Judy) is the one teenager who gives a really commendable performance, while most of the adult actors are also very good. However, Grant Show (Lucas) and Dina Meyer (Amber) steals the show with performances that are simply stellar.

Overall, the show definitely had some major flaws, but it was still good enough to become a delicious guilty pleasure for me. It was certainly better than a lot of high-rated shows still running, and the cancellation was really premature and undeserved. However, I can't imagine the show running for three or more seasons as I felt that the plot simply didn't provide enough potential for more than two seasons.

Regarding the DVD set, the video and audio quality is consistently good and the behind-the-scenes featurette is worthwhile (though too short), but it would've been nice if they'd included some commentaries at least. Still, at less than thirty dollars it's definitely a worthwhile purchase. Read more ›