Dark Age
(1987/Umbrella PAL Region Free DVD)/Exorcismus
(2010/IFC/MPI DVD)/Hardware
(1990/Umbrella Region B Blu-ray)/Heartless
(2009/IFC/MPI DVD)/Hellraiser (1987)
+ Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988/Umbrella
Region Free Blu-rays)/Julia’s Eyes
(2010/Umbrella Region 4/Four PAL DVD)/Wrong
Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings (2011/Fox Blu-ray w/DVD)
Picture: C+/C/C+/C/B-/C+/C+/B-
& C Sound: C+/C+/C+/B-/B-/C+/C+/B-
& C+ Extras: C/D/C+/C-/D/C-/C-/D Films: C/D/C/C-/C/C-/C-/D
PLEASE NOTE: Five of the eight titles here are
from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment including the Region Free PAL DVD of
Dark Age, Region Free Hellraiser Blu-rays, Region B Hardware Blu-ray and Region 4 PAL DVD
of Julia’s Eyes and can only operate
on machines capable of playing back those formats. All can be ordered from our friends at
Umbrella Entertainment at the website address provided at the end of the
review. The rest of the titles are U.S.
releases.
Trick or
treat? Most of the following are more
the former, but all are worth knowing about, especially since you many not have
heard of some of them.
Though it
is 12 years after Jaws, Arch
Nicholson’s Dark Age (1987) is an
Australian rip-off of the film that wants to be more than just Ozploitation and
that hampers the overall film badly.
Instead of a shark, we get a very big and deadly crocodile called a
Numunwari, which is also apparently part of aborigine lure and the producers
even got Walkabout star David Gulpilil to be one of the group connected to the
nature that brings about this death beast.
Too bad the suspense is weak, the score goofy and the ending dumb. At a certain early point, there is a murder
where the film seems to declare it is going to be rougher than Jaws.
Too bad that backfires. The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image shows its age, though it has had some
restoration done, as has the sound, here in lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. The only extra is a feature length audio
commentary track by Star John Jarratt and Executive Producer Antony J. Ginnane.
Manuel
Carballo’s Exorcismus (2010) is a
British rip-off of The Exorcist 38
years too late and very, very boring as a young lady finds out she may be
possessed by you know who.
Unimaginative, derivative and pointless, British film and TV have
covered the subject much better and I never bought it for a minute. The unknown actors try to do this seriously,
but the script is awful and if it were any worse, there would be a lawsuit for
ripping off the 1972 classic. The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is one of the softest here, stylized to
be so, but also just plain soft as a transfer, making this even less
watchable. The Dolby Digital 5.1 lossy
mix is not engaging, too much towards the front channels and is weak overall
down to the dialogue. Extras include a
trailer and making of clip.
Richard
Stanley’s Hardware (1990) has been
available for a while on Blu-ray in the U.S. and now Umbrella has issued a
Region B Blu-ray with its own set of extras.
For starters, you can read more about the film and that release at this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9165/Hardware+(1990/Severin+Blu-ray
Both have
the same image transfer showing the film’s age and budget, but Umbrella has
upgraded the sound to a lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 mix that is a
little better, but also tends to show more flaws in the sound. I liked this version the best just the same. Extras are almost the same. While the earlier releases offered “Deleted
& Extended Scenes, feature length audio commentary by Stanley, Stanley on
the sequel that never happened in Hardware 2, 2006 Stanley short Sea
Of Perdition, early Stanley short Rites Of Passage, No Flesh Shall Be Sparred documentary
on the making and history of the film and the early Super 8mm film version of Hardware
entitled Incidents In An Expanding Universe”, but this version
adds The Voice Of The Moon
documentary by Stanley and looses Flesh.
Philip
Ridley had been involved with writing the underrated Peter Medak gangster film The Krays (1990), so here he is
directing a supernatural thriller called Heartless
(2009) about a guy (Jim Sturgess) who is rejected because he has red markings
on his face (the script never suggests a make-up cover-up as the marks are not
that bad!) but this drives him into loneliness and maybe obsession, but he is
being picked on and demons are also hanging around his house looking like
people with the monster heads. To
reference an old Horror film, we’ll call them “C.H.U.D. U.K.” for the
sake of identification.
Then he
gets the opportunity to get rid of the marks (and not from medical treatment), there
is a demon, killings, he is told he needs to take the heart out of something
living by midnight and place it on some step (no Aztec Mummies show up though)
and what could have been an interesting film is never believable from the
start, has too much vocal music on the soundtrack (sung oddly, including by our
lead) and the more this moves on, the more contrived it gets and that means
early on, it reaches the point of no return and gets worse and worse. It also includes a dumb “deal with the devil’
where he gets his looks back as if he lost them to begin with and anything else
they can throw in to keep you watching but a script that adds up. Timothy Spall even shows up to no avail among
the wasted cast. Yawn!!!
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is other one of the softest here,
stylized to be so, but also just plain soft as a transfer, making this even
less watchable. The Dolby Digital 5.1
lossy mix is does use the surrounds somewhat well, but the mix is nothing
distinct. Extras include a trailer,
making of clip Behind The Scenes at SITGES featurette, BIFA Awards clip, Heartless audience reactions (which
seem contrived as these people seem to be being nice because they know a camera
is on them), UK Trailer and Sturgess Music Videos which are unnecessary. He also sung several Beatles songs in the
disastrous Across The Universe, so
maybe he should choose whether he wants to sing or act, because neither is
working out for him at this time.
We have
covered Clive Barker’s Hellraiser
(1987) twice in two out-of-print editions in both formats, as these links will
show:
U.S. Anchor Bay Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/8452/Hellraiser+(1987/Anchor+Bay+Blu-ray)
U.S. Anchor Bay DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/6230/Clive+Barker%E2%80%99s+Hellraiser
This
import edition has no extras, but seems to use the same video master as the
previous editions. Note that another U.S. edition is
due, so we’ll see if how that compares, but it is obviously too popular a film
to stay out of print for long.
We have
never covered Tony Randel’s Clive Barker-produced sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) but here it is and while you can
get this import too, but the extras (save the audio commentary) are in the PAL
format, so be sure to have a Blu-ray player that can cover that or get the U.S.
Blu-ray. The film picks up where the
first left off, even (pre-home video) repeating the end of the last film. After that, there is not much going on here
and this wears thin quickly, but six more sequels and counting still got made
somehow. The sound here is also DTS-HD
MA (Master Audio) 5.1 and image also 1080p HD, but it neither looks or sounds
as good as the previous film, is from an older print/video master and is barely
above a DVD. Extras include a Behind The
Scenes montage, four featurettes, Theatrical Trailers, TV Spots and feature
length audio commentary track by Randel, Writer Peter Atkins and Co-Star Ashley
Laurence.
Guillermo
del Toro produced Guillem Morales’ Julia’s
Eyes (2010) and you might think it is a supernatural thriller and it sure
is sold that way, but after you get past that mystification, you get a
surprisingly formulaic, predictable, disappointing thriller that does not
always work, is everything we have seen before and is very plain for Del Toro
to put his name too. A woman’s sister is
having blindness problems and kills herself, or was she murdered? Her sister (a psychic connection is
suggested, then forgotten) investigates, only to discover someone is stalking
her. Is it a ghost? Killer?
What a shame this is a dud. The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image and Dolby Digital 5.1 lossy mix are
underwhelming and a little weak in both cases, though this is at least a nicely
shot film with some good sound design.
Extras include Julia’s Eyes B-Roll, Theatrical Trailer and Interviews
with Morales, del Toro and co-stars Belén Rueda and Lluis Homar.
And we
saved the worst for last. Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings (2011)
continues what might be the worst franchise series in Horror (give or take Final Destination) thinks it is a
prequel, but is just a torture porn mess that mixes that with every psychopath
and mental illness stereotype they can throw at you. This is “Unrated” but who cares. It is very slight and absolutely stupid, so
skip it. The 1080p 1.78 X 1 AVC @ 19
MBPS digital High Definition image is not that good and the anamorphically
enhanced DVD is far worse, both being soft, having motion blur and detail
issues throughout. The chosen style is
boring, smug and self-impressed, along with its lame editing. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix
is more towards the front speakers than you might expect, but the Dolby Digital
5.1 lossy mix on the DVD is weaker still and does not even engage the surrounds
as much as it should whereas the DTS does somewhat.
Extras
include three featurettes, 4 inane, so-called Music Videos, Deleted Scenes and
one of the worst feature length audio commentary tracks of the year (and maybe
beyond) by Director Declan O’Brien.
As noted
above, you can order the Australian imports exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
