Claustrofobia (2010/MVD Visual DVD)/Dark
Night Of The Scarecrow (1981/VCI Blu-ray)/The Innkeepers (2011/Dark Sky Films Blu-ray)/Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011/Fox Blu-ray)/Survive! (1976/VCI DVD)
Picture: C+/B/B/B/C+ Sound: C+/B-/B-/B-/C+ Extras: D/B/C/C/B- Films: C-/B-/C/C/C+
Now In
the 1970s, there was an interesting intersection between Horror, Drama and
Documentary filmmaking that still connects them all to this day. I was re-reminded of this when the following
films arrived about the same time on home video.
The
newest here is Bobby Boerman’s Claustrofobia,
a 2010 Dutch thriller which starts with a young girl playing games with a young
man in a morgue (Abandoned? How did they get there?), then cuts to a modern
tale of yet another young woman abducted and held hostage. I thought this would be a torture porn import
when that happened, but instead, it is just an outright woman-in-jeopardy
thriller that has possibilities, but the makers have no idea what suspense is
and it all seems an ambitious waste of what could have been something special
if the script was actually good.
Paul
Verhoeven has nothing to worry about, but that is a shame because the locations
(outside of the usual underground locale) and the actors are a plus, but this
makes more of the same formulaic mistakes I just suffered through with The Hidden Face (reviewed elsewhere on
this site) with a slightly more upscale take on the same un-suspenseful
bore. Too bad, but it at least tries,
even though it fails badly. There are no
extras.
Based on
popular demand, the great horror telefilm Dark
Night Of The Scarecrow (1981) has been issued on Blu-ray by VCI following
the highly successful DVD version we liked and covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10485/Dark+Night+Of+The+Scarecrow+(198
Once
again, we have another TV on Blu-ray gem and the first telefilm (in the U.S.
market) to become a U.S. Blu-ray (Regan
(which became the pilot to the U.K. classic The Sweeney) already hit Blu-ray in the U.K. and is reviewed
elsewhere on this site) beating the usual first telefilm on any new video
format in the U.S., John Moxey’s The
Night Stalker (1972, reviewed elsewhere on this site) but is really
impressive and holds up better than many of its theatrical counterparts of the
time.
On
Blu-ray, you can even appreciate the film more than anyone (including die hard
fans) could have ever imagined and only those somehow lucky to see it on film
could have enjoyed before until now.
Night is actual nighttime, unlike too many TV productions which faked
nighttime to be commercial and not turn away viewers. As amazing as the DVD was, this is even more
impressive and we’ll get to the playback performance below, but it is a big
improvement over what was a top rate DVD.
In
addition to that, the original extras including a feature length
writer/director commentary to hear after you see the film and the CBS Network
World Premiere Promo that told everyone the film was coming is joined by new
extras!!! We also get a
rebroadcast promo, Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery, Production Documentary and
Q&A with Larry Drake, Tonya Crowe and J.D. Feigelson. All great classic telefilms deserve this kind
of treatment and I hope this heightens the bar for this truly creepy,
suspenseful thriller.
Ti West’s
The Innkeepers (2011) is a haunted
house/hotel thriller by the talented filmmaker who just cannot get his films to
work. Following his celebrated but only
so effective House Of The Devil
(reviewed elsewhere on this site), he has some more money and another
interesting cast, yet this only has a few so-so shocks, a mixed ending and
cannot overcome films that have done this kind of thing better, especially Kubrick’s
The Shining.
Sara
Paxton plays a young woman who stays and works at an old hotel, but slowly
starts to realize the idea it is haunted may be more than a myth. All the guests (even a mother and son) seem
out of place and one particular woman (Kelly McGillis) turns out to be a former
TV star who may know more than she initially says.
The film
has a slow pace that will remind some of M. Night Shaymalan, but smarter and
more substantive, but especially with the distinct feel of 1970s thrillers that
linger in knowing ways that all the great thrillers of the time had. That is not easy to do, but West just can’t
seem to do anything with it once he does it.
I hoped this would work and be a surprise, but I was disappointed, yet I
want to see what he does next. At least
it was ambitious. A trailer, two
feature-length audio commentary tracks and a Behind-the-Scenes featurette are
the extras.
Like Innkeepers and even Scarecrow to some extent, Sean Durkin’s
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011) also
happens to have that same slow look and feel, though not as distinctly 1970s as
Innkeepers, the feel is effective
enough as a young woman (Elizabeth Olsen in a bold performance) plays a young
lady who has found herself lost in an abusive cult where the combination of
brainwashing and rape nearly destroy her.
She is able to escape and go with her sister but does not tell them what
she has been through. Upset, she tries
to act normal, but the return of the repressed and denial comes out in bad ways
and she is not well.
Instead
of being checked into (or checking into) a clinic, she is with her sister and
male companion with increasingly problematic results. She cannot come to terms with her trauma and
even tries calling the cult back. We
also get extensive flashbacks and her increased sense of paranoia. Unfortunately, this offers limited suspense,
is nothing we have not seen before and is not the most memorable film or work
on this subject, despite again being ambitious.
The acting is good and there are some disturbing scenes, but sometimes I
wonder if Durkin is not certain if he is doing a drama, character study,
psychological thriller or mood piece.
Unfortunately, it does not add up enough and it ends where it should
have begun.
Extras
include A Conversation With The
Filmmakers, a Music Video, Spotlight
On Elizabeth Olsen, Making Of
featurette and the short film Mary Last
Seen which inspired this film and is very similar remarkably in the most
creepy ways.
Finally
we have another thriller that has a 1970s feel because it is from the
1970s. Rene Cardona’s Survive! (1976) is one of the most
shocking and graphic of the disaster and natural disaster films of that decade
that began with Airport! in 1970 and
peaked with The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno and (when it is in
the form of a living monster/animal(s) as was the case in Hitchcock’s The Birds (1962)) Spielberg’s Jaws, but not until all the imitators
played the cycle out. While that was
mostly a U.S. cinema phenomenon, this film was made in Mexico and is based on
the terrible 1972 incident where a small plane crashed in the Andes Mountains
and left its survivors stuck in the middle of nowhere.
This
includes a soccer team, but soon, they are stuck up there in the middle of a
blizzard winter without hardly any resources and the odds are they will not
live. But the reason the film was
infamous is that as in real life, those who live after the crash resort to
cannibalism (already a Horror film theme thanks to zombies, et al, at the time
(think The Hills Have Eyes and Raw Meat)) so the film was advertised
in its U.S release as too strong for general audiences. Even though it had an R-rating, the
disclaimer acted in a way we would associate with unrated film releases.
VCI has
issued the film in two versions on one DVD, the shorter U.S edition and as a
bonus (because it sadly does not have subtitles) the longer Spanish version and
both are on the graphic side, though after the torture porn cycle seem somewhat
tame for a film that was considered cheap and somewhat exploitive, I actually
think it is not that bad. Robert
Stigwood (the late one-time manager of The Bee Gees and Peter Frampton) and
Alan Carr (together they gave us hit films like Saturday Night Fever and Grease,
as well as duds like Can’t Stop The
Music with The Village People and Sgt.
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with Frampton and Gibbs as The Beatles, et
al) backed the U.S. version.
They cut
23 minutes, had Gerald Fried do a more upbeat score and used black and white
photos to begin and end the tale, changing the context from a terrible event to
a survivors' story. They did not
desecrate the event or history, but it is a touch of Hollywoodizing something
that cannot easily be so without getting into trouble. As you may already know, Disney’s Alive, directed by the capable Frank
Marshall, also tried to make a “human drama” (meaning a near fell good movie)
about the event into a more “acceptable” film but despite a good cast, did not
work any better.
There is
more character development and exposition in the Spanish version and though you
will not know what anyone says unless you speak the language, we get the usual
clichéd scenes we have seen dozens of times, plus some of the U.S. English
dubbing seems similar when compared to this cut. There are no cannibal jokes, the makers and
actors take this seriously and this is more ambitious than you might
think. Only the special effects have
dated it outside of 1970s clothes and hair, but it does take place 40 years ago,
so this DVD also serves as a commemorative release. Extras include that Spanish version and a
Spanish trailer.
The 1080p
1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Scarecrow is as impressive as just about any full color TV on DVD
we have seen to date that uses later color film stocks, with a brand new print
and very few issues, save a few shots with minor detail limits. The color range is amazing and even better
than its DVD counterpart, plus detail, depth, Video Black, Video Red and Video
White handily outdo the impressive DVD.
That this looks better than so many later theatrical films on Blu-ray
amazing, but I really liked it and it is as solid as any disc here.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Innkeepers was shot in the Super 35mm film format and despite some
styling choices, has many of its own great shots throughout. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 AVC @ 32 MBPS digital High
Definition image transfer on Marcy
is also stylized, usually to be naturalistic and is also shot in the Super 35mm
film format. Yet it has more outdoor
shots and outdoor lighting down to a 1970s soft look. All three Blu-rays have interesting and even
demo shots for your HDTV.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Claustrofobia
uses the ARRI Alexa to good effect, but it can also be softer than I might have
liked. Wonder how much better it would
look on Blu-ray.
That
leaves two transfers on Survive! One is the shorter U.S. edition in an anamorphically
enhanced 1.78 X 1 image and the other the longer Spanish edition in a 1.33 X 1
frame. They both have advantages and
disadvantages. The U.S. version
has some shots with more depth, sometimes more detail and better Video White,
but that white blows out the color and detail a little in some shots. The Spanish version has more frame
information, better color range, but has poorer Video White, may lack detail in
scenes and have more print damage, but I liked it just a bit more.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Marcy and Innkeepers are
well recorded enough, but quiet in nature often and may have their moments when
music and sound effects kick in, but purposely have toned-down soundfields and
dialogue that is in the center channel and sound sometimes towards the front
speakers. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on
Scarecrow is actually better than
the same on the DVD by having a smoother soundfield and better than the lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Claustrofobia
and either choice of lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Survive! which have not been overly compressed and sound as good as
they are going to get. The English dub
sounds like a dub, while the Spanish version definitely has some post
production work, but that as expected from such a low budget film. We’re lucky it survived after being written
off as an exploitation film when it is something more than that, if not great.
- Nicholas Sheffo
