The Blob
(1958/Criterion Blu-ray)/The Brood
(1979/Umbrella Region B Import Blu-ray)/Eaters
(2010/E1 DVD)/Westworld (1973/Warner
Blu-ray)
Picture:
B/B-/C+/B- Sound: C+/B-/B-/B- Extras: C+/C/D/C+ Films: B-/C+/D/B
PLEASE NOTE: The Brood Region B import Blu-ray disc
will only play on machines capable of that Blu-ray encoded format and can be
ordered from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment at the website address
provided at the end of the review.
Here are
some genre films, including two classics, one that almost has a cult following
and a dud.
Irvin S.
Yeathworth’s The Blob (1958) has
been issued on video often, is highly influential and is one of the most
successful B-movies of all time starting with its initial success, then renewed
interest when star Steve McQueen became a big box office star and yet, the
copies used have never been great. Criterion
issued a DVD version a while ago and we covered a recent DVD import that even
included the late Larry Hagman’s Son Of Blob (1972, aka Beware! The
Blob) sequel. Now, Criterion has
issued the film on Blu-ray and it has been restored and looks terrific.
McQueen
and his girlfriend see what looks like a meteor hitting their small town and
when they investigate, the strange sphere splits in half, unleashing a terror
they could never imagine. From there,
the unreal events get worse and worse as people start disappearing. Having seen it a good few times over the
years including recently, I was pleasantly surprised how much more I got out of
seeing the film in this edition. You can
really sit back and enjoy it in ways you would never expect.
The cast
is good and fun, the set-ups effective, effects fine for their day and the pace
of the film as brisk and effective as ever.
Sure, some of it is fake and now, predictable, but it is a real original
in the Science Fiction and Horror genres, which is why I can say that you have
not really seen the original Blob
until you see it on this Blu-ray.
Extras
exceed the import DVD (save the sequel) and repeat the Original Theatrical
Trailer and two feature length audio commentary tracks: one by Producer Jack H.
Harris and Film Historian Bruce Eder, while the second is by Director
Yeathworth and Actor Robert Fields.
Criterion adds a nice stills gallery dubbed Blobmania! and paper foldout inside the Blu-ray case with tech
information and an essay by Kim Newman.
David
Cronenberg entered this kind of genre territory with The Brood (1979, not to be confused with John Frankenheimer’s Prophecy, promoted as heavily around
the same time) with Art Hindle as a man investigating how his ill wife
(Samantha Eggar) is being treated by an unusual doctor (Oliver Reed) for her
problems, but the result is that it may be unleashing her Id monsters and
possibly something even more terrifying none of them could ever expect. That falls inline with killer babies like
those in Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive
films, British film The Asphyx and
Friedkin’s The Exorcist, but despite
the cast and supporting roles by Henry Beckman, Susan Hogan and Nicholas
Campbell, the film never adds up to being very convincing.
That
makes it a mixed bag with some good moments, creepiness in unusual places, but
also a lack of the effectiveness that is distinctly Cronenberg, so it is
essentially an attempt to be a little more commercial on his part and it did
not exactly work out. Still, this is
ambitious including in its over-the-top moments and at least has enough moments
to see it once, but have patience and expect wackiness.
Extras
include the Original Theatrical Trailer and The Directors series look at Cronenberg’s career.
It
somehow took two people, Marco Ristori and Luca Boni, to co-direct Eaters (2010), but they did and wow, is
it awful! Another zombie film with much
gore, blood and flesh eating, it is one of a series of bad entries that thinks
it can find greatness by ripping off Romero’s Day Of The Dead (1985, see the Blu-rays reviewed on it elsewhere on
this site) and trying to make it better without realizing how great that film
is.
This also
goes on and on and on for 95 very long minutes and shows how bankrupt the genre
has become. If only one of the so-called
directors had a fresh idea or any ambition, this would not be so pointless. A lame making-of featurette is the only
so-called extra.
Finally
we have a thriller that offers some borderline horror in its Science Fiction
set up. MGM did not even want to handle
Michael Crichton’s Westworld (1973),
which he wrote and directed, but his first amusement park thriller gone wrong
tale before Jurassic Park is actually a more clever film that has fun with
the idea of Hollywood production values
becoming so good that an amusement park of robots could happen. James Brolin and Richard Benjamin play
friends who visit the title locale, one of three run by Delos.
We still
see Roman World and Medieval World as our protagonists enjoy their $1,000-a-day
(think $10 – 20,000 now) visit where you can be what you want, kill the robots
and even have sex with some of them.
Things get strange when a gunslinger (played cleverly by Yul Brynner)
keeps wanting to kill the guys, but Benjamin keeps killing him. Behind the scenes, scientists are taking care
of the robots, but they are developing problems and the head scientist (Alan Oppenheimer,
who would become the second robotics expert, Dr. Rudy Wells, on The Six Million Dollar Man soon after)
is ultra-concerned and his worst fears are realized when the robots start to
kill.
The film
was first issued widescreen on an old 12” LaserDisc, then on DVD three times
with the same transfer, so this new Blu-ray is a welcome upgrade, but more on
its technical features in a moment.
Extras include
the Original Theatrical Trailer featured on the DVD, but the nearly
10-minutes-long vintage featurette on the making of the film with Crichton
being interviewed and the pilot episode of the ill-fated and odd Beyond Westworld TV series are the new
extras.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on The Blob remarkably comes from its original camera negative save
one damaged reel and that it looks so consistently fine throughout is a big
surprise and makes it also the best performer on the list. Though the grain from the older film stocks
is here as we would expect from a production with a low budget as this one had,
the color by DeLuxe is as consistent as it is impressive and we even get a few
nice demo shots. It should be added that
the film was also issued in three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor prints at the
time which are now very valuable and this transfer would still hold up to the
best of them, though I would love to see a comparison of the two. It should be noted that Forbidden Planet (reviewed elsewhere on this site and now out in a
solid Blu-ray) was issued in more than one color format on film.
The 1080p
1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on The Brood has some good shots, but more than a few that show its
age from visual effects, grain and minor flaws.
I also think the color is a little inaccurate. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on
Eaten is an HD shoot badly shot, on
the soft side throughout and despite being the newest shoot here, the weakest
artistically.
That
leaves the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Westworld looking pretty good for its
age and when compared to that now very old DVD, superior overall throughout
save two small instances. When Brolin
and Benjamin get their rides down the hall to Westworld, the halls have three
different sets of colored lights on the wall to show where the vehicles will
drive them. They look like lights on the
DVD, but someone doing the transfer has tried to make them solid colors! Also when the sexy robot about to join
Benjamin in bed takes off her clothes, she is wearing lingerie that is sexy,
but with an odd difference in color. The
DVD has the white article outlined in power blue color while the Blu-ray has a
subtle silver color. We will see if we
can find out which one is correct down the line.
As
compared to a recent Blu-ray from the French label Avanti has a slight (maybe a
bit more than that) vertical stretch to it throughout taking the Panavision
scope feel and sense of depth out of the entire film, whereas this new Warner
Blu-ray is totally accurate in showing the scope frame properly
unsqueezed. I do see grain more than I
expected and some flat moments of color and a few flat shots, but the
graininess is ironically is just like grain on the Warner Blu-rays of MGM films
of the time like Soylent Green (also
1973) and Logan’s Run (1976, both
reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) so it must be inherent to the films
tocks and developing MGM was using on their films at the time.
Also, the
color on the Warner is more accurate than the French Avanti Blu-ray which has
dulled the color in most scenes, the warner Blu-ray has proper MetroColor
reproduction throughout with warmer fleshtones, metallically clear sterling
silver, mirror & gold reproduction and more naturalistic lighting
throughout. Outdoor shots that are
daylight correct on the Warner Blur-ay are practically overcast on the French
Blu-ray which even the old DVD delivers better. Why? Someone took too many liberties with the
French transfer and messed the film up badly, so our foreign readers should a
void that copy explicitly and get this Region Free Warner Blu-ray instead.
The PCM
2.0 Mono sound on The Blob has some
good sound on it and comes from the original magnetic soundmaster, but the
film’s age and its low budget sadly hold this back from being another surprise,
but it is narrowly better than the film has ever sounded before. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono
lossless mix on The Brood also shows
its age in its own way, but is newer by over 20 years and is more consistent by
default. The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix
on Eaten is sloppy, has location
audio issues and is not that well recorded or mixed overall, making it the
worst soundtrack here and I doubt a lossless version would improve matters
much.
The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Westworld is a nice upgrade from the
simple stereo or even monophonic past releases, but sound is towards the front
speakers as the surrounds are not consistent.
Sometimes we get stereo sound only, other times sound is more in the
center channel than it ought to be. Both
dialogue and sound effects are improved, but sometimes, you can hear some flaws
you could not hear before. Otherwise,
you’ll hear things you never heard before.
As a limited edition soundtrack in stereo was recently issued, Warner
has taken that music and used it to upgrade the music by Fred Karlin on the
film itself.
Though it
does not sound as good as the amazing CD set, which you can read more about at
the link at the end of this paragraph (along with the Futureworld sequel), it sounds just fine in the way it has been
remixed into the film soundtrack overall.
A nice job that will impress longtime fans of the film as well as those
just catching up to it now:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10751/Futureworld+(1976/MGM+Limited+Edi
As noted above, you can order the import version of The Brood exclusively from Umbrella at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
- Nicholas Sheffo
