Dead Of Night (1972 BBC TV Series surviving episodes/BFI Region 2 PAL Import DVD)/Ten Little Indians (1965/Agatha Christie/Seven Arts)/The Terminal Man (1974/Warner Archive DVDs)/Toad Road (2012/Artsploitation DVD)

Picture: C/C+/C/C Sound: C/C+/C+/C+ Extras: C+/C/C-/C- Main Programs: C+/C+/C+/C-

PLEASE NOTE: The Ten Little Indians and Terminal Man DVDs are only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below, while Dead Of Night is a Region 2 PAL format DVD that will only play on machines capable of that format and is only available from BFI and can be ordered from a second link below...

This new selection of horror thrillers has its moments...

We start with that new rare artform, the anthology omnibus TV series. The early 1970s was still a great time for such shows on both sides of the Atlantic, so much so that more than a few only lasted so long. In 1972, the BBC broadcast Dead Of Night, an attempt to do such a show in a more refined way without the twists being overly shocking and it is an approach that had its effectiveness. However, only seven episodes were produced and worse, only three have survived.

BFI's home video arm in the U.K. has issued those episodes on a single DVD as well as given us as much about the whole series as possible. The surviving shows are:

The Exorcism with two couples (Anna Smith, Clive Cropper, Edward Petherbridge & Sylvia Kay) having Christmas dinner at a newly refurbished old country house with all the amenities, but things get strange when dinner starts to turn into a strange affair, followed by a slowly building series of other odd occurrences. Directed by Don Taylor.

Return Flight has a veteran airline pilot (the underrated Peter Barkworth) swearing he saw a huge object nearly hit their passenger airplane and took evasive action to avoid it despite it not showing up on radar. A former WWII pilot, is he seeing things or was the 4-engine plane real? Directed by Robert Holmes (later of Doctor Who and Blake's 7).

A Woman Sobbing has bored, married Jane (Anna Massey) keeps hearing a sad female voice but cannot find its source, while her husband (Ronald Hines of Star Maidens, et al) simply cannot hear it at all. The usual is she losing her mind or not tale is done well enough, though the conclusion is a little mixed and ends too soon. Julian Holloway and Tommy Boyle add to the strange events here and this was the last episode of the series. Directed by Paul Ciappessoni (of Adam Adamant Lives! and The Spies).

Extras include another one of BFI's exceptional, illustrated booklets on the series including informative text, biographies of some of the major participants, a look at the episodes and technical information on the show, while the DVD adds stills from two of the lost episodes and PDF DVD-ROM accessible teleplays for all seven episodes originally produced.

Filmed several times, George Pollack's 1965 version of Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians (whose original title we'll avoid) was an attempt to make a space aged, James Bond-era variant of the classic book filmed effectively in a 1945 Rene Clair film we recently reviewed on Blu-ray at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12348/...and+then+there+were+none+(1945/Agatha+Chr

The all-time classic story involves several people invited to the same mansion by someone they think they know, only to be trapped and ambushed into a paranoid circumstance where they are killed done by one. Then recent Bond gal Shirley Eaton is joined by Stanley Holloway, Leo Gein, Hugh O'Brian, Daliah Lavi, Wilfred Hyde-White, Marianne Hoppe, Mario Adorf and an amusingly annoying Fabian as the group trapped in a great house only accessible by cable car.

The cast is actually good and even fun, but this is at the expense of real suspense and atmosphere despite being a nice monochrome shoot. I still think it is worth a look, but I am disappointed that the mystery aspects were handled so lightly. Still, an acceptable Christie adaptation in the face of many that did not work as well later and this book has had worse adaptations.

Extras include the original Whodunit Break from the original Seven Arts theatrical release, the Original Theatrical Trailer and trailers for all four Margaret Rutherford Miss Marple theatrical films that Warner issued in a solid DVD set we reviewed at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/3530/The+Agatha+Christie+Miss+Marple+Movie+Collectio

With a cable TV remake of Westworld in the works, there should be renewed interest in Mike Hodges theatrical film adaptation of Michael Crichton's The Terminal Man (1974) with George Segal playing against type as a very violent man prone to violent seizures. When medication and psychology fail him, he lands up taking part in an innovative, experimental surgery to have a special electronic patch paced inside his brain to immediately end the seizures and make him happy, healthy and non-violent. The surgery shown was considered cutting edge when the film as made and has some of the suspense of the original Andromeda Strain and Fantastic Voyage, but when the surgery is a success, is the patient dead? No, he is doing initially well, but when the doctors and surgeons celebrate, that's when things start to take a turn for the worse.

This was never totally a success as a thriller and has aged in interesting ways, but the cast remains one of the most impressive things including Jill Clayburgh, Joan Hackett, James B. Sikking, Richard Dysart, Normann Burton, Donald Moffat, Robert Ito, Jason Wingreen, Steve Kanaly, Jack Colvin and Jordan Rhodes who all make this more believable than the flaws before them would. The result is a curio worth your time from the director of Get Carter, Pulp, Croupier and the 1980 Flash Gordon just hysterically referenced in Seth MacFarlane's Ted. This could also use a remake and if they keep it this smart, that could be a big hit.

A fuzzy version of the Original Theatrical Trailer is the only extra.

Last and least is Jason Banker's Toad Road (2012), an attempt to do some kind of profound, serious variant on Blair Witch as slacker/druggie James hangs with similarly inclined, goofy friends and all are going nowhere until he meets Sara and wants to spend more time with her. The feeling is mutual, but they need to get away to somewhere that would benefit them more. However, The Seven Gates Of Hell (the script perhaps?) lie around the title locale and they have a chance to enter it. But why?

You could say that about the whole pointless, and long 76 minutes, but at least some of the raw moments between the actors work. Then stupid dialogue, stupid moments and a bad plot keep interrupting and this is never interesting, suspenseful or anything we could believe in the long term. There are few good ideas here and just lingering on nonsense is not realism, Neo-Realism or anything else. You could even argue against the makers that it is not really any kind of horror work.

Extras include an illustrated booklet on the film including informative text with a brief essay on it, while the DVD adds a cast/crew/editor feature length audio commentary track, Audition videos, two superfluous clips about the film, Deleted Scenes and a Behind The Scenes featurette.

The 1.33 X 1 color PAL image on the surviving Night episodes come from 1-inch PAL analog videotape sources that include 16mm footage shot outdoors to avoid Video White blowouts PAL video was known for a the time. All three shows have some good shots, but they are often rough and have the various flaws the format was known for at the time.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 black and white image on Indians is the best on the list from a decent print, if still having its share of slight scratches throughout, lensed by the great Director of Photography Ernest Stewart, BSC, but the color print with the same aspect ratio on Man is on the faded side and from what looks like an Eastmancolor print when the film was actually issued in three-strip, dye-transfer Technicolor, so the film deserves better whenever a Blu-ray is issued. That also makes it as soft as the three Night episodes and the sloppy HD shoot on Road in its anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 presentation.

The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Road should be the sonic champ among the releases here, but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Indians and Man can more than compete by being far more professionally and competent recordings than Road, but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on the Night episodes are rough and have their share of distortion and sonic limits throughout.

To order either Ten Little Indians and Terminal Man DVDs, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

http://www.warnerarchive.com/

...and to order the Dead Of Night import DVD, go to this link:

http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_27224.html?NOLOGIN=1

- Nicholas Sheffo