Eye Of The Devil (1966)/Mad Love (1935/both MGM/Warner Archive Blu-rays)/Mad Max Anthology 4K: Mad Max (1979) / Road Warrior (aka Max Max 2 (1981) / Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) / Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) /Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-rays)

4K Ultra HD Picture: B/B+/B+/B+ Picture: B+/B+/X Sound: B+/B+/B- B B+ B+ Extras: C-/C-/B- Films: C+/C+/B- B- B B

PLEASE NOTE: The Eye Of The Devil and Mad Love Blu-rays are now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

Up next are a set of classic genre films, all restored and upgraded...

Eye Of The Devil (1966) is a fun (though sometimes dark and disturbing, especially considering it is one of the few films Sharon Tate finished before she was killed) British Satanic mystery with several interesting stars and solid black and white cinematography that makes it worth a revisit. Thanks to Warner Archive, we now have it preserved nicely in HD.

Starring Deborah Kerr, Sharon Tate, Donald Pleasance, and David Niven, the film is pretty tame to today's standards, it was probably a bit controversial at the time as Satanic forces are the primary focus. This was likely an inspiration to films to come out a decade later such as The Devil's Rain, Rosemary's Baby, and All the Colors of the Dark. The plot centers around a French winegrower (Niven) and his wife (Kerr) who are involved in a mysterious ritual sacrifice that involves Satanic entities.

Eye of the Devil is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66 X 1, and a lossless English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono mix. The black and white image has been restored nicely to HD here and doesn't show too much wear surprisingly given its age.

Only extra is an HD Trailer.

Eye of the Devil is a fun benchmark film for this horror sub genre, and isn't necessarily a masterpiece, but just a fun watch.

Mad Love (1935) starring the great Peter Lorre, Colin Clive, and Frances Drake gets a new update courtesy of Warner Archive. The concept of this film has been done time and time again, the idea of a killer's persona getting attached to someone else and causing them to become a knife wielding maniac. In this case, it's possessed hands of a killer. A fun romp for sure, Mad Love is a film that was desperately in need of a restoration such as this and fun to look back on now.

Mad Love is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.37 X 1, and a lossless English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono mix. The black and white image looks very sharp and it just goes to show what kind of miracles can be done in restorations nowadays.

Only extra is an HD Trailer.

Despite Mel Gibson's controversial off-screen antics, the Mad Max films continue to be popular and now, all four films are finally available in the 4K format in the new Mad Max Anthology collection. Those George Miller-directed films include: Mad Max (1979,) Road Warrior (aka Max Max 2 (1981,) Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Mad Max: Fury Road (2015,) all of which we have covered before.

That includes the original Gibson trilogy on Blu-ray:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12219/Mad+Max+Trilogy:+Mad+Max+(1979)/Mad+Max

I additionally had this to say about The Road Warrior a while back...

''After the first Mad Max put Mel Gibson on the international filmmaking map, he soon reteamed with co-writer/co-producer/director George Miller for the very successful sequel, The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2/1981) in which Max is out to avenge the annihilation of his family and take on more camps of predatory criminals & pirates. And to think he was already ticked in the first film. The search for that scarce resource gasoline is on, with more people than ever are willing to kill for it.

It may be a post-apocalyptic Science Fiction film, but like other great Sci-Fi films of the time like Peter Hyams' Outland (the same year and studio) and James Cameron's Aliens (1986), the Western genre looms strongly in the script structure, especially in this film more than the others. Helping the film overcome some predictability and derivativeness is that it is from Australia. The film continues to have a huge following, with some feeling it is the best in the trilogy, though just being the most action-oriented may not be the only reason for this.''

I thought Thunderdome was an even better film thanks to a strong turn by Tina Turner as the shrewd Aunty Entity, the near-ruler of a new post-apocalyptic trading post called Bartertown, but she wants her competition out of the way. Some would say the new smoothness may have been at the cost of some grittiness and action and that has some validity, but it is a solid film and the two songs Turner cut for the film remain two of her best ever.

Fury Road is an amazing revival with Tom Hardy becoming the new Max and Charlize Theron as Furiosa, under the hand of an evil man and trying to protect women from him, we covered the Blu-ray 2D and 3D versions at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13732/Broken+Horses+(2014/Sony+DVD)/The+Hunger

So to get to playback performance, all four films are presented in 2160p HECV/H.265, 2.35 X 1, Dolby Vision, HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image that make them the best they have ever looked. The first film was shot in the underrated Todd-AO 35 anamorphic film format and all the sequels were in anamorphic Panavision, save the all-HD shoot on Fury Road. The first Max was already issued on 4K by Kino Lorber with Dolby Vision and had a few more flaws in the color and slight damage on the print than expected, but this version does not have the Kino or MGM logos on it. The sound is pretty much the same (more on that in a moment) but the picture might look very slightly better here than on that version (unreviewed, but I saw it) and is often color correct. It might need a little more work, but this is solid otherwise.

Road Warrior is an even larger improvement over the old Blu-ray transfer/master and has some demo shots above my letter grade and a few that are demo shots, while some others look a little dated, grainier than usual and slightly off. For the most part, it is impressive and will surprise fans.

Thunderdome is even smoother with some great big, wide shots and the best use of the scope frame in the series. It is still gritty, but more refined and looks as good as when I saw it on a big screen in 35mm all those years ago. George Ogilvie co-directed the film.

Fury Road did get an individual 4K release a few years ago and this is the same exact disc as that one, which is good, though the film was not a 4K production (the one camera was 2.8K and it was apparently finished in 2K) so this is an upscale, yet it is a rare, effective one making the film look better than its regular Blu-ray counterpart and offering the same great encompassing feel the film offers in its best versions and presentations. I like it in 3D too, still available and sold separately on Blu-ray 3D disc.

As for the sound, the original theatrical mono on the first film with the original actor's voices is here in the same DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix going back to the older Blu-ray releases and instead of a detailed remix from all the original sound sources, it is just sort of spread all around and was made years ago. I would have liked to hear this upgraded, even if the sound stems could not produce a Dolby Atmos or DTS: X mix. It is passable as it is, but it sounds a little more dated than it should or could.

The sequels are all here in lossless Dolby Atmos 11.1 (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 on older systems) mixes that sound fine and is the way Fury Road was issued at its best theatrically. Road Warrior and Thunderdome were released in 70mm blow-up prints with six-track magnetic Dolby System Stereo Surround sound (4.0 mix on Road Warrior, 4.1 on Thunderdome, versus the 5.1 that eventually became normal in the digital sound era) and they both do a great job of opening up the sound that was so good and big in the first place. They never sound fake, ruined, stretched out or as if someone took liberties they should not have taken. Even Tina Turner's hit songs on Thunderdome offer more space to breathe and makes me want to hear all of her solo albums in Atmos. Nice job!

Extras include Digital Copy, while Road Warrior is the only film here with its own extras and includes an introduction by Leonard Maltin, a feature length audio commentary track by Director George Miller & Director of Photography Dean Semler, A.C.S., A.S.C., and the featurette Road War: The Making Of Road Warrior.

To order either of the Warner Archive Blu-rays, Eye Of The Devil and/or Mad Love, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/ED270804-095F-449B-9B69-6CEE46A0B2BF?ingress=0&visitId=6171710b-08c8-4829-803d-d8b922581c55&tag=blurayforum-20

- Nicholas Sheffo (4K) and James Lockhart

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/