Casting The Runes (1979/Acorn Media DVD)/Elevator
(2011/Inception DVD)/Goliad Uprising
(2012/Fuzion DVD)/Halloween 4: The
Return Of Michael Myers (1987) + Halloween
5: The Revenge Of Michael Myers (1989/Anchor Bay Blu-rays)/Scalene (2011/Breaking Glass DVD)
Picture: DVDs:
C/Blu-rays: C+ Sound: C/C+/C/C+/B-/C+ Extras: B-/C-/C/C-/C-/D Films: C+/C-/C/C-/C-/C
Here are
some thrillers, old and new, that had some interesting ideas to work with, but
all ran into various problems in how they eventually worked out.
Casting The Runes (1979) is from the ITV Playhouse series
based on the story by the suspense writer M. R., James, whose work is rarely
adapted for TV and very rarely if ever for feature films. An alchemist who practices witchcraft (Iain
Cuthbertson) is out for revenge on several enemies, including a TV producer who
may be exposing him, unaware of how dangerous he really is. Playing like a laid-back episode of Roald Dahl’s Tales Of the Unexpected
(reviewed elsewhere on this site, also from Acorn), it is not bad, smart and
worth a look, though its age and some aspects of it you may find
unintentionally funny. Still, it was
worth seeing and extras include an earlier adaptation of James’ Mr.
Humphreys & His Inheritance (1976) which runs 20 minutes, is from
the Music Scene series and is intended to show how composer Philip Wilby (who
hosts) scores a suspense piece. I liked
it. We also get the documentary A
Pleasant Terror: The Life & Ghosts Of M.R. James (1995) in which
the writers life and underrated work is examined. Among the interviewees are Ruth Rendell and
Christopher Lee.
Stig
Svendsen’s Elevator (2011/Inception
DVD) is another stuck-in-a-tale, with an elevator being used again as a crazy
killer (ala Se7en, yawn…) sets up a
particular office building elevator and waits for it to get crowded, only to
stop it and get the people inside to eventually turn on each other. There are some good actors here (including
John Getz, Shirley Knight and Joey Slotnick), but this is a corny, clichéd mess
with what starts out as somewhat promising descending into silliness and early
on becomes totally unbelievable in the way the people talk and behave. What a shame to waste the talent and our
time, but that is the result. A trailer
is the only extra.
More
experimental and slightly more successful is Paul Bright’s Goliad Uprising (2012) about a near future where a hip new
technology is actually not just for easy communication and self-aggrandizement,
but part of a plot by the company and likely government to use mind control on
people. I liked the raw locations,
semi-New Wave sensibility and some of the actors, but the script runs out of
ideas early on and can only badly repeat and echo better ideas or the same ideas
more poorly than previous films on the subject.
At least this one has some ambition.
Extras
include Director’s Commentary, Trailer, Social/Political Commentary section, Behind The Scenes Mini-Documentary and
Interview with star Shannon Lark.
Anchor
Bay has issued both Halloween 4: The Return
Of Michael Myers (1987) and Halloween
5: The Revenge Of Michael Myers (1989) at the same time on Blu-ray to go
with the original film they issued on Blu-ray years ago (reviewed on this site)
and with the other films in the series being issued soon. We previously covered the films when they
issued them on DVD, so you can read about their plots and more about them at
this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4154/Three+Halloween+Series+DVD+Releas
This was
an attempt to revive the original killer storyline that was abandoned with Halloween III, which tried to change
the course of a potential series where each film or two would offer a new and
different storyline. That failed, so we
got stuck with these duds. Besides the
child-in-jeopardy thing being overdone and just very, very bad outright, Donald
Plesence is back as Dr. Loomis (a role Christopher Lee turned down)
Finally
we have Zack Parker’s Scalene (2011)
which has thriller elements, but cannot decide if it is a drama, thriller or
something else. Margot Martindale is the
mother of a mentally handicapped son who away when we join her attacking her
one-time caregiver (Hanna Hall) with a gun yelling and getting upset. Acting is usually good here, but story comes
every close to trivializing some serious subject matter (rape, sexual assault,
other violations) and is a very mixed work when all is said and done.
There is
not much of a mystery here and little suspense, yet Parker still visually
references Hitchcock and Kubrick all over the place, but it never adds up,
meaning he is saying or showing things only he seems to know the meaning of and
they just don’t add up. Martindale
steals all of here scenes as expected, but this just did not stick with me in
spite of its potential. There are no
extras.
The 1.33 X 1 on Runes is on the soft
side and is a shoot that crossed professional analog PAL video for interior
shots with 16mm outdoor filming, typical of so many British TV productions of
the time. So it is strange that the rest
of the DVDs, recent productions presented here in anamorphically enhanced 1.78
X 1 frames are as soft, have too much motion blur and other image flaws that
are no improvement from a TV show 30+ years older. That leaves the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High
Definition image transfers on the Halloween
Blu-rays the visual champs and by default, but I expected them to look the best
of all. However, this is not by much and
the prints look old, as do the transfers.
These are barely better than their DVD counterparts and seem to be using
the same video masters.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 5.1 on Elevator is not
as good as it should be for a multi-channel mix and is easily matched by the
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Scalene,
but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Runes
and lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Goliad
are poorer and have their audio flaws, distortions and limits throughout. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes
for the Halloween Blu-rays should be
the best sounding releases here, but despite some system that was meant to
expand their audio, they were both issued in always-distorted and problematic
Ultra Stereo analog noise reduction that made old Dolby A-type analog noise
reduction sound good.
As a
result, Halloween 4 sounds poor and
not very well recorded, with flaws here you could not hear on the older DVD
version. Halloween 5 has some more dynamic sound, but is still distorted,
yet is the best-sounding release on the list, sadly.
- Nicholas Sheffo
