Deathtrap
(1982/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Massage
Parlor Murders (1974/Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray w/DVD)/Vinegar Syndrome Drive-In Collection: Anatomy Of A Psycho (1960)/The Lonely Sex (1959) + The Suckers (1972)/The Love Garden (1971/DVDs)
Picture: B-/B-
& C+/C Sound: B-/C+/C Extras: C-/C/D Films: C+/C+/C
PLEASE NOTE: The Deathtrap Blu-ray is only available from Warner Bros. through their
Warner Archive series and can be ordered at the link below.
Murder
thrillers have been a staple of all kinds of filmmaking for decades, but there
is a split in the genre little discussed between Hollywood
A-level star product and low budget versions that follow somewhat along the
lines of Horror films, but not exactly.
I was stuck by this again when a group of such films arrived at the same
time. Here’s what I encountered.
We start
with Sidney Lumet’s film of the play Deathtrap
(1982) written by Ira Levin (Rosemary’s
Baby, The Stepford Wives, Sliver) with Michael Caine, Christopher
Reeve and Dyan Cannon as the players in the life of a writer (Caine) looking
for the perfect mystery script and to make sure it is flawless, might try to
commit a real life murder to make sure he has got it right. Reeve is a former student who apparently has
an ace of a script of his own and Cannon is Caine’s wife. Something is going to give and someone is
going to be on the outs.
Lumet
made this after some big productions (the mixed The Wiz, the grand Prince Of
The City) did not do the business expected of them and passed on Scarface (which Brian De Palma
eventually made with Al Pacino) to make this film. It has some good moments and good acting,
with Lumet able to make this seem more than just like a play, but it always
seems like the acting is a bit overdone at times, it reminds me always of The Last Of Sheila (also from Warner)
but not as good and despite a good trio here, this also plays like a secondary
variant of Sleuth, so it is
constantly haunted by better works including the original Clouzot Diabolique (1955, reviewed on Criterion
Blu-ray elsewhere on this site) which remains about as influential as
Hitchcock’s Psycho.
If you
are unaware of said works, this will work better, but the film never totally
added up for me, though it is smart and never condescending or smug, but as far
as dealing with murder as a concept, it just might be playing it too safe. Should this have been more brutal? I like these actors and get all the in-jokes,
but Deathtrap never worked
thoroughly for me and I am a Lumet fan too.
I also do not think you could make a better film of the play, so it will
have its following and deserves this new Warner Archive Blu-ray, available
exclusively on line.
A trailer
is the only extras.
Sleazier
and as entertaining for all kinds of odd reasons, Chester Fox and Alex Stevens
co-directed Massage Parlor Murders
(1974) about a killer on the loose who is killing women in the title
locales. Including much nudity and even
softcore sex moments, the film is all over the place and having two directors
only adds to the madness. This is not a
smart mystery either and that aspect is very limited in the script. Oh, and the acting is also not great, yet
this manages to be more entertaining than it should be in either cut here. The reissue version cuts out the pre-title
sequence that I think should have stayed, but that version is here too.
Two cops
eventually start investigating and they cannot seem to catch up with the
killer. At times, I was reminded of
Friedkin’s Cruising (1980) with some
of the scenes of blood and situations, heterosexual as they happen to be here,
but definitely as sleazy. The blood is
here, but the violence is never too excessive and some of it is simply very
dated, so you will only be offended or impressed so much.
What I
liked about this the most is that the makers try and fit everything they can
into the script and we even get breaks form the sometimes thin narrative as one
of the cops has a romance going. This is
a product of the counterculture and an interesting time capsule at that, but that
does not make it a great film, yet it is always interesting and even boasts
George Dzundza (Basic Instinct, The Deer Hunter) as an Assistant
Director and a pervert the cops harass!
Sandra
Peabody from the original Last House On
The Left also shows up and the usually odd acting actually makes this even
more watchable. I think it is great that
the Vinegar Syndrome label was able to restore this for Blu-ray and DVD because
it is one of those curios more people should see. What it lacks in great acting and smarts, it
makes up for in ambition and unexpectedly entertaining moments.
Extras include
a nicely illustrated booklet on the film including informative text and liner
notes, while the discs add Outtakes and Original Theatrical Trailers.
We have
two double feature DVDs from the The Vinegar
Syndrome Drive-In Collection being issued at the same time as Parlor and with four B-movies worth
seeing. Of course, they are so bad they
are hilarious and definite targets for Mystery Science Theater treatment.
Boris
Petroff’s Anatomy Of A Psycho (1960)
obviously wants to cash in early on Hitchcock’s Psycho runs 80 minutes and has the brother of a convicted murderer
going after those who caught him and pout him away. With its lame acting, black & white
filming and very lame ideas about psychology, it is worth a look if you have
the patience and a sense of humor. It is
far from great, but also reminds us of how much fun filmmaking once was when
you had so many independent productions going on.
That film
is joined by Richard Hillard’s The
Lonely Sex (1959) runs under an hour and has a goofy guy kidnapping a woman
while continuing his peeping tom ways.
It is too short to really develop anything substantial, but just mixes
things up to be interesting and fails, but does so in amusing ways. Black & white film once again meets bad
acting and this is not too long, so you’ll enjoy it just enough if you are
interested. Expect some nudity and
softcore moments.
The other
DVD offers Arthur Byrd’s The Suckers
(1972), a full color sex romp with some ripping off of The Most Dangerous Game that has more to do with nudity and
exploitation than psychological tension, but is watchable at 80 minutes and has
its unintentionally funny moments as well.
This is not great cinema either, yet, the makers are trying to throw in
all kinds of elements and it is more ambitious and successful than the recent
torture porn cycle of would-be films so I found it more watchable than
expected, no matter how silly it got.
That film
is joined by Mark Haggard’s The Love
Garden (1971) that runs 70 minutes, is in black and white, has
thought-police lesbian moments and is the weakest of the four films, yet it is
still watchable as a time capsule and one of the last monochrome films of its
kind as by 1971, color became affordable enough and along with color TV’s
success made it a bad gamble to shoot in anything else but color by then. More bad acting is featured too, but this
film also deserved to be saved and I was glad to see all four films, flaws and
all.
None of these
films come with any extras, however, though the discs and cases have poster
art.
The 1080p
1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Deathtrap and Parlor are
on par with each other, though Deathtrap
should have been the champ here.
Instead, the Deathtrap HD
master shows a little more grain than expected and the darker scenes do not
always look as good as the bright ones, though color is decent throughout. Parlor
is obviously shot more cheaply, but the restoration (2K from a good 35mm print)
has better dark scenes and the color is not bad throughout either, especially
as compared to the anamorphically enhanced DVD.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Suckers
and 1.33 X 1 image on the rest of the Drive-In
movies may come from 2K scans of 35mm film prints they have restored, but I
found all four films to be a little softer than usual for whatever reason. They are still watchable and you can see work
went into fixing them, but it will take Blu-ray versions to really see the
improvements fully.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono lossless mix on Deathtrap is as good as the film has ever sounded with warm
reproduction of the sound and Johnny Mandel’s music score. Too bad this was not in stereo. Parlor
and the Drive-In movies are here in
lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono that is not as good, with Parlor sounding better
than the rest of the B-movies.
To order Deathtrap, go to this link for it and
many more great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
