The Beasts Are On The Streets (1978/Hanna-Barbera/Warner Archive DVD)/Eddie The Sleepwalking Cannibal (2012/Doppelganger
DVD)/The Guillotines (2012/Well Go USA
Blu-ray)/Magic Magic (2013/Sony
DVD)/My Amityville Horror (2012/IFC
Midnight/MPI DVD)/Sweet Revenge
(1976/MGM/Warner Archive DVD)/Trance
(2013/Fox Blu-ray)
Picture: C/C/B/C/C/C+/B- Sound: C/C+/B/C+/C+/C/B Extras: D/C/C/C/C-/C-/C Main Programs: C/C/C/C/D/C+/C
PLEASE NOTE: Beasts and Sweet Revenge
are only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and
can be ordered from the link below.
Now for
an interesting helping of recent genre releases…
Peter
Hunt’s The Beasts Are On The Streets
(1978) was TV animation powerhouse Hanna-Barbera’s attempt to expand into the then-new,
lucrative world of TV movies combining the natural disaster film with
nature-friendly TV shows like Daktari
and Wild Kingdom. All is well at a local zoo until a tanker
driver (who is antagonized by two goofs with a rifle at one point) gets too sick
to drive, has his double vision kick in and wrecks into a fence at the zoo,
freeing dozens of wild animals.
Carol
Lynley is a doctor, a pre-Miami Vice
Philip Michael Thomas is one of the animal herders and you get the impression
this might have been intended as some kind of pilot for a TV series, but it is
too mixed to really work, has some good moments, but not enough to decide what
exactly it is trying to be. It has been
decades since I have seen it and forgot how nicely the animal footage was, but
it is too uneven and even muddled to add up to what it could have been and is a
forgotten curio, but Warner Archive has issued it on DVD and now people can see
what was really made here.
There are
no extras, but this is one of only 2 TV movies by legendary editor and
underrated director Hunt, whose feature films include the James Bond classic On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Shout At The Devil and Death Hunt, so that adds to the curio
factor. Too bad we don’t get an
interview.
Boris
Rodriguez’s Eddie The Sleepwalking
Cannibal (2012) is a Canadian/Danish co=production that would seem like yet
another dumb zombie film, but this one is different in that it wants to be a
character study to some extent and is not as concerned about the horror all the
time. Lars (Thure Lindhardt) is a one
time painter who had a big career ahead of him, but something stopped it. Now he has traveled to Canada to join
an art school and is welcomed, but also suddenly asked if he would take care of
a mentally challenged man named Eddie (Dylan Scott Smith) as part of the terms
of a will that gives money to the school if they take care of him.
However,
Eddie has some issues, like eating animals and people while they are still
alive in the middle of the night when he goes sleepwalking. This should horrify Lars, but he is
shockingly inspired to start painting again and each work he makes is brilliant
and sells, but is it work the blood shed?
The
acting, casting, locales and ideas here are all interesting, plus even some of
the comedy works, but the script ultimately gives up way too soon on its
character study and questions, so what could have been a surprise classic
starts to slowly implode by the middle of its too-short 83 minutes. Too bad, because the makers were onto
something and under better circumstances, this could have been amazing
throughout.
Extras
include a Making Of featurette entitled The
Dark Side Of Creativity, the Original Theatrical Trailer and a short film
entitled Perfect by Rodriguez that inspired some aspects of this film.
Andrew
Lau’s The Guillotines (2012) is a
loose take-off of the 1975 martial arts cult classic Master Of The Flying Guillotine, which we reviewed two DVD versions
of at these links:
Original
Single DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/837/Master+Of+The+Flying+Guillotine+(Path
DVD
reissue Set
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2026/Master+Of+The+Flying+Guillotine+-+D
This
time, still set n he far past, pumps the ideas up by having the title weapon be
digital and overly mechanized to the point of being silly in the wrong ways,
having an army with these devices and pumping up the blood and gore factors to
the point that it is like a bad videogame remake (or is that rip-off) of the
1975 film. Lau is best known for having
directed Infernal Affairs (reviewed
elsewhere on this site) and he is doing this for fun, but at 113 minutes, it is
not as fun as the 1975 film, looks like too much of what we have seen before
and recently, then gets in a rut after the first few dozen scenes being too
repetitive for its own good and maybe more slap-happy about its gimmick than
i8t should.
Still,
the curious will want to see this one no matter the reviews and I wanted this
to work, but in the end, it just made me wish the 1975 film would get restored
and issued on Blu-ray. At least Lau
tried.
Extras
include a Making Of featurette, Original Theatrical Trailer and Cast/Crew
interviews clip.
Sebastian
Silva’s Magic Magic (2013) would at
first seem like another trapped in the middle of nowhere B-movie, but we get
something different here and it almost works.
Juno Temple is Alicia, a young lady visiting her cousin (Emily Browning)
in South America, but the company she keeps is a bit demented, including a
young guy (Michael Cera, distorting his image to some creepy effect) and
sadistic. She is unhappy as a result and
more odd and disturbing things start to accumulatively happen.
But what
is exactly happening? They are a goofy,
sometimes cruel group, but we can also see Alicia is seeing things we do not or
only she is seeing versus the others (including her more sympathetic cousin)
and there is also Satanism going on here.
Are they all being suckered, is something else evil going on no one is
aware of, are they just a gang of Satanists operating in a new way or is Satan
possibly only targeting Alicia?
The film
is sold as some kind of torture porn exercise and it can get graphic, but the
screenplay’s attempt to ask the Rosemary’s
Baby question (is Alicia well or sick; is she well in a sick world or sick
in a well world or is everything rotten) never delivers any possible answers
without getting tripped up in its approach.
That’s a shame because the cast works and this gets odd and disturbing,
but it never goes anywhere that adds up.
Silva simply does not totally understand the genre, but at least this is
one of the more ambitious entries in the genre we will see all year.
A Making
Of featurette is the only extra.
Eric
Walter’s supposed documentary My
Amityville Horror (2012) takes a look at the real life Lutz Family who
suffered through the supernatural horror of living ion the wrong house… save
the fact that when they had the book with a similar title published and become
a hit feature film, they seem to have admitted they made the whole thing
up. That still did not stop a series of
sequels and the like from happening as these links will show from the 1978
Original Film Blu-ray:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/7694/The+Amityville+Horror+(1979/MGM+Bl
to the Original
Trilogy DVD Set
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2313/Amityville+Horror+Collection+Giftset
plus an Amityville
II Import DVD
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2593/Amityville+II+-+The+Posession+(Regio
a
hilarious Amityville 3D DVD Import DVD in 3D (due soon on Blu-ray 3D)
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1899/Amityville+3-D+(Region+Zero/PAL)
and, of
course, the really awful 2005 remake on Blu-ray
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/10389/Halloween+2010+Blu-rays:+Amityvill
Here, the
son Daniel Lutz (who we guess did not admit to fraud) tells us how horrifying
things were at that house. Sloppy, silly
and never convincing, it feels like as much of a put-on as anything similar to
it and unless you like your intelligence being insulted or are very, very
curious, this is a cynical, opportunistic dud.
Stick with the 1979 film and laugh riot 3D sequel instead.
Extras include
a feature length audio commentary track by Walker & Producer Andrea Adams,
the Original Theatrical Trailer and Living
With Amityville making of featurette.
Jerry
Schatzberg’s Sweet Revenge (1976)
was a bandit chase film made in the middle of the run of his best-known films: Panic In Needle Park, Scarecrow and The Seduction Of Joe Tynan, but with a twist. A pre-Grease
Stockard Channing is so obsessed with owning a new Ferrari Dino 246 that she
plans to own one by stealing and flipping a bunch of other cars to get the
money for it. Especially at this time,
it was unusual that a woman would love cars this much or would want to steal so
many this badly. Also, the script would
not have the film go cross-country like its good-old-boy variants.
She also
has two boyfriends in a streetwise African American car lover named Edmund (Franklyn
Ajaye from Car Wash, released the
same year) who owns a car with the title of the film plastered on it and a slight
dimwit named Andy (Richard Daughty) who she had a hotter relationship with but
is now stringing along to get to her goals.
Part character study, part comedy, Sam Waterston also shows up as her
public defender lawyer who also falls for her.
The
impressive Channing is very likable playing someone who is not always likable
and the character is very feminist to the point of being still too radical for
Reagan cinema and beyond, but the film has its ups and downs, including an
ending that does not work or have the payoff it should considering what
proceeded it. The relationship with
Edmund is implied and plays it safe, as do a few other aspects of the storyline
here.
The
comedy is also trying to be like Bogdanovich’s What’s Up Doc? (1972, reviewed on Blu-ray elsewhere on this site)
in more than a few ways, but is nowhere nearly as funny. What we have now is a time capsule and curio
worth a look that shows off its cast to fine effect (Channing likely got Grease in part thanks to how good she
is here, more than carrying the film; how she did not do more lead work is
beyond me) and few other actresses could have pulled this off at the time and
fewer now.
MGM
originally released the film to mixed success and Warner Archive is finally
issuing it on DVD, so everyone finally has a chance to see what Schatzberg and
company did accomplish. Semi-memorable,
it is worthy enough of rediscovery that all Grease fans alone should go out of their way to catch up with it,
but anyone who loves honest 1970s filmmaking will want to see it too,
especially since the camera and visuals were handled by no less than Vilmos
Zsigmond!
A trailer
is sadly the only extra.
Danny
Boyle’s Trance (2013) wants to be a
heist film with a difference and has some good moments as a result thanks to
its cast and some good scenes, but the script eventually trips over itself and
the film disappoints in the end. James
McAvoy is a art dealer who auctions off expensive paintings when he is in the
middle of a robbery, one he is involved with.
Despite all the latest technology, he has a plan along with one of the
robbers (Vincent Cassel) to get away with it, but only he knows where the
painting is and he gets a brain injury.
Along
with ringing in his ear, the memory loss is hard to believe, so much so that he
is tortured for the location information, but he has forgotten and his memory
is very fragile. The gang decides maybe
therapy will help jog his memory, but he lands up becoming more interested in
his therapist (Rosario Dawson) than expected.
From there, we get some twists that work, too many we expect and a few
that are not bad, but not enough of even the expected things add up to a story
that really holds together. At least
this is ambitious, but Boyle has been in a rut lately and this is a
continuation of that.
Extras
include DigitalHD Copy for PC, PC portable and iTunes-capable devices, while
the Blu-ray adds Deleted Scenes, a Danny
Boyle Retrospective (promoting his long relationship with Fox Searchlight),
a making of featurette entitled The Power
Of Suggestion and short film Eugene
by Spencer Susser.
The 1.33
X 1 color image on Beasts was shot
on 35mm film, which is common for early TV movies, but this transfer is soft
despite some good color and some good shots.
However, the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image transfers on Eddie and Magic and 1.78 X 1 image transfer on Amityville are as soft, but should not be considering they are new
productions, but that is amazingly the case.
Detail is weak in all cases and Blu-ray HD versions would likely improve
all, save Amityville, which has the
most motion blur. The anamorphically
enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Revenge
actually fares better and enough so to be the best-looking DVD here and third
place overall for picture performance, shot on 35mm film as well on real
anamorphic Panavision (and processed in MetroColor) by (as noted) legendary
Director of Photography Vilmos Zsigmond after lensing the likes of Scarecrow and The Long Goodbye, as well as just before The Deer Hunter, Heaven’s
Gate, Close Encounters Of the Third
Kind and Blow Out.
Despite
the temptation to sex up the cars themselves and get silly as most films with
cars before and especially now do, Zsigmond still makes them look good (or
funny where applicable) and is more concerned with composition, actors and
forwarding the narrative than being a hack, which includes using the full width
of the scope frame. This is as big
screen and widescreen a film on this list as a result, which means it deserves
a Blu-ray at some point.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image on Guillotines
may have too much ridiculous digital animation throughout, but it is still a
fine, sharp, consistent presentation that is the best performer on the
list. It is not perfect or consistent
all the time with its mix of Arri Alexa and RED EPIC HD camerawork, but I have
to admit it is enough to be the visual winner here. The 1080p 2.35 X 1 AVC @ 29.5 MBPS digital
High Definition image transfer on Trance
(mixing several Canon HD cameras with an Arri Alexa) is more stylized and as a
result, has more definition issues throughout, so that holds it back, but I
give both films credit for having their share of atmospheric moments.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless mixes on our Blu-rays (5.1 on Guillotines, 7.1 on Trance) are both originally Dolby Atmos
11.1 theatrical sound releases and both have their sonic moments as a result,
as well as consistent soundfields, warmth in their recordings and professional
presentations. The lossy Dolby Digital
5.1 mixes on Eddie, Magic and Amityville tie for second place and have weak soundfields, often
offering plain stereo or even mono sound at points, so only expect so much form
them sonically, though Eddie and Magic have some moments where the
surrounds and bass kick in. That leaves Beasts and Revenge with lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono that is lower sonically
than expected, a bit disappointing and though clean and clear, beware of high
volume playback or volume switching as they both sound a generation down.
To order
the Beasts and Sweet Revenge DVDs, go to this link for it and many more great
web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
