Big Bad Wolf (2012/Horizon DVD)/Daleks Invasion Earth 2050 A.D. (1966/Umbrella Region B Import Blu-ray)/5 Fingers (1952/Fox Cinema Archive DVD)/Hollow Triumph (1948/Film Chest DVD)/Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)/The Last Passenger (2012/Umbrella Region B Import Blu-rays)/The Outsider (2012/Image DVD)/Rogue: The Complete First Season (2013/E1 DVDs)/Scream Park (2013/Wild Eye/MVD DVD)/Wicked Blood (2014/E1 Blu-ray)

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

PLEASE NOTE: The Daleks Invasion Earth 2050 A.D., 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and Last Passenger Import Region B Blu-rays are now only available from our friends at Umbrella Entertainment in Australia and can be ordered from the link below.

Here's a new group of thrillers of all kinds, from classics to some new ambitious or at least different ones...

Paul Morrell's Big Bad Wolf (2012) could be a extrapolation of an old fairy tale (or two) or as the cover nearly suggests (a cheat), three gals taking on a guy who might become a werewolf, but instead, it is a psychopath named Huff (Charlie O'Connell) who starts by telling some younger gals scary tales, but is a guy who liked to drink, have sex and kill. As an outright thriller, this had some potential, but a situation of a wild girlfriend and a fortune of his stolen from him in what is a family-oriented plot undermines what begins as potentially promising.

Morrell just cannot juggle it all, O'Connell gives a decent performance, but it is also ordinary, yet if ye tries to do anything else, it would lose the credibility it has. When the last third should have had more twists, turns & ideas, they settle for yelling, bloodshed and pointlessness that includes a dud ending that does not work either. Natasha Alam and Clint Howard also star.

A trailer and bonus interviews are the only extras.

Gordon Flemyng's Daleks Invasion Earth 2050 A.D. (1966) has now arrived on Blu-ray by way of a Region B Import from Umbrella and is a nice upgrade of the DVD import edition we reviewed at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11941/Creep+Van+(2011/Inception+DVD)/Collision+Earth

Extras are expanded as the great Daleksmania featurette is joined by a Stills Gallery, Trailer and two on-camera interviews: one with actor Bernard Cribbins, the other with writer Gareth Owens.

Joseph L. Mankiewick's 5 Fingers (1952) is an underdiscussed spy drama with James Mason as a real life spy who sells out to the Nazis during WWII for money, only to have some other personally beneficial scheming in mind as he is pursued by many others when it is obvious what he is up to, yet remains elusive. Michael Rennie becomes his chief pursuer and Danielle Darrieux is the woman in the middle of he many crossfires in this well-written film (by Michael Wilson) that is being released as part of Fox's Cinema Archive series.

For all that is said about Mankiewick's classic hits (All About Eve, Sleuth) and glorious epic bomb Cleopatra, this film is smart, clever, suspenseful, has a nice pace and Mason is in top form as usual. To say much more would be a mistake, but don't be fooled by its age or by being set in WWII, because it is top rate filmmaking of its kind for its time and worth going out of your way for.

A trailer is the only extra, but its a good one.

Steve Sekely's Hollow Triumph (1948) has Paul Henreid as a criminal who happens to look like a doctor and discovers this as he is on the run when the robbery of a mobster-run private gambling outfit goes wrong. Henreid plays dual roles and when he becomes interested and involved with Joan Bennett. Film Chest has issued this underrated, underseen, real Film Noir in the best copy I have ever seen and with its amazing cinematography (see below), you have a thriller worth your time and fans of Noir and crime dramas should especially go out of their way for this one.

No, it is not always perfect, but it is consistent, creepy and nicely dark.

There are sadly no extras, but Film Detective has issued a Blu-ray edition since with a trailer, which you can read more about at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13907/Beat+The+Devil+(1953/United+Artists)/Hollow+Tri

This is the third lucky time we have seen Philip Kaufmann's great 1978 remake of Invasion Of The Body Snatchers arrived on Blu-ray following an expanded version from Arrow U.K. You can read more about at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/12469/The+Bat+(1959/Allied+Artists/Film+Chest+DVD)/I

And that has a link to the U.S. MGM Blu-ray edition. Same great transfer of the same great film and the extras here are on the other editions, but this one lacks the the Arrow's expanded extras. Still, you get the Original Theatrical Trailer, Kaufmann's audio commentary track (on DVD only on the U.S. release) and the four original featurettes Re-Visitors From Outer Space, Practical Magic, The Man Behind The Scream and The Invasion Will Be Televised. Awesome!

Omid Nooshin's The Last Passenger (2012) is the occasional thriller that sets itself on a train and such films are always at least worth a look like this one is, but how to keep that a fresh idea that works. Dougray Scott is a doctor taking a trip with his son for the holiday by train when mysterious things start happening, including a body that he finds dead, but is gone when he brings people to see it and then we get no stops stopped at. The script wants to be Hitchcock and the original Twilight Zone among others, but we soon learn a psychopath is taking over and intends to make things worse.

If this were not so derivative, this could have been even more effective, as Peter Hyams' showed years ago in his underrated remake of the train-bound thriller Narrow Margin (1990, reviewed elsewhere on this site) which was also a film that loves the widescreen image. I still liked some of what we see here, but it is just not enough to make it as great as it could have been. Still, it has more than enough good moments despite its flaws to give it a look.

A trailer is the only extra.

Brian A. Miller's The Outsider (2012) is a crime thriller with James Caan as yet another head mobster in a tale about a British military man (Craig Fairbrass, who really has the lead role here) looking for his daughter and tracing her disappearance to Caan's corrupt mob boss, with Jason Patric as a cop trying to stop Caan and eventually forced to help the Brit in what amounts to a very lightweight recycling of Stephen Soderbergh's The Limey that wants to take that set up and make it into a Taken rip-off.

The casting is actually pretty good, the fight and other action scenes have their moments and Shannon Elisabeth even shows up, but that cannot stop this one from feeling recycled at every point where it seems like it might run with a new or different idea. At least the cast gives it their best and Fairbrass might become a star yet.

There are no extras.

The underrated Thandie Newton is back in Rogue: The Complete First Season (2013), a new TV crime drama where she plays a good-but-compromised cop whose problematic situation takes an ugly turn for the worse that threatens her life and future for good. A mom as well, the corruption all around her seems to be at bay, but her secret work for a crime boss (Marton Csokas) was compromising her to begin with.

An interesting idea for a series with someone who can more than carry a series, I found the writing and plot twists between the 10 episodes sometimes interesting, yet they did not always deliver what they could have the the way they build on each other is too long, stretched out and ineffective. But Newton is reason alone to give the show a look, even when the most predictable happens. If the makers could just build on this season, this is a show that could suddenly take off. We'll see.

Extras include Webisodes and a Behind The Scenes featurette Script-To-Screen.

Cary Hill's Scream Park (2013) is set at an amusement park (dubbed Fright Land) and by default, is one of the most competent titles Wild Eye (via MVD) has ever issued. We meet the workers there, have a few amusing moments, then the killing begins. At first this had some promise despite being in familiar territory, but the story starts to crumble and this becomes not only all too familiar, but runs out of steam and never recovers. I at least liked how it began, but the makers did not know where to go from there.

Bloopers, a trailer and an audio commentary track are the extras.

Mark Young's Wicked Blood (2014) sounds at first like a vampire film (notice a trend), but is actually the story of a young gal (Abigail Breslin) who is stuck with a rotten family who is connected to crime, drug deals and worse. Sean Bean plays her uncle who happens to be a crime lord and a somewhat unrecognizable James Purefoy plays their rival, who she starts to get involved with. However, a battle for drug territory and the uncle's crazed hitman (Jake Busey) complicate matters more.

There are some good actors, ideas and good scenes here in its 94 minutes, but Busey overdoes things, some of the dialogue is lame, the latter plot twists are bad and any credibility established early on evaporates quickly. Too bad, because they were setting things up well early on. Alexa Vega also stars.

Extras include interview clips with the actors.

The visual champs here easily are the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Body which repeats the fine video master used on the previous Blu-ray editions noted above and the 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Daleks which can show the age of the materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous releases of the film including the decent DVD which has the same video master. Now, the Techniscope-shot film is much closer to being a representation of a dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor version of the film prints of which still sell for major money.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Passenger used an Arri Alexa HD camera to shoot its image, but added real anamorphic lenses to shoot the widescreen scope image, J-D-C Scope. The solid, dated Cooke lenses from the 1930s deliver a look we have not seen on an HD shot yet since the lenses are so great, but sometimes the limited color undercuts the performance and effectiveness of the image overall. However, it uses real scope lenses and does not digitally fake scope, so that is a plus. That makes it tie for second place visually with the 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Blood, a 4K HD production with Sony's coldish F-55 camera that is not messed around with too much if not always great either.

That leaves the DVDs all tying for third/last place, from the fine 1.33 X 1 black & white image on Fingers and Triumph (a new HD transfer and shot by the legendary John Alton, A.S.C.), anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Wolf and Outsider and the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Rogue episodes and Park, which all look professionally well done even where there are occasional flaws and limits (in Fingers case, it is slight print trouble and slight softness on occasion).

As for audio, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Body may be 36 years and counting, but it has the best sound on the list, the same solid, upgraded mix from the previous Blu-rays from what was a mere Dolby analog A-type theatrical release. Tying for second place are the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes on Passenger (with a mix of quiet moments and aggressive surrounds) and Blood (dialogue-based and often with a limited soundfield) so the improved fidelity of the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Mono on Daleks can actually compete more than you might think overall, though if shows its age.

The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Triumph is the poorest performer being an orphan film, but it is sadly tied by the problematic, lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Park that can sound compressed and even monophonic at times throughout. The rest of the DVDs fare better in their lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 presentations, but their soundfields are weaker than the weaker DTS-MA 5.1 Blu-rays, so the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Fingers can compete because it is cleaner and clearer than usual.

To order the Umbrella import Blu-rays Daleks Invasion Earth 2050 A.D., 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and Last Passenger, go to this link for them and many more titles not necessarily available in all markets at this link:

http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/

- Nicholas Sheffo