THE GUNS OF NAVARONE: Blu-ray (Columbia 1961) Sony Home Video

Penned by Carl Foreman, director J. Lee Thompson’s The Guns of Navarone (1961) is an exhilarating WWII espionage thriller. Loosely based on Alistair McLean's novel, the film stars quintessential man of integrity Gregory Peck as Captain Keith Mallory, a staunchly determined strategist assigned the near impossible task of taking a crack team of military misfits to a remote German stronghold on Kiros to blow up the Nazis' impregnable fortress. That team includes embittered explosives expert, Cpl. Miller (David Niven), feisty Col. Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn), pragmatic Maj. Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle) and rookie solider, Pvt. Spyros Pappadimo (James Darren). The mission is hardly fool proof.

Fate is anything but on the expedition’s side. After their modest fishing vessel is wrecked during a violent storm, the troops are besieged by one enemy assault after another. Franklin is wounded, but Mallory refuses to give in, give up or leave his superior officer behind. Instead, and together with resistance fighters Maria Pappadimos (Irene Papas) and Anna (Gia Scala), the surviving members attempt to make inroads toward Kiros.

But a traitor is in their midst, one who repeatedly leaks their whereabouts to the Nazis and forces the soldiers into hiding until they are ambushed by at an outdoor Greek wedding reception. Eventually, Mallory makes his break. Stavros exposes Anna as the traitor and Mallory is forced to assassinate her. Next, Stavros, Miller, Pappadimo and Mallory make their way to the Nazis' fortress. After exchanging gunfire, Mallory and Miller make it inside and set about rigging the two massive guns pointed toward the sea with explosives, just as an armada of allied ships are approaching off the coast.

The Guns of Navarone is a fictional tale of heroism. No such fortress or mission to destroy it ever existed. But Foreman's writing makes the story real even if history suggests otherwise. The authenticity of the exercise is mirrored in the eyes of each protagonist. We believe the story as fact, mostly because Gregory Peck, Tony Quinn, David Niven et al. sell the concept not merely as high film art but definitive history, even in the face of history itself - and that's no small achievement!

For years, The Guns of Navarone was shown on television with its opening sequence misprinted. Immediately following the credits, a plane is seen landing on a runway (shot day for night). During the theatrical engagement, the plane lands at night. On television, it lands in broad daylight. In the mid-1990s, Columbia contacted UCLA restoration expert, Robert Gitt to aid in the preservation of this immortal and much beloved film for future generations.

The restoration then was accomplished without the added benefit of a digital frame-by-frame clean up. In 1999, Columbia released The Guns of Navarone to DVD in a less than stellar incarnation, with bumped up contrast levels, faded flesh tones, weak colors, shimmering of fine details and considerable grain directly imported into the transfer.

Now, Sony Home Video has really gone to town. The results are superb beyond all expectation. Let's get something straight. The Guns of Navarone will never be pristine. Decades of neglect, poor film stock, film processing and even poorer storage have all but ensured that this film classic was almost lost to us for all time. Thankfully, Sony has gone back to the drawing board, employing state of the art digital restoration techniques on first generation Cinemascope elements. (The original camera negative no longer exists.)The results are, for the most part successful.

The restoration has been a major undertaking and a long time coming. Day for night photography is still problematic with a considerable amount of film grain present. But the naturally lit outdoor photography on the Blu-ray is a revelation. Flesh tones that once appeared pasty orange have been brought back into line and are very natural looking throughout. Colours are, at times, startlingly vibrant. The Greek wedding ambush blew me away with its stark white building facades and lush green foliage. Gia Scala's eyes just before her execution struck me in all their coral blue brilliance. Visually, The Guns of Navarone is a winner even if filmic elements are fundamentally flawed.

Sony has also done wonders with the original 4-track stereo, herein represented as DTS-HD 5.1. Again, it isn't crystal clear, but it is light years ahead of anything the film has sounded like on home video - ever - period!

The one new extra is 'the resistance dossier' - a beautifully composed series of featurettes that are brief but poignant. For the rest, Sony gives us all of the featurettes and documentaries that came with their deluxe 2-disc DVD from several years ago. None of these older extras have been cleaned up so don't expect high quality video or audio. Still, given Sony's base price for this vintage catalogue title and the immeasurable efforts put forth to restore the film to 'almost' its opening night splendour make me want to stand up and cheer. The Guns of Navarone Blu-ray is a no-brainer must have/must own. Highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

3.5

CAPE FEAR: Blu-ray (Universal 1991) Universal Home Video

Few film remakes can hold a candle to their original inspiration. Most are thinly disguised and utterly misguided regurgitations of the past. Hence, when a remake does comes along that is valiantly and deservingly a revision of that past it seems all the more the cinematic rarity. Martin Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991) certainly qualifies on this latter score. It is a superb and harrowing psychological thriller with few equals; in short - a diabolical masterpiece. Based on John D. MacDonald’s ‘The Executioners’, and more directly the 1962 B-noir film classic of the same name, Scorsese’s remake stands alone - a near superior departure from both the book and the earlier movie in many ways.

Originally, director Steven Spielberg had approached Robert DeNiro with a screenplay by Wesley Strick. Although DeNiro immediately liked the idea and was ready to commit to the project outright, for one reason or another Spielberg eventually bowed out from the film, leaving the actor with the option to shop the story around elsewhere.

DeNiro took it to Scorsese who showed little interest, in as much for the fact that he did not want to do a remake of anything at this point in his career as he felt the central narrative by Strick was too grandiose and void of the intimate familial connections he wanted to explore. Scorsese did however connect the similarities between the traits of this story's central antagonist Max Cady to those of Travis Bickle (whom DeNiro had played for Scorsese in Taxi Driver).

Eventually, Strick was brought on board and on set by Scorsese to reshape the story, emphasizing the familial discourse as well as the generational disconnect within the Bowden clan. Scorsese also asked Strick to remove the larger set pieces from the screenplay that he felt were too theatrical and not particularly compelling from a narrative point of view. Strick obliged. The results speak for themselves.

Plot wise, our story opens with the prison release of Max Cady (Robert DeNiro), an embittered parolee who has spent the last fourteen years behind bars for the rape of a minor. Cady’s first bit of business is to reintroduce himself to his former attorney, Sam Bowden (Nick Nolte). It seems that while in prison Cady taught himself to interpret the law and, while perusing his own court records discovered that Sam had suppressed a crucial piece of evidence that might have set him free at the time of his trial.

Driven to revenge, Cady slowly begins to unsettle the Bowden household. Wife Leigh (Jessica Lange) is already rife with suspicions and cynicism beyond her years, thanks to an extramarital affair Sam had with one of his former law clerks. Daughter Danielle (Juliette Lewis) is a typical angst ridden teen who believes that her parents’ constant bickering perfectly illustrates just how hypocritical and out of touch they are.

Max contacts Leigh first, returning a dog collar and leash after the family dog has mysteriously died. He further stakes out the Bowden home on the fourth of July and thereafter ingratiates himself to Sam’s latest flirtation; Lori Davis (Illeana Douglas) whom he brutally rapes as a precursor of the violence yet to befall the Bowdens. The infamous sequence in which Cady brutalizes Lori by taking a considerable bite out of her cheek was improvised at the last minute using raw chicken as a more edible substitute for human flesh.

Max gains Danielle’s confidence by pretending to be her drama teacher and, in a nail-biting moment, performs a bizarre seduction of Danielle that includes some very naughty thumb-sucking. Sam contacts Lieutenant Elgart (Robert Mitchum - Max Cady in the original film) but is informed that, apart from a mild warning there is nothing law enforcement can do to repel Cady’s seemingly harmless advances.

Sam’s next recourse is to contact private investigator Claude Kersek (Joe Don Baker) whose first attempt at hiring a trio of thugs to severely brutalize Cady in a back alley backfires when Cady actually avenges his own wrath on the men. Kersek then decides to stake out a trap for Cady at the Bowden home, but this too ends in a night of bloody carnage instead. The terrified family retreat to their houseboat moored at Florida's Cape Fear, only to discover that Cady has managed to climb aboard first and is awaiting their arrival. Thus begins one traumatic night of terror where mere survival is the best that anyone can hope for.

Discrepancies between the original and the remake are many and worth noting. In the original story, Sam (Gregory Peck) is a loyal family man who witnessed Cady’s crime of rape and testified against him at trial. The Bowden’s teenage daughter (Nancy in the original) was terrorized by Cady in the earlier film from the start, as opposed to allowing herself to explore her own sexualized thoughts. In the original the rape victim (Diane) was a transient barfly unbeknownst to the family. In introducing Lori Davis to the remake as Sam’s burgeoning romantic dalliance, Scorsese crystallizes the immediacy of Cady’s purpose – his revenge against Sam and his family draws a parallel between Sam's mild illicit romantic appetite and Cady's more ravenous own.

The remake is also blessed by stellar actors and a well deserved bit of deja vu. Although no one but DeNiro was ever considered for Max Cady, the part of protagonist Sam Bowden went through several revisions before Nick Nolte signed on. Nolte infuses Sam with a sustained sense of flawed humanity, stripping away the cordial mask of his professionalism one layer at a time.

DeNiro is superb as the unrelenting and obsessive Pentecostal psychopath determined to teach Sam the true meaning of ‘loss.’ Jessica Lange delivers a searing performance as the dutiful wife once scorned and never again as trusting of her man or marriage vows. Cast in cameos, Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck (as Bible spouting attorney, Lee Heller) provide a direct link to the original movie.

Henry Bumstead’s production design and impressive matte work by David S. Williams and Bill Taylor, coupled with Freddie Francis’ sumptuous cinematography produce a claustrophobic environment of ever constricting desperation. Cape Fear is a disturbing spiral into the warped mind of a confirmed madman. But the film owes little of its enduring popularity with audiences to the original movie classic.

At the time of its release Scorsese was blessed by the fact that few remembered the 1962 film. The inside joke of having Mitchum play the noble lawman in the remake while Gregory Peck (1962's Sam) worms his way through the cameo of the oily lawyer stands the conventions of the original movie on end. DeNiro's Max Cady is a perverse sadist. Mitchum's was merely a depraved reprobate.

Peck's Sam was a variation on the actor's own persona - typecast as the perennial everyman with noble intentions. But Nolte's Sam is a tragically flawed philanderer. There's more of Max Cady in him than he's willing to admit to himself. And in narrowing the margin of error and blurring the line between the virtuous and the depraved, Scorsese and Strick deliver a much more chilling comparison between these two men.

Universal Home Video’s Blu-ray is hardly the eye popping 1080p transfer I expected. In fact, colours are remarkably subdued when directly compared with Universal's 2-disc Collector’s Edition DVD release from some years ago. Flesh tones are the big improvement on the Blu-ray. On the DVD they appeared slightly pasty and overly pink. On the Blu-ray skin tones are varied and infinitely truer to life.

Contrast levels are nicely realized. Blacks are deep and solid. But whites look a tad muddy to my eye, adopting either an ever so slight pinkish or bluish tint that is not present on the 2 disc DVD incarnation. Age related artefacts are the other big improvement on the Blu-ray. The DVD had minor edge enhancement and film grain that is slightly digital in appearance. The Blu-ray's grain looks very filmic and edge enhancement is virtually a non-issue.

Where the Blu-ray absolutely excels is in its Tru-HD DTS audio that blows the anaemic Dolby 5.1 on the DVD right out of the water. Bernard Hermann's repurposed score is the real benefactor here.

Extras are all direct imports from Universal's 2 disc DVD set and include a running audio commentary with Scorsese at his frenetic best, embracing all aspects of the film’s production; several extensive and extremely informative documentaries on the making of the film that contain choice vintage and newer interviews with cast and crew; a stills gallery and theatrical trailer. Recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

3.5

THE BAD SEED: Blu-ray (WB 1956) Warner Home Video

Even today the name, Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormick) conjures up rather sickening and vial chills. It’s no wonder; there is something genuinely unsettling about The Bad Seed(1956). On the surface Rhoda is a precocious eight year old blonde moppet; considerably charming and alarmingly mature in her lady-like grace. She is the apple of her parents' Christine (Nancy Kelly) and Col. Kenneth Penmark's (William Hopper) eye and an adoringly sweet child to landlady Monica Breedlove (Evelyn Varden).

Yet, under this thin veneer lurks pure poison – a sadist capable of inflicting pain, suffering and even death on anything or anyone who gets in her way without so much as an ounce of remorse. How far will this gargoyle in pigtails go? Well, she murders Claude Daigle, the boy who beats her at a school spelling bee, just to steal his medal, then sets fire to Leroy Jessup (Henry Jones), the caretaker who's figured out her wicked ways.

Rhoda's pantomime of innocence doesn't fool everyone. Her school's head mistress Claudia Fern (Joan Croyden) attempts to tell Christine her suspicions, as does the late Claude Daigle's distraught and alcoholic mother, Hortense (Eileen Heckart). But by the time Christine has figured out Rhoda's rouse for herself it's almost too late. She has become the next intended victim of Rhoda's diabolical quest to be the center of attention.

Patti McCormick’s performance is bizarre and inspiring. She is able to generate mixed feelings of guilt, compassion and reviled disgust. Nancy Kelly is almost as good as Rhoda’s conflicted mother – unable to choose between disciplining her offspring, turning a blind eye or coming to the realization that Rhoda is evil personified. Eileen Heckart's grieving mother is superb. One can feel her self-destructive agony oozing from every pore.

Under Mervin LeRoy’s direction, the story nimbly unleashes its reign of terror, ultimately leaving the audience with many nightmares to come. The film is based on William March's novel and more directly on Maxwell Anderson's brilliant stage adaptation. John Lee Mahin's screenplay ably adapts this source material, ever so carefully opening up the stage bound contents without losing any of its shock value.

Warner Home Video’s Blu-ray is a mixed bag. The DVD was full frame but its gray scale had an impeccable register of tonal values and, on the DVD the image seemed very clean with deep blacks and excellent contrast levels. The Blu-ray has been reframed to a 1:85:1 aspect ratio as the film was presented theatrically. But the Blu-ray image looks oddly cramped when directly compared with the DVD presentation.

For example, in the 'reframed' Blu-ray image we don't see the table that Miss Fern is setting her party favours on at the park shortly before Claude Daigle's death. This may seem a moot point, but on the Blu-ray we're not quite sure what Miss Fern is doing while Christine questions her about Rhoda, while on the DVD her actions - and pregnant pauses - are quite obvious. I also have to say that regardless of what aspect ratio I chose on my HD-TV I was unable to properly frame the opening credits in the Blu-ray's ratio. The Warner shield is slightly cut off at the top while the word 'with' in the credits that is followed by a list of supporting cast members is almost entirely cut off.

But also, the Blu-ray image seems somewhat 'blown up' with an exaggerated amount of film grain that borders on digitalized grit in some scenes that was not visible on the full frame DVD presentation. Contrast levels seem brighter than they ought to be. The DVD's tonality was very natural but the Blu-ray's mid-register in the gray scale seems artificially boosted with a notable loss of fine detail. Not having ever seen this film theatrically I cannot in good faith say which presentation on home video is most like the theatrical engagement. But I can offer a personal opinion. I still prefer the image quality of my full frame DVD to the Blu-ray without question.

On both DVD and Blu-ray the audio is mono and adequate for this presentation. Extras are imports from the DVD and include a featurette (billed as a documentary) in which all grown up Patty McCormick rambles on about the making of the film. Truthfully, McCormick’s reminiscences boil down to a “look at me, wasn’t I wonderful?” diatribe with inserts from the film as filler. There’s also an audio commentary with McCormick and Charles Busch that’s somewhat entertaining but equally self congratulatory. Not recommended if you already own the DVD.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

3

EXTRAS

2

THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS: Blu-ray (Orion 1991) MGM/Fox Home Video

It is impossible to set aside one’s own appetite for liver and Fava beans without remembering the good Dr. Lecter (Anthony Hopkins) and his affinity for whatever else might be on the menu. Jonathan Demme’s sadistic The Silence of the Lambs (1991) – itself, a loosely structured sequel to Michael Mann’s Man Hunter (1986, based on the novel by Thomas Harris) about the cannibal psychiatrist who aids fledgling FBI agent, Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) in her pursuit of copycat killer James 'Buffalo Bill' Gumb (Ted Levine), is at once upsetting, yet strangely compelling; like a car crash one is privy to but not a part of.

The story is seen almost entirely from Clarice’s point of view; her unrelenting drive to become a criminologist in the FBI’s patriarchal infrastructure; her fearless yet angst ridden desire to be rid of childhood trauma; and her hopelessly flawed relationship with the two men in her life; Hannibal Lecter – who is grotesquely fascinated with his young charge, and Clarice’s boss, Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) who harbours a suggestively suppressed sexual fascination.

The tale begins with Crawford sending Clarice – still an FBI trainee - to the maximum security asylum to interview Hannibal. Crawford needs insight into the mind of another serial killer whose recent string of copycat murders has resulted in the disappearance of a Senator’s daughter, Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith).

The asylum supervisor, Dr. Frederick Chilton (Anthony Heald) is himself a sadist who delights in the sublime torture of his motley freak show. He flirts with Clarice before allowing her into the bowels of the institution where she does indeed come face to face with evil personified.

However, Hannibal is not about to publicly share his secrets – that is, not without a little glimpse into Clarice’s own psyche. Instructed by Crawford not to partake in any of Hannibal’s head games, Clarice instead decides to gamble her own past in order to preserve Catherine’s future. Eventually, the FBI learns enough to make an arrest – only they’ve miscalculated the clues and shown up at the wrong house. Hannibal leverages his ‘intelligence’ and is granted a provisional move to a lower security venue where he inevitably escapes.

For the next two hours, we are riveted to our seats, our eyes forced wide open on the twisted machinations of two sadistic brutes that oddly enough, we come to like. In the end, goodness prevails – at least on the surface. But it is the film’s haunting resonance after exiting the theatre that lingers. Most of us were undoubtedly looking over our shoulders as we made our way to the parking lot after that first viewing. Afterward, fava beans and Chianti just never seemed to go together.

Evidently Academy voters disagreed. Silence of the Lambs went on to win Oscars in all of the major categories including Best Actor (Hopkins), Actress (Foster), Director (Demme) and Best Picture - a coup not seen in Hollywood since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934).

The Silence of the Lambs on Blu-ray is a revelation. The various DVD incarnations all suffered from less than stellar transfers marred by excessive grain and middling colour fidelity. These oversights have been corrected on the Blu-ray, as have issues of edge enhancement and pixelization for an image that is smooth, yet robust in revealing all its fine details.

The audio is a 5.1 DTS re-mastering effort that is practically identical to the DVD release. Extras are all imported from MGM's Collector's series DVD and include a documentary, several featurettes, stills - plus an extensive array of immersive featurettes that delve more completely into the film’s cast, crew, editing style and the psychology of a serial killer. In a genuinely morbid twist – you also get 5 cooking recipes that Hannibal would definitely approve of – this reviewer shudders to think of the protein content.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

4

PSYCHO: Blu-ray (Paramount 1960) Universal Home Video

By 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was an international celebrity – instantly recognizable around the world. Only part of this notoriety was due to his films. Hitchcock’s more palpable form of celebrity came from his weekly appearances, introducing segments of his own television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents on NBC. Budgetary restrictions and the fast pace of shooting television would come to serve as a template for Hitchcock’s most popular cinematic endeavour.

Often cited as the film that matured American cinema into its present state of sublime cynicism, Psycho (1960) is based on a novel by Robert Bloch rooted in the real life serial killings by a deranged New England farmer who quietly butchered his neighbours. In the book, Norman Bates is a rather pudgy middle aged recluse – easily identifiable as someone with a darker side. In transplanting the attributes of a serial killer into the seemingly normal and youthfully handsome Anthony Perkins, Hitchcock plays upon an erroneous - yet almost universal misperception; that evil is immediately and quite easily identifiable or, as Shakespeare more astutely observed, “he that smiles may smile and be a villain.”

Budgeted at a remarkably modest $800,000, Psycho went on to earn forty million in its initial release – a telling sign of the cost-cutting that would come to exemplify film making more and more throughout the 1960s. Joseph Stephano’s screenplay carries an immersive underlay of psychoanalysis, perhaps because the writer himself was also in therapy at the time the script was written.

The story begins with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh); a hot and bothered secretary whose lover, Sam Loomis’ (John Gavin) is unable to commit to marriage because he is struggling to pay for his ex-wife’s alimony. To expedite her way to the altar with Sam, Marion decides to steal fifty thousand dollars from her employer as a runaway down payment on that fantasy life she misperceives can be hers.

Unfortunately, en route from Phoenix to Fairfax the weather turns ugly, forcing Marion to take a night’s refuge at the Bates Motel from which she will never return. The motel’s proprietor, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is a congenial mama’s boy on the surface, but quickly develops a paralytic sexual frustration that manifests itself as murderous psychosis. After stabbing Marion to death inside one of the motel showers, Norman disposes of her body in a nearby swamp.

Enter private investigator, Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam). Assigned by Marion’s employer to track her down, Arbogast eventually traces Marion’s route to the Bates Motel and shortly thereafter suffers the same fate as our heroine. Forced to take matters into their own hands, Marion’s sister Lila (Vera Miles) and Sam journey to the motel and that now infamous old gothic house on the hill just beyond – actually a free standing set built on Universal’s back lot.

After Sam diverts Norman's attentions, Lila hurries up to the house to explore. Having earlier been told by Arbogast that Norman's mother is an invalid, Lila is determined to question Mrs. Bates as per her sister's whereabouts. But Norman becomes unsettled by Sam's probing questions. After temporarily knocking Sam unconscious in the motel's office, Norman hurries home to confront Lila who has hidden herself in the cellar, the last place she thinks anyone will look for her.

Unfortunately, the basement is home to the real truth behind Norman Bates; that his mother, who earlier figured prominently as a possible suspect in Marion’s disappearance, is actually a mummified corpse, dressed in her favourite shawl and wig, but rotted through nonetheless. Hitchcock frames Lila’s terrifying moment of realization in extreme close up, with mother’s back to the camera. He then slowly spins her chair around to reveal a shrivelled corpse, its cavernous and blank eye sockets staring to some unfixed point beyond the camera.

Lila's shrieks draw Norman to the cellar, dressed in his mother's drag and toting a butcher knife for the next slaughter. But Sam arrives in the nick of time to thwart Lila's murder and apprehend filmdom's most celebrated serial killer.

The final act of Hitchcock's most compelling psychological thriller is dedicated to a somewhat laborious explanation by Dr. Fred Richmond (Simon Oakland) about Norman's 'condition' - explained as an inability to reconcile his own previous act of murdering his mother and thereafter transforming half of his life into a schizophrenic counterpart that becomes jealous when Norman is sexually aroused by other women.

For its time, Psycho was a disturbing revelation. It exemplified the weakening of the Production Code of Censorship that would never have allowed such grotesqueness on the screen before then. The shower sequence that claims Marion's life remains one of the most effective and masterful bit of editing ever put on film. Involving ninety cuts, a partially nude stand in for Janet Leigh, and a melon being slashed to simulate the sound of steel cutting into flesh – the sequence unravels as an assault on the audience’s collective expectations of what murder is – providing quick horizontal and vertical edits that collectively reassemble in our minds as a brutal homicide that, in reality, is never entirely visualized on the screen.

When the film debuted it was readily denounced by the Catholic League of Decency as well as by a select few film critics who condemned it and Hitchcock as going too far. The backlash, coupled with Paramount’s clever marketing only served to further fuel the public’s rabid fascination to see it. In hindsight, Psycho proved to be Hitchcock’s most successful movie of all time.

Years of neglect, and ownership of the film slipping from Paramount to Universal did much to dampen the impact of Psycho on home video. Over the years, the film has looked dated, worn and remarkably un-film like. But now, there is a definite reason to rejoice. Psycho on Blu-Ray is at long last a fitting tribute to Hitchcock's masterful classic. The B&W image reveals so much new fine detail that there really is NO point in directly comparing this Blu-Ray to Universal's utterly unsatisfactory DVD from 2002. The gray scale now retains its middle grain and tonality - something lost on previous editions.

We can see imperfections in flesh, crisp detailing in fabrics and minute subtleties like the glint of sunlight off of the hood of Marion's car. Occasionally, digital noise and minute traces of edge enhancement crop up but nothing that will severely distract from your viewing enjoyment.

Psycho's audio has also been given a crisp revitalization and, in stereo, though film purists would probably not approve. For their consideration, the original mono track has also been included, but the stereo remaster reveals some startling cues in effects and scoring that, at least for this reviewer, only seems to add to the mystique and melodrama of this 50 year old classic.

Extras are all direct imports from Universal's DVD, including an audio commentary and featurettes on the making of the film, all given a modest sprucing up on this outing with less compression artefacts evident. Bottom line: Psycho is a no brainer repurchase. On Blu-Ray it is a must have.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

3

THE THING: Blu-ray (Universal 1982) Universal Home Video

A lot can happen in the frozen wilderness and John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) proves it. As a terrorizing remake of Winchester Films' 1951 classic, The Thing from Another World, Carpenter's remake is in a class by itself. Like the best of his horror films, The Thing retains its’ sense of ominous foreboding, parceling off schlock gore for maximum shock effect. The story concerns a group of well intentioned scientists conducting experiments in the Antarctic ice caps where they soon discover a strange anomaly buried within the ice. Could it be an alien craft?

Team leader R.J. McReady (Kurt Russell) doesn’t seem to think so…that is, until the company’s husky mascot turns rabid, then begins to exhibit the beginnings of being controlled by an another life force that is determined to break free from its’ bowels and systematically devour the rest of his team members.

McReady’s chief concern is how to identify who is human and who has been infected with the organism. Dr. Blair (Wilford Brimley) begins to perform a series of blood tests. Unfortunately, he becomes the prime suspect of further infestations. So, who can be trusted? Who will survive?

Carpenter’s skill for this sort of fright-fest is par excellence at creating and sustaining the claustrophobic atmosphere of the camp, gradually bringing its walls of confinement closer together until the narrative ultimately becomes a struggle for survival between McReady and ‘the thing.’

Universal’s Blu-ray of The Thing is a welcomed disappointment. Welcomed because we finally get a 1080p scan of this horror classic that delivers the goods where image quality is concerned. Colours are vibrant. Fine detail is fully realized. Grain looks like grain at long last. Contrast levels are superb and picture perfect.

But this disc is a disappointment because virtually NONE of the Special Collector’s Edition DVD special features have been imported over for this reissue. For shame!

The DTS audio remastering effort has yielded a robust sonic palette across all five channels. Recommended for transfer quality. But if you own Universal's Collector's Edition DVD from 2003 it isn't time to trade up just yet!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

0

MISERY: Blu-ray (Polygram 1987) MGM/Fox Home Video

Based on the celebrated novel by mystery/horror writer Stephen King, Rob Reiner’s Misery (1990) is a spellbinding psychological melodrama that unravels before our very eyes and takes us on a terrorizing journey into the mind of a mad woman. Known primarily then for his light touch with feel good movies like The Princess Bride (1987) and When Harry Met Sally (1989), Reiner’s departure into this wickedly dark tale re-established his career in Hollywood as a formidable director of varying skill and prowess.

At first, King balked at the idea of letting any film company produce a movie of what he considered his favourite and most closely guarded masterwork. But when Reiner sat down to outline his concepts to King for the film as he perceived the story, the director found a kindred spirit in the author and a deal was struck to bring the project to life at Columbia Studios.

Plot wise: famed author Paul Sheldon (James Caan) has just finished the last novel in his famous ‘Misery Chastaine’ historical romance series. Hold up in a rustic country lodge with a bottle of champagne and his favourite brand of cigarettes, Paul prepares for the journey back to New York and his publisher, Marcia Sindell (Lauren Bacall). His trip could not have been more ill timed. A freak blizzard forces Paul’s car off the road. He overturns and is almost buried alive in a snow drift.

But salvation of a kind materializes in the form of hefty house frau, Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), Sheldon’s self professed ‘biggest fan.’ Annie drags Paul’s unconscious body from the wreck to her isolated shack in the woods. There, she resets his broken legs and attempts to nurse him back to health…that is, until Annie reads Paul’s manuscript and discovers that he has killed off her all time favourite heroine.

Tossed into a maelstrom of all consuming mental chaos, Annie forces Paul to burn his manuscript before embarking on a complete rewrite that will resurrect Misery Chastaine from the fiery ashes. But as Paul begins to re-conceptualize his words he becomes more acutely aware that Annie will never let him leave her house alive.

The now famous ‘hobbling’ scene, in which Annie breaks both of Paul’s feet with a sledgehammer, caused more than a few hysterical winces in theatres. Today, it remains one of the most grotesque and unsettling moments in the film. Yet, what is most compelling is Bates’ sustained performance of complete and utter craziness; her slow descend into Annie’s insanity made chillingly real and observantly nuanced. As the audience, we increasingly fear for Paul’s life while oddly enough sympathizing with Annie’s inexplicable derangement that has made her mind a prisoner of celebrity culture. In the end, Misery is a film of variedly haunting textures – if only because Bates makes them all seem palpably plausible.

After having to contend with lacklustre, non-anamorphic transfers from Polygram Home Entertainment and early MGM DVD releases that did not fare much better MGM/Fox Home Entertainment has revisited Misery on Blu-ray with a stunning re-mastered Collector’s Edition.

The anamorphic widescreen image exhibits exemplary visual quality. Colors are fully saturated, bright and vibrant. Contrast levels are bang on with deep blacks and very pristine whites. Age related artefacts have been eradicated, as have earlier edge enhancement and pixelization issues for a visual presentation that is smooth and easy on the eyes. Fine details have been fully realized even during the darkest scenes. The audio is remastered in 5.1 Dolby Digital and quite aggressive during the opening blizzard scenes and final showdown between Paul and Annie.

A litany of extras are all direct imports from the MGM DVD issued some years back and include: five featurettes detailing (1) the film’s production, (2) the psychology of Annie’s character (3) the law and celebrity stalking, (4) the psychology behind celebrity stalking, and (5) the development of the screenplay – plus stills, audio commentary and the film’s original theatrical trailer. Highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

4

EXTRAS

3.5

POLTERGEIST: Blu-ray (MGM 1982) Warner Home Video

Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist (1982) continues to rank among a handful of truly scary horror movies. That the film’s narrative mixes both the light and the fantastic is perhaps no great surprise given that Steven Spielberg was its’ executive producer and co-writer. Yet, it is Hooper’s involvement on the project, coming as it did a scant eight years after his foray into tasteless gore with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) that helps to keep Spielberg’s usually light touch with SFX whimsy well-grounded in a dark realm of truly palpable chills.

Behind the scenes, the shoot was as arduous and traumatic as anything seen on the screen. Production memos report that actor Oliver Robins was nearly strangled by his toy clown when the release apparatus suffered a malfunction and instead continued to tighten. While horror aficionados have ascribed a ‘damned’ quality to the making of the film – primarily because two of its youngest cast members, Heather O’Rourke and Dominique Dunne suffered gruesome deaths shortly after wrapping – the film itself emerged relatively unscathed from this macabre backstage intrigue, becoming an instant – and now enduring - blockbuster.

Craig T. Nelson and Jo Beth Williams are cast as married couple, Steve and Diane Freeling. He’s a successful architect. She’s a hip housewife with plenty of time to discover the growing mélange of oddities creeping into their new home nightly. At first it’s just a bunch of chairs regrouping themselves in the kitchen or some kinetic energy that causes objects to slide across the floor. However, before long, the Freeling’s youngest child, Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke) is hearing strange voices coming from the static off the T.V. As the supernatural signs become more ominous in tone, and eventually life-threatening, the Freelings contract a paranormal psychologist, Dr. Lesh (Beatrice Straight) and her psychic compatriot, Tangina (Zelda Rubenstein) to unravel the secrets of their spirit-possessed abode.

Unbeknownst to Steve, his most recent and successful housing development project has been built on lands of an ancient Indian burial ground. Rather than relocate the bodies, the developer, Mr. Teague (James Karen) has simply removed the headstones and bulldozed the corpses to make way for this new subdivision. Tragically, for all the living concerned, Teague’s frugality doesn’t necessarily mean that the dead will remain buried for very long.

The film is a potpourri for special effects, with matte paintings, full scale models and puppetry, claymation, pyrotechnics, mood lighting and good old fashioned sound effects providing most of the earthly bound scares. In fact, they were Oscar nominated and continue to hold up remarkably well under today’s digital scrutiny. It’s a pity Hooper and Spielberg did not collaborate on future projects in this same vein of genius, since Poltergeist is a fright-fest with much to admire.

Warner Home Video’s Blu-ray reissue exhibits a 1080p anamorphic image so sharp and smooth with solid colors, deep saturated blacks and a considerable amount of fine detail evident throughout that you'll practically feel the unearthly ghosts haunting your living room. All of the shortcomings of the DVD have been eradicated for a stunning new visual presentation that will surely not disappoint! The 5.1 audio mix is a tad dated but continues to hold its own and is considerably aggressive during action sequences.

Given that Hooper and Spielberg did not get on, there is no audio commentary or ‘making of’ featurette to mark the occasion of the film’s 25th anniversary. Instead, there is a scant featurette on real life hauntings and some junket materials, but curiously enough, no theatrical trailer. Bottom line: for transfer quality this Blu-ray comes highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

2

THE SHINING (Warner Bros. 1980) Warner Home Video

Billed as a masterpiece of modern horror, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) was an ill-received offering at the time of its general release that garnered much disdain from author Stephen King along the way. True, Kubrick’s vision of King’s writing departs in many ways from the author’s original intent. In fact, Kubrick practically re-conceives the novel from the ground up – keeping only the most superficial details and fleshing out the tale immensely with dark cinematic touches. But who could blame Kubrick for improving so maliciously upon an already brilliant psycho-drama when what emerged from his exculpatory address was ever nearer to cinematic perfection?

The screenplay by Diane Johnson and Kubrick begins in earnest with The Torrance family’s arrival to the palatial appointed retreat, The Overlook Hotel. Husband Jack (Jack Nicholson) has been hired on to manage daily custodial duties and maintain the property during the long winter months when the hotel is closed to the general public. He also hopes that the quiet solitude will afford him the opportunity to work on a novel.

Together with his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), Jack settles into his daily routine. The family’s only occasional visitor is Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), a jovial supervisor who initially senses a strange supernatural ability in Danny to channel psychic energies that can communicate with the dead. Soon however, Danny’s ‘abilities’ begin to cast a reign of terror on the entire household. He sees visions of slaughtered children, dead guests rising from their watery bathtub graves and envisions buckets of blood spilling forth from the gaping elevator doors.

Traumatized by Danny’s nightmares but unable to help, Wendy’s concerns shift to Jack after she begins to sense a growing psychosis in her husband. What she initially perceives as his ‘stir craziness’ eventually blossoms into unobstructed madness. What none of the family is aware of yet is that their scenario is nothing new to the history of the Overlook. Decades before, the hotel’s janitor ran amuck with his own wife and children, murdering them and then killing himself in a fit of uncontrollable rage.

Chronic rewrites and re-shooting throughout the schedule necessitated the removal of the film’s original ending in which Wendy is seen lying on a hospital bed while being told that Jack’s frozen body could not be located anywhere on the Overlook’s property.

At 146 minutes, The Shining is one of the longest horror movies ever made – but the public did not initially take to it as either director or studio hoped. Cut and re-cut, the version the public eventually saw made back its initial investment, though its reputation as a cinematic masterwork would take a few more years to take hold. Eventually, the film was re-cut for tighter continuity.

Yet today, Kubrick’s pacing is so quiet, unassuming and easily sustainable that it sneaks up with uncharacteristic dread before bursting forth into the more gory details. An interesting aside: although the Timberline Lodge was used as actual exteriors of the hotel, virtually all of the rest of the film was shot on imposing soundstages built at Elstree Studios in London England.

Kubrick went way over time and over budget on The Shining - nearly 14 months of shooting that strained the patience of his backers. But like most of Kubrick's masterworks, the suffrage was worth it in the final analysis. The Shining is a superior work of fright from start to finish. If you haven't seen it - you should. If you don't own it - you must.

Especially on Warner Home Video’s reissued Blu-ray that recreates the widescreen aspect ratio North American audiences originally saw during the film’s theatrical release. When Warner took to restore the film in 2001 they released a ‘full frame’ version on DVD that infuriated most who purchased the title, even though Kubrick insisted that his intension was to frame the action in a 1:33:1 aspect ratio. This is how The Shining was screened for British audiences and, in fact, the rest of the foreign market. In North America, however, the ratio was always 1:75:1.

And that's exactly how the film appears on Warner's stunning Blu-ray release. Colours are bold. Fine detail in this tru-1080p transfer will confound and astound. Truly, this is an exceptional, reference quality presentation with absolutely nothing to complain about.

The audio is a 5.1 DTS remix and quite aggressive. Extras include several documentaries on Kubrick and the making of the film and a thorough audio commentary that leaves no stone unturned. Highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5+

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

3.5

THE FOG (Embassy 1980) MGM/Fox Home Video

A good ol' fashioned ghost story with all the fixin's...that's John Carpenter’s The Fog (1980). Heavily criticized upon its initial release for not living up to the expectations of Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) in either shock or murderous chills, critics and audiences of the day were obviously missing the point – that Carpenter was selling the idea of a cinematic equivalent to sitting around the camp fire and relaying spooky tales.

On this outing, the tale involved the unsuspecting population of Antonio Bay; a sleepy southern California town. Built on the ruins of a leper colony whose ghost survivors are destined to avenge their fateful murder by seeping into ‘the fog’ – the film stars Adrienne Barbeau as K.P.P.D disc jockey Stevie Wayne. Wayne broadcasts her night time musical program from a remote lighthouse on Spivey Point.

While meandering along the windswept beach Stevie’s young son, Andy (Ty Mitchell) find an interesting relic – a piece of driftwood with the carved name of that fateful ship of lepers who met with their untimely end by smashing against the craggy shoreline, thanks in part to misdirection from the nearby community during a violent storm. Current pastor, Father Robert Malone (Hal Holbrook) is a direct descendant of the priest responsible for these murders.

After the crew of a lazy fishing troller is slaughtered off the coast, their bodies are brought in for autopsy. Meanwhile, hitchhiker Elizabeth Solley (Jamie Lee Curtis) finds herself being stalked by one of the dead crew after his body gets up from the operating table with scalpel in hand to do a bit of his own creative cutting.

Each night a different resident of Antonio Bay dies, consumed by the mysteries of 'the fog'. Eventually, both Elizabeth and Stevie realize that if they can survive the carnage and pass the anniversary of the shipwreck, they will escape being victims too. But that may not be as easy as it sounds.

After a disastrous preview, Carpenter went back to the drawing board, re-shot and reediting his footage with more obvious scares thrown in to satisfying the audience's blood-lust. The result, an often disturbing – generally unsettling and thoroughly engrossing minor masterpiece – quite successful at telling the tale without succumbing to the urge of blowing its’ fragile narrative all out of proportion.

MGM has reissued The Fog twice on DVD though oddly enough, not on Blu-ray. Although the packaging has changed the transfer quality and extra features are virtually identical. The anamorphic widescreen image exhibits a relatively smooth characteristic with dated '80s colors. Flesh tones are often nicely rendered though at times they appear a tad pasty. Contrast levels are excellent. Blacks are deep and solid. Whites are relatively clean though with a slight yellowish tint.

Occasionally age related artefacts appear but do not distract. The audio is a 5.1 Dolby Digital remastering effort. Carpenter’s unsettling score is the benefactor here. Dialogue continues to sound somewhat unnatural. Extras include a thorough retrospective on the film with interviews from Carpenter and cast members, an audio commentary and theatrical trailer. Recommended.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

3

JAWS: Anniversary Collector's Edition (Universal 1975) Universal Home Video

A really big rubber fish and some cleverly edited underwater footage of actual great whites shot off the coast of Australia proved effective fodder for the fertile imagination of director Steven Spielberg in Jaws (1975); Hollywood’s first certifiable blockbuster. Based on a novel by Peter Bencheley (much more graphically written than visually realized) the film departs considerably from the book – a bone of contention that had the author fuming and eventually quietly banned from the set.

Realizing that what is unseen is far more unsettling to the imagination – and more to the point, because Spielberg was encountering numerous setbacks with his mechanical shark, the director zeroed in on telling the story from Chief Martin Brody’s (Roy Scheider) perspective instead. Brody is the sheriff of the coastal New England hamlet of Amity and concerned by the unexplained disappearances of several members from his quiet community. Did they drown? All evidence to the contrary when the leftovers of Chrissie Williams (Susan Backlinie) a skinny dipper, turn up half buried and half eaten in a sand dune.

Of course, Brody's worst fears are realized when another resident Alex Kintner (Jeffrey Voorhees) is swallowed by a great white as a beach packed with tourists looks on. Enter Quint (Robert Shaw), a slightly unhinged fisherman who vows revenge against the man eater, and, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), an oceanic expert who, like Brody encounters resistance from Amity’s Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) about shutting the beach down during the pending summer tourist season.

Eventually Quint, Hooper and Brody take matters into their own hands, venturing far out to sea in the Orca to hunt down the great white nemesis. Given that the film is a veritable patchwork of failed first attempts and slipshod second tries at getting that darn mechanical fin and flippers to take a bite out of anything, there was little in Spielberg’s mind at the time to suggest that what he had photographed was about to become a cultural phenomenon.

But the proof was in the box office - more than $100 million in receipts in the U.S. alone, making Jaws a certifiable hit. Viewed today, Spielberg's prowess in not showing us the shark except in brief glimpses works well with the time honoured convention in horror of keeping 'the killer' a secret from the audience. In place of gaping sharp toothed carnage and half eaten bodies flailing about, we get John Williams' magnetic and chilling score that primes the audience with anticipation long before a single drop of fish bait hits the water.

Carlo Gottlieb co-wrote the film with Bencheley. The action is taut. Character development engaging. Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss elevate the buddy/buddy chemistry during the last third of the film, filling in the gaps between shark attacks aboard the Orca with memorable badinage. In the final analysis, Jaws is a winner because so much of what we expect to see is imagined rather that shown to us. The mind trick works - swimmingly, leading to bouts of nail-biting and spine tingling terror.

Universal’s 2 disc special edition exhibits the same DVD transfer as their single disc. Why isn't this film on Blu-ray yet?!? Color fidelity on the DVD is refined, though slightly dated. Contrast levels are nicely balanced. A hint of digital grit and some minor edge enhancement and pixelization is detected, as well as background noise, though not distracting. The audio is 5.1 Dolby Digital. John William’s heart pumping score is the benefactor.

Extras on the 2 disc edition include the full documentary on the making of the film. Universal's single DVD presented a truncated version of this same documentary. An audio commentary and the film’s theatrical trailer are also featured. Recommended...and just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

3

THE FUNHOUSE (Cannon Films 1981) Universal Home Video

Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse (1981) is one of those wacky, slightly tactless slasher offerings from the early 1980s that inherited its mantel of blood and guts from John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978). The film’s treatment of human sexuality is as perverse as its take on disfigurement and death – a telling critique on where all three commodities divvyed up on the gross-out scale for schlock and nonsense post Carpenter's classy classic.

The film stars Elizabeth Berridge (of Amadeus fame) as sweet girl with an attitude, Amy Harper. Amy and her motley group of teen toughies; bo-hunk boyfriend, Buzz Klemmet (Cooper Huckabee), girl of easy virtue, Liz Duncan (Largo Woodruff) and bookish, wannabe tough guy, Ritchie Atterbury (Mile Chaplin) are your typically oversexed morally bankrupt adolescences. Living in a small dead end town, they get their kicks by getting high and into trouble.

So when a circus/sideshow comes to town it seems like the perfect backdrop to let all inhibitions loose without a thought or care for tomorrow. Unfortunately for Amy and her friends this carni’ is home to a hideous and horny little monster (Wayne Doba) - - a cross between a midget, an ape and the killer’s mask from Terror Train (1980). Believing that it would be cool to spend a night in the funhouse after everyone else goes home, Amy and her friends accidentally stumble across Madame Zena (Sylvia Miles), an elderly fortune teller who gets raped and murdered by the crazed monster. Amy and her friends retreat in fear into the funhouse where, naturally, the monster sets to work picking them off like flies, one by one.

Clearly inspired by visions of Tod Browning’s illustrious scare-fest, Freaks (1932), director Tobe Hooper tries to recapture some of the taut tension of Browning’s classic, but ultimately succumbs to the urge to create slaughter and gore instead. This, he effectively does but the results are less classic fright than passing for sick little delights. The final experience is adequate summarized in the film’s tag line; pay to get in, pray to get out.

Universal Home Video’s anamorphic DVD looks rather good. Colors are fully saturated - - if dated - - with mostly accurate flesh tones, deep - - mostly solid - - blacks, and considerable fine details emerging, good contrast and shadow levels. Film grain is kept to a minimum and age related artefacts are generally absent. The audio is 2.0 stereo. Dialogue is frontal sounding with directionalized effects but this is as intended. The only extra is the film’s theatrical trailer.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

0

HALOWEEN: Blu-ray (Compass International 1978) Starz/Anchor Bay Home Entertainment

Fledgling producer/director John Carpenter never had any notion, even after the premiere of Halloween (1978) that what he had created was a pop culture blueprint for all slasher flicks to follow. To be sure, the formula by now seems quaint at best and hopelessly dated at worst. However, in its’ day, Halloween was an exceptional fright fest about psychopathic killer, Michael Myers (Nick Castle), his bloodlust for Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her band of wanton sexual revellers.

John Carpenter's initial zest for the project was fuelled primarily by his need for creative control - a request eagerly granted by producer Irwin Yablans who convinced producer Moustapha Akkad to put up the film's $300,000 budget.

From the outset, Carpenter assumed a daunting task - to shoot, edit and score a film in under four months, working primarily with a cast and crew who had never made a movie before. To improve his prospects, Carpenter secured veteran screen actor, Donald Pleasance for the pivotal role of Dr. Sam Loomis (Carpenter's homage to Janet Leigh's lover in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho 1960).

Originally the role was offered to Peter Cushing, then Christopher Lee. Both actors rejected the part as too small. In truth Pleasance accepted his role with reservations that were only partially quelled by Carpenter and Hill during the shoot. After Halloween's assemblage of raw footage was screened Pleasance recognized what a fine job Carpenter had done. As for the film, it steadily grew in prestige and box office revenue to earn more than $70 million on its initial theatrical release.

Although no one could have guessed at the time, the other feather in Carpenter's cap was in casting Janet Leigh's daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis as his fearful, sexually repressed heroine, Laurie Strode. With Halloween, Curtis, who had never made a movie before, was instantly catapulted into the hallowed echelons as a certified movie scream queen. Despite countless imitators since, changing audience tastes and a truly abysmal remake by Rob Zombie, the original Halloween can still be appreciated for Carpenter's impeccable pacing - excruciatingly methodical - as well as his chilling film score, the latter written on the fly in less than a month.

The screenplay by Carpenter and co-collaborator, Debra Hill opens in the small hamlet of Haddonfield, Illinois (an homage to Hill's own small town heritage. Actual locations were shot mostly in and around Hollywood). On Halloween night, Michael Myers (Will Sandin), a child with an unhealthy Freudian sexual appetite, murders his half naked babysitter in her upstairs bedroom. Discovered by his parents with the bloody knife still clutched in his hand, Michael is locked away in a minimum security mental facility where psychiatrist, Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) struggles to reach him. Realizing that Michael is evil personified, Loomis secures the facility's complicity to move him to maximum security.

Unfortunately, on the rainy eve of that transfer, Michael (now played by Nick Castle in a modified Capt. Kirk Halloween mask and briefly glimpsed as Tony Moran without his mask) escapes using Loomis' car. Arriving in Haddonfield, Loomis attempts to warn Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) of the impending slaughter, declaring “Death has come to your town, sheriff.” No one takes Loomis seriously, however, and Michael becomes fixated on shy introvert, Laurie Strode (Curtis) and her oversexed friends; Annie Bracket (Nancy Kyes) and Lynda Van der Klok (P.J Soles).

Laurie is the first to see Michael, eerily lurking behind bushes and looming in between clothes lines. Yet, she manages to shrug off her fears long enough to start for the Doyle's house. Seems Annie and Laurie will be babysitting across the street from one another. Meanwhile, Lynda and her boyfriend, Bob Simms (John Michael Graham) just want to some fun and are hoping Annie will let them have the run of the upstairs. After Annie convinces Laurie to watch over her young charge, Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards), she becomes the first of Michael's victims en route to pick up her boyfriend, Bob.

Wisely recognizing that what can only be seen in half shadow is infinitely more terrifying than what is presented in full light, Carpenter’s low budget slasher comes across today as more high brow, slick and stylish than it actually is, and, although only the latter third of the film really concentrates on Michael's methodical stalking of his victims; as an audience, we get the sense that his demonic presence is everywhere from the film's onset. None of the subsequent sequels in the Halloween franchise have been quite so viscerally unsettling. Trick or treat anyone?

Starz Entertainment/Anchor Bay have made Halloween available in countless repackaged and outstanding DVD incarnations over the last decade, but all of them pale to the absolutely gorgeous transfer rediscovered on Blu-Ray. Colors are infinitely more robust and eye popping on the Blu-Ray. Fine detail that was only hinted at on standard DVD is meticulously realized herein. The image is razor sharp with perfectly realized contrast levels. Black levels are deep, even during the darkest sequences there is more minute information present than ever before. This, truly is the way Halloween was meant to be seen.

The audio is Tru-HD remixed to stereo and remarkably aggressive for a film soundtrack originally releases as Mono. Extras include the comprehensive documentary, Halloween - A Cut Above The Rest and audio excerpts from Carpenter, Hill, Curtis and Soles waxing about their involvements. The one regret herein is that the powers that be did not see fit to also release the TV version of Halloween made previously available on a limited edition DVD (featuring several scenes Carpenter was forced to insert by NBC for continuity during its television broadcast). Otherwise, highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

5

VIDEO/AUDIO

4.5

EXTRAS

3