DEATH BECOMES HER: 4K UHD Blu-ray (Universal, 1992) Shout! Factory

I have always wondered about Robert Zemeckis’ Death Becomes Her (1992), the ground-breaking/effects-laden Grand Guignol - ostensibly, another masterpiece from Zemeckis - this one about sex, betrayal, lust, jealousy, death, immortality and murder…well, sort of, though decidedly not in that order - since the movie I saw in 1992 bore no earthly resemblance to the one being peddled in the trailer used to promote it. Granted, trailers are made months in advance of any theatrical release and often contain outtakes never used in the final cut. But the trailer for Death Becomes Her incorporates snippets of whole subplots and glib social commentaries about fading youth and stardom, never to materialize on the movie screen. For decades thereafter, the lore surrounding the prevue cut grew to near mythic proportions, some attesting to the greatness of an unseen ‘classic’ pre-screened before revisions were made, while others, hinting to be in possession of the missing pieces even Universal Studios was unable to locate in their vaults, believe studio politics was brought to bear on a truly groundbreaking movie.

After a 2008 fire decimated a sizable portion of the studio’s back lot, rumors surfaced all of this excised footage was among its casualties. In hindsight - always 20/20 - the reality seems less opaque. Death Becomes Her was ill-received during its sneak peak.  Heavily edited by Zemeckis, it evolved into a more tightly paced, oft’ witty, if jovially macabre variation on the old ‘fountain of youth’ yarn, updated and relocated to – where else? – Hollywood, where such cravenly mad obsessions to stay eternally firm and fabulous seem more a syndrome than symptomatic of our natural fears about aging, thus creating a Mecca (some would say, a mockery) of the cottage industry of plastic surgery.

Two major narrative threads were ultimately lost in Zemekis’ revamp: first, the original ending, but even more egregious, Tracy Ullman’s entire performance as the empathetic bartender who befriends and eventually marries a befuddled and frantic Dr. Ernest Menville (the character played by Bruce Willis). She believes his story – that the socially affluent are populated by a cloistered sect of perennially ageless pseudo-zombies, given eternal life by the slinky - if slightly demonic sorceress, Lisle Von Rhuman (Isabella Rossellini). Zemeckis’ original intent was to create a parable exposing the destructiveness of our youth-absorbed culture. According this premise, Ernest’s first wife, screen queen, Madeline Ashton (Meryl Streep) and her fair-weather friend, Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) were to be inadvertently reunited with Ernest and Ullman’s second Mrs. Menville in Switzerland near the end of our story - two bitches left to contemplate eternal happiness in stark contrast to the happily aging marrieds while they, although as luminous as ever on the outside, had allowed personal jealousy to add a layer of moral/intellectual decay to their character from within.

Evidently, prevue audiences did not appreciate this highbrow subtlety. Zemeckis also believed he had somehow sidestepped the insidiously wormy venom permeating the first two-thirds of this never-to-die rivalry between girlfriends. Thus, a new vision for Death Becomes Her emerged, darker, more aberrant and apocalyptic, and, with more sequences scattered throughout the movie falling prey to the cutting room floor, including an elaborate prelude to the mummification yet to follow. Here, Ernest – driven half-crazy in his Dr. Frankenstein-ish pursuit to mask Madeline’s ravages of bodily decay, and having transgressed from one-time gifted plastic surgeon into the perverse custodial care of his decomposing wife and her ongoing ‘repairs’ – keeps Madeline in the kitchen freezer to delay her inevitable rot, occasionally taking her out of this deep freeze to test new theories, and growing increasingly desperate to keep her externally sound for decades, possibly even centuries. Hmmm….perhaps, eternal life is a death sentence after all.

Arguably, Zemeckis embraced these changes, though in the final analysis they altered both the premise and tone of his film. Aside: I had sincerely forgotten how ominously grotesque this comedy is, the Oscar-winning visual effects pioneered by Ken Ralston, Doug Chiang, Douglas Smythe and Tom Woodruff Jr., truly at the forefront of the CGI revolution that has since taken over and all but obscured Hollywood’s present storytelling age. Whatever the reasons for Zemeckis’ alterations, the results arguably proved worth the effort. Despite overwhelming negativity from all but a handful of critics, Death Becomes Her opened at #1 with a respectable gross of $12,110,355.00. It would go on to earn an even more impressive $149 million, along the way, rewriting the technical know-how in then state-of-the-art visual effects.  As with other films made by Zemeckis, the focus is not on the barrage of mind-bending/body-contorting SFX, but rather an intricately plotted story, co-written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp; high-powered by obviously relished performances from Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn.

Interestingly, Streep would famously decry the movie as a ‘tedious exercise’, presumably hampered in her acting by being forced to emote in front of a green screen rather than intimately relate to a real-life costar in many of her key scenes. Death Becomes Her was a transitional piece for Streep – revered then as a ‘serious’ actress. However, at the age of 42, she had fast become the victim of Hollywood’s insipid and unoriginal ambition to prematurely brand every actress over forty an ‘over the hill’ has-been. Film critic, Gene Siskel infamously suggested, Streep’s endeavors to “lighten her (screen) image” had severely “clouded her ability” to choose good scripts. I disagree. While no one could confuse Death Becomes Her as another Out of Africa (1985), despite the fleeting appearance of that latter movie’s director (the late Sidney Pollack) in a cameo as a very nervous doctor who suffers his own fatal heart attack after examining the ill-fated and already quite dead Madeline), Streep’s performance in Death Becomes Her ranks as superior camp.

And let us never mistake that at its core, Death Becomes Her is a comedy - a ghoulish and slightly repulsive one, but playing into the time-honored traditions of adult/supernatural silliness found in such iconic masterpieces as Hold That Ghost (1941) and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). The screenplay, while hardly perfect, is far more imaginatively structured than its initially vapid fashion-conscious parody about imploding Hollywood-types, nursing their fragile egos, pumped full of a rare vintage of richly rewarding/darkly conceived philosophies about life, the ethereal, and, the hereafter. Yes, we get the point about these two insidiously competitive gal/pals, too far gone in their cosmetic frontiers with collagen shots and chemical peels. Madeline and Helen would rather be reincarnated as a faux flowering of false youth – even after death – than sincerely face the reality they were born mortal. How cruel is Mother Nature with her promise of youth stolen away by the natural law, replaced with decades of slow, steady and very sad decline? 

The film asks us to reconsider both sides to its Rip Van Winkle-esque fantasy, laying out the pros and cons, and, not only from the perspective of our feuding female protagonists, already irreversibly afflicted by the gift…or is it, curse...of spending eternity in a limbo consciousness as two rapidly putrefying corpses.  Conversely, having chosen the uninterrupted path in life, Ernest Menville will learn how to maximize the potential of whatever years he has been afforded, unlike his ex and her best friend, who never even stop to consider the true meaning of Lisle’s declaration, ‘sempre viva’ before swallowing this ‘touch of magic in a world obsessed with science’ that will ultimately make them both miserable for all time without end. 

Death Becomes Her opens on a rainy eve in 1978. Madeline Ashton, a one-time shimmering star of screen and stage, already considered a has-been by her dwindling fan base, is staging a comeback on Broadway in ‘Songbird’, the musicalization of Tennessee Williams’ famed play, Sweet Bird of Youth. Most of the audience finds Madeline’s disco-tech cavorting with a male ensemble of ushers, utterly tasteless.  All except for Dr. Ernest Menville, seated in the audience next to his plain-Jane fiancée, Helen Sharp. After the performance, Helen reluctantly indulges Ernest’s desire to go backstage and congratulate Madeline. She is an incurable flirt, more so after discovering Ernest is a gifted plastic surgeon. Ernie’s just the sort of guy Mad’ could wrap around her little finger, just to get some free cosmetic work done. Ernest tries to assure Helen, who is desperately tugging at her handkerchief, he has absolutely zero interest in her fair-weather friend. But a jump cut later, Madeline and Ernest are wed, Helen suffering a complete nervous breakdown from this betrayal as she clutches her scarf so tightly her hands begin to bleed. Flash forward seven years. Helen has grown obscenely obese and barricaded herself in her apartment full of cats. Promptly hauled off to an asylum, she drives both her psychiatrist (Alaina Reed-Hall) and the other patients into fits of wild distraction with her chronic need to blame Madeline for her unhappiness. Jolted from her cyclical contemplation by the analyst’s suggestion she needs to eradicate Madeline from her mind, Helen instead takes the advice literally. Let the games begin!

Flash ahead again – another seven years. We learn married life has not been kind to Ernest and Madeline. She has been indulging her sexual desires with a series of meaningless affairs while henpecking her husband’s self-respect to tatters.  He has left the medical profession to become an undertaker to the stars.  Ernest begrudgingly tolerates Madeline’s whoring around. And the couple are united in their mutual desire to see what has become of Helen in the interim, having received an invitation to her book launch party. While Ernest is sincerely set to embrace the new Helen, Madeline is insidiously hoping she has aged more obviously. Thus, when both Madeline and Ernest catch a glimpse of a heavy-set creature in a trench coat from the back, each assumes this must be Helen. Only, this woman steps aside to reveal a svelte and remarkably youthful Helen instead, surrounded by a slew of sycophantic admirers. Time has stood still for Helen – or so it would seem. Actually, it has improved her looks. She is accomplished and sexy. Quite simply, Ernest cannot take his eyes off her for a moment.

Predictably, this drives Madeline to wild distraction. Her pursuit of a more rigorous regiment of pills, lotions and injections at her local spa to stave off the specter of Father Time is met with a rather cryptic referral to an imposing Gothic-styled Beverly Hills mansion presided over by the sultry and half-naked vamp, Lisle Von Rhuman. Who is this woman, flanked by a pair of Dobermans and as equally impressive set of muscle-bound male companions (John Enos III and Fabio)? Lisle introduces Madeline to a mysterious pink potion that harbors the secrets of eternal life. At first, Madeline does not believe her hostess. However, after being shown a brief demonstration of its potency, Madeline agrees to pay a shocking one million dollars in return for a small flask of this elixir she drinks before considering a warning: that in achieving eternal youth and vitality, Madeline has incurred an everlasting responsibility to be kind to her body. She must also agree to disappear from public view after a period of ten short years – either, by faking her own death or simply moving somewhere remote, to stave off suspicions about her perennial youthfulness. Madeline wholeheartedly agrees to these provisos. Almost immediately, she becomes a victim of her own vanity, eager to test her new body on some old lovers certain to find her even more desirable now.

Meanwhile, Helen has arrived at the mansion Ernest and Madeline share, seducing Ernest with visions of murdering his philandering wife so Helen and he can take up right where they left off so many years ago. As Helen has obviously taken better care of herself in these intervening decades, and Ernest is a plastic surgeon, superficially drawn to firm bodies, he entertains Helen’s ambitious plot. He will taint all the wine glasses with a strong narcotic, knocking Madeline out.  Carrying her lifeless body to the edge of a steep ravine, Ernest and Madeline will then stage a drunken incident. Alas, this plan goes awry when Madeline, returning home not long thereafter, is confronted by a disgruntled Ernest. He informs her, he knows all about her various trysts. She berates him yet again about his sexual inadequacies, a miscalculation that causes Ernest to fly into an unanticipated rage. His first attempt to strangle Madeline is delayed as he suddenly comes to his senses. However, when Madeline appears ready to fall downstairs, Ernest pushes her to expedite the fall, presumably to her death. Indeed, Madeline appears to have broken virtually every bone in her body on her epic tumble.

Ernest is, at first, elated, telephoning Helen with the good news, only to discover Madeline risen from the dead and angrier than ever. She is, however, in need of his help to reset her twisted limbs. Ernest takes Madeline to the local emergency. There, the attending doctor is both perplexed, then utterly horrified at the extent of Madeline’s injuries. Inexplicably, she feels no pain, yet gives every indication she is no longer among the living. Though she is still quite able to talk, her heart has stopped beating and her body is slowly returning to room temperature.  Unable to explain this phenomenon, the doctor suffers a fatal heart attack. Ernest hurries to rescue his wife from the morgue. Meanwhile, Helen has followed Ernest and Madeline home. She confronts Ernest. Madeline, now realizing her husband and friend were conspiring to murder her, instead exacts her revenge on Helen by shooting her in the gut with Ernest’s hunting rifle, the blast propelling Helen into the terrace lily pond where she momentarily lays lifeless in a watery pool of her own blood.

It does not take long for Helen to stir. Madeline realizes what has occurred. Helen drank Lisle’s potion too. Though murdered, she cannot die. Alas, both women come to the hellish realization, although unable to expire, they have destroyed their bodies beyond any form of natural repair. Ernest’s attempts to shore up the damage by applying layers of airbrushed flesh tone paint to their graying cadavers, is futile. The paint gradually peels, revealing the ravages beneath. The girls reconcile. However, when Ernest informs them, he has kept true to his promise to remain at their sides ‘until death did them part’, the girls plot to kidnap Ernest to Lisle’s and force him to drink the same potion in order to make him their eternal slave. Ernest resists Lisle’s invitation to partake of this secret elixir. Instead, he escapes Lisle’s Dobermans and security personnel, finding his way into a vast ballroom where assorted celebrities, including the likes of James Dean (Eric Clark), Elvis, Andy Warhol (Bob Swain), Jim Morrison (Dave Brock) and Marilyn Monroe (Stephanie Anderson) (apparently, all having escaped their fates under similar circumstances) are indulging in a reunion. Unable to make it beyond the bolted front doors, Ernest scales the rooftop. This ends badly when he loses his footing, becomes entangled on a dislocating eave, then plummets through the glass ceiling of Lisle’s atrium and into her pool. The splash breaks his fall and spares his life. Ernest escapes into the night.

Flash forward for the last time: 37 years into the future. Ernest Menville is no more. Having eluded Madeline and Helen all these years, he remarried, and lived a fruitful second life that enriched not only his own prospects but also those who knew and loved him best. The eulogy is interrupted by dissenting cackles from the cheap seats. Madeline and Helen, hidden beneath mourning attire, are revealed in all their grotesque bodily decay: skin creped, rotted and peeling (one can only imagine the stench). Exiting the church, the ‘girlfriends’ have clung to their bitter acrimony. Tripping on the discarded can of paint spackle on the steps of the chapel, Helen and Madeline take a severe tumble down to street level. In their advanced state of decomposition their bodies break apart from the strain, dismembered arms, legs, torsos and heads lying on the pavement, with Madeline’s upside-down visage idiotically inquiring as to where they have parked the car.

Death Becomes Her is wickedly appealing as a cautionary ‘be careful what you wish for’ parable. The cache in hiring three major stars and an award-winning director to helm it has resulted in a ghoulishly good time had by all. Deliciously, the film stands its ‘fountain of youth’ premise on end, the serum sealing the fate of two most unworthy of eternal life. Madeline and Helen have destroyed themselves with the competitive venom. Unabashedly, Zemeckis and his writers present us with even more contemplation. Ernest’s confrontational inquiry to Lisle – “then what?” followed by a laundry list of ‘things to consider’ before swallowing the potion is a revelation to awaken most in the audience who, thus far, have bought into the picture’s eternal youth scenario. What if he gets into an accident or is physically damaged in some other irreparable way? How does one live forevermore without, say, an eye, or a finger or a foot? And what about the loved ones who have not partaken in the nightmare? To watch the world known best to our generation grow old, wither and die while we remain perennially trapped in a time capsule of our own design.

This is not the promise of eternal happiness, rather an everlasting purgatory from which no amounts in ageless beauty can compensate. Topically, if not philosophically, Death Becomes Her challenges the audience to briefly reconsider living beyond the natural order. As written by Martin Donovan and David Koepp, Death Becomes Her may not be existentially deep. It is however, wildly entertaining with some truly cringe-worthy special effects cleverly timed, though always in service to the argument, life eternal is more of a death sentence than death itself. Despite the concessions that were made along the way, Death Becomes Her feels like a Robert Zemeckis movie, imbued with the director’s trademarked jauntiness and energy, his verve for acid-cool good humor counterbalanced by queasily uneasy moments. We are, after all, watching two dead bodies fighting to preserve the appearance of life. The superb audio-animatronic technological wizardry and tech-savvy dawning of computer-generated SFX still hold up remarkably well, perhaps because Zemeckis never allows them to take over and dictate the action.

Even the gaping hole in Helen’s abdomen gets a perverse hearty chuckle when, during a subsequent confrontation, Madeline thrusts a shovel handle like a javelin through it, missing her mark but achieving an astonished gasp from the audience as a weary Helen sits down with one end of the implement protruding like a stiff phallus through her middle.  Again, no one could confuse Death Becomes Her with high art. It is palpably pulpy and downright farcical to the point of absurdity. But its principles play to a grave conviction that is pretty hard to top; especially Isabella Rossellini’s frequently nude, though artfully photographed demigod who adds unexpected girth to her declarations “Sempre viva” and “screw the natural order!” with sadistic abandonment.  In the final analysis, Death Becomes Her is a healthily balanced SFX extravaganza with a compelling story to tell; far more than the sum of its monstrous head-twisting, gut-exposing, fantastical age-defying effects. It remains a satirical comedy elevated by such Hollywood trickery, instead of being slavishly devoted to it. Here is a movie that claims its unabashedly hostility, militant sexuality, and hideous sass as mantras to the contrary of its namesake. Death becomes no one. The movie, however, remains becoming in all sorts of endlessly renewable ways.

Were that we could champion Shout! Factory’s 4K UHD release. But no. Here again, Shout! is at the mercy of Universal. For whatever reason, Uni doesn’t think much about archiving its catalog in mint condition for future generations to study or just, plain enjoy. The cost-cutting from on high disregards all but a handful of deep catalog, endlessly regurgitated. Shout! has advertised this as a new 4K scan off an original camera negative. If so, the neg’ has issues. There is light, intermittent speckling throughout this release, and, one very glaring instant of a horizontal scratch. With today’s digital wizardry, these age-related artifacts could easily have been eradicated, given the proper amounts of time, care and money.

Moving on: Dolby Vision enhances the color palette over the standard Blu. Aside: how could it not? But the differences here are subtle at best and questionable. Dean Cundey’s magnificent cinematography was never intended to be razor-sharp. Soft focus and the occasional diffusion filter were used during principal photography.  The results herein have been lovingly preserved. But film grain is concerning. The titles, as example, suffer from a decided down-tick in overall image clarity and sharpness, perhaps owing to optical printing methods of the day. So, the spectacular ‘I See Me’ number that kicks off the program still looks pretty anemic, when it ought to have been a real dazzler in 4K. Grain levels here are amplified, affording the image an artificially ‘gritty’ texture. Once we enter the body of the piece, everything improves marginally. Grain retreats to more accurate levels. Contrast is tighter and black levels are ever-so slighted bested. But again, you really need to stare intently to appreciate these improvements.

The audio hasn’t been upgraded. Shout! has merely ported over its 5.1 DTS remix and a 2.0 DTS alternative from their former Blu-ray release. The 5.1 seems pretty pointless, as only Alan Silvestri’s score gets addressed in the surrounds, with the occasional clasp of ambient thunder also finding its way beyond the center channel, housing virtually all other aspects of this soundtrack. Also, a collector’s edition should contain more than 2 brief featurettes on the making of the movie – barely lasting 15 min.  Ostensibly, Robert Zemeckis has more to say than what’s on tap here. But no – there is no audio commentary track. Mums the word on Uni’s disastrous ‘sneak peek’ that necessitated cuts and wholesale changes to the final release.  No one’s talking about Tracy Ullman either. Factoring in Shout! does not do its own transfers, and has very little sway, encouraging Uni to cough up its archival edits, trims, cuts, etc., Death Becomes Her in 4K is more than passable. Alas, it’s hardly stellar. And honestly, isn’t that what ought to be expected from every 4K release? Perfection?!? Bottom line: Pass or stay…you decide.

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

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

1