Apprentice to Murder Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

Apprentice to Murder Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 5, 2019

To quote a venerable sage or at least a pop song writer, “Do you believe in magic?” Hallowe’en has passed for another year, and with it perhaps a more general awareness of “arcane” matters like witches, warlocks and other “magicians”. It might be kind of funny if some kid somewhere decided to dress up as a so-called “powwow” man or woman, for a couple of reasons: first of all, and probably most saliently, relatively few people have even heard of this little “branch” of American grown magic; and second of all, practitioners of this “art” don’t wear anything special, at least as evidenced by Apprentice to Murder, a film which posits powwow medicine or magic as one of its central plot points. In a rather appealing and broad ranging supplemental analysis of certain elements in Apprentice to Murder, not to mention a host (sacred or otherwise) of other films and media, Kat Ellinger talks about the perhaps odd but also seemingly inevitable collision of religion and aspects of gothic horror that include a wealth of extremely well remembered properties like Frankenstein (whose source novel famously included the sobriqet A Modern Prometheus), but also arguably lesser remembered outings like this very film. While the whole powwow aspect of Apprentice to Murder certainly gives this film an undeniably interesting foundation, unfortunately the film itself is a somewhat confusing mishmash of plotlines exacerbated by some odd editing choices and some other performance decisions that some may feel are less than helpful.

As commentator Bryan Reesman mentions in his discussion of the film, Apprentice to Murder was evidently based on a real life incident that took place in Pennsylvania in the late 1920s, and the film might have done better to stick to more of a verité ambience (something it fitfully attempts to do in its later machinations), rather than a kind of overheated, supernaturally infused approach that seems to willfully evoke religiously themed frightfests like The Exorcist, or in fact another spooky film that starred Donald Sutherland, Don't Look Now. Sutherland is on hand here as “Doctor” John Reese, a practitioner of powwow who the film seems to hint in about equal amounts either has real healing powers or is a charlatan (one of the things that arguably hobbles this film is its weird ping ponging between supposed ambiguity and more defined presentations that leave little if anything in doubt).

The film actually introduces its other focal character before it has Reese (literally) enter the picture, and that’s young factory worker Billy Kelly (Chad Lowe), a sweet kid who has a pretty dysfunctional home life where he’s regularly beaten by his drunkard father Tom (Eddie Jones) as his mother Elma (Rutanya Alda) looks on helplessly. Billy at least has attracted the attention of local girl Alice Spangler (Mia Sara), though he seems largely clueless that he has attracted her attention. When Reese shows up at the factory to calm a rabid dog with some powwow spells, Billy is intrigued and meets with Reese with the hope that Reese might have some concoction that can “cure” Billy’s father of his alcoholism.

That puts Billy both literally and figuratively under the “spell” of Reese, and the film documents their growing relationship. Parts of this story are quite intriguing, including Reese’s “white magic” potions that seemingly help some people. The film has some curious lapses of logic, though. Reese is seen as both a pariah but also a “BMOC” around the little Pennsylvania town where he lives, something the film never deals with in a very clear manner. In one scene, Alice is seen warning Billy about getting too involved with Reese, and yet in another scene she’s right there as a willing “congregant” in one of Reese’s Sunday morning “services”, along with a jam packed room of other townspeople, something that would seem to put the lie to the idea that Reese is supposed to be some kind of outcast. While a lot of the film references so-called "white magic", a late development seems to go straight for the "voodoo" route, in another kind of odd plot twist.

The film also weirdly offers brief vignettes which seem to suggest Reese is dealing with a real demonic force of some kind, something that plays into yet another subplot involving a supposedly cursed farmer, and yet on at least one occasion the film also seems to suggest that Reese is simply hallucinating or maybe just having a bad dream. By the time the film finally takes one last detour into an actual killing (very late in the running time, it should be added), there’s no clear idea of what exactly writers Wesley Moore and Allan Scott (who kind of incredibly was also a co-writer on Don't Look Now) were really trying to achieve, and I kind of only half jokingly wondered whether Moore and Scott submitted two different screenplays that some unknown redactor attempted to shoehorn together. Even the supposed "villain" of the piece (other than Reese, if you think he's the bad guy), while introduced early on, has no really clear connection to the story despite a valiant "Moishe the Explainer" exposition offered by Reese fairly late in the proceedings. It's all very odd and often quite confusing.

Lowe and Sara make for an appealing enough young couple, and at times Sutherland is quite effective as Reese. Unfortunately, Sutherland tips over pretty badly into “uncured ham” territory later in the film, and a couple of scenes with him over(re)acting may actually provoke outright laughter from some viewers, as perhaps will a couple of lo-fi "effects" sequences that see Sutherland just kind of dangling himself out of a window or, later, simply falling over in a corner when attacked by some unseen force. Apprentice to Murder has an interesting basic plot, and a good feeling for its time and place, but it could have used some judicious structuring and clearer intent.

Apprentice to Murder Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Apprentice to Murder is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.83:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the restoration:

Apprentice to Murder was exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 [sic] with mono sound.

The original 35mm interpositive was scanned in 2K resolution on a Lasergraphics Director at EFilm, Burbank. The film was graded and restored at Pinewood Studios Group, London. Picture grading was completed on a DaVinci Resolve and restoration was completed using PFClean software. The original audio mix was remastered by Lakeshore Entertainment.

This can be a fairly widely variant looking presentation, as I've tried to document in some of the screenshots accompanying this review. Some of the rougher looking moments feature noticeably more chunky grain which can occasionally splotch and look yellowish, but I would just generally say that in motion, things look considerably better than at least a couple of the screenshots might suggest. A lot of the film is kind of autumnal looking, and colors can be somewhat subdued. There are isolated moments when the palette suddenly warms appreciably, noticeably toward the end of the film starting with a sequence in a cemetery (detail levels also perk up appreciably starting with this sequence), but earlier moments can look slightly anemic. Grain structure and clarity are similarly skewed, with some moments offering a really nicely resolved grain field and a rather well saturated palette supporting good detail levels, while other moments are noticeably grittier, with less observable fine detail and sometimes a kind of muddy, mottled looking palette.

Apprentice to Murder Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Apprentice to Murder features an LPCM 2.0 mono track which capably supports the film's somewhat limited sound design. A rather nice, at times poignant, score by Charles Gross, one which often offers solo piano cues, sounds nicely full bodied throughout, with a really warm tone and no brashness in the higher keyboard frequencies. Dialogue is rendered cleanly throughout, and there are some realistic ambient environmental effects in some of the outdoor sequences.

Apprentice to Murder Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Bryan Reesman


• Original Sin (1080p; 15:29) offers Kat Ellinger's overview of trends in both gothic horror and religion in film.


• Colour Me Kelvin (1080p; 9:07) is an interview with cinematographer Kelvin Pike.


• Grantham to Bergen (1080p; 7:22) is an interview with makeup supervisor Robin Grantham.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:19) actually makes the film seem a lot more coherent than it turns out to be. Maybe whoever edited this should have been given control over the finished product.

Note: As usual, Arrow has also provided a nicely appointed insert booklet.

Apprentice to Murder Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There seem to be warring factions in Apprentice to Murder , aside and apart from the good old fashioned battle between good and evil. I'm not quite sure what the filmmakers ultimately had in mind, but what is here is an often jumbled mess that might have benefited from some serious reshaping or even rethinking. Sutherland is often completely over the top here, which may in fact recommend the film to some fans. Technical merits are generally solid, and as usual Arrow has assembled a really interesting array of supplements, for those considering a purchase.