Creature with the Atom Brain Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		0.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		1.5

Creature with the Atom Brain Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 22, 2023

Mill Creek has released the 1955 film 'Creature with the Atom Brain' to Blu-ray. The film was previous made available on Blu-ray by Arrow. That disc is vastly superior to this one. This Mill Creek version is currently only available in a four film, two-disc collection alongside 'It Came from Beneath the Sea' (with which this film shares a disc), '20 Million Miles to Earth,' and 'The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock').

Mill Creek's official synopsis: From legendary writer Curt Siodmak ('The Wolf Man,' 'Donovan’s Brain') and director Edward L. Cahn ('It! The Terror From Beyond Space') comes this smash-bang thriller starring Richard Denning ('Creatures From The Black Lagoon') as a police doctor hot on the trail of a mob boss who’s hired a scientist to re-animate his dead thugs to do his dirty work!

For a full film review, please click here to find Jeffrey Kauffman's take accompanying the Arrow disc.

Creature with the Atom Brain Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Right out of the gate the picture proves itself to be beyond awful. Look at the 1:11 mark. The parked car's lines are severely stair-stepped. Unfortunately, this characteristic holds for the duration. Just about every line is jagged. Whether clothing seams and collars, hat edges, or even grout in between wall tiles, almost no straight line is left unstraightened. Go back to that 1:11 timestamp. The tree leaves behind the car are nothing but digital clumps that almost look like something out of Minecraft. There is practically zero definition to anything in the film. Look at the 3:09 mark. A revolver is just a basic shape made of digital chunks rather than cold blue steel. Detail is extremely bad, with faces, clothes, and both manmade and natural environments offering nothing of tangible video value. Compression issues are legion. The image flickers, the screen sometimes wobbles, and the entire thing looks like a poor stream on YouTube. To add insult to injury, look at the 1:48 mark. There is a red flash on the screen accompanied by an audible scratchy pop/hiss. The grayscale is decent enough. There's not much depth to blacks or pop to whites, though, but there's enough tonal distinction to keep objects well enough defined.

Sad to say, this is one horrific Blu-ray, one of the worst that has ever been on the market. I have not seen the Arrow release, but even just looking at the screenshots in Jeffrey's review there is no doubt that it is the vastly superior presentation. Avoid this one at all costs.

Creature with the Atom Brain Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fortunately, the DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack fares well enough. There's a nice bit of depth to the opening music, and even without a dedicated subwoofer channel the track shows a fairly good range that captures deeper elements with satisfactory clarity and presence. Musical engagement is never too terribly awe-inspiring, but it finds a good, baseline clarity and front end stretch. A few more prominent effects, such as gunshots or sounds during a car chase, play with satisfying definition and distinction, at least within the parameters of a low-budget film that was made many decades ago. Dialogue is suitably clear and images nicely to the center area.

Creature with the Atom Brain Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This film shares a disc with It Came from Beneath the Sea. There are a couple of featurettes on the main menu screen but are not tied to either release in particular (they are reviewed here). There is an audio commentary specific to this film, however. It features Phoef Sutton and Mark Jordan Legan, who man the "Film Freaks Forever" podcast. They passionately talk up this B-movie with impressive depth of knowledge and passion for the material. The Arrow disc includes a much more substantial collection of extras, but this track does appear to be unique to this release. It's a good one, too, so despite the poor video quality die-hard fans of this film might want to sneak it into the collection, anyway.

Creature with the Atom Brain Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Speaking of the movie, there's a good bit to like here. One cannot help but think "when there are no more living mobsters, the dead ones will walk the earth." It's a fun little premise. Sure, the base elements are recycled from elsewhere, but they are weaved together in a fairly novel way. It's corny as corny can get, and the audience is asked to suspend disbelief about as far as it can be suspended, but this is a very agreeable little escape that genre fans of various stripes should enjoy. Speaking of the Blu-ray, however, there's some things to like, including the commentary track, which is very fun, and the audio, which is passably stable. However, the video quality is simply atrocious. There's no better descriptor for it. Nobody is expecting a five-star remaster, but neither should anybody expect a half-star disaster of a transfer, either. What a shame!