Deadly Manor Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

Deadly Manor Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 7, 2020

Many of you have probably seen the joking commercial (for an insurance company, if memory serves) where a bunch of kids supposedly in your everyday, average horror movie, tries to decide how to escape their gruesome fate, ultimately making the stupidest decision possible (hiding behind an array of chainsaws) and thereby ensuring their demise. That commercial may have been designed to be an obviously cheeky parody, but the real punchline for anyone who watches Deadly Manor may be how similar the kids in this movie are to the dunderheads in the ad. Years ago a producer friend of mine was watching a video of some old pirate movie, and there was a big fight scene where the hero, sword brandished in hand, kept climbing masts and the like to supposedly “escape”, and my friend asked, “Why do they always try to go up?”, indicating that (typically) there’s no easy exit in that direction. Similarly, a lack of sound (directional or otherwise) judgment definitely informs the shenanigans in this 1990 entry, and its very release year might suggest that it simply couldn’t help but feel derivative. What’s really odd about Deadly Manor, though, especially when taking into account it comes from genre specialist José Ramon Larraz (Arrow’s recent Edge of the Axe) is how deadly (and not in a good way) slow it is, taking almost two thirds of its running time to finally get to what most fans come to slashers for — the slashing.

One of the most famously lampooned opening lines in the entire historical annals of literature (and one which has famously inspired the Bulwer- Lytton contest for “worst opening line”) was, “It was a dark and stormy night”*. While it takes a little while to get there, Deadly Manor does indeed take place during a dark and stormy night, and it’s further riddled with hoary clichés by offering up a bunch of teenagers who attempt to take refuge in an apparently abandoned mansion which just kind of magically appears out in some isolated wilderness. The fact that one of the kids sees a window being shut (from the inside) and the other fact that there’s a bizarre shrine of sorts featuring a smashed car in the front yard of said mansion might be enough to suggest to those with at least some measurable brain activity that this might not be the smartest place to get in from the rain (and kind of hilariously they go into the place before the rain even starts), but, as alluded to above, there’s very little MENSA level reasoning going on in Deadly Manor by any of the relevant characters.

By the time any real carnage is unleashed, it may be too little, too late for some viewers, but what may really sink this enterprise in the long run is a complete lack of logic when it comes to the kind of mind boggling finale. Suffice it to say that despite a number of red herrings being proffered, including copious hints about a hitchhiker the kids pick up along the way, the actual villains and their motivations turn out to be pretty random at best and completely nonsensical at worst. There's also a patently odd tendency at several key junctures to suggest some kind of weird, otherworldly phenomena is occurring, none of which ever turns out to be explained or developed. The film is notable in a weird kind of way in that actual police show up and do some "clean up", and there is absolutely no sudden "resurrection" of a supposedly dead villain to offer one last inevitable slash.

*Some of you may have seen the wonderfully funny Peanuts panel from years ago where intrepid author Snoopy begins a piece with "It was a dark and stormy night," which is met with immediate dispargement by Lucy, who informs the dog that a book needs a really gripping character to succeed. Snoopy amends his opening sentence to, " He was a dark and stormy knight."

Deadly Manor Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Deadly Manor is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Arrow's insert booklet contains the following information on the restoration:

Deadly Manor is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with mono audio.

An original 35 mm interpositive element was scanned in 2K resolution on a 4K Arri at OCN Digital Labs, CT. The film was graded on Digital Vision's Nucoda Film Master and restored at R3Store Studios in London.

The original mono mix was was remastered from the optical negatives at Deluxe Audio Services, Hollywood.

All materials for this restoration were provided by Films Around the World.

This is another commendable looking restoration of a cult title from Arrow, but the film's low budget ambience means there's not a ton of visual "wow" to the proceedings. The palette is generally well suffused, but looked just a bit ruddy to me at times. While contrast is also generally solid, a lot of the more dimly lit interior material (and there's quite a bit of it) tended to feature slightly milky blacks and a kind of overall hazy appearance. The film does offer quite a few close-ups, especially during some of the kill scenes, and fine detail levels tend to be quite good throughout those. Grain resolves naturally throughout the presentation.

Deadly Manor Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Deadly Manor features an LPCM Mono track which more than capably supports the film's pretty basic sound design. While there are some intermittent ambient environmental sounds, especially with regard to the weather once it starts up, and also with regard to some effects like a wall that keeps cracking more and more (one of those aforementioned "spooky supernatural" aspects that is never really followed up on in any meaningful way), a lot of the film is either dialogue or underscore which tends to favor low end synths (the Synclavier gets a special mention in the credits!). Fidelity is fine throughout, delivering dialogue, effects and score without any problems whatsoever.

Deadly Manor Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• House of Whacks (1080p; 32:53) is an interview with actress Jennifer Delora.


• Making a Killing (1080p; 7:03) is an interview with producer Brian Smedley-Aston.


• Archival Interview with Jose Larraz (1080p; 3:42) is culled from a mid-1990s sit down with Larraz at his home south of London, and is conducted by Cathal Tohill and Andy Starke.


• "Savage Lust" - VHS Trailer (1080p; 1:00)


• Original Promo (1080p; 4:23)


• Image Gallery (1080p; 2:50) is authored to move on automatically pretty quickly through its set of images, so my advice is to have your pause button handy in case you want to linger on any given still.


• Audio Commentary with Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan

Additionally, Arrow has provided its typically well appointed insert booklet.

Deadly Manor Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While there are flashes of occasional humor here, Deadly Manor might have benefited from going an all out comedy route, especially since several of the actors kind of come off as not quite ready for prime time sorts. Even had the film tipped more over into the humorous side of things, someone might have wanted to address the fact that it takes what feels like forever for any real mayhem to break out. Still, Larraz fans may want to check this out, and for them, technical merits are solid and the supplementary package very enjoyable.