Four Rooms Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Four Rooms Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov August 7, 2023

"Four Rooms" (1995) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Via Vision Entertainment. The supplemental features on the release include vintage trailer; archival documentary on the making of the film; and archival EPK. In English, with optional Engish SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Between the late 1950s and early 1970s European producers loved to fund projects like Four Rooms. Usually, they gathered content from major European directors, but occasionally international directors whose films had been received well at European festivals were invited to contribute as well. Most gathered major international stars too, but there were plenty that were done with actors that had primarily a local appeal. Critics described these projects as anthology films, or omnibuses, but they were not produced to appear in a unique category. They were promoted and screened like conventional mainstream films until European producers stopped funding them.

While it is unclear whether Four Rooms was conceived as a throwback to these European projects, it is obvious that it borrows the classic blueprint they loved to use. Four directors deliver four episodes whose content is merged via the reappearance of a single character. All four episodes share the same genre identity, too. (The European projects became very popular once they began experimenting with different genre identities. In the beginning, virtually all of them were comedies). The four directors are Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino.

In “The Missing Ingredient” several young witches enter a once glorious hotel struggling to stay alive on New Year’s Eve and an hour later vow to force the newly hired, unmistakably loopy bellhop Ted (Tim Roth) to participate in a rushed ritual. But the ritual requires that Ted drops his pants and engages in a sexual act with one of the witches, which would mean breaking a cardinal rule whose importance for the security of his job has been carefully explained to him by the previous bellhop.

In “The Wrong Man” Ted accidentally delivers a bucket of ice to two crazy lovers, and while staring at a big gun, repeatedly fails to convince them that he meant to visit a different room. In a desperate attempt to avoid getting a bullet in his head, Ted then proceeds to help them resolve their differences by encouraging the owner of the gun to use it.

In “The Misbehavers” Ted visits another room where an eccentric with deep pockets offers him $500.00 to take care of his children while he is away having fun with his high-maintenance wife. Assuming that the gig would be as easy as a walk in the park, Ted takes the money, but shortly after their parents leave the children phone him to let him know that they have discovered a stinky dead woman in the room.

In “The Man From Hollywood” three inebriated guests of the hotel ask Ted to assist them with a most unusual bet. If Ted agrees, he would be paid $1,000. To earn the money, Ted will have to chop off a pinky that belongs to one of the inebriated guests. But only if he fails to flick his lighter ten times in a row. If he does, he wins his opponent’s fancy car, and Ted leaves the room with the cash in his pocket.

It is very difficult to tell just how much of the content in each episode was carefully scripted because there is a lot of awful improvising. The worst improvisations are courtesy of Roth, who ensures that each episode looks like an amateurish piece of parody, but not because he is constantly before the camera. What Roth does is so out of sync with everything that happens around him that it just does not look right.

On paper, the supporting cast looks tremendous, but only Antonio Banderas seems to have the right idea of how to make the bizarre look funny. Madonna, who plays one of the visiting witches and wears an outfit that would be appropriate for a dominatrix, is dreadful. David Proval completely mishandles the part of the crazy lover, too. Bruce Willis instantly creates the impression that he agreed to do his part an hour or so before shooting started and did not even bother to look up the screenplay -- if there was one. Tarantino, arguably the worst of the entire bunch, embarrasses himself while wasting what appear to be several legit bottles of chilled Cristal.

*Some good anthology films from the 1960s that are worth seeing are: The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers, Let's Talk About Women, The Dolls, The Maniacs, The Witches, Let's Wash Our Brains: Ro.Go.Pa.G., and Spirits of the Dead.

Four Rooms Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Four Rooms arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Via Vision Entertainment.

Even though in a few areas the master that was used to produce this release reveals fluctuating softness, I like it quite a lot. The softness, which is pretty light, is not a byproduct of compromising digital work that was done recently. I took a closer look at some of the shakiest spots and think that specific encoding optimizations would effectively address virtually all of the unevenness. Interestingly, I do not think that there are any serious encoding issues either. I just think that certain areas of the presentation require special attention so that delineation is as good as it should be. Color balance is very convincing. However, there is room for minor improvements, though I think that a native 4K presentation with an expanded color gamut will automatically strengthen the primaries and supporting nuances. On my system, some darker nuances were less than convincing, which is not surprising given that the overall dynamic range of the visuals is not optimal in 1080p. Image stability is very good. All in all, I think that this release offers a fine organic presentation of Four Rooms that will please its fans. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray release. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your player regardless of your geographical location).

Four Rooms Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and English LPCM 2.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I viewed the entire film with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. I only sampled the LPCM 2.0 track. The dialog is very clear, clean, and easy to follow. Dynamic intensity is very good, in some areas even surprisingly good because the film does not have an elaborate soundtrack with a wide range of dynamic contrasts. I did not encounter any encoding issues to report in our review.

Four Rooms Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer - presented here is a vintage U.S. trailer from Miramax for Four Rooms. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

• Four Directors, Four Friends, Four Rooms - in this archival program, Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell, Robert Rodriguez, and Quentin Tarantino discuss the conception of Four Rooms. Also included is raw footage from the shooting of the film. In English, not subtitled. (22 min).

• Making of Featurette - presented here is an archival EPK with clips from interviews and raw footage from the production process. In English, not subtitled. (7 min).

Four Rooms Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The more I revisit Four Rooms, the less I like it, and I have never thought of it as a decent film. On paper, it looks like a tremendous project, but the quality of the content that emerges from it is astonishingly poor. There are certain areas of it that become a genuine endurance test because Tim Roth's performance is ridiculously bad, which is sad because he has appeared in some tremendous films. If your take on Four Rooms is drastically different and wish to add it to your collection, you should take a look at this release from Via Vision Entertainment. It is sourced from a nice organic master and is Region-Free.