6.4 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Five tales of terror from the blood spattered history pages of Oldfield, Tennessee, as told by the town librarian, master of horror Vincent Price.
Starring: Vincent Price, Clu Gulager, Terry Kiser, Rosalind Cash, Susan TyrrellHorror | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 5.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
It may not have the imprimatur of Amicus, but From a Whisper to a Scream has both the general ambience as well as the portmanteau structure that made so many Amicus outings like Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror so memorable (if often cheekily campy) to horror fans. Co-written and directed by Jeff Burr, From a Whisper to a Scream features one of the last film performances by the iconic Vincent Price, here consigned to something of a narrator “Moishe the explainer” role as the historian slash librarian of a despicable little town called Oldfield, Tennessee. The film begins with the execution of a woman named Katherine White (Martine Beswick), whose crimes aren’t especially well detailed, but who may have murdered her new groom, at least as evidenced by a brief hallucinatory sequence that segues into White on a kind of combo execution gurney electric chair. White is surrounded by a gaggle of people (that’s erstwhile Hollywood bad boy Lawrence Tierney as the warden), including reporter Beth Chandler (Susan Tyrrell). Katherine gets a mortal dose of a sickly yellow drug cocktail (with those in attendance literally standing right next to her, just watching her twitch and moan her way to an ugly death), at which point Beth heads off and arrives at a gothic mansion (is there any other kind of mansion in a film like From a Whisper to a Scream?). It’s there that she meets an elderly man named Julian White (Vincent Price), who is in fact the late Katherine’s uncle. Beth is attempting to get more information on whatever led Katherine into her life of crime, but Julian isn’t one for psychobabble, and instead lays the fault of Katherine’s peccadilloes squarely on Oldfield itself. Surrounded by books that evidently spell out Oldfield’s long history with bad business and nefarious murders, Julian simply picks various volumes out and hands them to Beth, as if to provide proof that Oldfield is a toxic waste dump of the worst in humanity. Those books provide the breakaway points for the film’s quartet of The Twilight Zone-esque tales where villainous types typically get a rather gory comeuppance.
From a Whisper to a Scream is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Scream and Shout! continue to stumble occasionally with compression issues, something that may be more evident on this release than others due to the fact that the presentation is very heavily grainy to begin with. In brightly lit sequences (and for a horror film, there are actually quite a few of them), things look decently organic, with good, well saturated color, and well above average amounts of detail, and with grain looking at least generally normal. Darker sequences though often have grain clumping unnaturally with a slight yellowish tint which verges perilously close to noise quite a bit of the time. Interestingly, grain seems to ebb and flow at times without regard to any lighting issues whatsoever, something that may be due to either inefficient compression or actual "baked in" issues with the original elements utilized for the transfer. There's also some infrequent but noticeable macroblocking, as well as some significant crush in several nighttime sequences. Clarity and sharpness are best in brightly lit sequences, as should be expected, and close-ups offer some nice fine detail in elements like the shopworn uniforms in the Civil War sequence. There's a bit of wobble in the opening credits, but otherwise there are no real problems with image stability. It's at least debatable about whether Shout! really should have ported the two lengthy high definition features over to a second disc to have allowed a bit more breathing room for the actual film.
The keepcase insert for From a Whisper to a Scream lists a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track, but my PS3 identified it as an LPCM 2.0 offering. There are minor prioritization issues along the way, with parts of the mix (notably some of the cues) seeming to be slightly buried, but all in all dialogue comes through cleanly and clearly and there's no damage of any kind to report. This isn't an overly aggressive mix in true horror fashion (there aren't any real jump cuts accompanied by booming low frequency effects), but what's here sounds solid.
From a Whisper to a Scream has some pretty tawdry elements, but it manages to craft a creepy Southern Gothic atmosphere while attempting to weave a mythology built around the history of an (extremely) troubled town. The through line with Price and Tyrrell is actually kind of dispensable, and the final "sting" frankly just silly, but there are moments in each of the four stories that are cringe worthy (in a good way). Nicely paced and featuring excellent performances, From a Whisper to a Scream may not be an all out classic, but it's often extremely enjoyable. Even those who don't cotton to this type of film may want to check out this release for its epic supplemental features, all of which are first rate. Recommended.
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