7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 1.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.3 |
Three violent criminals take hostages and force them to drive them outside Rome to help them make a clean escape.
Starring: Riccardo Cucciolla, Don Backy, Lea Lander, Maurice Poli, George EastmanForeign | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.84:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Italian: LPCM 2.0
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
One of Italo-horror maestro Mario Bava's final films, Kidnapped—a.k.a. Rabid Dogs—was made in 1974 but soon thereafter was seized by courts when the movie's investor died in a car accident, bankrupting the production. The film went almost entirely unseen until 1998, when its lead actress, Lea Lander, helped arranged for a region-free DVD release in Germany under the title Rabid Dogs, even bookending the film with newly shot footage to help smooth out the almost-but-not-quite-finished movie's plot. A few years later, producer Alfredo Leone bought back the rights and re-released the film, this time under the name Kidnapped, adding and subtracting his own cuts—with the oversight of Bava's son, Lamberto, a director in his own right—and bringing in original composer Stelvio Cipriani to create an all-new score. (An unnecessary all-new score, considering the original music was fine, while the re-score sounds like a bad imitation of cornball 1980s and early '90s cues from action TV series.) In 2007, Anchor Bay put out a DVD with both cuts of the once-lost film, along with an audio commentary by Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas, who personally translated the subtitles, and a featurette about the movie's strange history. Kino-Lorber's new Blu-ray release is comparatively bare-boned—devoid of extras and featuring only the Kidnapped cut, which is arguably the lesser of the two—but it is stunning to behold, easily besting all prior home video versions in picture quality.
Kino-Lorber has become known for their "as-is" high definition transfers—they typically don't do any intensive digital restoration work on their releases— so the picture quality of their titles is very much dependent on the condition of the prints. In the case of Kidnapped, the source material is in terrific shape. You'll notice a few of the usual quirks—some white specks, some hairs stuck in the camera gate, some light color fluttering—but all of these minor concerns are vastly overshadowed by how damn great the film looks in HD. (If you've seen the Anchor Bay DVD, the difference will be striking and immediate.) Without a trace of digital noise reduction or edge enhancement, the picture has a warm, organically filmic look that just couldn't ever be resolved in standard definition. The level of clarity is the most obvious improvement—fine detail is easily visible in the textures of faces and clothing—but color also gets a boost, with balanced contrast, good saturation, and no major tonal discrepancies between shots or scenes. Sure, Kidnapped could still use a bit of spit and polish, but this is by far the best the film has ever looked on home video.
Kino has given the film an uncompressed Linear PCM 2.0 track that's stable, listenable, and—like the high definition transfer—has no substantive issues. Pops, crackles, and hisses are almost non-existent, and the mix has a consistent level of clarity and presence, with clear dialogue and effects. Of course, there's nothing outright impressive about the track—this is a low-budget Italian thriller from the '70s, after all, complete with noticeable dubbing—but this is probably the best Kidnapped will ever sound. The one glaring downside to this cut of the film, however, is composer Stelvio Cipriani's exceptionally cheesy remade score, which replaces the moodiness of the original with dated synth sounds straight from some cornball 1980s action TV series. Oh well. Let this be a lesson that some things are better left alone.
The only extras on the disc, unfortunately, are trailers for the other films in Kino's Mario Bava collection—Black Sunday, Hatchet for the Honeymoon, Baron Blood, Lisa and the Devil, and The House of Exorcism.
Mario Bava's once-lost Kidnapped is relatively straightforward and realistic compared to the director's better-known slashers, gialli, and Gothic chillers, but it hums along with a sick sense of dread that's certainly not out of place in his body of work. This is a gnarly little thriller in the nihilistic 1970s mold, and we're lucky that actress Lea Lander helped save it from obscurity in the late 1990s. With their new Blu-ray, Kino-Lorber adds another chapter to the film's home video history; though this release isn't nearly as comprehensive as Anchor Bay's 2007 DVD set—which included two cuts of the film and several supplements—there's no questioning that it's the better-looking, with a high definition transfer that's simply gorgeous. Recommended for all Euro-thriller fans!
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