Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Metal Hurlant Chronicles: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Hurl means something different in French.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 26, 2015

Would The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series have been as successful as it was without the presence of Rod Serling bookending each episode, first via narration and then subsequently actually on screen? While the writing was almost always superb throughout the several seasons of the series, there were certainly peaks and valleys, and of course Serling did not script the entire run of the show. But his clipped, oddly cadenced, idiolect became part of the national consciousness throughout that run, and Serling became, intentionally or otherwise, the unifying principle knitting the entire series together. By way of contrast, look at the somewhat similar The Outer Limits, which had to make do with an omnipresent narrator and Dominic Frontiere’s memorable theme music in order to create some semblance of an organic whole. It’s notable that The Outer Limits barely scraped through two seasons, while The Twilight Zone managed to hold on for five, at least some of which is probably attributable to Serling’s presence. Even other hosted fantasy-horror-science fiction anthologies like One Step Beyond and Thriller admittedly couldn’t match The Twilight Zone’s staying power, so there is probably only so far a winning anchor figure can take a show. But what about an anthology whose unifying “figure” is not in fact a host, or a narrator (or even an evocative music score), but the remnants of an exploded planet? That’s the conceit behind the fitfully entertaining French series (in English, it should be noted, though some optional French language episodes are included as supplements) Métal Hurlant Chronicles, culled from the legendary annals of the eponymous French fantasy magazine which matriculated stateside many years ago as Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal of course has had its own fleeting relationship with film and/or video fame, with both Heavy Metal and Heavy Metal 2000 attempting to cash in on a ready built audience who had been collecting the magazine for untold years. (A third feature entitled War of The Worlds: Goliath has a tangential relationship to the magazine, as well as to H.G. Wells’ classic tale of an alien invasion.) A number of rather iconic filmmakers have announced various Heavy Metal projects through the years, with none of them ultimately coming to fruition. Métal Hurlant Chronicles features a dozen brief episodes culled from the pages of the magazine, and as might be expected there are (as in the aforementioned case of The Twilight Zone), peaks and valleys.

Long before M. Night Shyamalan was a gleam in his parents’ eyes, Serling and his cohorts who crafted The Twilight Zone were exploiting so-called “twists” in virtually every episode. From the first season premiere “Where is Everybody?”, which neatly encapsulated a late fifties’ sense of isolation and desperation combined with man’s nascent yearning to explore the boundaries beyond his home planet, to (perhaps a bit less so) season five’s sign off “The Bewitchin’ Pool,” a rumination on negligent parents, The Twilight Zone confounded expectations about where plots were supposed to go, often wrapping up any given episode with a patently delicious serving of irony and surprise. It’s notable how compact the series’ half hour episodes were, typically brilliant little one acts of slowly unfolding revelatory material that quite often folded back upon itself in an almost pretzel like fashion. It’s also notable, at least in terms of Métal Hurlant Chronicles, to remember how padded some of The Twilight Zone’s hour long episodes could be, as if Serling and his writing troupe were struggling to find ways to fill the added running time with enough intrigue to keep audiences guessing until the last moment.

The ironic thing with regard to padding is that the typical Métal Hurlant Chronicles episodes runs well under a half hour, and yet many feel hopelessly overstuffed with needless time killers. This can of course be traced to the fact that many of these episodes are culled from stories which ran just a few pages in the magazine. But quite often the “pay offs,” in terms of the so-called “twists” that typically end each episode, aren’t quite worth the set ups, which often seem overly contrived and drawn out.

Held up against the perhaps impossible to match standards of iconic shows like The Twilight Zone, there’s little doubt that Métal Hurlant Chronicles pales by comparison. That said, when taken on its own decidedly less ambitious merits, the show can at least occasionally provide some interesting episodes, with at times nicely done reveals that provide a bit of an adrenaline rush that the show’s otherwise kind of languid pacing tends not to match. The series is filled with great guest stars, including everything from a martial arts turn by Scott Adkins to some wonderfully (and typically) peculiar emoting by the likes of Dominique Pinon.

That “pretzel like” quality mentioned above with regard to The Twilight Zone is followed to a tee by Métal Hurlant Chronicles in a “meta” sense vis a vis the series’ own wrap up episode, which actually revisits several previous episodes in the context of a virtual reality scenario. It’s a fun trick that casts at least some of what has gone before in a fairly intriguing new light. If the entire series doesn’t quite come up to that level of ingenuity, there are still slight but enjoyable pleasures to be had for those patient enough to follow that “screaming” planetoid on its journey through the vast reaches of outer space.

Metal Hurlant Chronicles: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Métal Hurlant Chronicles is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. According to the IMDb, Métal Hurlant Chronicles was digitally shot with Red Epic and Red One cameras, and it boasts a generally impeccably sharp and well detailed image. Many (in fact probably most) episodes have undergone various bouts with color grading, with some episodes offering elements that are virtually desaturated (see screenshot 1), and others offering more traditional sci-fi ambiences courtesy of being bathed in a deep cobalt blue. Despite these gambits, detail and fine detail are more often than not excellent, and in some cases superb. A lot of the CGI and other special effects work is pretty soft looking, and at times kind of shoddy, as if it had been rushed in post production (see screenshots 13 and 16 for just two examples). There is some minor banding on display in the lightest gradients, but otherwise this is a problem free presentation which should please the series' fans.

Metal Hurlant Chronicles: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Métal Hurlant Chronicles' lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is often nicely immersive, even bombastic, but there are occasional odd prioritization issues that tend to bury dialogue, or at least to foist foley and other sound effects to the foreground, at times creating a bit of sonic clutter. That said, taken as a whole, the series offers excellent fidelity, a really fulsome low end (especially in episodes that offer chances to show off LFE), and commendable dynamic range.

Metal Hurlant Chronicles: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc One:

• Featurettes:

  King's Crown (1080p; 23:45)

  Shelter Me (1080p; 9:20) comes with a big "spoiler alert" warning.

• Interviews:

  Scott Adkins (1080p; 9:53)

  Darren Shahlavi (1080p; 4:05)

  Matt Mullens (1080p; 7:13)

Disc Two:

• Featurettes:

  Whiskey in the Jar (1080p; 7:32)

  The Endomorphe (1080p; 16:01)

  Loyal Khondor (1080p; 15:40)

  Second Chance (1080p; 10:27)

  Back to Reality (1080p; 7:20)

Disc Three:

• Alternate French Language Episodes:

  Red Light/Cold Hard Facts (1080p; 22:39)

  The Last Khondor (1080p; 28:23)

  The Second Son (1080p; 25:52)

  Back to Reality (1080p; 25:04)

  Note: All of the above episodes feature optional English subtitles.


• San Diego International Comic Con Panel (480i; 25:49) features Guillaume Lubrano, James Marsters, Michael Jai White, Darren Shahlavi, Larnell Stovall, Jesper Kyot and Bruno Lesigne.


• Motion Comics:

  King's Crown (1080p; 4:36)

  Shelter Me (1080p; 4:36)

  Red Light (1080p; 4:36)

  Cold Hard Facts (1080p; 4:36)

  Three on a Match (1080p; 4:36)

  Master of Destiny (1080p; 4:37)

  Pledge of Anya (1080p; 4:37)

  Whiskey in the Jar (1080p; 4:35)

  The Endomorphe (1080p; 4:36)

  Loyal Khondor (1080p; 4:36)

  Second Chance (1080p; 4:36)

  Second Son (1080p; 4:36)

  Back to Reality (1080p; 4:36)

Metal Hurlant Chronicles: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Métal Hurlant Chronicles is a bit of a roller coaster ride, quality (and "twist") wise, but when taken as a whole there's probably enough here to keep most science fiction fans relatively engaged. The series might have done better to have followed Rod Serling's approach with Night Gallery instead, where several shorter segments typically comprised any given episode. Technical merits are generally very strong, the supplemental package is also good, and Métal Hurlant Chronicles comes Recommended.