Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Phase IV Blu-ray Movie Review

Feeling ants-y?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 26, 2015

While the late sixties and early seventies are often remembered in cineaste circles as a time of the flowering of a certain independent spirit as evidenced by iconoclastic films like Easy Rider and M*A*S*H, a tangential aspect to the sea changes at work within the industry was the disarray that many (former) major studios were experiencing. Metro Goldwyn Mayer, for example, had passed into the hands of impresario Kirk Kerkorian, a business tycoon whom many stalwarts in Hollywood felt was not respectful enough of the studio’s legacy, leading to a massive downsizing and the perhaps regrettable sale of huge amounts of props and other memorabilia. Though at least more linked to the film industry than Kerkorian had been, production designer Richard Sylbert wound up in charge of Paramount after Robert Evans resigned, certainly one of the odder career arcs in the frequently bizarre annals of the movie making business. Sometime before that somewhat odd transition at the executive level, Paramount offered another film technician with a niche position an unusual opportunity, when Saul Bass, probably best known for his iconic credit sequences (The Man with the Golden Arm, Saint Joan, Vertigo, Anatomy of a Murder, North by Northwest, Psycho, Spartacus, West Side Story, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, et al.), directed his only feature film, 1974’s Phase IV. This perhaps initially unusual seeming development was really not all that odd, for Bass had already won an Academy Award for making the short subject Why Man Creates, and he had for years provided either storyboards or outright second unit direction for a number of films including Grand Prix. (Bass claimed to have help Hitchcock film the celebrated shower scene in Psycho, but that has been disputed, though Bass’ storyboards for the sequence evidently helped Hitch film and edit it so viscerally.)

One of the oddest things about Phase IV is how it simultaneously looks back to 1971’s faux documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle while also presaging good old fashioned Bert I. Gordon silliness in 1977’s Empire of the Ants, a kind of bizarre refraction that seems even weirder when one associates it with the distinctively stylish Bass. For all its microscopic nature photography and science fiction-esque plot conceits about ants gaining control of the Earth (and not so coincidentally Mankind in the process), Phase IV is a curiously pedestrian affair some of the time.

There are at least a couple of salient similarities between Phase IV and Empire of the Ants, but one of the singular differences is that the nefarious behavior on the part of those creepy crawlies is not given a real quasi-scientific reason in the Saul Bass film. While various “phases” are referenced, the actual genesis of these supposed evolutionary steps is never that clear, and in fact part of the plot deals with the efforts of two scientists to understand exactly what’s going on. Those two guys are named Hubbs (Nigel Davenport) and Lesko (Michael Murphy), and they’re fascinated by some weird structures that have cropped up in the American Southwest. The film also engages in an Empire of the Ants-esque point of view shenanigans, making it clear that Hubbs and Lesko are themselves being examined—by the ants, of course.

The two scientists have wildly different strategies for dealing with what appears to be a highly intelligent ant incursion, and in fact the film details quite convincingly that the ants are indeed pretty darned smart. (The film utilizes a lot of Hellstrom Chronicle-esque insect photography by Ken Middleham, who indeed performed a similar service for that fake documentary.) Ultimately the two men have a human interloper to deal with as well, a young woman named Kendra (Lynne Frederick) who becomes convinced that she has the solution to stop the ant invasion.

While Phase IV is never as flat out goofy as Empire of the Ants, it’s also not quite as smart as it could have been, wasting some of its dramatic momentum in dead ends like a putative relationship between one of the scientists and Kendra and in fact in some repetitive elements that play out as the scientists argue about how best to deal with the menace. Interestingly, one of the film’s most stylish elements, a several minute montage that capped the film, was excised shortly after release. Original film elements for this surreal sequence (one that recalls both Salvador Dali and Luis Buñuel) were evidently found and scanned a couple of years ago for a restored version of Phase IV which screened theatrically, but this version does not feature it, sadly. You can see a lo-fi version of it here.

Phase IV Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Phase IV is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Phase IV has a lot of opticals from virtually the get go, and that technique in and of itself adds softness, graininess and dirt in abundance to a wide variety of shots. But even non-optical sequences look fairly dowdy quite a bit of the time here, with a faded palette that is skewed pretty dramatically toward the brown end of things, and a fairly soft appearance on several occasions, something that is only exacerbated by an at times extremely heavy grain field. Detail can still be quite good in some close-ups (see screenshot 4). Elements have a fair amount of age related wear and tear in terms of things like scratches, dirt and minus density.

Phase IV Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Phase IV features a workmanlike if occasionally boxy sounding DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track, one that supports the film's dialogue and voice over, bu which struggles at times to offer really crisp delineation, especially with regard to the rather interesting score by a coalition of different composers. Fidelity is good, with no real age related damage, but with a certain inherent narrowness that keeps the track from ever being overly vivid or forceful.

Phase IV Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements of any kind included on this Blu-ray disc.

Phase IV Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Though it was no doubt intentional, one of the more ironic things about Phase IV is that it lacks a Saul Bass credits sequence. What it also lacks is a coherent style and a convincing storyline. The film still has some really interesting elements, including the spectacular nature photography, but Phase IV is probably best appreciated as a curio. As such, and with caveats noted, Phase IV comes Recommended.