6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Carter Nix (John Lithgow) is a respected psychologist, loving husband and devoted father who decides to take a year off to help raise his daughter. Carter's wife Jenny (Lolita Davidovich) is pleased to have her attentive husband home - at first. When Carter shows obsessive behavior toward their daughter, Jenny becomes concerned, and to complicate matters, Jenny's old flame (Steven Bauer) re-enters her life. But nothing can prepare her for the emergence of Carter's multiple personalities, and a fiendish plot to recreate the infamous, experiments of his deranged father.
Starring: John Lithgow, Lolita Davidovich, Steven Bauer, Frances Sternhagen, Gregg HenryHorror | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Same specifications on both cuts.
English
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Note: Certain elements of Raising Cain's plot need to be discussed overtly in order for any summary of the film's contents to
make
sense. Those who have already seen at least the original theatrical cut of the film won't find anything even remotely "spoiler"-ish below, but for
those who haven't yet seen the film, it's probably best to skip down to the technical portions of the review, below.
When is a so-called Director’s Cut of a film not a Director’s Cut? Maybe when someone other than the actual director assembled it,
which is
more or less what’s going on with the non-theatrical version of Raising Cain included on this new two disc release from Shout! Factory’s
Scream Factory imprint. Brian De Palma has often been labeled the “second coming” of Hitchcock, at least by some of De Palma’s more vocal
fans,
but in this case the legendary if divisive director was second guessing, so to speak, having never been satisfied with the way he
reorganized
his original intentions for the film after some less than felicitous early screenings and perhaps too much time spent pondering how to best find an
entré into a story that dallies in marital infidelity, “Skinner box” like behavior modification, and (just for good measure) multiple personality
disorder.
The original theatrical cut of Raising Cain presents a more or less chronological exposition (albeit with some flashback material)
documenting
the roiling psychological waters of one Carter Nix (John Lithgow), a highly respected child psychologist who is nonetheless harboring a few big
secrets,
including the fact that he’s a serial killer and a “host” for several other personalities, one of whom is the titular Cain. Playing out against this
lunatic
element are at least two other simultaneous arcs, one including Carter’s straying wife Jenny (Lolita Davidovich), who is resparking a romance
with
former paramour Jack Dante (Steven Bauer), and a disturbing saga involving children (including Carter’s own) who have been appropriated for a
kind
of ongoing experiment. It’s just completely over the top stuff, and has therefore been even more hotly debated among De Palma followers than
some
of the writer-director’s other hotly debated films. But De Palma continued to voice his own concerns over at least the structure if not
the
actual content of Raising Cain, which is when a fan named Peet Gelderblom got involved. Finding an early draft of the screenplay
(entitled
Father’s Day), Gelderblom took it upon himself to reorder the film’s scenes in the way that version indicated, and, voila, a so-
called
“Director’s Cut” was born. Some curmudgeons may already be building up steam insisting that this is an awfully loose interpretation of what a
director’s cut is supposed to be, but it should be stated that De Palma himself saw Gelderblom’s early assemblage of the material and approved
of it,
and (according to one of the supplements on this new release) actually lobbied Shout! to offer this version in high definition, so it supposedly has
De
Palma’s imprimatur, for what that’s worth. Watching these two versions back to back is a really interesting exercise in how restructuring a
narrative
leads to vastly different reactions to characters and story developments. Raising Cain may still be hotly debated, by both De Palma
aficionados and indeed detractors, but for those who delight in the “nuts and bolts” aspects of filmmaking, this new release is really
fascinating.
Raising Cain is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in 1.85:1 for both versions (for the record, screenshots 1-10 come from the theatrical version, and screenshots 11-19 come from the Director's Cut). There's really no discernable difference in video quality between the two versions, and in fact various minor anomalies like chunky yellowish grain that shows up in various scenes are more or less identical between the two versions despite being placed in manifestly different moments. The overall look of both transfers is very good, though there are some variances in clarity and grain structure. While the palette throughout the film isn't especially vivid, things look natural aside from a couple of intentionally graded (and/or lit) scenes, like the garish yellow tones that overlay the final showdown scene. Fine detail is quite good in several extreme close-ups. A couple of sequences that have multiple optical dissolves (like a love making montage featuring Jenny and Jack) show the expected uptick in grain. On a couple of occasions, there are fairly large drop offs in sharpness levels (contrast screenshot 8 with several others included in this review), something that is consistent across both version no matter where these occasions show up in the overall structure. De Palma and cinematographer Stephen H. Burum often prefer a slightly gauzy look throughout this film, something that adds a hazy softness to several shots. A few relatively minor compression issues intrude but are nothing I would term overly problematic.
Both versions of Raising Cain feature DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and 5.1 options. This is a fairly talky horror-thriller enterprise, and so only has a few startle effects to offer, with a lot of the best surround activity coming from the nice Pino Donaggio score. Ambient environmental effects creep through discrete channels and some are quite effective. Dialogue is very cleanly rendered and well prioritized.
Disc One
I hadn't seen Raising Cain in years and had never before seen the new Director's Cut version, and revisiting the film in its original form as well as introducing myself to it in its supposedly "new, improved" version only helped to solidify my feelings that the film's deficits are in the writing department, not necessarily in how it's structured. There is simply too much going on in Raising Cain for De Palma to be an effective "traffic cop", one way or the other. The serial killer aspect is great and Carson's multiple personality disorder adds a fascinating element, but once you add in the dallying wife, child abductions, behavior modification and not one but two creepily accented elders, things just tip over into unadulterated silliness at times. There are still some great moments here, but this release is perhaps more interesting as a case study in editing and story structure than as an actual completed film (in either version). Scream has gone above and beyond by offering both versions, and as usual has also assembled a really interesting supplemental package. Recommended.
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1972
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2012
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2005
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2006
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2012
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מי מפחד מהזאב הרע / Mi mefakhed mehaze'ev hara
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2000