7 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
After a long-term relationship ends, Norah moves to a remote house in the country. The locals are friendly., if eccentric. She starts a flirtatious relationship with young gamekeeper, Rob. But events at a festival have her feeling manipulated. Only later, do the consequences of that relationship leave her trapped in a nightmare.
Starring: Anna CropperHorror | 100% |
Drama | 37% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.33:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 2.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as a part of All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror.
All the Haunts Be Ours advertises itself as "the most comprehensive collection of its kind", which may initially beg the question as to "kind of
what?". But the release also comes with a front cover sobriquet
proclaiming it "a compendium of folk horror", which may then beg the next obvious question as to what exactly "folk horror" is. In that
regard, this set
begins with a fascinating and diverse documentary which has its own subtitle referencing folk horror, Woodlands Dark and Days
Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror, which provides a veritable glut of clips from international films which director (and this entire set's guiding
light) Kier-La Janisse has assembled to help define the genre, but perhaps the best answer is to simply echo a certain Supreme Court Justice named
Potter Stewart who was trying to decide a case involving supposed pornography, and who famously opined, "I shall not today attempt further to define
the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I
know it when I see it. . ."
Robin Redbreast is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. Severin's insert booklet states that this was "mastered from the BBC production tape master, the only surviving element". This is probably the shoddiest looking video presentation of the All the Haunts Be Ours set, though the rarity of this item probably helps to at least ameliorate the lack of quality. The show was evidently originally broadcast in color, but that tape was taped over (of course), and this is the only known survivor. You can easily see the deficits by even glancing at the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review, but I'd point out that things go from relatively bad to definitely worse late in the presentation, as evidenced by screenshot 9).
Things are at least somewhat better with regard to Robin Redbreast's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track. There's some prevalent background hiss which admittedly gets subsumed in outdoor scenes in particular where ambient environmental sounds may predominate, but there's also an intermittent buzz or hum that can be detected in ostensibly quieter moments. Dialogue still makes it through the gauntlet of time and tide reasonably well. Optional English subtitles are available.
Robin Redbreast is another surprisingly provocative piece, and one which I suspect would never have made broadcast in the United States in 1970 for at least one salient reason. Technical merits here are what they are, and this probably should be seen as a historical curio "bonus feature". As such, and with the addition of some appealing supplements, Robin Redbreast comes Recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
1993
1988
1988
1981
Il demonio
1963
1989
Лептирица | The She-Butterfly | Limited Edition
1973
1970
She-wolf
1983
1983
1987
De dødes tjern
1958
Temnye vody
1993
Standard Edition
1991
2013
2021
1974
Вий / Spirit of Evil
1967
Kladivo na čarodějnice / Witches' Hammer / The Witch Hunt
1969
1968