Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.0

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 26, 2021

In the “sometimes the supplements are more entertaining than the actual film” department, ladies and germs, submitted for your approval (and/or disapproval, as the case may be) Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood. Among other moments of either intentional or unintentional hilarity in a rather in depth making of featurette included on this Blu-ray disc as a supplemental feature, co-scenarist A.L. Katz frankly admits he’s embarrassed by the film and can’t stand to watch it (though he evidently swallowed his pride and/or shame, since he’s one of the people on the disc’s commentary track). Not to be topped by that revelation, the inimitable Corey Feldman complains that this was the only set he ever worked on where he didn’t make friends with any of the cast, and where evidently Dennis Miller was more than a bit of a boor. The whole project seemed to be star crossed from the get go, a veritable phoenix risen from the ashes of a long ago proposed student film that had the imprimatur of Robert Zemeckis, who had in fact years before been one of those very aforementioned students with an idea for a movie. As is kind of jokingly referred to in that making of bonus feature, a “little” entity known as DreamWorks SKG came along in 1994, and Zemeckis found himself being courted to join the ranks there. That put Zemeckis’ home studio Universal into something of a panic, and they were eager to make any deal that would keep Zemeckis cranking out hits for them, and as a result rather interestingly Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood found itself greenlit, despite the fact that evidently very few people associated with the project actually wanted to make it. That evidently included star Dennis Miller, who it is alleged in the featurette attempted to say "no" by requesting an unheard of (at least in terms of Dennis Miller's cinema career) million dollar payday, which was readily agreed to because Joel Silver (one of a gaggle of co-producers) wanted him, even though several other people were opposed to him being in the film.

All of this backstage drama and/or comedy (as the case may be) may well steal whatever spotlight from the actual film may be in play, and the summary above doesn't even get into some of the other aspects of the production, such as the fact that it was shot in Vancouver, BC, evidently for no other reason than to give the middle finger to some unions in Los Angeles that some of the production executives wanted to give some comeuppance to (this was evidently back in the day when Vancouver's then fledgling expat film industry didn't require union membership). All of the maneuvering that is documented in the making of featurette is reminiscent of a chapter in a book by the famous screenwriter William Goldman. That book is not, however, Goldman's dissection of the film industry, Adventures in the Screen Trade, which understandably might be the expected source, but rather Goldman's equally penetrating analysis of an annus horribilis on Broadway, The Season.

That book discusses the 1967-68 year on The Great White Way, and in his chapter on the now little remembered musical Golden Rainbow, which starred Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme in their only legitimate theater pairing, Goldman gets into who has the "power" in any given production. In this particular case, it was Lawrence who was most definitely calling the shots, which Goldman alleges led to all sorts of problems with the production. The whole "power structure" issue is actually mentioned overtly with regard to Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood in the making of featurette, admittedly vis a vis the squabbles with the Los Angeles unions, but it's obvious that the struggles for control were decidedly more widespread than in just that one instance. The ripples of various power struggles certainly include Dennis Miller, who reportedly informed Feldman that he didn't need Feldman's help in "polishing" the script and would be doing his own "rewrites", which led to apparent breakdowns (and not the good kind) during shooting because Miller was prone to improvising.

In terms of the actual film, the story is on the rote side (as, again, the making of featurette explicitly mentions), with a snarky private eye named Rafe Guttman (Dennis Miller) on the hunt for a missing person named Caleb Verdoux (Corey Feldman), whose disappearance has deeply troubled Caleb's sister Catherine (Erika Eleniak). A brief vignette which opens the film documents some treasure hunters "reanimating" the corpse of Lilith (Angie Everhart), who is supposedly the Queen of the Vampires, and of course it turns out that Caleb has gotten mixed up with her, albeit in her guise as a "madam" running a house of ill repute whose "employees" are vampires themselves. It's all patently ridiculous, to say the least, with (as might be expected from something with Zemeckis' involvement) some surprisingly winning visual effects, but just a slipshod narrative and frankly very little humor.

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. While there are some variabilities at play in this presentation, my hunch is many fans of the film will be generally well pleased with the overall detail levels on display, as well as what is a mostly nicely saturated palette. There are some fluctuations, however, with what I'm assuming were old style composited effects often looking a bit gritty and less vivid, and even with some non-effects moments taking momentary downturns in terms of densities and suffusion. Detail levels are rather good for the most part, and unlike many early Universal efforts, there's grain in abundance, as can clearly be seen in some of the screenshots accompanying this review. There is a kind of harsh digital quality at times to this presentation, as can also probably be gleaned from some of the screenshots. My score is 3.25.

Note: I did encounter a couple of anomalies with this disc which I am chalking up some wonky authoring. First of all, aside from chapter skipping within the feature itself, no chapter skips are available for things like supplements (including the Image Gallery, which comically begins with instructions to chapter skip through the images). Neither the Main Menu nor the Pop Up Menu buttons work consistently, either (meaning if you want to exit to the main menu at any time, you need to fast forward through whatever you're watching). Also, in the truly bizarre category, one of the times I was watching the film (yes, I watched it more than once) the green "Play Film" option from the Main Menu suddenly appeared and would not go away. Since neither the Main Menu nor the Pop Up Menu buttons did anything, I had to chapter skip (at least that worked) through to the end of the film and start over, and that time there was no issue.

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood offers DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. I toggled between them and didn't notice any huge differences in amplitude, but the surround mix definitely opens things up, especially in both effects sequences, but also in some of the "group action", as in the wild parties at the bordello. There isn't the same sort of consistent surround engagement that some other effects laden Zemeckis offerings have had over the years, but the track is often quite a bit of fun. The 2.0 track does offer good separation and some surprising spaciousness, and the narrower mix may actually improve the prominence of the dialogue in noisier moments. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout, and optional English subtitles are available.

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Co-Writer and Procuer A.L. Katz is moderated by Rob Galluzzo.


• Making of Featurette (1080p; 36:08) is officially titled Tainted Blood and is probably going to be worth the price of admission on its own for fans of the film. This contains some really fun and funny interviews and a lot of production information.


• Video Promo (1080p; 3:12) appropriately looks like it was sourced from old videotape.


• Still Gallery (1080p; 5:34) begins with the standard instructions about chapter skipping through the images, but is authored to manually advance.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:42)

Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even for those who consider Tales from the Crypt Presents: Bordello of Blood a definite "meh", the making of featurette may prove to be surprisingly entertaining. Fans of the film should be generally well pleased with the technical merits of this release.