7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Carla Moran awakens one night to find herself being beaten and raped by an unseen presence. Terrified of what's happening to her, and shunned by friends and family who think she's lost her mind, she seeks help from parapsychologists.
Starring: Barbara Hershey, Ron Silver, David Labiosa, George Coe, Margaret BlyeHorror | 100% |
Supernatural | 16% |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region B (locked)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Sidney J. Furie's "The Entity" (1982) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Eureka Entertainment. The only bonus feature on the disc is an original trailer for the film. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".
He was in the room
Presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The Entity arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka Entertainment.
The release is sourced from the same older master that Anchor Bay Home Entertainment licensed from Twentieth Century Fox when it prepared its Blu-ray release of The Entity in 2012. Generally speaking it is a decent master, but with a few obvious issues. During footage with an abundance of light clarity and detail are mostly pleasing, but during the darker/indoor footage there is quite a bit of light to moderate crush that collapses existing detail and ultimately affects depth. Fluidity is also a bit inconsistent. The bigger issue, however, is that contrast is slightly elevated and as a result there are some random spikes of harsher grain. In other words, instead of heaving uneven grain because of some inherited limitations, there is actually some quite unnatural grain that makes different segments having a bit of a digital edge (see screencaptures #2 and 11). Still, the film does not have the distracting harsh digital appearance that many catalog titles from Universal's vaults do. The color scheme is good, though a proper new master will undoubtedly produce better saturated primaries and wider ranges of nuances. Image stability is very good. There are no large cuts, debris, or damage marks, but a few tiny flecks occasionally can be spotted. My score is 3.25/5.00. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free player in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature. When turned on, they split the image frame and the black bar below it.
While clarity is quite good, I find depth to be slightly underwhelming. I actually would have loved to see a 2.0 track on one of these Blu-ray releases (my Region-A release also has a 5.1 track which is undoubtedly from the same master that was used to source this release), but apparently there were also theatrical releases with an original 6-track. Either way, I think that if the audio is ever remastered the new track will undoubtedly introduce a number of meaningful improvements.
There are all sorts of different opinions about what makes a film scary and there is probably a little bit of truth in all of them. I think that the best ones always engage the mind in a special way and in the process introduce a number of credible what-if scenarios. These are also films with tremendous atmosphere. Sidney J. Furie's The Entity is quite possibly the most effective chiller that I have seen to date, and on top of this it recreates true events. It is great to see that it is now available on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom, but it is a bit underwhelming that this release is essentially a replica of the old North American release. Let's hope that in the not so distant future we will see a big special edition that finally does the film justice. RECOMMENDED.
Limited Edition
2014
Curse of the Demon / Indicator Series
1957
2018
2013
2016
1981
2019
1962
2006
2014
2019
Black Label 020 | Limited Edition
1981
2016
Quella villa accanto al cimitero | Limited Edition
1981
2019
2019
2018
Remastered
1992
1981
2015