5.9 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
When a wealthy young couple hires a beautiful nanny for their newborn baby, the cradle will rock with a secret of unspeakable horror. Based upon the bestselling novel.
Starring: Jenny Seagrove, Dwier Brown, Carey Lowell, Brad Hall, Miguel FerrerHorror | 100% |
Supernatural | 12% |
Mystery | 2% |
Thriller | 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 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
1742 kbps
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 2.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
After a seventeen-year hiatus from horror, William Friedkin returned to the genre in 1990 with The Guardian, a fairly low-budget studio
picture with no stars that underwent several metamorphoses from script to screen. Friedkin came to the project late after original director Sam
Raimi opted to make Darkman (1990) instead.
Universal Pictures wanted Friedkin to recreate the same atmosphere and chills that he famously summoned in The Exorcist (1973). An ongoing battle ensued about whether to mold
The Guardian into a straightup psychological thriller or something more fantastical. In an interview on the Blu-ray, Friedkin confesses to
never having read Dan Greenburg's 1987 novel, The Nanny, which original scenarist Stephen Folk based his screenplay. Though Friedkin
incorporated many revisions to Folk's first draft, he maintained the novel's core premise of a young couple who hire an English nanny to look after
their newborn son. Friedkin relocated the setting from New York to Valencia, California, where Kate (Carey Lowell) and her husband Phil (Dwier
Brown) have moved to from Chicago. Phil is getting a new start at an ultra-modern advertising agency and settling into a comfy suburban home
with Kate and baby Jake. The couple interview various nannies before deciding upon Camilla (Jenny Seagrove), a drop-dead gorgeous British
governess. While both Phil and Kate initially like Camilla's devotion to their infant, they (Phil especially) grow increasingly concerned when she
takes it to other places without their knowledge. Ned Runcie (Brad Hall), Kate and Phil's friendly architect, takes an instant attraction to Camilla but
this may lead him down a very dark path.
I think one of the reasons that critics quickly dismissed The Guardian is because Friedkin turned it into a supernatural fable during the
prologue, making it difficult to accept early on. Friedkin became enmeshed in the lore of druid culture and transformed the plot into a fantastic tale
about a guardian angel bringing young children into the forest and giving them "eternal life" through the sacred trees she worships. Friedkin
needlessly tries to illicit the audience's sympathy for Camilla by manufacturing a gratuitous scene where three rugged thugs gang up on the
babysitter and chase her through the woods. Although the scene shows off Matthew Mungle's impressive special effects, it is unnecessary and
should have been dropped. The movie is most effective when Friedkin and his cinematographer John A. Alonzo frame the characters tightly within
closed quarters or confined settings. Fortunately, The Guardian does not overuse a non-diegetic droning synthesizer or rely heavily on
jump scares for every other scene. Friedkin and Alonzo construct milieus of entrapment for the film's protagonists. Another strength that critics
probably found too jarring is Friedkin's proclivity for shock editing through the use of jump cuts and sped-up scenes. While reviewers found the
structure of The Guardian a mess, Friedkin deserves credit for not making it overlong and keeping things ambiguous to sustain the viewer's
interest.
Would you trust this beautiful nanny with your baby?
Shout! Factory presents The Guardian in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this AVC-encoded BD-50. Anchor Bay released the film on DVD seventeen years ago and while the picture here is an upgrade over SD video, the transfer is struck from a dated master and shows its age. The video presentation does have a consistent and well-balanced grain structure. Colors looks reasonably good, if not always well defined. Detail is rather opaque and home theater owners with large displays should be able to discern a generally drab look to the image. While it is a plus that Shout! did not invoke noise reduction, more dirt could have been expunged to give the image a cleaner texture.
The only audio option Shout! has supplied is a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. The Guardian's Dolby Stereo was originally given a Spectral Recording (SR), which Dolby introduced in the late eighties in order to improve an analog recording's dynamic range. The SR as heard on this Blu-ray is not as good as other films that applied Dolby's noise reduction system. Dialog is not satisfactorily clear and clean in certain places. For example, viewers may find it necessary to turn up their treble levels or switch to a different sound field while listening to the Sheridan boy read from Hansel and Gretel. I found myself turning up the volume fairly often to hear character exchanges. Enunciation of certain syllables and consonants is lacking or difficult to pick out at times. Sound weaknesses may also be inherent in the original recording. (Friedkin went through four sound crews while making the film.) It certainly would have helped if Shout! made a lossless 5.1 mix. Composer Jack Hues's score is the lone standout, exhibiting good depth and range across speakers.
While The Guardian does not approach Friedkin's best work, it seems a better film now than when it was in 1990 and especially compared to today's crop of mediocre horror. Shout! delivers only average video and audio presentations but stacks its disc with a slew of new interviews. It is too bad, though, that the label could not have acquired the older Friedkin commentary from Anchor Bay (or Universal). A new making-of-doc would have been an added bonus but the retrospective interviews cover a variety of topics. Friedkin devotees will want to add it to their collections. Fans of Michael Wadleigh's Wolfen (1981) will defiinitely want to give The Guardian a look. With very solid supplements, the Shout! disc earns a MODERATE RECOMMENDATION.
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