Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

The Guardian Blu-ray Movie Review

Be careful how far you venture into the forest...

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson September 27, 2016

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?

Camilla may remind viewers of Billie Whitelaw's Mrs. Baylock from Richard Donner's The Omen (1976). Seagrove's character is also a feminine Freddy Krueger who becomes Phil's worst nightmare. Indeed, the mythological and spiritual makeup of Camilla as a shapeshifter and keeper of souls is analogous to the notorious boogeyman. (Think of the bare-chested Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988).) Without divulging the ending, Friedkin and his editor Seth Flaum employ a crosscutting technique similar to the one used during the climax of Chuck Russell's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), a good sequel to Wes Craven's original classic. Viewers who are familiar with other horror films of the period will likely get more out of The Guardian than novices to the genre.

The Guardian Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Guardian Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

The Guardian Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• A Happy Coincidence - An Interview with Actor Dwier Brown (21:57, 1080p) - the affable Brown recalls amusedly reuniting with Friedkin for a second time, his experiences working with various actors in the film, and the excesses he sees in Friedkin's filmmaking style.

• From Strasberg to The Guardian - An Interview With Actor Gary Swanson (10:11, 1080p) - the Queens native looks back at his training with Leo Strasberg and playing the bit part of Allan Sheridan in The Guardian.

• A Mother's Journey - An Interview with Actress Natalija Nogulich (11:34, 1080p) - a quality interview in which the ultra- active actress talks about her theater work (i.e., the play that led to her meeting with Friedkin), her role as Molly Sheridan in the film, and druid sorcerery.

• Scoring The Guardian - An Interview with Composer Jack Hues (6:41, 1080p) - the British composer/lyricist reveals how he came up with the symphonic variation of a Brahms lullaby, his musical influences for The Guardian, and scoring approaches that he and Friedkin have tried in their collaborations together.

• Tree Woman: The Effects of The Guardian - An Interview with Makeup Effects Artist Matthew Mungle (13:08, 1080p) - Mungle delves into how he achieved the magical tree effects, coordinating them with star Jenny Seagrove, and his opinions of The Guardian after it was completed.

• Return to the Genre - An Interview with Director/Co-writer William Friedkin (17:23, 1080i upconvert) - an interview from 2011 that Shout! licensed from Second Sight Films' Region 2 Special Edition DVD of The Guardian. Friedkin discusses how he came to the project and a nanny story of his own that inspired the film. The interview is informative but it would have been better if the questioner(s) could have queried Friedkin more about the production difficulties and the film's critical reception.

• The Nanny: An Interview with Actress Jenny Seagrove (13:21, 1080i upconvert) - In this interview also sourced from the Second Sight PAL disc, the British actress broaches her early BBC and film work and explains how she got the central role in The Guardian. She also goes into the many script changes during the shoot and her reflections of Friedkin.

• Don't Go Into the Woods – An Interview with Co-writer Stephen Volk (20:58, 1080i upconvert) - The last of the vintage interviews, scribe Volk discusses his screenwriting endeavors and Sam Raimi's early involvement on The Guardian as well as adapting Greenburg's book. Volk addresses his collaboration with Friedkin in great detail. Perhaps the most informative extra on the disc.

• Still Gallery of Behind-the-Scenes Photos (1:20, 1080p) - a montage of production stills from Universal's vault accompanied by Hues's score.

• Theatrical Trailer (1:35) - a full-frame unrestored trailer upconverted from standard-definition video. Initially, Shout! stated on their website that they were not going to include a trailer.

Anchor Bay's 1999 DVD audio commentary with Friedkin moderated by Dennis Bartok has been left off the disc. Apparently, Shout! was unable to license it.

The Guardian Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.