The Killing Floor Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

The Killing Floor Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 30, 2020

There have been any number of incredibly memorable films (both documentary and dramatic) which had at least some plot elements involving unions in general and unionizing in particular, with several being considered all time classics. On the Waterfront, How Green Was My Valley, Norma Rae, The Pajama Game, Harlan County U.S.A., Newsies, Roger & Me and Matewan are just some of the many movies with some kind of unionizing bent, but a 1984 made for television outing called The Killing Floor hasn't seemed to rise to the levels of renown as some of these other outings, which may be a sad state of affairs for any number of reasons. While certainly a harrowing viewing experience from a variety of angles, The Killing Floor addresses issues of both unionizing and race that may make it of particular interest for those who have seen and appreciated Matewan .

Interestingly, The Killing Floor was designed as just the first "episode" in an extended series about the struggles of workers that had been pitched by story writer and executive producer Elsa Rassbach. The Killing Floor may have simply been too disturbing of a "pilot" to have led to further outings, and it may be especially hard for animal lovers to watch, since it can be incredibly graphic in its depictions of slaughterhouses, the focal locale of much of the unionizing. Two black sharecroppers named Frank Custer (Damien Leake) and Thomas Joshua (Ernest Rayford) travel north from Mississippi to Chicago during World War I, where the overseas calls to action has depleted the work force, meaning former "undesirables" like immigrant and/or blacks were suddenly being offered fairly stable, relatively decently paying, jobs.

Custer ends up joining a nascent meatpackers' union that is helmed by whites (of course), something that puts him at odds with some of his black co- workers. A number of other sidebars inform the story, including several more personal stories involving characters like Custer's wife Mattie (Alfre Woodward). Other notable performers include Moses Gunn as a guy named Heavy Williams, who is one of the more vocal blacks arguing against "collaborating" with white workers. The telefilm is arguably a little too long and meandering at times, but at its core it presents several salient truths about strength in numbers and a need to be "color blind" when attempting to better the conditions of workers. That said, this is not a piece that wraps everything up with a "happily ever after", and in fact there's a tragic aspect suffusing the story suggesting that fate is leading some of these characters to their own kind of slaughter.

The Killing Floor Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Killing Floor is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement Classics, an imprint of Film Movement, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. As with many of Film Movement's releases, while this release's insert booklet itself contains only a generic "New 4K Digital Restoration" comment, without any further information, there are some introductory text cards crediting UCLA's Film and Television Archive, and the press release accompanying the disc explicitly mentions a new 4K restoration by UCLA. The telefilm's 16mm source has some built in limitations that need to be accepted at face value, but this restoration has provided a viewing experience that is largely free of any major damage (a few minor blemishes intrude from time to time), with a solid accounting of an understandably heavy, at times downright gritty, grain field. The palette looked just slightly faded at times to me, but tends to pop better in some of the outdoor material. There is a glut of archival footage used as interstitials throughout the film (some of these moments are seen in screenshots 9, 12, 13 and potentially 19), and those can understandably look pretty ragged at times. There are some occasional issues with crush and lack of shadow definition in some of the darkest interior moments. My score is 4.25.

The Killing Floor Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Killing Floor features a nice sounding LPCM 2.0 Mono track that supports dialogue perfectly well, while also offering good renderings (no pun intended, given the slaughterhouse aspect) of some of the sound effects. The telefilm may be of interest to some with a knowledge of Broadway since it was scored by Elizabeth Swados, whom some will recognize as having written the interesting musical Runaways. A propos of nothing other than my own musical theater geekiness and probably un-PC sense of humor, I'll take this opportunity to share my all time favorite musical theater joke from the early days of the internet, when there was a Usenet group called RATM devoted to musicals. Someone started a thread of imaginary "combo musicals" with descriptions and some wag posted "Brigadoonesbury: Once every hundred years, Elizabeth Swados writes a hit, and this is it!" Swados' folk music inflected score adds considerably to the telefilm and sounds fine if narrow on this track. Optional English subtitles are available.

The Killing Floor Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction by Director Bill Duke (1080p; 2:26) was recorded via Skype in November of 2019.


• Q & A with Damien Leake and Elsa Rassbach (1080p; 12:49) is moderated by Michael Glover Smith in a conversation from November 23, 2019.


• The Making of The Killing Floor: Pandemic Era Conversations (1080p; 14:23) features Damien Leake, Clarence Felder, Bill Duke and Elsa Rassbach in a Zoom like call. This offers several anecdotal tidbits about the production in general and shoot in particular.


• Interview with Elsa Rassbach (1080p; 20:13) stems from August 2020 and is conducted by Berlin film critic Madeleine Bernstorff.


• The Killing Floor Trailer (1080p; 1:53)

The disc also offers the typical About Film Movement option on its Main Menu, which provides both text and a trailer about Film Movement. Trailers for other Film Movement releases are also offered. The well appointed insert booklet features two really interesting essays, " The Killing Floor as History" by James R. Barrett, and "The Killing Floor and Chicago's Black Community" by Joe William Trotter, Jr. The booklet also comes with cast and crew information and some stills.

The Killing Floor Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Those of us who do this kind of writing for a living are pretty used to people throwing brickbats at us for perceived inadequacies to review this or that film for all sorts of reasons based on our personal histories, so I only half jokingly state the fact that I've been a vegetarian for most of my life may have made me unsuitable for this particular assignment. (On the other hand, I had a rather infamous unionizing uncle whose exploits in Manhattan led to him being called "the baby faced pinko of New York City's docks" by none other than Martin Dies when he chaired what ultimately became the House Committee on Un-American Activities, so maybe that ups my bona fides, if only slightly.) Anyone interested in the histories of either the union movement or race relations in the United States will find this a worthwhile, if occasionally screed like, telefilm. There's also an undeniably gruesome element in terms of the handling of the meat, which kind of makes the whole environment seem hellish a lot of the time, so I'd frankly caution those with squeamish stomachs who (literally) don't want to know how the sausage is made to steel themselves for some of the imagery that's on display. Technical merits are solid, and the supplementary package very interesting. Recommended.