6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
The Panther women are worshipers of Satan and perform rituals in their honor and sacrifice. The fighters will face them up and down the ring.
Starring: Ariadne Welter, Tongolele, Elizabeth Campbell, Eric del Castillo, Manuel Loco ValdésForeign | 100% |
Horror | 99% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: LPCM 2.0 Mono
English
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 1.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 0.5 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Note: This film is available on Blu-ray as part of Batwoman / The Panther Women.
Years (decades, actually) before North American wrestling stars like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena started to forge rather successful
film
careers for themselves, Mexican cinema was awash in so-called luchador outings, patently gonzo films which featured members of
Lucha libre, an aggregation of professional wrestlers who wore masks (and often capes). Lucha libre as a term has matriculated to
English in a number of variants, with one of them being the title of the Jack Black feature ostensibly about a luchador star, Nacho Libre, and another being the older animated series
¡Mucha Lucha!. A Mexican actor and wrestler named Rodolfo Guzman Huerta
adopted the stage (ring?) name El Santo and appeared in a staggering array of luchador films, including 1968’s Santo in The Treasure of Dracula,
evidently
due soon on Blu-ray from VCI. VCI has been releasing a number of Mexican films on Blu-ray (the first screeners the label sent wouldn’t play in any
of
my players for some reason, hence no reviews), and has now combined two kinda sorta luchador (or at the very least luchador
adjacent) outings into one totally bizarre double
feature.
The Panther Women is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of VCI Entertainment and MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Kind of incredibly, the press sheet accompanying this release touts a "4K restoration" without providing information on whatever source element was utilized. Both of the films in this set seem to have rejiggered credits sequences done by VCI, I'm assuming so that things would be in English. This is another pretty wonky looking presentation from VCI, so much so that I'm kind of at a loss for words to describe some of what is on display. If you look at screenshots 5 through 10, you will note what I can only describe as an almost liquified overlay that can either be black or gray and which tends to afflict the darkest parts of the frame (screenshot 9 has a slightly different set of problems, as you will see). It's almost like a combo platter of banding and macroblocking, but it is very weird looking and it recurs throughout this presentation. When there aren't anomalies like that popping up, this offers generally decent looking contrast and detail levels, especially since the film features so many close-ups. This does have the same processed look that VCI's Blu-ray releases often do, with what looks like some pretty aggressive filtering.
The Panther Women features an LPCM 2.0 mono track in English which, if I'm understanding some of the credits added to this release, was done for this version. The voice work is generally well done, and there was evidently some care taken to at least try to match some of the mouth movements with the English dialogue. Optional English subtitles are available (actual voiceover on the track "translates" Spanish text at various times).
Both films included with this release are offered on one BD-50, with a brief assortment of (newly done?) trailers included as supplements.
Panther Women will be good campy fun for potential viewers in the right (altered?) frame of mind, but this presentation offers some pretty iffy looking video at times. Audio is fine, for those considering a purchase.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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1968
2005
Santo Contra la Hija de Frankestein
1972
La Rata Maldita / Mutantes del Año 2000
1992
Lethal Force Edition | 東京残酷警察
2008
Standard Edition
1982
Chorakhe | Standard Edition
1979
7 gwanggu
2011
1967
Santo y Blue Demon Contra el Doctor Frankenstein
1974
テラフォーマーズ / Tera Fōmāzu
2016
Mulgoe
2018
Terrore nello spazio | 2K Restoration
1965
Nihon bundan: Heru doraibâ
2010
Sentô shôjo: Chi no tekkamen densetsu
2010
Las luchadoras contra el médico asesino
1963
Limited Edition of 3000 | Zombi 3 | Zombie Flesh Eaters 2
1988
シン・ゴジラ / Shin Gojira / Godzilla: Resurgence
2016
2008
사자 / Saja
2019