6.3 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Alfonso, Eduardo and Eduardo's wife Cristina get lost when visiting a forest. A strange monk finds them and takes them to an ancient convent. There, the three friends suffer personality changes, specially Cristina who tries to seduce Alfonso in a strange coincidence to a story told by an old monk. After some efforts to escape, Alfonso is trapped inside a jail and more strange and macabre situations happen...
Starring: Enrique del Campo, Marta Roel, Carlos Villatoro, Paco Martínez, Victorio BlancoForeign | 100% |
Horror | 53% |
Drama | 40% |
Mystery | 8% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Spanish: LPCM Mono (48kHz, 24-bit)
English, English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Fernando de Fuentes' "The Phantom of the Monastery" (1934) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Indicator/Powerhouse Films. The supplemental features on the disc include new program with critic Abraham Castillo Flores and new audio commentary recorded by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones. In Spanish, with optional English and English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.
Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.37:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The Phantom of the Monastery arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Indicator/Powerhouse Films.
The release is sourced from a 4K master that was prepared after The Phantom of the Monastery was fully restored in 4K by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. I projected the film and thought that the makeover was so good that at the moment feel very comfortable speculating that folks who have a previous experience with it have not actually seen the film Fernando de Fuentes directed. Indeed, the overwhelming majority of the visuals are quite dark, often with plenty of very particular shadow nuances that are typical for expressionist/Gothic thrillers, so there is virtually zero chance that they were even partially accurately reproduced on a VHS or DVD sourced from a lousy master. Delineation, depth and clarity are pretty spectacular for a 1930s films as well. Additionally, even on a very large screen the visuals hold up really, really well and boast very good to excellent fluidity. Yes, there are some areas where grain can be under/overexposed, but these are fluctuations that are part of the original cinematography. There are no traces of problematic digital work. Some minor surface wear remains, but the film still looks very clean and healthy. (Note: This is a Region-Free Blu-ray release. Therefore, you will be able to play it on your player regardless of your geographical location).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Spanish LPCM 1.0. Optional English and English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.
The audio sounds quite thin, often even notably compressed. However, even though it is pretty easy to tell that time has left its mark on it, you have to remember that The Phantom of the Monastery was completed in 1934. On top of this, it was obviously done with a pretty small budget. In other words, the recording equipment that was used at the time was almost certainly quite primitive, which means that the audio retains a wide range of native limitations. The dialog is still quite clear and easy to follow, but the overall dynamic range and depth of the audio are pretty basic.
The Phantom of the Monastery was conceived with a great deal of enthusiasm and this is what makes it worth seeing. Indeed, it is a small and pretty uneven film with some obvious flaws, but the atmosphere it produces is rather special. What makes it special? The desire of Fernando de Fuentes to shoot a film that is every bit as magical as the great German expressionist horror thrillers he had seen in his local cinema and fallen in love with in the early 1930s. (Many decades later, the Italians did plenty of similar films with the exact same type of enthusiasm. Some were good and some were bad, but the genuine enthusiasm you could immediately detect in them made virtually all worth seeing). This recent release from Indicator/Powerhouse Films is sourced from a 4K master that was prepared after the film was fully restored. The makeover is so good that as far as I am concerned the release offers the first-ever opportunity to properly experience the film on both sides of the Atlantic. (A North American edition of the same release we have reviewed is available here). RECOMMENDED.
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