The Terror Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

The Terror Blu-ray Movie Review

Terror, Take 2

Reviewed by Michael Reuben May 27, 2016

Continuing with its reissues of public domain titles previously released on Blu-ray by Film Chest and HD Cinema Classics, The Film Detective has newly transferred Roger Corman's legendary potboiler, The Terror. Like most PD Blu-rays, the source element is a film print, and the results will not be anyone's idea of "demo" material. But The Film Detective has improved on the previous Blu-ray, and fans of The Terror will want to consider this release. Anyone acquiring The Terror for the first time should not hesitate to choose this version.

As noted by my colleague Jeffrey Kauffman in his review of the HD Cinema Classics edition, The Terror may be more famous for its bizarre production than for the film itself. After Corman discovered that Boris Karloff owed him two more days of filming under his existing contract, Corman hurriedly shot scenes with the star, utilizing the sets from their previous collaboration, The Raven, which was literally being torn down as they filmed. Sets from Corman's The Premature Burial and, in one key scene, The Haunted Palace were also used. Seaside scenes were filmed (by Francis Ford Coppla) at Big Sur, which is why the French coast in The Terror looks nothing like France. The American scenery matches the distinctively Yankee inflections delivered by a young Jack Nicholson (another veteran of The Raven), as well as those by Corman regular, Dick Miller, who plays the loyal servant of Karloff's Baron Von Leppe. Thanks to Coppola's going over schedule—a portent of things to come—as well as delays in picking up necessary inserts like the cascading flood that concludes the film (shot at Hoover Dam) and the quicksand into which Nicholson's character nearly sinks (shot in the backyard of future Foxy Brown writer/director Jack Hill), Corman's "quickie" horror flick took nine months to complete, the longest production of his career.

As loopy as The Terror may be, especially with the eyeroll-inducing plot twist invented during the film's editing, its story is relatively straightforward, as long as you don't look too closely at the details. Karloff's Baron is being haunted by the ghost of the wife, Ilsa (Sandra Knight), who died twenty years ago. The ghost has been summoned and is being controlled by a peasant witch, Katrina (Dorothy Neumann), who has a vendetta against the Baron. Nicholson's Lt. Andre Duvalier is drawn into the intrigue when, separated from his regiment, he encounters Ilsa's spirit wandering the seashore. He pursues her just as you would expect any handsome French officer (or a young Jack Nicholson) to pursue a beautiful woman, and he won't be put off by the Baron's protective servant, Stefan (Miller). As is usually the case when spirits are summoned for nefarious purposes, the whole affair ends badly.

Nicholson, who was only a supporting player in Corman's The Raven, gamely steps into the lead, giving his all to an underwritten role and tromping purposefully through Gothic sets in the hand-me- down French military garb that Marlon Brando wore as Napoleon in Désirée. Knight, who was married to Nicholson at the time, imbues Ilsa with a kind of femme fatale ambiguity. Karloff contributes echoes of the many doomed and deadly characters from his long career, and (as noted by Jeff in his review), Neumann's vengeful witch steals the show.

The Terror Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

For this new 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of The Terror, The Film Detective has created a new scan of the print in its library, with the aspect ratio reformatted to 1.83:1, which is almost identical to the film's original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and is subtly but noticeable different from the previous edition's 1.77:1. Featuring tiny letterbox bars at top and bottom (which most viewers will not see, due to overscan), TFD's disc displays tighter cropping at top and bottom with additional image at the sides. Although an exact match of screen captures is not possible with the equipment used by Blu-ray.com, the screenshots accompanying this review have been as closely matched as possible to those from the previous review to facilitate comparison.

The same comparison reveals the full extent of the DNR applied to HD Cinema Classics' Blu-ray, resulting in the elimination of the film's natural grain and the removal of texture and fine detail. A release print will never be able to supply the level of detail that can be derived from a camera negative or IP, but TFD's edition of The Terror supplies a noticeably more film-like image. The downside is that print damage, in the form of white speckles and other dirt artifacts, are more noticeable (although the print is in pretty good condition). Color values are roughly the same in this version, but some of the darker shots reveal a slight uptick in contrast.

The Terror Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Unlike the previous Blu-ray, which featured a remixed soundtrack in Dolby Digital 5.1, plus a DD 2.0 mono track, The Film Detective has limited itself to giving The Terror's original mono soundtrack a lossless encode in DTS-HD MA 2.0. I did not hear the degree of crackling and popping reported by my colleague who reviewed the disc from HD Cinema Classics, which suggests that additional cleanup has been performed on the audio. However, no amount of digital restoration can improve on the track's low-budget fidelity and limited dynamic range.

The Terror Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No extras are included. The previous disc offered a short restoration featurette, a trailer newly created for the Blu-ray release, a DVD copy and a postcard reproduction of the original one-sheet.

The Terror Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I suspect that viewers new to The Terror will wonder what all the fuss is about. More than most films, The Terror requires context to be fully enjoyed—specifically, a familiarity with the Corman adaptations of Edgar Allen Poe from which this cracked enterprise derives its style and atmosphere. There's also the film-geek indulgence of watching future three-time Oscar winner Jack Nicholson flex his fledgling thespian muscles in a role that even he must have known was more of a goof than a character. Karloff, of course, is always worth watching. The Terror isn't for everyone, but this is the version to get.