5.6 | / 10 |
Users | ![]() | 0.0 |
Reviewer | ![]() | 3.0 |
Overall | ![]() | 3.0 |
Napoleonic cavalry soldier Lt. Andre Duvalier comes upon a mysterious woman named Helene. Although the lieutenant is immediately taken with Helene, she seems to be leading him into deadly traps. When Duvalier seeks refuge at a baron's nearby castle, Helene unexpectedly appears there. The baron is convinced that Helene is the ghost of his long-departed wife Ilsa, but the lieutenant believes Helene is under a hypnotic spell.
Starring: Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, Sandra Knight, Dick Miller, Dorothy NeumannHorror | 100% |
Mystery | 7% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region free
Movie | ![]() | 3.0 |
Video | ![]() | 3.0 |
Audio | ![]() | 2.5 |
Extras | ![]() | 1.0 |
Overall | ![]() | 3.0 |
The Terror is one of those legendary films whose fame rests as much in anecdotes about its production as in any lasting value in the film itself. This 1963 opus, ostensibly directed by producer Roger Corman (more about that later), and featuring performances by Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, Sandra Knight and Dorothy Neumann, is an odd concatenation of ghost story, Edgar Allen Poe-esque revenge melodrama, supernatural hoo-hah (a technical term), and, just for good measure, a dash of Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds. The Terror has gained much more fame in the intervening decades since its initial release than it ever had in 1963, when it was just another American International Pictures knockoff made to bring in a few bucks at drive-ins, probably on a double bill with another AIP movie. But somewhere along the way, perhaps bolstered by Peter Bogdanovich’s fascinating Targets, Karloff’s last American film and one which included snippets of The Terror, a reexamination of this odd little film started taking place and somehow the legend replaced the reality. The Terror assumed iconic proportions even within the decidedly outré career of Corman for the mere fact that Corman managed to film this piece utilizing sets from previous AIP productions (notably the Vincent Price The Haunted Palace), even as they were being torn down around him. In true Ed Wood fashion, Corman simply filmed Karloff and Nicholson running through various soon to be destroyed sets and decided he would figure out how to incorporate them into a storyline later. Ah, the joys of “serious” filmmaking. The Terror has since become a staple of late night “nightmare theater” film series, including Elvira’s famous outings, and there’s probably no one over the age of 35 or so who hasn’t seen at least a scene or two from a film that has somehow managed to enter the public lexicon in a way Corman probably never imagined or indeed intended.
Save for the lamentable Carnival Magic, a film I'm still trying to erase from my scarred synapses, The Terror marks HD Cinema Classics/Film Chest's first foray into presenting a color film on Blu-ray, so I was really interested to see the results. While this release will almost certainly raise the ire of DNR-phobes, I personally found the efforts accorded The Terror encouraging. Presented via an AVC encode, in 1080p and an aspect ratio of 1.77:1 (you'll notice a very thin vertical black bar at the right side of the screencaps), The Terror has, like other HD Cinema Classics releases, undergone quite a bit of clean-up, with many blemishes removed from the original 35mm print utilized for the transfer. What's more encouraging about this release, however, is that there seems to have been some very smart telecine color timing tinkering, with someone modulating the usually over-yellow Pathé color prints of this film almost always show. You'll notice it immediately if you watch the restoration demo and keep an eye on the sky colors, which are now more truly blue. There are still some passing issues with the color timing here, at least from my personal perspective, with overly pink fleshtones, but on the whole, this is a nicely robust and well saturated presentation. There is fairly aggressive DNR applied to this film, but even that can't affect the stock footage of crashing water, which still exhibits grain bordering on digital noise. Overall, if you don't mind the smoothness that attends DNR, you'll probably find this the best looking release of The Terror currently available, with a decently if not overwhelmingly sharp image and excellent color.
Unfortunately we are once again not only given only lossy Dolby options here (a faux 5.1 repurposed track, as well as a standard 2.0), The Terror's soundtrack, at least the one on the print utilized for this transfer, has some pretty bad damage. It's most noticeable in several of the cues from Ronald Stein's score, notably the opening theme, which crackles and pops really badly. This is odd, in that Stein's score for Dementia 13 escaped largely unscathed in that Blu-ray presentation by HD Cinema Classics/Film Chest. As with Dementia 13, this film was obviously post-dubbed, at least some of the time, and perhaps surprisingly, the dubbed work sounds cleaner and more natural than what was evidently recorded live. The soundtrack here suffers from a really narrow, unnatural sound in both the extreme high and low registers, though to be fair, this is some ample "oomph" on the low end, at least relatively speaking, with a couple of impressive sound effects. The 5.1 repurposing is largely a moot affair, as there is virtually no discrete placement of effects in the surround channels. Instead, we get a fairly gratuitous "spill over" in the surrounds.
As with other HD Cinema Classics/Film Chest Blu-rays, there are a few "extras," but nothing which rises to the level of what I personally consider a real supplement:
If you divorce The Terror from its production history, the truth is there's really not much there. This is a film long on atmosphere and woefully lacking in anything resembling a coherent plot. But it's immense fun in its own extremely goofy way, and it's a delight to see Nicholson at this early stage of his career playing a straight romantic lead, something for which his quirky persona is not a great fit. Karloff is fine, if largely wasted, and the soon to be torn down sets are nicely sumptuous, at least by American International Pictures standards. But it's Dorothy Neumann who steals this show quite handily, and her performance as well as the film's now iconic production history makes this a must-see for film lovers of a certain cultish stripe. This new Blu-ray offers a serious upgrade in color correction, and though DNR has been applied, the increased color saturation and robustness helps to make up for the lack of grain. Though the film is still relatively soft, as it always has been, this is one of the nicer looking PD efforts from HD Cinema Classics/Film Chest and it comes Recommended.
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