The Terror: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

The Terror: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 9, 2018

Shackleton was a viscerally exciting and rather nicely informative made for television outing documenting the vaunted explorer’s disastrous expedition to the South Pole in 1914. The Shackleton story seems to be much better remembered by armchair historians than a somewhat similar tragedy that confronted intrepid pilgrims to the “other” pole some years before Shackleton set out on his journey, in what turned out to be a loss of ships and life that rather weirdly isn’t even included in some online accounts of the history of Arctic expeditions. That may be at least partially because the so-called Franklin Expedition only got within the general vicinity of the North Pole, since its goal was to find the long elusive Northwest Passage connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. What resulted was an at least partially “Shackleton-esque” drama of entrapment, isolation and, ultimately, mysterious disappearance that nonetheless didn’t have the relatively happy ending of the Shackleton escapade. What sets The Terror apart from entries like Shackleton is the kind of weird addition of a "supernatural" element that plays into otherwise at least somewhat historical proceedings. That gives The Terror a kind of X-Files ambience at times that may not sit particularly well with those who might have been completely satisfied with a more "facts and just the facts" approach toward this undeniably fascinating footnote to 19th century global exploration.

The Terror begins with a couple of explicatory text cards documenting the mysterious fate of both ships involved in this saga, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The two ships are described as “state of the art” vehicles, equipped with the then latest technologies for surviving months in harsh, isolated conditions. Some background research I did in preparation for this review further elucidated the fact that the wrecks of both ships have only recently been discovered, with both of them in amazingly good condition, perhaps another testament to how well built they were to begin with. The fates of the crew are somewhat less certain, though The Terror has an opening vignette featuring an Inuit man insisting that all aboard both ships had perished.

While the underlying plot dynamics of The Terror involve the ships getting stuck in the ice and the desperate attempts to either free them or at least try to send out expeditions to get to civilization, the show deals with a whole glut of backstories that involve several major characters, chief among them Captain Sir John Franklin (Ciarán Hinds), in charge of the Erebus, and Captain Francis Crozier (Jared Harris), leader of the Terror. There’s already a bit of tension between the two due to some shared history involving Crozier’s amorous attentions to a relative of Franklin’s (as documented in several flashbacks), a tension that only increases when a decision of Franklin’s, one made against strenuous objections of Crozier, ends up getting both ships hopelessly and helplessly encased in the ice floe.

But playing into all of this supposed “real life” drama is a decidedly spookier element that involves the native Inuit population and a mysterious entity known as The Tuunbaq. It’s probably too facile to see this marauding beast as an allegorical figure standing in for the harsh realities of the region, not to mention as a metaphor for a soon to be dying way of native life, but the miniseries does arguably try to draw some “ecological” conclusions from this otherworldly figure. I’m not quite sure the show is able to completely organically fuse the real life tragedy of Franklin’s expedition with what is almost a magical realist element, but there’s still an undeniably visceral mood running through this series that is ultimately incredibly unsettling. An Inuit woman nicknamed Lady Silence (Nive Nielsen) also plays into these particular proceedings, and might be seen as a kind of "human bridge" to this supernatural aspect.

The series might be faulted for trying to stuff a few too many suplots into its story, with a number of crewmen being profiled (more or less, anyway) and everything from relatively primitive medical techniques to not so secret homosexual assignations between various crew members being offered up at various points. The Terror has already been greenlit for a second season, though with this particular “Terror” already having been dealt with, the show is going to reportedly move on to a non-nautical based arc involving Japanese internment camps during World War II. That may deprive the show of its titular connection to a mysterious and presumed lost vessel, and put it more in the niche of anthology shows like American Horror Story.

The Terror: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Terror: The Complete First Season is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films and AMC Studios with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The IMDb lists the Red Epic Dragon as having digitally captured the often staggering imagery, and the series has a sleek if stark appearance that is quite distinctive. A lot of the show tends to ping pong between cool blues, especially in the icy outdoor sequences, and warmer browns, which tend to be utilized for some of the Inuit segments, but throughout the presentation detail levels are typically quite high. The series was evidently shot in Hungary and Croatia, and it certainly looks like at least some of the outdoor material is not green screened, giving a really authentic and well detailed accounting of a very barren and threatening environment. Fine detail is typically quite excellent, offering precise looks at rock strewn islands or the crags on various crewmens' faces. Some of the deepest blue grading does tend to mask fine detail levels, giving a somewhat "smoother" appearance at times. Lionsgate and AMC have provided a release without major compression issues and while the palette of this show is intentionally kind of tamped down a lot of the time (save for some more florid flashback material), this is a visually interesting series that looks great in high definition.

The Terror: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Terror: The Complete First Season features a nicely evocative Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. There are a number of very well done effects scattered throughout the episodes, but it's some of the more subtle moments, like the shuddering creak of the ships as they collide with ice, that provide both excellent surround activity as well as rather forceful low frequency. Outdoor scenes feature scattered discrete placement of effects, including everything from wind to, in at least one case, a huge deluge of baseball sized hail that is flung down on a hapless expeditionary force. There are also bursts of sonic activity when the mysterious creature at the core of the tale goes on a "hunting" expedition of its own. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly and with smart prioritization throughout the season.

The Terror: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• A Look at the Characters (1080p; 3:40) is an awfully brief overview, and one which can hardly touch the tip of this particular iceberg of a huge cast. I personally wished a longer piece which looked at the real life historical personages would have been included.


• A Look at the Series (1080p; 3:02) is another very short piece that gives some general outlines while delivering no real outright spoilers.


• Ridley Scott on 'The Terror' (1080p; 2:27) features the show's Executive Producer.

Note: These three rather underwhelming supplements are all found on Disc Three of this three disc set.

The Terror: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Terror: The Complete First Season is a rather unsettling mix of nautically themed outings like Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World with creepier offerings like The Twilight Zone, and if the miniseries can't quite connect the dots between these obviously incredibly disparate elements, it often comes surprisingly close. Performances are top notch throughout the series, and production values are similarly high. This is certainly a unique show from any number of angles, though I have to wonder how AMC is going to make subsequent seasons tie into the themes developed in this first season. Technical merits are first rate, and The Terror: The Complete First Season comes Highly recommended.