Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

The Wind Blu-ray Movie Review

Meg Foster Eyes.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 9, 2020

The closing credits for The Wind list a quartet of wind machine operators, which may indicate that writer, director, producer, editor, score supervisor and one assumes craft services provider Nico Mastorakis took the title of the film very seriously. This release from Arrow joins a growing list of films with at least some Mastorakis involvement that Arrow has been curating, including Blood Tide, another Mastorakis produced offering that, like The Wind, features the incredibly gorgeous Greek island of Monemvasia. The Wind features Meg Foster as a “pulp fiction” mystery author named Sian Anderson (if you keep your eyes peeled, you will clearly see the character’s first name intermittently spelled as Sean on various printed documents seen in passing), who has decided to take a little “working vacation” on the picturesque island, leaving husband John (David McCallum) behind. Once on Monemvasia, Sian meets the island’s owner, a kind of goofy Brit named Elias Appleby (Robert Morley), who warns Sian of both local “ghosts” as well as the island’s nighttime weather phenomenon of rather buffeting gusts. Elias is then more or less quickly dispatched, in a scene that lets the cat out of the bag, villain wise, leaving Sean to settle in to a home that is both luxe and rustic, writing her new tome. She soon meets Elias’ handyman Phil (Wings Hauser), and it’s here where the film may go instantly off the rails for some viewers. The film has already announced via some quick dialogue between Sean and John that Sean has a habit of being “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, and Phil’s behavior from the get go seems to announce that he is seriously unstable (in case anyone was still wondering after witnessing Elias' "exit" from the film). The lack of any ambiguity about what’s going on means that once this general setup is in place, the rest of the film (which is in fact the bulk of the film) plays out as a cat and mouse game between an increasingly rattled but perserverent Sean and an unabashedly sociopathic Phil.

There have been any number of actresses whose eyes have been lionized, including of course probably most famously Bette Davis, courtesy of the Kim Carnes song about Davis’ eyes (actually written by Jackie DeShannon and Donna Weiss) which became a substantial hit in 1981. But a number of other actresses, including such luminous stars as Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor, have had their eyes written about seemingly as often as any comments about any of their performances. I’d personally like to elect Meg Foster into this august "society", as from my earliest childhood, when I noticed Foster on any number of television shows back in the day, I was absolutely transfixed by her really unusual and (to my eyes, anyway) gorgeous eyes. Those eyes get plenty of close-ups in The Wind, as Sian begins to understand how perilous her predicament is.

Mastorakis himself is on hand on this disc in a rather fascinating supplement (see below) where he offers a kind of “warts and all” recounting of some elements of this production, including what was evidently a very tumultuous relationship with Hauser, whom Mastorakis rakes over the coals pretty significantly, alleging all sorts of things like major substance abuse and daily bad behavior. That said, Mastorakis admits that Hauser’s personal “issues” (at least as perceived by Mastorakis) actually helped him create a memorable character with Phil. I’d actually argue that The Wind might have worked better had Phil been depicted as at least a little more normal, especially when late in the film a couple of other characters, including one played by Steve Railsback, kind of magically show up, with the Railsback character in particular initially coming off as a putative deus ex machina. Had Mastorakis not already detailed things so overtly, that late development might have made me wonder if all the hyperbolic melodrama surrounding Phil was a red herring, and one of these “new” characters was going to turn out to be the real culprit seen in passing carrying a scythe and engaging in various mayhem. Alas, no such “subtlety” exists in The Wind, and things are pretty much at surface level the entire way through.

The major problem with The Wind, aside from its probably over obvious general plot dynamics, may be the fact that Mastorakis just keeps doing the same thing over and over again, albeit admittedly with slight variations, but with a kind of entropic result where you just stop caring after a while. Phil does something dastardly, and Sean figures out how to deal with it, and then Sean calls someone in a panicked tone trying to get help. The film does have some angsty moments, with Mastorakis utilizing the island's many nooks and crannies well, but even some of the scares here are decidedly of the cheap kind, with loud startle effects suddenly booming on the soundtrack even if nothing very scary is actually happening on the screen. Mastorakis also engages in a patently ridiculous coda where Phil, supposedly dead, marauds again (in true horror film fashion, of course), leading to one of the funniest unintentional sight gags to ever wrap up a film of this ilk.

The Wind Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Wind is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Arrow's insert booklet offers the following verbiage on the transfer:

The Wind has been exclusively restored by Arrow FIlms and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 with 5.1 and 2.0 sound.

The original 35mm camera negative was scanned, graded and restored in 2K resolution at Silver Salt Restoration, London.

All original materials supplied for this restoration were made available by Nico Mastorakis.

While perhaps not quite up to the level of consistency seen in Arrow's Blood Tide, this is another largely gorgeous looking transfer, one that preserves a nicely robust palette (most of the time), while also offering generally commendable detail levels. There are recurrent rough looking patches here, though, including the whole opening sequence (well past the optically printed credits), as can be seen in screenshots 17, 18 and 19. Densities fluctuate just a bit later in the presentation as well, and a few scenes just don't have the same saturation levels as the bulk of the presentation. The second part of the film plays out in various states of darkness, and grain can spike fairly appreciably at times. In the better lit moments, the palette looks really lush a lot of the time, and fine detail is strong.

The Wind Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Wind offers DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 tracks. As Mastorakis kind of (understandably) proudly states in the supplement detailed below, Blu-rays of even his lesser budgeted films often have surround tracks because he was planning ahead and supervised the sound design. As such, the surround offering here is rather immersive, with both the ubiquitous whipping winds and the enjoyable score by Hans Zimmer and Stanley Myers regularly engaging the side and rear channels. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly throughout the track, and I noticed no issues whatsoever with regard to any age related wear and tear.

The Wind Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Blowing the Wind (1080p; 28:17) is a really interesting piece featuring Nico Mastorakis, though it's not another of the cheeky interviews that have sometimes been offered on other releases of Mastorakis material. Instead, he's seen from the back watching The Wind while he discusses all sorts of things, including the remastering process, why even his low budget films have 5.1 sound on their Blu-ray releases, and some of the logistical hurdles he had to overcome filming this piece. He also pretty thoroughly ravages Hauser, as mentioned above. I'm thinking that perhaps Arrow is getting ready to offer all sorts of Mastorakis outings on Blu-ray, since there are also copious clips (in SD) of various films that Mastorakis mentions in his comments.


• The Sound of The Wind (50:50) is the complete score to the film by Hans Zimmer and Stanley Myers, playing here under various stills. This is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0.


• Alternate "Edge of Terror" Opening Credits (1080p; 2:21)


• Original Trailer (1080p; 3:53)


• 2020 Re-issue Trailer (1080p; 1:55)


• Nico Mastorakis Trailer Gallery (1080p; 34:15) features trailers for Blind Date, Skyhigh, The Zero Boys and Bloodstone, among others.


• Image Galleries

  Lobby Cards (1080p; 2:00)

  
  

  Stills (1080p; 4:00)

Arrow's typically nicely appointed insert booklet contains stills, cast and crew information, technical data, and an enjoyable essay by Kat Ellinger.

The Wind Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Wind is a pretty standard "damsel in distress" outing, but I think it would have been considerably more effective had Mastorakis not given up the ghost (pun intended, considering Appelby's warning to Sian in the film) in terms of who's killing whom almost as soon as the film gets to its jaw droppingly gorgeous Greek island. There are a few scattered scares here, but they're often kind of low rent ones. Foster is fine and Hauser is (for better or worse) unforgettable. Arrow once again provides a cult item with generally solid technical merits and some really good supplements, for those who are considering a purchase.