6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
A novelist is stalked by a psychopath one stormy night.
Starring: Meg Foster, Wings Hauser, David McCallum, Robert Morley, Steve RailsbackHorror | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Greek
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 2.5 | |
Overall | 2.5 |
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.
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.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 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.
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.
- Lobby Cards (1080p; 2:00)
- Stills (1080p; 4:00)
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.
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