Label: Umbrella Entertainment
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 92 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Ian Barry
Cast: Ross Thompson, Steve Bisley, Arna-Maria Winchester, Ralph Cotterill, Hugh Keays-Byrne
When a powerful earthquake centered in the Australian outback causes damage to the WALDO (Western Atomic Longterm Dumping Organization) nuclear waste storage facility it releases massive amounts of nuclear contamination into the local groundwater supply. An engineer at the plant named Heinrich Schmidt (Ross Thompson) risks his life to minimize the threat, but winds up doused in hundred of gallons of contaminated waste water, it's a fatal dose. Dying in the hospital he tries to warn his superiors of the impending threat to the larger community, only to discover that they're looking to quietly cover up the accident. He escapes his confines and tries to reach a colleague on the outside who will help spread the warning to the public, but his superiors have other plans.
Enter Australian everyman, car mechanic Larry Stilson (Steve Bisley, Mad Max) and his wife Carmel (Anna-Maria Winchester), a couple on a weekend getaway when the delirious Heinrich arrives at their cabin, looking the worse for wear, suffering from the effects of radiation exposure, including memory loss, which renders him unable to communicate the threat at hand.
Unaware of the danger the couple find themselves caring for the engineer, but find they're now unwitting targets are an extermination squad of contamination-suited henchmen lead by the steely-eyed Gray (Ralph Cotterill, Howling III) whom has been dispatched by the WALDO honchos to recover the dying engineer and to keep the impending nuclear threat under wraps!
This is a thriller that works on several levels, it's an atmospheric piece of work, plus we get both the suspenseful thrills and amped-up car chases that were second-unit directed by George Miller, the director of the Mad Max films! Most of the car action involves a Ford Fairlane LTD and Larry's sweet ride, a modified Holden utility truck with some sporty striping, both vehicles tear it up on the dusty roads with lots of colliding sheet metal and revved-up engines, everything edited to adrenalized perfection.
The Chain Reaction (1980) has a lot to offer, high-octane car chases, evil corporate baddies, secretive cover-ups, and the threat of a nuclear nightmare - what's not to love!?! Also be on the lookout for a bearded, blink and you'll muss it cameo from Mel Gibson (Mad Max) and Mr Toecutter himself Hugh Keays-Byrne (Mad Max, Mad Max: Fury Road) in a larger role, he's a good guy this time around, but that guy still oozes a strange menace. Bisley plays well as the average bloke sucked into a dirty scheme, he has some good lines, my favorite being "I need some negotiating power – twelve gauge!", that's good stuff! Then you have Ralph Cotterill playing the baddie to the hilt, a bad man on a mission, and completely despicable.
Audio/Video: The Chain Reaction (1978) debuts on region-free Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment as part of their Ozploitation Classics line-up with a new 4K scan, we get a 1080p HD presentation framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. I didn't see any verbage about the lineage of this HD master but it looks terrific, grain in unfiltered and carries with it some impressive detail in close-ups, the colors are rich and vibrant, with a little bit of softness throughout. Black levels are generally very good, with blemishes being relegated too some minor white speckling and a vertical line every now and again, but overall this is a very pleasing image from start to finish.
Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with optional English subtitles. Dialogue is crisp and clear, depending on your ear for Australian accents, and the electronic score from Andrew Thomas Wilson sounding quite good in the mix.
Umbrella offer up a nice array of extras for this film, beginning with 64-mins of extended interviews from Mark Hartley's 'Not Quite Hollywood' doc, interviews with stars Steve Bisley and Ana-Maria Winchester, director Ian Barry, and associate producer Ross Matthews. There's also a 33-min vintage making of featurette produced by Mark Hartley, with interviews from Ian Barry, star Steve Bisley, and producer David Elfick, plus 9-min of deleted and extended scenes, and the director's 25-min short film 'The Sparks Obituary' (1978) with an introduction from writer/director Ian Barry.
There's also a 94-min rough cut of the film titled 'The Man at the Edge of the Freeway' which runs 94-min, sourced from what looks to be a full frame video source, bit not looking too bad all things considered. Extras are finished-up with a trailer, a VHS trailer and a TV spot for the film, plus there's an Easter Egg on the main menu which looks to be an option to watch the film in a full-frame version, sort of a grindhouse viewing option I guess, but it looks to be from the same HD transfer, not the rough cut version. I didn't detect any differences in the content while I skimmed through it, and it the same running time as the main feature, and is framed with a film frame graphic that gives it a 8mm look.
Addendum: Many thanks to Umbrella's Leon O'Regan who was production manager on this release for reaching out to me to clarify what exactly that Easter Egg on this release is, much appreciated, here it is in his own words:
"The version of the film included as an Easter Egg is the full-frame scan from the interpos (ie: what we get when we run the film through the scanner) and before we do any removal of dirt and scratches. It’s not framed with a graphic, they’re the actual sprocket holes on the original film element. The full frame scan contains bits and pieces which fall outside of the safe-area of the feature, the 16:9 version. This is the stuff that’s covered up by the projector gate at the cinema and thus the 16:9 feature on our disc. You can see splices between shots, boom-mics, production gear, shadows, rigging and a bit more full-frontal nudity. I included this full-frame version because it’s an interesting curio and gives viewers a bit of an idea as to how much work goes into cleaning up and restoring these films. It also gives a peek into the film-making process."
The single-disc release comes housed in an oversized Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork, the two options are similar but different, both I think are vintage poster artworks, one option with the ratings brand on the cover, the other without, the disc itself features an excerpt of the same key artwork.
Special Features:
- Extended 'Not Quite Hollywood' Interviews - presented here three extended interviews conducted by director Mark Hartley for his documentary Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (64 min)
- Thrills & Nuclear Spills (33 min)
- The Sparks Obituary (1978) (25 min)
- Deleted and Extended Scenes (9 min)
- The Man at the Edge of the Freeway: Early Cut (94 min)
- Trailer (4 min)
- VHS Trailer (3 min)
- TV Spot (1 min)
- Still Galley (3 min)
- Easter Egg (92 min)
The Chain Reaction (1980) looks to have been out of circulation for a bit, it's a film I don't think I'd even heard of until this release was announced. It's nice to see this Aussie slice of action salvaged from the dust bin with a new HD transfer and a sweet set of extras from Umbrella. While the nuclear nightmare story is a product of it's time, the amped-up ozploitation carnage keeps things fresh, a fun watch and a real-deal slice of ozploitation mayhem, highly recommended.
