EARTHQUAKE (1974) (Scream Factory Collector's Edition Blu-ray Review)

EARTHQUAKE (1974) 

2-Disc Collector's Edition 

Label: Shout Select 
Region Code A
Rating: PG 
Duration: 122 Minutes (Theatrical), 160 Minutes (TV Cut) Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, DTS-HD MA 2.1 with Sensurround Audio, 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: (Theatrica)1080p HD Widescreen (2.20:1), (TV Cut) Full Frame (1.33:1) 
Director: Mark Robson 
Cast: Charlton Heston, Ava Gardner, George Kennedy, Lorne Greene, Geneviève Bujold, Richard Roundtree, Marjoe Gortner, Barry Sullivan, Lloyd Nolan, Victoria Principal 

Earthquake (1974) is one of my favorite of the string of 70's disaster flicks that were all the rage, big-budget movies featuring huge set pieces, all-star casts and lots of carnage. As a kid I would love to watch these films when they aired on TV, back in the days when a big-budget movie debuting on television was a very big deal, usually bolstered by exclusive TV footage and promotions on the the radio stations. 

The plot of Earthquake (1974) is basically various groups of people trying to survive in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake that devastates Los Angeles, California. The characters we follow are a former pro-footballer (Charlton Heston, Planet of the Apes) whom is cheating on his possessive wife (Ava Gardner, The Sentinel) with a younger widow (Geneviève Bujold, Obsession). Also on the scene are the father (Lorne Green, Battlestar Galactica) of the footballer's wife, good guy L.A. cop (George Kennedy, Strait-Jacket), barfly (Walter Mathau, Charley Varrick), a creepy National Guardsman (Marjoe Gortner, Food of the Gods) and a daredevil motorcycle stuntmen played by Richard Roundtree (Shaft's Big Score). There's loads more cast seen throughout but these are the people that made an impression on me, there are so many threads and faces in this film that really don't add up to much in the end. 

The real star of the film is the city of L.A. in ruins, the epic set pieces and familiar L.A. sights is disarray makes for a fun watch, with fantastic use of matte paintings and miniatures building and cars collapsing a crashing, with the L.A. damn bursting and flooding parts of the city, it's great 70's spectacle-cinema. 

A lot of the first third of the film is getting to know all the characters, some of it is a bit of a bore but it's all in the service of what bits of character building we get here, with Heston being the main guy more or less, and he's not a great guy, but he has an arc at least. The creepiest person in the whole film is Marjoe Gortner as a store clerk with a penchant for stalking an attractive young woman, and when he soldiers up to save the city as part of the National Guard his darker impulses turn even darker. Richard Roundtree is a cool looking stunt rider in his black leathers streaked with yellow lightning, driving around the city saving kids and generally being helpful. 

Earthquake is a fun flick, the 70's were lousy with these sort of bloated disaster films, and this is still one of my favorites, delivering plenty of action, carnage and melodrama, plus we get a cast of Hollywood stars mixing it up with TV regulars and b-movie notables, what's not to love? 

Audio/Video: Earthquake arrives on 2-disc Collector's Edition from Shout Select with a new 2K scan of the theatrical cut, plus a reconstruction of the TV version with an additional 24-min of broadcast footage. The original aspect ratio for the theatrical version is 2.35:1 widescreen, but due to an issue during mastering is presented here in 2.20:1. A disc replacement program has been initiated by Shout Factory, you can go to www.discshipment.com or email info@discshipment.com for more information about that program. Incorrect framing aside I am happy to report that the image looks good, there's a heavy but natural layer of film grain, colors are solid, and the blacks levels look healthy, plus there doesn't look to be any artificial sweetening having been applied. The TV cut of the film is framed in 1.33:1 fullframe, looking much softer when put against the theatrical cut  with heavier grain, white speckling and grit, but it is still very watchable.  

Audio comes by way of English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1, DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 or DTS-HD MA 2.1 with Sensurround for the theatrical cut or of the disaster classic or English DTS-HD MA Mono 1.0 on the TV version, both with optional English subtitles. The surround track offers up a robust presentation that has some good use of the surrounds, during the earthquake we get a nice low-end rumble, though the dialogue seemed a tad low in the mix, so I actually preferred watching it with the 2.0 and 2.1 Sensurround mixes. The TV cut has a mono presentation that is solid but a bit anemic compared to the stereo and surround mixes. 

Shout Select offering both the theatrical cut of the film plus the longer running TV broadcast version spread out over a pair of Blu-ray discs, in addition to some quality extras. On disc one we have three vintage audio interviews with Charlton Heston, Lorne Greene and Richard Roundtree running about 13-min. We also get several galleries of still images from deleted scenes, poster and lobby cards, behind-the-scenes, matte paintings, and publicity photos. The first disc is buttoned up with a rough looking theatrical trailer for the film, a TV spot and 4-min of vintage radio spots. 

The second disc contains the longer running 160-min TV cut of the film plus some newly produced extras, first up is a 17-min interview with film music historian Jon Burlingame who looks back at the fantastic score from composer John Williams. There's also a 17-min appreciation of the matte paintings created for the film by Universal's Albert Whitlock by cinematographer Bill Taylor, with some cool comparisons to the painting on their own and how they looked composited into the film. There's also an 11-min look at the development of the Sensurround audio system and it's use in the film by noted sound designer Ben Burtt. The second disc is buttoned-up with the option to view the 24-min of TV scenes by themselves in addition to viewing 9-min of additional TV scenes.

The 2-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of artwork featuring the original illustrated movie poster, the reverse side features an image from the film. The slipcover that accompanies this release features the same illustrated image as the wrap, and the pair of Blu-ray discs inside feature purple-tinted images from the film.   

Special Features: 
DISC ONE: Theatrical Cut (122 min)
Special Features:
- NEW 2K scan of the interpositive of the theatrical cut (2.35:1)
- Audio Options: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, 2.1 w/Sensurround audio and 2.0
- Original Theatrical Trailer (3 min)
- Original TV Spot (1 min)
- Original Radio Spots (4 min)
- Vintage audio Interview with Charlton Heston (4 min)
- Vintage audio Interview with Greene (5 min) - Vintage audio Interview with Richard Roundtree (4 min)
- Matte Paintings and Miniatures Gallery (3 min)
- Deleted Scenes Gallery ( 1 min) 
- Behind-the-Scenes Gallery (3 min)
- Matte Paintings and Miniatures Gallery (3 min)
- Posters & Lobby Cards Gallery (9 min)
- Production and Publicity Gallery (9 min)

DISC TWO: Television Cut (160 min) 
NEW 2K scan reconstruction of the TV version, featuring over 20 mins of made-for-broadcast footage (presented in 1.33:1)
- NEW Sounds of Disaster: Ben Burtt talks about SENSURROUND (11 min) HD
- NEW Scoring Disaster: The Music of EARTHQUAKE (17 min) HD
- NEW Painting Disaster: The Matte Art of Albert Whitlock (11 min)
- Isolated TV scenes – Play them without watching the TV version of the film (24 min)
- Additional TV scenes #1 (7 min)
- Additional TV Scene #2 (2 min)

Earthquake (1971) is one of the big-budget disaster flicks that delivers plenty of natural disaster action as well as some silly melodrama. It's all fun stuff, delivering lots of entertainment value as only these star-bloated big-budget carnage flicks could, and Shout Select's 2-disc Collector's Edition likewise is stuffed to the gills with nify extras. 

THE SENTINEL (1977)

THE SENTINEL (1977) 

Label: Scream Factory

Release Date: September 22nd 2015 

Rating: R

Region Code: A

Duration: 92 Minutes 

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with optional English SDH Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) 

Director: Michael Winner

Cast: Deborah Raffin, Beverly D'Angelo, Christopher Walken, Cristina Raines, Burgess Meredith, Chris Sarandon, José Ferrer, Jerry Orbach, Eli Wallach. John Carradine, Ava Gardner, Martin Balsam, Arthur Kennedy, William Hickey, Tom Berenger

Young fashion model Alison Parker (Cristina Raines, Nashville) is the mistress of a shady lawyer named Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon, Fright Night) whose wife just jumped from the fifty-ninth story of her apartment building under mysterious circumstances. He seems ready to settle in with Alison but she's looking for her own apartment, you get the feeling that maybe she might be having doubts about her taste in men, but he seems supportive of the idea. Realtor Miss Logan (legend Eva Gardner) shows her a gloomy Manhattan brownstone with a magnificent view of the ocean, the only other tenant seems to be a reclusive blind priest who lives on the third floor, the blind Father Holleran played by b-movie legend John Carradine (Seven Doors of Death). 

The ridiculously low rent-controlled price seems a bit too good to be true, but you have to strike while the iron is hot, so Alsion  moves in right away where she quickly encounters an eccentric old man named Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith, Burn Offerings) and his pet companions, a cat named Jezebel and a yellow canary named Mortimer. Later he introduces her to a few of the other eccentric neighbors, notably a pair of sinister lesbians played by Sylvia Miles (Midnight Cowboy) and Beverly D'Angelo (the National Lampoon Vacation movies). In a very strange scene D'Angelo's character who furiously double-clicks her mouse, eyes rolling back in her head with delight, while Alison looks on in quiet horror, before dismissing herself. Now I cannot watch any of the Vacation movies with the thought of D'Angelo I think of her rubbing one out, she's also seen nude in several more disturbing sequences. 

Shortly after arriving at the brownstone Alison's father passes away, which causes her a great amount of psychic pain, including memories of walking in on her father in the act of a perverse threesome with a pair of whores when she was a teenager, the surreal scene ends with the young Alison opening up her wrists in the bathroom at the horror of the sinful sight. She now finds herself haunted by the apparition of her father who shows up inside her apartment one night, she attacks him with a kitchen knife slicing off his nose and stabbing his eye, with some gruesome special effects gore from legend Dick Smith (The Exorcist). This encounter ends with her  fleeing the apartment in only a night slip, screaming in the street, which lands her at the hospital under a suicide watch.  

Alison speaks with Miss Logan (Gardner) about her inability to sleep at nigh because of the noisy neighbors, particularly one who paces back and forth in the apartment above her own, causing the light fixtures to eerily swing back and forth. Miss Logan, to her surprise, kindly informs her that no one else lives in the apartment except for the priest, she even goes so far as to come back to the brownstone with Alison and show her the vacant apartments. Confused and shaken by the strange events Alison begins to deteriorate mentally, on a shoot for  new commercial she's off her game and faints, crashing through a pane of glass nearly ruining the shoot. 

In the background we have a few other stories happening, Alison's boyfriend Michael is being investigated by Det. Gatz (Eli Wallach, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly ) and Det. Rizzo (Christopher Walken, The Prophecy)  whom suspect his wife's suicide may have been staged, they hassle Michael and also draw parallels to the mental state of his current girlfriend Alison. To his credit Michael is not all bad, he seems to be the only one who believes that something is happening to Alison aside from a nervous breakdown, and he is the one who uncovers the conspiracy of the Catholic Church, though his fate does reveal a darker side to his nature, he is a lawyer after all. 

There's also a priest who seems to guide Alison back to the Church, her faith having lapsed years earlier, played by actor Arthur Kennedy, in a restrained but pivotal role. Something notable about the movie is what a fantastic cast of actors are present, so many familiar faces, aside from those mentioned previously we have appearances from Jeff Goldblum as a fashion photographer (The Fly), Jerry Orbach (Law and Order) as a commercial director, Martin Balsam (Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho), Deborah Raffin (God Told Me To) as Alison's best friend, Jose Ferrer (The Swarm), William Hickey (Christmas Vacation) as a cat burglar,  and if you're quick you might spot Tom Berenger (Major League) who shows up right at the end. 

Now The Sentinel is not a movie I have a lot of nostalgic fondness for, I didn't catch it until my early thirties, which is actually a lot longer back than I'd care to admit, but the point being that this '70s slice of supernatural cinema holds up without the benefit of having seen it in my youth, which is great. There's that strange seventies atmosphere and weirdness throughout it right up to that fantastic finale with her neighbor (a seething Burgess Meredith) leading the deformed minion of Hell against her, the demons are portrayed by actual circus freaks afflicted with deformity, it's unnerving stuff and brings to ind the Tod Browning classic Freaks.

The Sentinel is obviously Universal's exploitative stab at some of that fat Exorcist and Omen cash that was flowing freely through the cinemas at the time, the Italians weren't the only ones cashing in, but this does comes off more along the way of Lucio Fulci's The Beyond by way of Polanski's The Apartment, or maybe the Dan Curtis possession movie Burn Offerings, and none of that is bad, I loved it. Sure, the movies a little kitchsy and clunky, and the score is a bit of let down, but what a great cast to carry it through, it moves slower than a modern audience might appreciate but as someone who grew up in the '70s I have an appreciation for a supernatural slow-build with some truly frightening highlights, which this delivers time and time again. 

Audio/Video: Creepy classic The Sentinel 91977) arrives on Blu-ray for the first time from Scream Factory with a brand-new HD transfer from he interpositive and it looks surprisingly good with a fair bit of grain in the darker scenes and some minor print imperfection such as white speckling and scratches do show up from time to time,but all things considered this is a nice upgrade from the previous standard-def version. Colors are nice and skin tones are natural in appearance, not a lot of depth to the image but a fairly crisp presentation without any notable digital manipulation. Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with optional English SDH subtitles, clean and crisp but that Gil Melle score is pretty bland stuff.

Onto he extras on the disc we should begin by noting that while this is not one of the Scream Factory Collector's Editions, so we don't get a ton of new stuff but they do manage to squeeze quite a lot onto the disc beginning with  a new video interview with assistant director Ralph S. Singleton (director of Graveyard Shift (1990)) who speaks of breaking into the movie business working as a PA on the Captain America TV Pilot before becoming an assistant director for Michael Winner on the revenger Death Wish (1974)with Charles Bronson (White Buffalo) before joining him on the crew of this movie, he's very respectful of Winner whom he credits for helping launch his career. 

Unfortunately there aren't any other interviews but the disc is well-stuffed with audio commentaries, beginning with a somewhat candid one from actress Cristina Raines moderated by Sean Chains of the Hill Place Blog, here she reveals to having not ever watched the movie before, owing it to the awful experience she had onset with director Michael Winner, she goes out of her way not to be overly negative but it becomes clear she was not happy on-set and has a very low opinion of the man, at the end implying if she had to do it over again, she would not. 

The second commentary comes from writer/producer Jeffrey Konvitz who wrote the novel the movie is based on and whom co-wrote the screenplay with director Michael Winner. The commentary is moderated by Nathaniel Thomspon of Mondo Digital, and Konvitz also comes across as not being a fan of the director and many of the casting and directorial choices he made. He speaks about writing the novel and the follow-up novels, which thus far have not been made into movies, but he holds out hope that since the remake rights for the movie have been optioned something will happen shortly, including writing a new entry in the series. 

Director Michael Winner offers a solo commentary and it's a bit on the dry side with a lot of talk about his career and more of an observational commentary, it was the driest of the three options and the one that put me to sleep. I would have appreciated more of an informed fan commentary to be honest, someone from the outside with a more horror-nerd perspective that from he inside, this must not have been an easy set to work on, at least that's what I gathered from the commentaries.

Extras are finished-up with a a scratchy full frame theatrical trailers, an assortment of TV spots and three still galleries featuring movie stills, lobby cards and posters, plus black and white press photos. Unfortunately no new video interviews with stars Christina Raines, Chris Sarandon or Beverly D'Angelo, the latter of whom I would have loved to hear discuss her infamous masturbation scene!

Special Features:

- NEW 2015 High Definition transfer of the film from interpositive!
- NEW Audio Commentary by actress Cristina Raines
- NEW Audio Commentary with writer/producer Jeffrey Konvitz
- NEW Interview with assistant director Ralph S. Singleton (24 Mins) HD
- Audio Commentary with director Michael Winner
- Theatrical Trailer (3 Mins) 

- TV Spots (3 Mins)
- Movie Stills Galleries (3 Mins) 

- Black and White Press Photo Gallery (3 Mins) 

- Lobby Cards and Posters Still Gallery (3 Mins)

The Sentinel is truly one of my favorite supernatural slices of cinema, for those of you who haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and check out this cult-classic now. This is a movie I've been wanting on Blu-ray since the format emerged and Scream Factory have done a nice job with the HD presentation, highly recommend for fans of supernatural '70s cinema. 3.5/5