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. 

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1995) (Scream Factory Collector's Edition Blu-ray review)

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1995)

Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 95 Minutes 
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1) 
Director: John Carpenter 
Cast: Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, John Glover, Charlton Heston, David Warner, Bernie Casey, Peter Jason, Frances Bay, Wilhelm von Homburg

John Carpenter's In The Mouth of Madness (1995) is probably one of the most Lovecraftian non-Lovecraft movies you will ever watch, a reality-bending slice of 90's horror that for a long time was over-looked as the near masterpiece that I think it is, but I think it's standing in Carpenter catalog has risen considerably these past few years. It opens with insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neil, Possession) being forcibly incarcerated at an asylum for reasons unknown, he's received by Dr. Saperstein (John Glover, Gremlins 2) and placed in a padded room, but not before kicking one of the orderlies right in the balls, which he jokes about later. He's later visited by Dr. Wrenn (David Warner, Waxworks) who while interviewing him  makes references to something awful happening outside the walls of asylum, and we learn of Trent's back story, narrated by Trent in true Lovecraftian fashion, working us back through the mind-bending tale that brought him to insanity. 

The tale begins to unfold with a scene of Trent interrogating a Mr. Paul (Peter Jason, Assault of Precinct 13) whom his insurer suspects of fraud, it sets Trent up as a crafty private eye and also a bit of an asshole, from here it moves on to dinner with the head of the insurance company, played by Bernie Casey (Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde) who asks Trent to take on a case for a large policy holder, Arcane Publishing. While having lunch a man with an axe and a peculiar set of eyes attacks Trent, smashing through a window and asking him "Do you read Sutter Cane?", before he's shot dead by the police. 

Trent meets with the head of Arcane Publishing (Charlton Heston, The Planet of the Apes) and Cane's editor Linda Styles (Julie Carmen, Fright Night 2) who tell him of how their star horror writer Sutter Cane has gone missing along with his new manuscript, oh, and the guy with the ax who attacked him earlier was Cane's manager who read his latest book and went crazy, killing his entire family prior to going after Trent. The publisher want him to find the writer and bring back his new novel, and while Trent feels the whole thing is a PR stunt, he reluctantly agrees to take on the case. The first clue comes when Trent somehow figures out that the various covers to the author's book can be cut-up to form a map of New Hampshire, leading to a road trip with editor Styles that leads them to a small village straight out the author's books, Hobb's End, a town that shouldn't exist but somehow does.

They check into a creepy bed and breakfast run by an old lady named Mrs. Pickman (Frances Bay, Wild At Heart) and almost immediately encounter Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow, Dune) who is holed up at a strange black church located in town, and things gets really strange from the get-go, with reality and fiction beginning to breakdown and meld, leaving the investigator and the editor doubting their own sanity. As the film plays out the reality game is both horrific and psychologically mind-bending, with our once doubtful investigator questioning his own existence by the very end, in a story peppered with grotesque Lovecraftian terrors and John Carpenter's wonderful directorial flourishes. Carpenter's use of the scope framing combines wonderfully with the visually cool-looking locations, the asylum and the black church are framed to perfection, using the full scope of the frame to capture all the madness.

The special effects done by KNB are awesome, there's lots of tendril sand gooey tentacled Lovecraftian creatures, hideously deformed locals, and more subtle touches like the strange-looking dual-pupils seen throughout. The monster stuff is kept to a minimum, they didn't get a lot of screen time, but what we do get is mighty sweet, I wanted more but we get enough without over doing it. 

This has such a great cast as well, highlighted by Sam Neill who is perfectly cast as the cynical private investigator, he's wry and sarcastic ,and he plays demented well, the scenes of him losing his grip at the cinema at the end always makes me smile, he's got such a peculiar way about him, I love it. Julie Carmen feels a bit stiff to me, she's a cold fish by design, in the extras she says Carpenter had her watch Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940) as inspiration for the character, which I've never seen, but I didn't love her performance, but I did like it when she begins loses her mind, telling Trent that she's "Losing myself!", that scene worked for me. The rest of the cast is a weird combo of notables, we have Bernie Casey from Revenge of the Nerds, Charlton Heston, Carpenter's good luck charm Peter Jason, plus Wilhelm von Homburg (Vigo the Carpathian from Ghostbusters 2!), Carpenter really cast this one with some odd but satisfying choices. 

Audio/Video: In The Mouth of Madness (1995) arrives on Blu-ray from Scream Factory, sourced from a brand new 4K scan of the original camera negative, presented in 1080p HD and framed in Carpenter-vision widescreen (2.35:1). The previous Warner Bros. Blu-ray from 2016 looked fine to my eyes, but this new transfer looks fantastic, grain is uniformly finely managed, colors are rich and nicely saturated, black levels are deep and inky and fine detail is abundant throughout with really nice shadow detail. Scream did really good work with this new transfer. 

The lone audio option is an English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 with optional English subtitles, everything is well-balanced and clean, the Carpenter score and creepy sound design seep into the surrounds giving this a nice immersive presentation. This is one of those underrated Carpenter scores, if you ever get the chance to listen to the soundtrack away from the film give it a listen, like the movie it's only gotten better with age. 

Onto he extras we get the vintage EPK and original John Carpenter commentary with cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe from the previous U.S. releases, it's a very technical track and not one of the best Carpenter commentaries you will ever listen to, but Scream Factory come through with a brand new commentary from Carpenter and his wife/producer Sandy King Carpenter, it's a much looser and more enjoyable listen as the two wax nostalgic on making the film, covering the production, the cast and reception of the film. Sandy King several times takes jabs at New Line's Bob Shay, she definitely was not a fan of the man, also saying that Charlton Heston hated her, he even kicked her out of her office so he could take a nap! 

More extras come by way of an episode of Horror’s Hallowed Grounds with Sean Clark exploring some of the locations used in the film, I love these things, I wish there were more of them on Scream's releases, it's been a while since I saw one. There's also new interviews with actress Julie Carmen and special effects artist Greg Nicotero, both are good interviews, with Carmen speaking about her notable genre roles in film, a cool deleted ending to the film, and what it was like working with everyone on set. Nicotero speaks about the notable special effects with some cool behind-the-scenes video that gives us a much better look at some of the creatures designed for the film that are only really glimpsed in the final film, plus scenes of the special effects from the deleted scene referenced by Carmen in her interview. The disc s buttoned-up with some Nicotero home movies, a trailer and a whopping nine-minute of TV spots. 

The single-disc release is a Collector's Edition, it comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork, the a-side is a new illustration from frequent Scream collaborator Joel Robinson (Black Christmas), the reverse side being the original one-sheet which was used on previous home video versions. This release comes with a limited edition slipcover also featuring the Joel Robinson artwork, the disc also features the same Robinson artwork.

    
Special Features:
- NEW 4K scan of the original film elements
- NEW Audio Commentary with director John Carpenter and producer Sandy King Carpenter 
- NEW Horror’s Hallowed Grounds – a look at the film’s locations today (12 min) 
- NEW The Whisperer of the Dark - an interview with actress Julie Carman (10 min) HD 
- NEW Greg Nicotero’s Things in the Basement – a new interview with special effects artist Greg Nicotero including behind-the-scenes footage (17 min) HD 
- NEW Home Movies from Hobb’s End – Behind the Scenes footage from Greg Nicotero (12 min) 
- Audio Commentary with director John Carpenter and cinematographer Gary B. Kibbe
- Vintage Featurette – The Making of In the Mouth of Madness (5 min) 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) HD
- TV Spots (9 min) 

If you're in a Lovecraft frame of mind and looking for something to watch I say check out In The Mouth of Madness, one of the best of the Lovecraft influenced movies out there that isn't a direct adaptation. Carpenter explored Lovecraftian themes in both of the preceding Apocalypse Trilogy entries with both The Thing (1982) and Prince of Darkness (1987), but never more overtly than with this one, it's littered with Lovecraft references and Easter eggs, plus oodles of atmosphere. The new 4K transfer by Scream Factory looks gorgeous, and the new extras are all pretty great, well-worth the upgrade! Scream usually do good work for their John Carpenter titles, here's hoping they get their hands on more of 'em, I'd even be down for some of the later not-so-great stuff like Ghosts of Mars (2001) Escape from L.A. (1996) and Vampires (1998), and his sci-fi film Starman (1984) is already on tap for a Collector's edition in 2019.