THE CHAIN REACTION (1980) (Umbrella Entertainment Blu-ray Review)

THE CHAIN REACTION (1980) 

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.

MAD MAX (1980)

MAD MAX (1980) 

Label: Scream Factory

Region Code: A

Rating: R

Duration: 93 Minutes

Audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0, DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: HD Widescreen (2.35:1) 

Director: George Miller

Cast: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, Geoff Parry, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Roger Ward

Synopsis: In the ravaged near-future, a savage motorcycle gang rules the road. Terrorizing innocent civilians while tearing up the streets, the ruthless gang laughs in the face of a police force hell-bent on stopping them. But they underestimate one officer: Max (Gibson). And when the bikers brutalize Max's best friend and family, they send him into a mad frenzy that leaves him with only one thing left in the world to live for – revenge! Also starring Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Steve Bisley (The Great Gatsby, Red Hill), this rugged racecar of a film runs on "comic book volatility… exhilarating rowdiness and visual intensity" (The New York Times)!

I can distinctly remember my parents bringing Mad Max home on Laserdisc in the '80s and what a white-knuckle viewing it was from the very start, it begins with a high speed pursuit of the cop-murdering outlaw biker named Nightrider (Vincent Gill). The Nightrider has made off with one of the Main Force Patrol (MFP) high-octane pursuit cars and managed to evade several rookie units before veteran officer Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) catches up to him and engages him in a nerve-shredding game of chicken, the Nightrider flinches first and  goes up in a fantastic fireball. We're only just a few minutes into the movie and already my nerves were shattered with an overload of amped up Ozploitation speed and vehicular destruction

Mad Max takes place prior to the more apocalyptic sequel The Road Warrior, things seem bad already but they aren't quite as bad as what's to come in. The world is ravaged by an energy crisis and the open roads of Australia are being menaced by rogue bikers bent on rape, murder and scrounging gasoline. It's not idyllic but society has not completely crumbled just yet. The MFP are leather clad brigade of toughened officers in souped-up muscle cars patrolling the open roads who seemingly offer a thin line of protection, sort of, you never see them stop a crime, just clean-up afterward. I guess it's comforting to know your rapist or murderer might at least be caught. The leather clad officers have a fetishistic quality about them, a dystopian version of the Tom of Finland illustrations, especially the beefy Captain Fred "Fifi" Macaffee (Roger Ward). 

The Nightrider belonged to a biker gang called The Acolytes, a nasty bunch led by the charismatic Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) and Bubba Zanetti (Geoff Parry). Toecutter has the twisted charm of a warlord and makes for quite a leader, he never chews up the scenery, but is very menacing. Soon after the death of the Nightrider's the Acolytes attack and rape a young couple, in the aftermath the MFP find one of the Acolytes strung out on drugs still on the scene and arrest him. However, when the case goes to court no witnesses or victims dare show up to trial and the biker walks free. A short time later Max's partner Jim "Goose" Rains (Steve Bisley) is ambushed by the gang who burn him beyond recognition, there's a scene of Max visiting Goose in the hospital, what he sees sends a wave of horror across his face. 

Disillusioned by the violent series of events Max threatens to leave the   he loses his mind, but is convinced by Capt. Fifi to take a short leave of absence to think it over first. Max and his wife Jessie (Joanne Samuel), along with their infant son, head for the coast and along the way encounter the Acolytes which ends in tragedy for Max. Afterward a grieving and revenge driven Max once again dons his leather MFP uniform and pursues the gang in a souped-up black Ford Falcon XB GT.  

I don't think that any movie prior to Mad Mad even came close to the amount of amped-up crash and burn that first-time George Miller put onscreen in 1980, this was some wild stuff and the death-defying stunt work and fiery awesomeness of Mad Max still holds up some thirty-five years later, these chase sequences still get the blood pumping, the cinematography roughly captures all the excitement from low angles and heighten the action, it looks and feels dangerous, because it is.  

Mel Gibson is bad ass as the revenge driven Max Rockatasnky, looking impossibly young and menacing in his steely, cold way. Sure, it takes about an hour for Max to actually get mad, but once he loses his cool he is one of the big screen's most iconic vengeance characters, a vigilante cop decked out in leathers and carrying a sawed-off shotgun. It makes for a pretty great back story for the Max we come to know in The Road Warrior, the wasteland warrior. 

Audio/Video: Mad Max has previously been issued on a pretty damn decent Blu-ray courtesy of MGM back in 2010 with some solid extras. Scream Factory's Collector's Edition Blu-ray ports over the extras from that disc and adds new interviews with stars Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel And Director Of Photography David Eggby. 

The MGM and Scream Factory transfers seem almost identical, sporting minor print damage and discoloration from the source material, there's a nicely managed layer of film grain offering as much fine detail as the soft-focus cinematography will allow. Color saturation is strong, black levels and contrast are pleasing. Astute HD viewers will notice some compression artifacting creeping in from time to time, I myself struggled to notice this during as I was enjoying the film, but they are there for scrutinizing, which gives the MGM disc the upper hand in respect to PQ.

Onto the audio options we are given the choice of the original Australian audio in both DTS-HD MA 2.0 and 5.1, plus the English-dub offered in DTS-HD MA 2.0 with optional English subtitles. The surround mix is potent and aggressive where it should be with great fidelity but I do prefer the 2.0, feels more natural with plenty of low-end roar and rumble. 

Onto the special features we have all the featurettes from the 2010 MGM release plus a brand new set of interviews with stars Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel and Director Of Photography David Eggby.

Additionally there's a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring the original poster artwork and a newly commissioned piece done by illustrator Paul Shipper, who designed a similarly layed out cover for Scream's Escape from New York Blu-ray. Most of the time I would say that the upgrade to the Collector's Edition from Scream is a no-brainer but in the case of Mad Max which already had a decent Blu-ray that largely depends on how much you value the new interviews and artwork option. I have some minor quibbles with the compression issues that appear throughout, but honestly you have to be scoping this out hardcore to notice it, this is a solid presentation from Scream, but it's not the definitive release. 

Bonus Features
- Contains Both the Original Australian English Audio and the US English Dubbed Audio
- NEW Interviews With Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel And Director Of Photography David Eggby (26 Mins) HD
- Audio Commentary By Art Director Jon Dowding, Director Of Photography David Eggby, - Special Effects Artist Chris Murray And Tim Ridge
- Mel Gibson: The Birth Of A Superstar (17 Mins)
- Mad Max: The Film Phenomenon (25 Mins)
- Theatrical Trailers (4 Mins)
- TV Spots (1 Mins)
- Photo Galleries (9 Mins)

Mad Max is a white-knuckled thrill ride loaded with amped-up car chases and fiery death scenes set in the near apocalyptic outback of Australia, Max Rockatansky is a fantastic leather-clad revenger and the black Ford Falcon XB GT is truly one of cinema's most bad-ass vehicles. Watching this has primed me for seeing Mad Max: Fury Road this weekend at the cinema, which looks mind-blowing. ***1/2 3.5/5