THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967) (Warner Archive Blu-ray Review)

THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS (1967) 

OR: PARDON ME, BUT YOUR TEETH ARE IN MY NECK

Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 107 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA MA Mono 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080P HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Jack MacGowran, Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, Alfie Bass, Fiona Lewis, Ferdy Mayne, Ian Quarrier, Terry Downes 

Synopsis: It’s the living end, a fancy-dress ball for blood fiends in Count Von Krolock’s Transylvanian castle. Surely no mortal would be foolish enough to infiltrate this hemogobbling horror of a soiree. But partygoers notice something in the ballroom mirrors: the reflections of humans – vampire killers – dancing among them. Director/cowriter Roman Polanski (The Pianist, Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown) spoofs vampire movies with this droll balancing act of shocks and laughs. He also portrays Alfred, mousy apprentice to a doddering researcher of vampirism (Jack MacGowran)...and the lovestruck defender of gorgeous Sarah (Sharon Tate) when the Count (Ferdy Mayne) tries to make her the ghoul of his dreams. It’s all fang-tastic fun!

I remember watching Roman Polanski's vampire comedy The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) on TV as a kid still in the single-digits and really not liking it at all, I don't think I had even seen a vintage Gothic horror film yet, so I found it rather slow and not very funny. Years later I would revisit it and with a it more refined taste in cinema, arguably, and I was able to appreciate it for what it is, an affectionate lampooning of Hammer's Gothic vampire films with fantastic set design and a wry slant of humor. 

Set in the nineteenth century the film transpires in the mountainous area of Transylvania where the absent-minded Professor Abronsius (Jack MacGowran, The Giant Behemoth) and his trusty but dim apprentice Alfred (Roman Polanski) are searching for proof of the vampires of lore. During their travels they end up at mountaintop tavern owned by Jewish proprietor Shagal (Alfie Bass, Revenge of the Pink Panther) and his impressively large wife (Jessie Robins, Magical Mystery Tour), both of whom are overly protective of their attractive daughter Sarah (Sharon Tate, Repulsion), and for good reason. The tavern is decorated in strings of garlic, which gives the Professor hope that they are on the right path, and they surely are, for that very night Sarah is attacked by the vampire Count Von Krolock (Ferdy Mayne, Frightmare) while enjoying a forbidden bubble bath. 

Alfred has been smitten by the tavern keeper's daughter so he and the Professor travel to Von Krolock's Gothic castle, where they are welcomed by him, only for their host to disappear during the daylight hours, allowing for the pair of inept vampire hunters to explore the castle looking for both Sarah and for the Count's crypt. The plan is to stake the vampire through the heart while he slumbers, but this plan falls apart when the Professor gets stuck in a tiny window when entering the crypt, and then Alfred accidentally drops their vampire-hunting toolkit, which comically tumbles down the snow-covered mountain.

All the while they must contend with the Count's grotesque hunchback servant Koukol (Terry Downes, A Study in Terror), and the Count's bloodsucking gay son Herbert (Ian Quarrier, Cul-de-Sac) who becomes fixated on young Alfred! We also get a Jewish vampire by way of a turned tavern owner Shagal who offers some comedic hijinx, and I thought Ferdy Mayne was pretty terrific as the vampire Count Krolock, he has plenty of that aristocratic charm the role requires, able to come off as a real threat but also able to play it for laughs without being too jokey, which is something I could say about the whole film, it walks a fine line, balancing a finely tuned Hammer homage with satirical humor that manages to not be too slapstick for it's own good. 

The film culminates with an extravagant  fancy-dress ball happening at the castle, an event attended by the newly risen bloodthirsty undead who rise from their stone tombs in the castle's courtyard. The Professor and Alfed infiltrate the ball in disguise, only to be betrayed by their reflections in a gigantic mirror in the ballroom, then escaping in a horse-drawn slay through the snow covered mountains, comically pursued by the hunchback Koukol on a toboggan, with a fun ending that betrays the vampire hunters true intentions with a nice wink and a nudge.  

The film though a spoof is an opulent homage to the Gothic vampire films from Hammer, with the comedy playing much better for me now than it did when I was a kid in the single-digits, with the chemistry between the absent-minded professor and his dim but loyal assistant standing-out as the film's strong suit. Plus we have a strong supporting cast of quirky characters, especially Alfie Bass as the comically protective father, who also lusts after his busty barmaid (Fiona Lewis, Strange Invaders).

The Gothic sets and locations look fantastic on Blu-ray, the film is probably a bit better produced than most of the Hammer films it's sending up in truth, with excellent direction from Polanski that balances the vampiric threat with some goofy humor. The film looks absolutely gorgeous, I loved the snow-covered mountains and fairy-tale look to the nighttime mountainous area and crumbling Gothic castle. 

Audio/Video: The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) arrives on Blu-ray in it's full 107-min director's cut framed in the original  2.35:1 widescreen, this being a brand new 2019 2K scan presented in gorgeous 1080p HD. The vampire spoof looks fantastic on Blu-ray. The source is clean and blemish free, colors are vibrant when called upon, with finely resolved detail and some modest depth and clarity that brings new life to the opulent period setting. The Gothic castle location, snow covered mountains, and vintage clothing textures all look marvelous in HD, this is an impressive looking restoration through and through.

Audio on the disc comes by way of English DTS-HD MA Mono 2.0, the presentation is clean and well-balanced throughout, the wonderful score from Krzysztof Komeda (Rosemary' Baby) sounds terrific, with optional English ALL CAPS subtitles included.    

Onto the extras we get a few vintage carry-overs from the previous DVD and the laserdisc release before it, beginning with a vintage 10-min pre-release promotional piece, an alternate 4-min animated opening sequence that originally appeared on the butchered American cut of the film, plus a rough-looking 2-min trailer that promotes this film as more of a slapstick comedy than it really is. 

The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of featuring the original Frank Frazetta illustrated artwork for the film, with the disc featuring an excerpt of the same key art.  

Special Features: 
- Vintage Making of Featurette "The Fearless Vampire Killers: Vampires 101 (10 min) 
- Alternate Animated Title Sequence (4 min) 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) HD

The Warner Archive Blu-ray of Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) looks gorgeous, it breathes new life into this vampire spoof, showcasing the opulent Gothic visuals and offering a cool selection of vintage extras. This comes highly recommended to fans of vintage Gothic horror who don't mind the genre being gently lampooned.

 

THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1958) (Warner Archive Blu-ray Review)

THE GIANT BEHEMOTH (1958) 

Label: Warner Archive
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 80 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles  
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Eugène Lourié
Cast: Gene Evans, Andre Morell, John Turner, Leigh Madison, Jack MacGowran, Maurice Kaufmann, Henri Vidon, Leonard Sachs

The start of this big monster film from the 50's, appropriately, if somewhat overkill-ishly titled The Giant Behemoth, opens with American scientist Steve Karnes (Gene Evans, The Ballad of Cable Hogue) and Brit Professor James Bickford (Andre Morell, The Plague of the Zombies) being called to an idyllic seaside village to investigate the strange death of a local fisherman. His corpse showed signs of burns associated with radiation exposure, and his dying words to his daughter was "behemoth". His death is followed by a massive fish kill in the area and the beaching of a large ship with no survivors. 

Their investigations leads them to the discovery that the dead fish are highly radioactive, with the next bit of weirdness happening at a seaside farm with the discovery of enormous footprint. The scientists theorize that nuclear testing in the ocean may have mutated a creature, consulting with paleontologist Dr. Sampson (Jack MacGowran, Cul-De-Sac) whom identifies the footprint as an aquatic dinosaur that is known to have emitted an electric pulse, not unlike that of an electric eel.

Funnily, the scientist through this one picture of blurry footprint not only identifies what the creature is, but also theorizes that it's exposure to radiation is killing it, and like a salmon it will swim inland upstream to the place of it's origins to die! Even by the tenuous criteria of 50's b-movie logic this diagnosis is a bit of far-fetched stretch, but when I was eight years old watching this on TV you know I believed every word of it as potential science fact! 

Of course the monster makes it's way from the open ocean up the River Thames where it destroys a ferry before making landfall in London, stomping people and crushing cars, knocking down buildings and causing terror in the streets. Eventually the beast returns to the river and the scientist pursue it in a mini-submarine with a radium-tipped torpedo in hopes of killing it before it can further decimate London. 

Fifties creature features about irradiated lizards of unusual size wreaking havoc on atom-age man were not unusual, director
Eugène Lourié (The Colossus of New York) is repeating himself here having already directed a very similar movie a few years prior, that being the superior The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), and just a few year later would do it again with Gorgo (1961), which is the worst of the bunch, but not un-fun mind you, just a worse film by comparison. 

The beast here looks a bit shit at first, with all the presence and articulation of solid-core rubber dinosaur a kid might play with in the bathtub in the 50's. The creature emerges from the dry-ice infused water with no movement whatsoever, water dripping from it's body, relegated to odd panning camera movements to give it the unconvincing illusion of movement,. It's not until the final ten minutes or so that the creature is presented in full stop-motion animation with work done by the legendary Willis H. O'Brien (The Black Scorpion), a man who had done some excellent work in his time, this is the man who worked on the original King Kong after all, but here is working with a very low-budget which hamstrung the potential of his on-screen creation.

That's not to say it's an un-fun movie, because I love 50's monster movies and this is one of the ones I watched multiple times as a kid laying on the floor in front of the TV with by head propped up on by fists. It has not aged very well, but it has that nostalgic patina that will always keeps it close to my heart. The way that the creature transmits radioactivity is pretty cool, a circular spiral pattern that reduces people to husks of irradiated ash, an effect sometimes achieved through a dissolve from film to an illustrated image,which is not too convincing, but when I was a kid I thought it was absolutely horrific. 

Andre Morel appears here as the Brit scientist, he's a bit dry here, the whole film is very British and talky so there's the expected level of dry tinder dialogue, but this is a lesser film role for the veteran actor. I much prefer his turns in both Hammer's crime-caper Cash On Demand (1961) and the underrated undead flick The Plague of the Zombies (1966), where he is a man of science and of action.      

Audio/Video: The Giant Behemoth (1958) arrives on Blu-ray from a brand new 2019 2K scan of original film elements. The image looks solid, the 1080p HD black and white cinematography is crisp, grain is finely managed and contrast is excellent throughout. Some of the optical shots do allow some softness to creep in but that's to be expected. Close-ups offers some nice texturing, particularly in shots of the beasts skin. The increased resolution is not always kind to the film, those miniatures of the ferry boat capsizing with toy cars and trucks falling into the water absolutely do not hold-up, if they ever did! 

Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono mix that is quite adequate, it's clean and free of distortion, the raucous score from Edwin Astley isn't the most fidelic and nuanced, but it's well-balanced, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Warner Archive carry-over the audio commentary with Dennis Muren and Phil Tippet from their previous DVD release, which is somewhat mocking of the film, as well as the theatrical trailer for the film.

The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster, which is also excerpted for the disc art.  

Special Features:
- Audio Commentary by Veteran Special Effects Creator Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett
- Theatrical Trailer

The Giant Behemoth (1958) is fun monster movie stuff, it doesn't rival the monster mayhem of Ray Harryhausen but I have a real soft spot for these Willis H. O'Brien stop-motion animated creations, even when their not great, they're still awesome. I tip my b-movie lover's hat to Warner Archive for bringing this vintage creature feature to Blu-ray, a high recommend for monster kids of all ages.