JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES (1998) (Scream Factory Collector's Edition Blu-ray Review)

JOHN CARPENTER'S VAMPIRES (1998)

Label: Scream Factory

Region Code: A

Rating: R

Duration: 108 Minutes

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

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1) 

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: James Woods, Daniel Baldwin, Sheryl Lee, Thomas Ian Griffith, Maximilian Schell, Tim Guinee

This Western action-horror hybrid is about as close as director John Carpenter ever got to making a traditional Western film, set in the sun-fried New Mexico desert we have a Vatican-sponsored vampire kill-squad lead by the bad-ass Jack Crow (James Woods, Videodrome) who at the start of the film is launching an assault on an abandoned house they suspect hosts a nest of bloodsuckers. Armed with cool leather jackets, high caliber guns, modified crossbows and spears they lay siege to the house uncovering the nest, dragging the vampires into the sunlight where they burst into flames. Clearing the house of vampires they do not find the Master vampire, which Crow notes is odd. That night the team blows off steam at the Sun God roadside hotel, drinking lots of booze and enjoying the local prostitutes. During the celebration the master vampire shows up - which I guess shouldn't be that much of a surprise to these seasoned vamp-killers, right? - and massacres nearly everyone in the place, announcing himself by thrusting his hand through one of the vamp-killers chest and then ripping him in half! It's a gory blood-soaked encounter, the only survivors being Crow, his right-hand man Tony (Daniel Baldwin, Trees Lounge), and a prostitute named Katrina (Sheryl Lee, Twin Peaks) who has been bitten on her inner thigh by the vampire! 

Fleeing the scene of the slaughter Crow decides to keep Katrina close as the psychic-link that victims have with master vampires might prove useful in locating the bloodsucker for some much needed revenge. Crow leaves Tony and a tied-up Katrina at a hotel and regroups with his Vatican handler Cardinal Alba (Maximillian Schell, Disney's The Black Hole) who teams Crow with a new priest, Father Guiteau (Tim Guinee, Blade), since the previous one was killed in the hotel massacre. It's during this meeting the Cardinal informs him that this strangely strong and powerful master vampire that attacked them is none other than Valek, the first vampire created 600-years ago, which leads to a cool little origin story involving an exorcism gone wrong, one of several cool lore-flourishes here. We also learn that Valek has been searching for an ancient relic called the Black Cross of Berziers, which could potentially give him the ability to walk in daylight.

With that bit of knowledge Jack and Tony, along with the new Padre, use Katrina's psychic-link to Valek to track him down to an old Spanish prison for a final showdown complete with Crucifixion, Catholic betrayal, torn loyalties and lots of bloodsucking and bloodshed. 

Vampires has a great Western setting in the arid golden-hued environs of New Mexico that  give it classic cowboy feel, with the hard-living vampire hunters feeling like rebel bounty hunters of yore, but instead of tracking down bandits they're hunting bloodsuckers. Woods is a hoot as the hardened Crow, he didn't get many lead action roles like this one and he's giving it his all as the wisecracking, cigar-chompin' anti-hero, I loved it. Daniel Baldwin does good work here as his second in command, looking a bit swollen as he always does, the guy struggled with addiction during this period, but still pulls off the role with a good amount of Baldwin-family charisma. Poor Sheryl Lee is really put through the wringer here, her character comes off as a bit of a junkie as she spirals towards being a full-on vampire. Her characters is handled roughly by both Baldwin and Woods characters throughout the film, basically a pawn in their end game, it's a bit of thankless role in a way but I totally felt for her character, so she did good work. 

The special effects here done by Greg Nicotero are damn good, the vampires bursting into flames and then the massacre at the motel are a great start to the film, that combined with the western aesthetic, violence and action film bravado makes this a truly entertaining watch.

Audio/Video: John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) arrives on region-A locked Blu-ray from Scream Factory in 1080p HD framed in 2.35:1 widescreen. There's no information about this being a new scan of the film elements, and after comparing it to the previous Blu-ray from Twilight Time this looks near identical to me, and is most definitely the same master licensed from Sony. That fine because the source is in great shape with well-managed film grain, colors are strong and the black levels are solid throughout with excellent shadow detail, no complaints from me whatsoever, a strong and crisp presentation with excellent clarity. 

Audio comes by way of both English DTS-HD MA 2.0 stereo and 5.1 mixes, mirroring the previous Twilight Time release, plus they carry-over the lossless isolated music score (DTS-HD MA 2.0) highlighting the cool Carpenter score. The surrounds get plenty active during the action stuff, it's a potent and satisfying mix throughout, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Scream Factory carry-over all the extras from the now long Out-Of-Print Twilight Time release, including the candid audio commentary with John Carpenter, a 24-min making of EPK, theatrical trailer and the isolated music score. In keeping with their excellent work on Carpenter's filmography Scream Factory go above and beyond with a wealth of new supplemental material, beginning with a 12-min look back at the film with composer/director John Carpenter, producer Sandy King Carpenter and cinematographer Garry B. Kibbe, the Carpenter's get t the production, scoring the film and the main cast, even touching on the Tommy Lee Wallace directed sequel a bit. Star James Woods shows up for 22-min interview discussing the action starring lead role, and his relationship with Carpenter and the cast, and how Carpenter let him to several takes including letting him ad-lib lines, some of which made the cut and some which didn't. Kind of surprisingly he comes across likable enough, I've always loved him in his film roles, but the guy comes off as a bit of douche on social media and in interviews, probably because I tend not to agree with his political views, so I was a bit surprised how cool he seems here.    

Actor Thomas Ian Griffith who played the vampire Valek discusses landing the role, having to get hair extensions, and how a night out on the town with the stunt team resulted in some of those extension being ripped out. Make-up FX legend Greg Nictoero speaks for about 10-min about creating some the effects on the film, breaking them down, while Tim Guinee who played the Padre speaks about Carpenter flying him onto set in a private jet with a surprising pilot, and a funny fart story. 

Extras are buttoned up with that aforementioned EPk-style vintage making of featurette with cast and crew plus some b-roll footage, a theatrical trailer, several TV spots and an image gallery. This is a nice rounded set of extras, though it's a shame Scream couldn't get an interview with Sheryl Lee for this release, she's the only really notable cast member (sorry Daniel Baldwin) that I was missing. 

The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring the original movie poster artwork plus a new illustration from artists Devon Whitehead, whose work I usually dig, but this one not so much, I think it's a bit too cartoonish, preferring the original artwork this time around. The disc itself also features the new illustration. 

The only extras that the Twilight Time disc offers that this one does not is the 8-page collector's Booklet with new writing on the film from TT staff-writer Julie Kirgo. I am just gonna slip that booklet inside this release before I trade in the TT release, as this Scream Factory Collector's edition renders all previous releases obsolete, including the region-free Indicator release in the UK.

Special Features:

- NEW Time to Kill Some Vampires – an interview with composer/director John Carpenter, producer Sandy King Carpenter and cinematographer Garry B. Kibbe (12 min) HD 

- NEW Jack the Slayer – an interview with actor James Woods (22 min) HD 

- NEW The First Vampire – an interview with actor Thomas Ian Griffith (10 min) HD 

- NEW Raising the Stakes – an interview with special effects artist Greg Nicotero (10 min) HD 

- NEW Padre – an interview with actor Tim Guinee (13 min) 

- Audio Commentary by composer/director John Carpenter

- Isolated Score

- Vintage Making of Featurette (6 min) 

- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) 

- TV Spots (3 min) 

- Still Gallery (6 min) HD 

I never really understood the distaste for this particular John Carpenter film, it's a solidly entertaining genre mash-up that still holds-up for me, probably more so now then when I first saw it in the cinema in the late-90's. That said, I think it's been slowly winning over fans since arriving on home video. I'd kind of compare this to Dario Argento's Opera (1987) in that it's the last truly excellent film in Carpenter's filmography, coming right before Ghosts of Mars. This Collector's Edition from Scream Factory is hands-down the definitive version of the film on home video, arriving with a wealth of archival and exclusive new extras that make this an easy recommend for both fans and newcomers.  

STEPHEN KING'S CAT'S EYE (1985) (Umbrella Blu-ray Review)

STEPHEN KING'S CAT'S EYE (1985) 

Label: Umbrella Entertainment 
Region Code: A/B
Rating: M (Mature)
Duration: 95 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.4:1) 
Director: Lewis Teague
Cast: Drew Barrymore, James Woods, Alan King, Robert Hays, Kenneth McMillan, Candy Clark

Synopsis: A wandering supernatural feline's adventures provide the linking story for Stephen King's Cat's Eye, a dead on trilogy scripted by King and directed by Lewis Teague (Cujo).
The staff at Quitters Inc promises to help nicotine fiend Dick Morrison (James Woods) kick the habit. If not, someone in Morrison's household might get smoked... because QI is run by a very persuasive mob family. Next, a luckless gambler (Robert Hayes) is forced into a bet involving a stroll around a building - on the five-inch ledge encircling the 30th floor. Finally, our wayfarer kitty rescues a schoolgirl (young Drew Barrymore) from a vile, doll-sized troll.
Fan of the works of Stephen King will have fun finding the many references to his other projects throughout the film.

This often overlooked 80's trilogy of terror begins with the titular feline escaping the jaws of not only the dog from Cujo (1983) but the wheels of the cursed-car from Christine (1983)in a nice homage to Stephen King's other movies. The cat shows up again in the opening story of the anthology, "Quitters, Inc." wherein a die-hard cigarette smoker named Dick Morrison played by James Woods (Videodrome) seeks the help of Quitter's Inc. to curb his addiction to nicotine. Quitters Inc. and the strong-armed Dr. Vinnie Donatti (Alan King, The Bonfire of the Vanities) have put together quite an extreme stop-smoking program, one seemingly based on the tactics employed by mafia, as demonstrated by their willingness to repeatedly electrocute a poor cat as an example of what they will do if they catch him smoking. A threat not directed towards him, but to his lovely wife and family. The threat is only too real as he comes to find out when sneaking a puff proves too much for him to resist, even when faced with dire consequences. The short has plenty of laughs and uncomfortable moments of pain being inflicted upon his wife, Woods is wonderful as the chain-smoker caught between his addiction and his love of family and there's a great surreal party-scene with him surrounded by exaggerated smoking behaviors. .  

Next up, the high-rise thriller "The Ledge", where we have a former tennis pro named Johnny Norris (Robert Hays, Airplane) who has angered wealthy casino owner Cressner by running off with his estranged wife. Cressner is played with comical ruthlessness by Kenneth McMillan (Dune) who kidnaps the would-be Lothario and forces him into accepting a deadly bet. The wager is that if Norris can circumnavigate his high rise penthouse apartment on the exterior ledge without falling to his death he will grant his wife a divorce and give the tennis pro a bunch of money. Norris reluctantly accepts the wager and climbs out onto the perilous ledge where he is menaced by Cressner who harasses Norris with water hoses and loud noises, all while taunting him with the annoyingly awesome line, "just trying to keep you on your toes". Norris must also contend with a tenacious pigeon who relentlessly pecks away at his ankles until they begin to bleed. Unsurprisingly Cressner welshes on the bet when Norris succeeds but when the tables are turned things to not go so well for the casino owner. It was a ton of fun to watch McMillan play such a son-of-a-bitch, he's an intense actor and plays the part with so much diabolical glee. The scenes of Norris traversing the exterior of the high rise are done with what appears to be a mixture of rear projection and miniature sets and the optical effects still look good to my eyes, this is a fun one, those with an aversion to heights might even get a bit light headed by the high rise thrills. 

The third and final entry in this trilogy of terror is "General", starring a young Drew Barrymore (E.T.) as Amanda, a young girl who is being menaced by a breath-sucking troll that lives inside her bedroom wall. However, her mother (Candy Clark, Amityville 3-D) places the blame for the troll's increasingly alarming shenanigans on the family poor cat, banishing him to stay the night outside, leaving poor Amanda unguarded with the malicious troll who threatens to steal her breath while she sleeps. Of course the cat comes through in the end, but I had forgotten what a gory end the troll comes to in this one, and was a bit surprised how bloody it was for a PG-13 rated anthology, but we got away with a lot more in kids movies back then. 

Cat's Eye is a fun watch, based on two of Stephen King's short stories from his Night Shift collection, plus a new one which he scripted just for this movie. I like the connective tissue of the titular cat going from one story to the next, and Lewis Teague, who also directed adapted Stephen King's Cujo for the silver screen, does a fine job with all three of the vignettes within the context of a kiddie friendly horror anthology.  

Audio/Video: Cat's Eye (1985) arrives on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment looking great, there is a nice layer of film grain that looks like it has not suffered any major digital manipulation. The image is crisp, the colors are strong, skin tones look natural and the image is nicely detailed, the cinematography from Jack Cardiff (Ghost Story)looks phenomenal. Audio is handled by a lossless English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 track that is nicely balanced with good depth and fidelity, the score from Alan Silvestri (Back to the Future) sounds good in the mix, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Umbrella's release has two new, exclusive extras, a half-hour interview with actor Robert Hayes, plus an eight-minute interview with animal wrangler Teresa Ann Miller, produced by Cinemaniacs.  The interviews are good, with Hays recalling working on the film, particularly working with McMillan and how some of the high rise visuals were achieved, and animal trainer Miller recalls working on the film with her father Karl Lewis Miller, and how the St. Bernard seen in the film was actually one of the same one from the Cujo adaptation. Notably, Umbrella do not carry-over the audio commentary with director Lewis Teague which is found on the US disc from Warner Bro., so if you own that release you may want to hang onto it.  


The single-disc Blu-ray release comes housed in an over-sized Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork featuring new artwork, which is fantastic, made to look like a well-worn Stephen King paperback novel, even the spine has a coll distressed look. The reverse side features a variant of the same artwork minus the rating label, and the backside of the b-side features the original one sheet movie poster for the film. The disc features the same key art as the sleeve. While this release is labeled as a region B it plays just fine on my region A player. 

Special Features: 
- Interviews with Actor Robert Hayes (28 min) 
- Interview with Teresa Ann Miller (8 min) HD 
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) HD 

Cat's Eye looks great on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment, a solid HD upgrade for this 80's Stephen King horror anthology with some very cool artwork and exclusive new extras. This is an awesome trilogy of terror that is both suspenseful and kiddie-friendly enough that you can watch it with your kids, which is awesome.  

NIGHT MOVES (1975) (Warner Archive Blu-ray Review)

NIGHT MOVES (1975)

Label: Warner Archive 
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: R
Audio: English DTS-HD MA Mono 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Arthur Penn
Cast: Gene Hackman, Jennifer Warren, Melanie Griffith, James Woods

Former pro-footballer turned low-rent L.A. private-detective Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman, The Conversation) takes on the case of a runaway teenager named Delly Grastner (Melanie Griffith, Roar) - hired by her boozer/tramp mother, Arlene Iverson (Janet Ward), a b-movie Hollywood star whose best days are far behind her at this point, she's living on her daughter's inheritance cut out of her ex's will after a nasty divorce. Harry's investigation takes him to New Mexico movie set where Delly was involved with a Hollywood stuntman who once dated her mother, it occurs to Harry that the promiscuous teen is seducing men who were once her mother's lovers - which is perverse, the girl definitely has some daddy issues, and it gets even worse. This train of thought sends Harry further East to the Florida Keys to check on Arlene's ex, Tom Iverson (John Crawford, Boogens), Delly's former stepfather, who now runs a seedy boat-tour operation out of the Keys. 

There Harry catches up with her and spends a few days in the area with her step dad and his girlfriend Paula (Jennifer Warren, Mutant), managing to get caught up in a mystery involving smuggling, and a corpse found in a submerged plane wreck, all of which is further complicated by the fact that Harry's wife Ellen (Susan Clark, Porky's) is not so secretly sleeping with another man behind Harry's back!

On just a surface level there's not that much happening here, a slow-burn suspense thriller in the 70s  neo-noir tradition about a private eye who finds himself in the middle of a mystery that turns out to be way more than it at first appeared to be, and in noir fashion our protagonist doesn't really get to the bottom of anything, the truth is revealed, but his detective skills are not necessarily what gets us to the revelation, he just gets caught up in it. 

However, if you scratch the surface and read into it there's a lot more going on, but this can we enjoyed on just a basic mystery-suspense level, too, but even then not everything is explained in explicit detail, you have to follow the clues like Harry, and even then you might just fall into the truth, not find it, just like Harry. Hackman's character Harry Moseby is committed to the truth, but doesn't seem to have any loyalties or particularly strong convictions otherwise, he almost seems to be half-assing it at times, but when his action seem contribute to a tragedy he fiercely pursues the truth, leading up to a rather shocking culmination on the high seas, an encounter punctuated by  powerful blasts of violence and some surprising bloodshed. 

For a neo-noir this one stands apart as a particularly sun drenched entry, from the sun of L.A. to the golden-aura of the Florida Keys there's not a whole lot of the usual shadow play happening, but there are some smoldering and pivotal night scene in the Keys, including a steamy love-scene between femme fatale Paula and the private eye, plus the discovery of the plane wreckage as seen through a glass-bottom boat. Speaking of nude scene be on the lookout for a few tasty morsels of a very young Melanie Griffith as the sexed-up teen in her very first movie role, there's also a movie debut of a way-too-young James Woods (Videodrome) as a mechanic named Quentin who figures into all. One of my favorite visuals in the film is a shot through the bottom of the glass boat bottom as Harry looks on as the wreckage of a plane sink to the bottom of the sea, the shot goes back and forth from Harry's perspective to the doomed pilots, so good.    

This is a damn fine slice of neo-noir with a terrific performance from Hackman, one of his best, with themes of disillusionment and wrought with slow-burning tension, plus it has a shocker of an apocalyptic downer ending that left me reeling when I first watched it. This is one of those near-classics, a movie that should be heralded more than it has been, and will probably only get more recognition as the years pass by, hopefully this Blu-ray finds it's audience, it definitely blew my hair back. 

Audio/Video: Night Moves (1975) arrives on Blu-ray from the Warner Archive benefiting from a fresh 4K scan of the original camera negative with some additional restoration and clean-up, the results are awesome, there's a nice layer of natural looking film grain, the image is crisp and has some good depth, the fine detail is abundant and all those tacky 70s styles and decor are striking in 1080p. For a neo-noir this is a particularly sun-drenched movie and the cinematography really shines, the Florida Keys scenes are absolutely gorgeous. 

Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono track which is appropriately clean, dynamic and well-balanced, the Michael Small (The Driver) score sounds crisp and strong in the mix. Optional English subtitles are provided. The extras are carry-overs from the DVD, we get a widescreen HD trailer for the film and a vintage making-of EPK. 

Special Features: 
- Vintage featurette “DAY OF THE DIRECTOR” (9 min) 
- Original Theatrical Trailer (Remastered in HD)(2 min) HD 

Night moves (1975) where have you been all my life? Seriously, this is a film that has slipped under my radar my whole life till now, the very fact that it has eluded me all this time is a sad testament to the fact that this neo-noir is seriously under appreciated, I sort of feel cheated that I've lived forty years without this movie in my life! This new Blu-ray from Warner Archive looks and sounds phenomenal from start to finish, this is a sun-drenched thriller is worth seeking out, a blind buy, one of the best 70s neo-noirs I've seen, with a phenomenal career-best performance from Gene Hackman, it's right there, side by side, with his turn in Francis Ford Coppola's quiet masterpiece The Conversation (1974) - it's that good.

STEPHEN KING'S CAT'S EYE (1985) (Blu-ray Review)

STEPHEN KING'S CAT'S EYE (1985) 

Label: Warner Bros. Entertainment 
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 94 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English SDH Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.4:1) 
Director: Lewis Teague
Cast: Drew Barrymore, James Woods, Alan King, Robert Hays, Kenneth McMillan, Candy Clark

This often overlooked 80s horror anthology begins with the titular feline escaping the jaws of not only Cujo but the wheels of the cursed-car Christine in a nice homage to Stephen King's other movies. The cat shows up again in the opening story of the anthology,  "Quitters, Inc." wherein a die-hard cigarette smoker named Dick Morrison played by James Woods. Quitter's Inc. seeks professional help to curb his addiction. Quitters Inc. and the strong-armed Dr. Vinnie Donatti (Alan King) have put together quite an extreme stop-smoking program, one based on the tactics employed by mafia, as demonstrated by their willingness to repeatedly electrocute a poor cat as an example of what they will do if they catch him smoking. A threat not directed towards him, but to his lovely wife. The threat is only too real as he comes to find out when he finds that the draw of nicotine is just too much him to resist even when faced with dire consequences. The short has plenty of laughs and uncomfortable moments of pain being inflicted upon his wife, Woods is wonderful as the chain-smoker caught between his addiction and his love of family.  

The cat again come into play in the next story, the high-rise thriller "The Ledge", where we have a former tennis pro named Johnny Norris (Robert Hays, Airplane) who has angered wealthy casino-owner Cressner by running off with his estranged wife. Cressner is played with comical ruthlessness by Kenneth McMillan (Dune) who kidnaps the would-be Lothario and forces him into accepting a deadly bet. The wager is that if Norris can circumnavigate his penthouse apartment on the exterior ledge without falling to his death he will grant his wife a divorce and give the former tennis pro a bunch of money. Norris reluctantly accepts the wager and climbs out onto the perilous ledge of the skyscraper where he is menaced by Cressner who menaces Norris with water hoses and loud noises while taunting him with the line "just trying to keep you on your toes". Norris must also contend with a tenacious pigeon who relentlessly pecks away at his ankles until they begin to bleed. Unsurprisingly Cressner welches on the bet when Norris succeeds but when the tables are turned things to not go so well for the casino-owner. It was a ton of fun to watch McMillan play such a sonofabitch, he's an intense actor and plays the part with so much diabolical glee. The scenes of Norris traversing the exterior of the high rise are done with what appears to be a mixture of rear projection and miniature sets and the optical effects still look good to my eyes, this is a fun one, those with an aversion to heights might even get a bit nauseous. 

Our feline tour guide once again escape his confines and makes his way to the third and final entry, "General", starring a young Drew Barrymore as Amanda, a young girl who is being menaced by a breath-sucking troll that lives inside her bedroom wall. However, her mother (Candy Clark) places the blame for the troll's increasingly alarming shenanigans on the family cat, banishing him to stay the night outside, leaving poor Amanda alone with the malicious troll who threatens to steal her breath while she sleeps. Of course the cat comes through in the end, but I had forgotten what a gory end the troll comes to in this one, and was a bit surprised how bloody it was for a PG-13 rated anthology, but we got away with a lot more in kids movies back then. 

Cat's Eye is a fun watch, based on two of Stephen King's short stories from his Night Shift collection, plus a new one which he scripted just for this movie. I like the connective tissue of the cat going from one story to the next, and Lewis Teague, who also directed adapted Stephen King's Cujo for the silver screen, does a fine job with all three of the vignettes within the context of kiddie horror.  

The anthology arrives on Blu-ray from Warner Bros. with a new 4K scan looking healthy in HD, there is a nice layer of film grain left intact, appearing film like and natural without any major digital manipulation. Colors are strong, skin tones look natural and the image is crisp and detailed. Audio is handled by a lossless DTS-HD MA 2.0 track that is nicely balanced with good depth and fidelity. The only extras on the disc are a trailer for the movie and the same audio commentary from director Lewis Teague, which is a solid track giving some back story to how he came to the project, working with Stephen King, his experience with various actors and a lot of technical talk about how many of the optical effects were created. 

Warner Bros. offer up a solid HD upgrade for this 80s Stephen King horror anthology, not on par with Creepshow or Nightmares but still a kiddie-friendly watch that you can enjoy with your kids this October.