PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (1981) (Scream Factory Blu-ray Review)

PIRANHA II: THE SPAWNING (1981) 

Label: Scream Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 94 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Tricia O'Neil, Steve Marachuk, Lance Henriksen, Ted Richert, Ricky G. Paull, Leslie Graves

 

While he sort of disowns the film now Piranha II was the first film from mega-blockbuster director James Cameron (Avatar), he directed this but just a few weeks into production Italian producer Ovidio G. Assonitis (director of Tentacles (1977)) fired him and took over the production. Reports vary about how much was shot by Cameron, some say he actually finished shooting the entire film but afterward the producer locked him out of the editing room, and legend even tells of the scorned director breaking into the edit room after hours to complete his own version of the film, but sadly there's nothing on this disc's extras to confirm or deny any of that. Anyway, I sort of like that we get to keep the mystery about the movie, true or not it wouldn't make the film and better or worse, depending on your level of tolerance for b-movie cheese. There must be a treasure trove of stories to be told about the making of this movie, maybe someday we'll get a tell-all documentary, but probably not, Cameron still draws a lot of water in Hollywood and no one wants to piss him off, ha ha.

As where Joe Dante's original film was a satirical send-up of Jaws this one makes an error in judgment by going in a bit too straight-faced, but it opens on a wonderfully corny scene of a young couple diving off the coast of Jamaica at night, swimming down to a sunken wreck for the sole purpose of fornicating underwater, and while I will say that the idea of that undersea-sex is sort of intriguing I couldn't help but think of what sort of awful aquatic parasite that sort of sexual activity might put you at risk of. Luckily for our scuba-sexers the wreck is a sunken military research vessel that experimented on hybrid piranha years earlier, and surprise surprise the killer fish still call the wreck home and make quick work of the lovers, sparing them an agonizing death in the future from whatever parasites might be in the water on that rusty wreck!

Conveniently the shipwreck is located just off shore right in front of a popular beach resort, which is where one of our main characters works, we have scuba-instructor/tour guide Anne Kimbrough (Tricia O'Neil, who was all-over 80's TV back in the day) who is giving a scuba tours near the wreck when one of her clients is killed by the piranha. They find his bite-riddled corpse but no one realizes what happened exactly, Piranha are not indigenous to the area so it's not the first thing that pops-up on the local sheriff's radar, played by a man who seems to have always been in need of paycheck, Mr. Lance Henrikesen (Aliens), who it turns out is Anne's estranged husband, together they have a son named Ricky (Ricky G. Paull, The Blob).

When Anne gets wise to the fact that there are flying piranha - your read that right, flying piranha - in the area she alerts the hotel manager who promptly fires her - you know, because you don't wanna mess with those tourism dollars during the peak season, we learned that from Mayor Larry Vaughn in Jaws (1975), as I recall that wasn't such good advice. At the resort we get a colorful cast of characters straight out of a typical 80's comedy, we have a horny older broad looking for love and and a horse-faced woman looking to land a doctor on her vacation, the type of characters you'd see in a something like Caddyshack or an 80's resort comedy, we even get a dim-witted cook and two often-nude women who trick him into supplying their boat with free eats, but Cameron's strong suit has never been comedy so these scenes are pretty corny overall, but no un-fun in a bad movie sort of way, that producer Ovidio G. Assonitis loaded it with Penthouse pets and copious nudity doesn't hurt the value of this one either. 

The film's biggest fault is that there are long stretches where nothing much seems to happen, the fish-kills are few and far between after the opening death of the underwater fornicators, but what we do get is nicely executed with some decent bloody gore, the various kills early on are of better quality than the midnight fish fry massacre stuff that happens on resort beach towards the end of the film, but it's all fun, and the design of the winged-piranha is actually pretty cool looking, it's just sort of goofily conceived and executed, but not poorly made, but not good either, it's that sort of film, the kind that ends on a note that leaves you asking "is that it?".
  

Audio/Video: Piranha II: The Spawning (1981) swims/flies onto Blu-ray from Scream Factory with a new 2K scan sourced from the original uncut negative, with the Piranha II: Flying killers title card, marking the first-time the film has a proper widescreen release here in the U.S.. It looks a bit soft throughout thanks in part to a diffused lighting style, but this was a fairly common fuzzy-style associated with Italian productions of the era, that said colors look good and skin tones look natural. Fine detail is not extraordinary but we do get some good facial detail and textures throughout, this is quite an improvement from the fullscreen version I've owned on DVD for a few years now, and sold promptly when this was announced. While the film in a lot of ways doesn't feel like a James Cameron film it does have some strong underwater sequences that looks above average, even back then Cameron seems to have had his sights set on the deep ocean.

Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA Mono track that does the job, some of the dialogue is dubbed so there's some boxiness to it, I hear a lot of familiar sounding dubbing from other Italian productions, but it's not too bad. The Stelvio Cipriani (Nightmare City) score benefits the most from the lossless mix, some nice staccato string arrangement give the film some good tension, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Onto the extras we don't get a ton but what we do get is damn decent, beginning with interview with actor Ricky Paull Goldin, he speaks about seeing the first film which terrified him, and what a blast he had in the Jamaica shooting the film (and missing a month of school!) when he was sixteen, how young and naive he was, being really embarrassed by the scene he did with the nude actress who played his love interest, and how he could relate to the role of a teen with parents in turmoil with one another. The second interview is with special effects artist Brian Wade who had previously worked with James Cameron on Roger Corman's Galaxy of Terror and would go onto do F/X for Terminator. He speaks about how he ended up on the gig, sculpting the piranha from a Cameron sketch, and what t was like on-set, speaking fondly of Cameron and his technical skills. The last extras is a 2-min trailer for the film. I would like to imagine that Scream Factory has a lot more 

The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a sleeve of reversible artwork the a-side being the original VHS artwork, the reverse side is the theatrical U.S. poster, the disc itself sporting the a-side key art. This release was originally announced as a Collector's Edition, but maybe the powers that be (James Cameron maybe?) heard about it an intervened, so I would like to believe there's a slew of uncut tell-all interviews that expose the truth about this one sitting in a vault somewhere at Scream Factory waiting for some future release after Cameron passes-on someday far away in the future. 

Special Features:
- NEW 2K scan from the original camera negative
- NEW interview with actor Ricky Paull Goldin (16 min) HD
- NEW interview with special effects artist Brian Wade (14 min) HD
- Theatrical Trailer (2 min) 

Piranha II: The Spawning (1981) is a fun slice of b-movie trash, it's not good sequel, it's fucking great, a super-fun bad movie that begins and ends with the idea of flying piranhas that can fly around like Gothic bats, that's just a brilliantly dumb coked-up idea. The disc from Scream Factory looks and sounds better the film ever has on home video, plus we get some cool interviews on top of that, and a sweet reversible artwork option, I love it, I cannot help myself, I love bad movies, and this is one of the good bad ones! 

ABOMINABLE (2006) (MVD rewind Blu-ray Review)

ABOMINABLE (2006) 

Label: MVD Rewind
Region Code: Region-FREE
Rating: R
Duration: 94 Minutes 
Audio: English 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1) 
Director: Ryan Schifrin
Cast: Matt McCoy, Jeffrey Combs, Paul Gleason, Rex Linn, Haley Joel, Phil Morris, Dee Wallace Stone, Tiffany Shepis, Lance Henriksen 

Bigfoot films have been around for a long while now, from The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) right up to the found-footage Willow Creek (2013), unfortunately there haven't been a ton of really great ones, and while I'm not gonna say this one is a classic slice of Sasquatch-cinema as a millennial creature feature it's a fun watch. Like a lot of films it can be summed up thusly, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window by way of... this time it's by way of The Legend of Boggy Creek, and to that end we have the wheelchair bound Preston Roger (Matt McCoy, L.A. Confidential) returning to his mountain home after a stay at the asylum following a tragic mountain climbing accident that claimed the life of his wife. The traumatic event not only robbed him of his wife but also the use of his legs, leaving him with deep mental scars. He's accompanied on this return home by a home care giver named Otis(Christien Tinsley), who for a health care professional is bit of a jerk towards his ward right from the very beginning, treating him like a child and  generally being dismissive of the man.

While holed up in his home Preston has nlot muc h else to do other than spy out his window with a pair binoculars, noticing that next door a gaggle of young women have arrived for a weekend, it's a bachelorette party. We have the bride-to-be Karen (Ashley Hartman) and her friends Michelle (Natalie Compagno), C.J. (Karin Anna Cheung), Tracy (Tiffany Shepis, Night of the Demons), and Amanda (Haley Joel). There a fun bunch, and not too annoying, plus we have scream queen Tiffany Shepis is kind enough to drop her clothes during a shower scene, so you can check that off the list of things you want from a low-budget horror movie, we have nudity. 

A third group come by way of a trio of locals, the oxygen tank sucking gas station clerk Buddy (Jeffery Combs, Re-Animator), rancher Billy Hoss (Rex Linn, C.S.I.: Miami) and big game hunter Ziegler (Lance Henriksen, Pumpkinbead) who all gather around a campfire in the nearby woods exchanging stories about the legendary wild-man creature said to be roaming the local forests. During an earlier pre-credit sequence we witness rancher Billy Hoss and his wife (Dee Wallace, The Howling) have their own encounter with the bigfoot, it slaughtering their horse before killing their golden retriever and stomping around their house scaring them out of their wits. 

With these three parties set-up the bigfoot menace can begin proper with some typical plotting and monster movie mayhem, Preston begins to take notice of the creature as it stalks around the girls place next door, eventually nabbing one of the girls while she's outside on her phone and taking her back to it's cave for a snack, which is  where the hunter Ziegler discovers her still alive, almost throws up at the gruesome sight of her abdomen having been torn open, before having his own scary encounter with the sasquatch. The beast then returns to Preston's neighbors home for some more bigfoot thrills, with poor Preston as a helpless witness the carnage happening next door. When he reports what's happening to his nurse Otis the caregiver figures him for a loon and pays no mind, forcing Preston to take matters into his own hands, sedating Otis and trying to alert the local cops, but as the bigfoot has knocked down the telephone lines he send an email to the cops, but even they think he's lost his mind.

The kills are fun with some decent practical gore, when the beast finally makes it's way into the girls house he grabs a girl through a window and pulls her out in such a way that she gets folded-up like a human lawn chair, and another girl is pulled though a floor when the bigfoot punches a hole through the ceiling to get at her. It's entertaining but also very silly, the cat and mouse game with the girls trying to hide from the Bigfoot throughout the house only needed the Benny Hill theme song to accompany it, but the best kill is reserved for dipshit Otis who gets his face chewed off.  

I liked steely eyed Matt McCoy in the Jimmy Stewart role, he has a passing similarity to the Hitchcock star and is likable enough, he gives this b-movie some good presence, but not everyone in the film is as good, the acting is spotty at best, when the girl gets pulled through the floor by the Sasquatch it looks like she's smiling the whole time, it's not surprising that of all the actresses here only Tiffany Shepis had any sort of career post 2007 that I could find. Shortcomings aside the film fun, Henriksen and Combs scenes together with Rex Linn around the campfire shooting the shit are fun, and Paul Gleason from Breakfast Club shows up as a skeptical sheriff (with a "don't mess with the bull" coffee cup). 

Audio/Video: Abominable (2006) arrives on a 2-disc dual-format release from MVD Rewind with a new 2K transfer from the original camera negative, in the intro the director speaks about how the film never was mastered in HD back during it's initial release, so this is the first time they've gone back to the negative, and in fact had to re-edit the entire film, though its stated that they used the old DVD as a reference for the edits and that they are identical, but did re-do some minor CGI elements including the eyes of the Bigfoot (as noted in the screenshots), and also re-doing the opening and ending credits sequences. The results are excellent, the image is more defined and crisp, and while it's still a cheap-looking film it's easy to appreciate the improved clarity and deeper blacks. There's also been some new color correction, adding a blue tint to the dusk and night scenes. If you look at the screenshot of the 2006 DVD and the new 2018 Blu-ray you can see the framing is slightly different and the 2006 releases was stretched.

TOP: 2006 ANCHOR BAY DVD

BOTTOM: 2018 MVD REWIND BLU-RAY 

Audio comes by way of an English DTS-HD MA Surround 5.1 and stereo track,  both are a solid track with some good atmospheric uses of the surrounds, the Lalo Schifrin score and animal/bigfoot sounds come through with some decent depth, optional English Subtitles are included. 

Looking at extras we get all the stuff from the 2006 Anchor Bay DVD including a vintage making of doc, an audio commentary, deleted scenes, outtakes, galley, storyboards, and the director's USC student film "Shadows", all presented in standard definition. We also get some new stuff, that being an informative 8-minute introduction to the film by the director, and the 16-minute short film “Basil and Mobius: No Rest For The Wicked”, a fin occult-heist film starring Zachari Levi (TV's Chuck), Ray Park (Stars Wars: The Phantom Menace),  Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) and Kane Hodder (Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood), both of these new extras are presented in HD. Also included is the original DVD version of the film, for the sake of comparison the difference in video quality is mighty significant. The DVD that accompanies this set features the same extras and feature except for the 2006 DVD version of the film which is exclusive to the Blu-ray disc. 

The 2-disc release comes housed in a clear dual-tray Blu-ray keepcase with a one-sided sleeve of artwork featuring the original key art by Drew Struzan, a gorgeous illustration that harkens back to vintage movie posters. The discs themselves are basic white backgrounds with black logo-ed lettering, par for the course for MVD Rewind. This release also comes with a limited edition slipcover with the same Drew Struzan art featuring the usual worn look with video store-type stickers on the slipcover and the spine is numbered, this being number seven in the MVD Rewind Collection. Also included is a mini fold-out poster with the same key art as the sleeve and slipcover.  

Special Features: 
- Brand-New 2K High-Definition transfer from the original camera negative
- High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations of the main feature
- 5.1 Surround Audio (Uncompressed PCM on the Blu-ray)
- Audio Commentary with writer/director Ryan Schifrin, Actors Matt McCoy and Jeffrey Combs
- Intro with director Ryan Schifrin (9 min) HD 
- 'Back to Genre: Making ABOMINABLE' featurette (37 min) SD 
- Deleted and Extended Scenes (6 min) SD 
- Outtakes and Bloopers (4 min) SD 
- “Shadows” Director Ryan Schifrin's USC Student Film (8 min) SD
- “Basil and Mobius: No Rest For The Wicked” Short film written and directed by Ryan - - Schifrin featuring a score by legendary composer Lalo Schifrin and starring Zachari Levi, Ray Park,  Malcolm McDowell and Kane Hodder (16 min) HD 
- The original 2005 version of “Abominable” (Blu-ray only) (94 mins) SD
- Poster and Still Gallery (4 min) 
- Storyboard Gallery (3 min) 
- Collectible Mini Fold-Out Poster
MVD Rewind Trailers: Abominable - Trailer 1 (1 min), Abominable - Trailer 2 (2 min), Return of the Swamp Thing (1 min), Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (2 min), Savannah Smiles (3 min), D.O.A.: A Rite of Passage, Black Eagle (2 min) 

As a Bigfoot film Abominable (20016) might be in the top third - the bar is set pretty low for these things, it's an entertaining creature feature with some decent kills, fun cameos, and a man in a Bigfoot suit that looks pretty darn good in my opinion. Not all the tension-ratcheting scenes work though and the film is heavily padded, so it definitely has it's ups and downs, but if you have a cinematic Sasquatch-itch this will probably scratch that itch for a bit. MVD Rewind's new Blu-ray/DVD combo looks and sounds way better than the previous home video releases, if you're thinking of upgrading this is well worth it, with new and old extras and great MVD Rewind collector packaging this is a tasty treat, glad to see them revisiting this millennial horror film, I don't think this one is as well known as it should be so I hope it finds more of an audience this time around.