STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989) (SPHE 4K UHD Review)

STEEL MAGNOLIAS (1989)

35th Anniversary 4K Ultra HD + Digital 

Label: SPHE

Region: Region-Free 

Rating: PG

Duration: 118 Minutes 14 Seconds 

Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible), English 5.1 DTS-HD MA, English, French 2-Channel Surround DTS-HD MA,  Spanish Mono with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: Herbert Ross

Cast: Sally Field, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, Daryl Hannah, Olympia Dukakis, Julia Roberts, Tom Skerritt, Dylan McDermott, Kevin J. O’Connor, Sam Shepard

Steel Magnolias (1989) stars Sally Field (Heroes), Dolly Parton (9 to 5), Shirley MacLaine (Terms of Endearment), Daryl Hannah (Blade Runner), Olympia Dukakis (The Wanderers) and Julia Roberts (Flatliners) in a heartwarming story of life, love and loss in a small Louisiana parish in the 1980s. 

At the center of the group is Shelby Eatenton (Roberts), newly married to Jackson (Dylan McDermott, Hardware) and newly pregnant, which frustrates her doting mother because she has debilitating diabetes which doctors have warned could make childbirth a life-threatening. The wonderful chick-flick is chock full of Southern lady melodrama and humor, and I am a particular fan of Maclaine's sarcastic "Ouiser", a wonderful grouch who feuds with Shelby's father Drum (Tom Skerritt, The Devil's Rain). Other melodrama includes Annelle (Hannah) finding love again after a disastrous marriage, and Parton's salon proprietor Truvy trying to reconnect with her at times too distant and often unemployed husband Spud (Sam Shepard, The Right Stuff). 

It's quite a wonderful ensemble piece, if a bit saccharine for me, especially when I saw it on a date in '89, but it's aged well and I like a good tearjerker I can watch with my wife every now and again, and this certainly fits the bill, especially later in the film when Field's launches into a "it's not fair" tirade about suffering an unimaginable loss. I am not embarrassed to say that its always gets a little bit dusty in the room when we get to that part of the flick. Directed by Herbert Ross (T.R. Baskin) and based on a stage-play from a few years earlier the Southern melodrama does not do a lot of world building, it's very concise in it's scope, a small tight-knit group of friends who all apparently from the same street, beautifully shot by John A. Alonzo (Harold and Maude, Chinatown) with soft pastel highlights and plenty of Southern small town charm filling the screen. 

Audio/Video: Steel Magnolias (1980) makes it's 4K UHD debut from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in 2160p Ultra HD widescreen (1.85:1) looking quite splendid, sourced from 4K scan from the original camera negative, with Dolby Vision HDR10 WCG color-grading. Grain is present and well-managed, the soft pastel colors shine with the Dolby Vision enhancement, and white are crisp and the blacks are deep. Fine detail and textures looks terrific as well. Sadly no Blu-ray accompanies this 4K UHD, not even a recycled disc from the previous HD release.

Surprisingly we get a new Dolby Atmos audio upgrade, as well as DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo, with optional English subtitles. It's largely a dialogue driven flick, but surrounds do offer atmospheric accents that were appreciated. Dialogue is always well-defined, and the score from Georges Delerue (Joe Versus the Volcano) and soundtrack selections that include Ry Cooder, Wayne Toups and Zydecajun, and Hank Williams among others sounds quite wonderful as well. 

We get archival extras by way of the Audio Commentary with Director Herbert Ross; the 22-min In Full Bloom: Remembering Steel Magnolias; 10 Deleted Scenes that run about 6-min, and the 88-sec Theatrical Trailer. New to this edition, and perhaps it's first time on disc is the 1990 TV pilot based on the film which picks up a year after the events of the film, starring Sally Kirkland (Two Evil Eyes) and Cindy Williams (Laverne & Shirley). This has been on YouTube for a number of years, but I do love having it on disc after all these years. 

Special Features:
- NEW! Steel Magnolias 1990 TV Pilot (22:48) 
- Audio Commentary with Director Herbert Ross 
- In Full Bloom: Remembering Steel Magnolias (22:20) 
- 10 Deleted Scenes (6:03) 
- Theatrical Trailer (1:28) 

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DR. JEKYLL AND THE WEREWOLF (1972) (Mondo Macabro Blu-ray Review/Screenshots)

DR. JEKYLL AND THE WEREWOLF (1972) 

Label: Mondo Macabro

Region Code: Region-Free 

Duration: 85 Minutes 56 Seconds (Spanish Version), 86 Minutes 13 Seconds (Export Version)
Rating: Unrated 
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.66:1)
Audio: English or Spanish DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with Optional English Subtitles (Spanish Version) Spanish DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo  with No Subtitles (Export Version) 
Director: Leon Klimovsky
Cast: Paul Naschy, Jack Taylor, Mirta Miller, Shirley Corrigan, Jose Marco, Barta Barri, Luis Induni

Directed by Leon Klimovsky, Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf (1972) is the fifth film to feature Spanish actor Paul Naschy (Howl of the Devil) as Waldemar the Wolfman, and his second team-up with Klimovsky, the first being The Werewolf Vs. the Vampire Woman. This scrappy monster mash-up is quite a bit of sleazy fun, at the start of the film London newlyweds Justine (Shirley Corrigan, Syndicate Sadists) and Imre (Jose Marco, The Horrible Sexy Vampire) are on their honeymoon vacation, while travelling to the Carpathian Mountains they stop off at Imre's family cemetery along the way to pay their respects to his dead parents, but find themselves not just scared by a lepper, but attacked by trio of scoundrels who kill Imre. Justine is rescued by the Waldemar Daninsky, who offers her safety in his rural castle villa. The pair end up falling in love, nevermind that her new husband Imre just died a violent death, and that she discovers that he is a werewolf by night, it's love, trust me. After Waldemar as the werewolf attacks and kills some men from the nearby village, the villagers lead by disgruntled inn-keeper Gyogyo (Barta Barri, Horror Express) and scoundrel Otvos (Luis Induni, The Killer of Dolls), grab their trusty torch and pitchforks and get after him mob-style, decapitating his elderly maid, which is when Justine convinces him that maybe they should flee the area and he could return to London with her so that her dear friend Dr. Henry Jekyll (Jack Taylor, Panther Squad) can treat his lycanthropy, the descendant of the original Dr. Jekyll, can cure him using a variation on the Hyde serum. 

As you might well imagine injecting a werewolf with the Hyde serum proves to have some serious side effects, at times his alter ego the werewolf emerges, other times it's the more sinister Hyde, who has a sleazy good time wandering the seedy streets of 1970's swinging London in his Victorian cloak and top-hot tearing women up!  The matter is made all the more worse when Dr. Jekyll's spurned assistant Sandra (Mirta Miller, Eyeball) sabotages the experiment and attempts to kill the doctor, causing Waldemar to become Hyde for an extended period, which is not good for anyone. 

There's some nice compare and contrast between the werewolf and Hyde, as Waldemar is a tortured soul who doesn't want to kill, but does under the full moon, as where Hyde  is truly sadistic, enjoying the pain he inflicts, never more so than when he whips women, the dual-role also allows Nachy to really tear and chew-up the scenery playing two different monsters, and I am here for it! 

Waldemar looks pretty swank in his top hat and black cloak as he stalks the neon-lit London streets looking for fresh flesh to tear into, as does his furrier alter ego, who also tears up a few women on the streets of London, both have a penchant for ripping open the blouses of their female victims though. The werewolf transformation scenes are a mixed bag, on one hand we have slow lap-dissolves that were pretty well antiquated by this time and don't look terrific to be honest, but as a Monster Kid who grew up on Universal horror I still love 'em, then you have Waldemar's Hyde alter-ego transforming into a Werewolf at a disco, this time triggered by the club's strobing lights. Another fun scene has Waldemar trapped in an stuck elevator with an unfortune nurse (Marisol Delgado, The Killer Is One of 13) during the full moon, and of course she gets torn-up. Also cool are the creepy castle in Transylvania that Waldemar called home, and the neon-lit and fog-shrouded streets of London that the Waldemar/Hyde hybrid stalks. There film looks especially cash strapped with poorly decorated interiors and labs, but we do get some fun if at times ropey gore-bits, and Naschy's werewolf makeups and sharp teeth look particularly solid.  

While Dr. Jekyll and The Werewolf is certainly not my favorite Naschy werewolf flick, nor the goriest, nor best looking of the bunch, it's better than the sum of it's part, and ends up a truly entertaining b-movie monster-mash that could be summed up as A Spanish Werewolf in London or Hyde After Midnight, or something along those lines. It's also quite sleazy in the longer Export cut, and it moves pretty fast, plus blonde starlets Shirley Corrigan and Mirta Miller are both pretty easy on the eyes, all of which helps make this a fun Daninsky the Werewolf entry, and it's never looked better than what Mondo Macabro have offered up right here.  

Audio/Video:  Dr. Jekyll and the Werewolf (1972), both the Spanish cut and the U.S. version arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Mondo Macabro in 1080p HD framed in 1.66:1 widescreen. We get the following disclaimer pertaining to the versions: 

"It appears that Dr. Jekyll and The Werewolf was released in at least 4 different versions. The original Spanish cut, with "Clothed" scenes, a version released in the US with some "Clothed" and some "Naked" scenes, a version released in the UK with some scenes cut and a version available in Germany with all of the stronger scenes intact. The current owner of the film only has access to the Spanish version. Despite a long search we were unable to locate usable 35mm materials for all the cut or altered scenes. To recreate the most complete version of the film, as presented here, we had to use a mixture of 16mm footage and clips from analogue and digital video sources of variable quality. Mondo Macabro thanks Don Cunningham for his help in recreating this extended version."  

With that being said, both versions looks wonderful, grain is nicely exposed and looks filmic, and while there are a few very minor frame specific blemishes that pop-up it is nothing to that will deter you from enjoying the flick. Colors are well-saturated, black levels are pleasing, and contrast is supportive. The longer cut is of similar quality with the exception of the aforementioned 16mm footage and analogue and digital video sources used to flesh it out the most complete version possible, and the quality of those scenes drops significantly, but are also quite brief. 

Audio on the Spanish version comes by way of English-dub or Spanish DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with optional English subtitles, while the U.S. export version only offers Spanish DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo with no subtitles options. The track is pretty flat sounding but clean, dialogue sounds fine, a bit of hiss on the Spanish track but only minor, and the score from Antón García Abril (Tombs of the Blind Dead) is atmospheric and quite good. 

Mondo Macabro's Blu-ray is well-stocked with over three-hours of new and archival bonus content; we get a new Audio Commentary from the Naschy Cast, which is a must with any Nachy release, plus the 19-min archival Paul Naschy on Dr Jekyll from 2002; a 23-min Interview with Sergio Molina; the 31-min Jack Taylor, testigo del fantástico, directed by Diego López-Fernández from 2018; the 16-min Jack Taylor on Fantaterror; and the 31-min Filmmaker Victor Matellano on the career of director Leon Klimovsky. All of the extras save for the commentary are in Spanish with optional English subtitles. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided new badass sleeve of artwork by artist Justin Coffee. 

Special Features:
- Paul Naschy on Dr Jekyll (18:40) 
- Interview with Sergio Molina (2002) (22:43)

- Jack Taylor, testigo del fantástico, directed by Diego López-Fernández (31:16) 
- Jack Taylor on Fantaterror (16:06) 
- Filmmaker Victor Matellano on the career of director Leon Klimovsky (30:46) 

- Audio Commentary from the Naschy Cast

Screenshots from the Mondo Macabro Blu-ray: 

Extras: 

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