STEPHEN KING'S SILVER BULLET (1985) (Scream Factory Collector's Edition Blu-ray review)

STEPHEN KING'S SILVER BULLET (1985)

Label: Scream Factory 

Region Code: A

Rating: R

Duration: 94 Minutes

Audio: English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1) 

Director: David Attias

Cast: Corey Haim, Gary Busey, Megan Follows, Terry O'Quinn, Lawrence Tierney

Some movies you just watch and let the wonderment of youthful nostalgia freely wash over you, even when the film is not all that great, and for me Silver Bullet (1985) is one of films. It's a movie that was a staple of cable TV during my formative teen years, I have always loved it, despite the bad-looking werewolf that looks like a man in a skinny bear-suit.

The film is told in flashback by an woman named Jane who is telling the story of her paraplegic younger brother Marty (Corey Haim, License to Drive) and how a series of grisly murders occurred in their town in 1976. The film is based on Stephen King’s novella 'Cycle of the Werewolf', with the author also writing the screenplay for this film. It opens with the murder of a drunken train yard worker, his head ripped clean from his body by some unseen furry beast. The town's Sheriff (Terry O'Quinn, The Stepfather) attributes the headless corpse to a simple drunken train accident, but soon the bodies begin piling up, including a woman found torn to pieces in her bedroom after being attacked a more properly the werewolf, though after you get a glimpse of this thing you will understand why they keep it hidden and only fleetingly seen for the rest of the film. 

The local gathering at the bar begin murmuring about there a maniac being on the loose in their town, and with the sheriff beginning to lose the confidence of the people a lynch-mob is formed. The angry mob  storm into the fog shrouded swamps looking for the killer, but they are shredded by the beast in short order. The ill-fated vengeful trip into the foggy swamps is a good bit of atmospheric fun, but also a bit campy, with the largely unseen werewolf lurking beneath the thigh-high fog, at one point taking a baseball bat away from a cranky bar owner, Laurence Tierney (Midnight), and beating him to death with it, the creature's black hairy clawed-hand reaching above the fog with the bat in hand bringing it down on poor Tierney, who at this point must have been thinking to himself 'how did I end up in this turd!?!'.

Back to the kids, we have the young version of narrator Jane (Megan Follows, TV's Reign) and her wheelchair bound younger brother Marty (Corey Haim, The Lost Boys). The pair have the usual adversarial sibling relationship, but it's made clear in several scenes that despite annoying one another they care for each other quite a bit. Enter into the equation their drunken Uncle Red (played by the drunken actor Gary Busey, The Buddy Holly Story) who arrives to watch the kids while mom and dad go on a bit of a vacation, because of course you're going on vacation when a killer loose in your town, and of course you leave the kids with your drunken brother, right? 

Quicker than you can say 'bad influence' Uncle Red builds a speedy motorized three-wheeled wheelchair for Marty to zip around town in, calling it the Silver Bullet. He then gives the kid an armful of fireworks and lets him loose into the night - with a killer on the loose mind you - to shoot fireworks off a bridge. it's here that Marty has a close encounter with the werewolf, just barely managing to get away after firing a bottle rocket straight into the it's eyeball! Returning home Marty tells Uncle Red and Jane about the frightful encounter, but of course they do not believe the hairy-tale at first, but eventually they do come around to the idea, melting down the family's silver valuables to create a single werewolf-killing silver bullet. 

As they have no idea who the werewolf is Jane goes about town collecting cans while keeping an eye out for any newly single-eyed citizenry. It turns out that the local reverend, played Everett McGill (The People Under the Stairs), is the werewolf. At first the reverend seems anguished and torn by his moon-lit monster affliction, but as the killings continue he seems to become more and more consumed by the beast. At one point to illustrate this inner-conflict the reverend suffers a nightmare about his parishioners transforming into werewolves in church pulpits before him, it's fun pulpy stuff. As a man of God he attempts to keeps his murderous tendencies aimed at the sinful folk in town, in his own twisted mind believing he is actually saving their souls from eternal damnation by tearing them apart. When he realizes that the kids have identified him he then turns his one-eyed werewolf on the siblings, which leads to an anticlimactic ending, but like a lot of other bad films I tend to enjoy, I still manage to love it every damn time, thanks to the oodles of ingrained nostalgia.

I fully admit this werewolf film has more than it's share of lame bad-film shenanigans, but it;s also a hoot, Gary Busey is a firecracker in this movie, every scene he's in is laced with quotable gems. At the same time the look of the werewolf is a stinker, but Everet McGill is pretty great as the man of the cloth with a deadly secret.

Audio/Video: Stephen King's Silver Bullet (1985) arrives on Collector's Edition Blu-ray from Scream Factory in 1080p HD framed in the original 2.35:1 widescreen. This looks to be the same HD master used by Umbrella Entertainment for their release, the grain is nicely managed, the image is crisp and the colors look accurate and nicely saturated. The English DTS-HD MA Stereo 2.0 audio sounds good, dialogue is clear and special effects and the score from Jay Chattaway (Maniac Cop) sounds great, a creepy and dramatic, mixing of orchestral and electronic elements, optional English subtitles are provided. 

Scream Factory carry-over nearly all the extras from the Umbrella release, beginning with an audio commentary from Director Daniel Attias moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures. Felsher does a great job mining the conversation for nuggets and tidbits. Attias never directed another feature film after this film, turning to TV where he has enjoyed a prolific career, directing all sorts of great TV stuff, from Six Feet Under to the Hulu series Castle Rock. We also get an isolated music score with an audio interview with Composer Jay Chattaway, also moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures, the interview lasts for about 38-minutes, then the isolated score kicks in.

Actor Everett McGill shows up for a 16-min interview, speaking about his relationship with Dino De Laurentis, the motivations for the characters, his guilt and anguish, donning the hairy costume after initially not wanting to, and his appreciation for how sensitive to the material the director was, working with Corey Haim and the make-up process.

Special Effects Artists Michael McCracken, Jr. and Matthew Mungle appear for a fun 21-minute interview, the juiciest of the bunch, too. They discuss the day that Carlo Rambaldi's (E.T.) ill-fated were-bear suit arrived on set and how it didn't quite meet Dino De Laurentis's expectation, falling a bit below the mark and over-loaded with cable to operate it. These guys did not create the werewolf itself but worked on the various transformation scenes, speaking of how they were achieved using old school latex effects. They also spin a fun tale about one of the actors wanting to keep their werewolf make-up on after they wrapped for the day, saying that they were on their way to a sex-party! 

Archival extras are buttoned up with a theatrical trailer, TV spot, radio spot and an image gallery  that includes promotional and behind-the-scenes stills, cool make-up effects shots and sculptures, lobby cards and various home video releases. The one thing not carried over from the Australian release from Umbrella is a 26-min interview with Martha De Laurentis, which is too bad, it was a solid extra, but Scream Factory sort of make-up for it with a new audio commentary from Martha de Laurentis. It's just a little irritating that there's that one extras we don't get on this release, I am sure you other collector's will feel my pain.

Onto the new stuff, we get three brand-new  exclusive extras produced by Red Shirt Pictures for Scream Factory;s release.  We get an 12-min interview with actor Actor Kent Broadhurst who played the grieving father in the film, he discusses having to improvise his overwrought mourning scene, having to compensate for the shortcomings of the kid's corpse, which apparently looked so bad it wasn't usable in the film. Not gruesome awful mind you, just not well-done by the FX team. He also discusses the nightmare scene involving parishioners turning into werewolves in the pulpits and how much work that entailed, including a warning from the assistant director that the actors should remove their contact lenses lest they end up laminated to their eyeballs! 

We also get a new 17-min interview with editor Daniel Loewenthal who discusses his early career editing porno before getting into horror movies on Troma's Mother's Day. He also gets into creating suspense through editing and the failure of the film at the box office. 

The last of the new stuff is an audio commentary with Producer Martha De Laurentis Moderated By Michael Felsher. I have not gotten too deep into this one yet, but it does sort of make-up for this disc not carrying over the Martha De Laurentis interviews from the Umbrella release.  

The single-disc release comes housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase with a reversible sleeve of artwork featuring the original poster art plus a new illustration from artist Devon Whitehead, the latter of which is also featured on the limited edition slipcover that accompanies the first print run, as well as the disc itself. I didn't love this artwork when I saw it online, but holding it in my hand and looking at it I think i does capture the pulpy charm of this werewolf flick.   

Special Features:

- NEW Audio Commentary With Producer Martha De Laurentis Moderated By Michael Felsher 

- NEW Cutting To The Bone – An Interview With Editor Daniel Loewenthal (17 min)

- NEW A Little Private Justice – An Interview With Actor Kent Broadhurst (12 min) 

- Audio Commentary with Director Daniel Attias moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures
- The Wolf Within – An Interview with Actor Everett McGill (16 min) 

- Full Moon Fever – Interviews with Special Effects Artists Michael McCracken, Jr. and Matthew Mungle (21 min)
- Dino's Angel Takes on Lycanthropy: Martha De Laurentis Remembers SILVER BULLET (26 min) HD
- Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with Composer Jay Chattaway moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures. (English Dolby Digital 2.0)
- Theatrical trailer (1 min)
- TV Spot (1 min)
- Radio Spot (1 min)
- Still Gallery (73 Images)  

Silver Bullet (1985) gets a fantastic Blu-ray from Scream Factory, it might not offer a new transfer but this is a solid-looking release and it is stacked with extras that get into the nitty-gritty of the film. While the film might not be shown on cable as much as it did back when I was a kid I can pretty much guarantee I will be watching this film quite a bit, it still has plenty of that youthful nostalgia and I will be smiling the whole way through,, shitty looking werewolf and all. 

THE DARK HALF (1993) (Eureka Region B Blu-ray Review)

THE DARK HALF (1993)

Label: Eureka Entertainment

Region Code: B

Rating: Cert. 18

Duration: 121 Minutes

Audio: English LPCM 2.0 Stereo and DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English subtitles 

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)

Director: George A. Romero

Cast: Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Michael Rooker, Royal Dano

Directed by George A. Romero (Day of the Dead) and adapted from the Stephen King (Maximum Overdrive) novel The Dark Half (1993) opens with a young kid named Thaddeus Beaumont suffering from intense migraines and blackouts, each attack strangely being preceded by the sounds of sparrows. His parents take him into be checked out and he's diagnosed with a brain tumor and undergoes an surgery to remove it. During the procedure the doctors discover a weird anomaly, it seems that the tumor is actually a malformed fetal twin that the boy's body has absorbed into itself! 

The film moves along several decades and the young boy has grown into the adult Beaumont (Timothy Hutton, Turk 182), a published author and college writing professor, penning a series of highfalutin novels that sell like shit, but he makes a decent living with a secret side gig as a trashy thriller writer under the pseudonym "George Stark". His career as a trashy crime writer is a well-kept secret, but that's all about to change when an unscrupulous blackmailer (Robert Joy, Land of the Dead) arrives threatening to expose the Stark pseudonym to the public. The author decides to get ahead of the blackmailer by revealing the secret himself in a magazine article complete with a series of photos of him burying the corpse of alter-ego author "George Stark". 

However, once the article is published people around him start showing up dead, beginning with the photographer who took the photos for the article, followed by his agent, editor and even the blackmailer. Sheriff Alan Pangborn (Michael Rooker, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer) who is investigating the murders soon sets his sights on the author, with all evidence seemingly pointing his direction, except he has a fairly tight alibi during one of the murders. Meanwhile the author begins to think that his literary alter-ego has somehow been made flesh, and is none-too-happy about being laid to rest. He's not wrong, George Stark has materialized in the flesh, also played by Hutton in a deliciously pulpy sort of way, a greasy-haired rockabilly looking weirdo who favors a straight-razor.

This is not a film that ranks very high for me among the filmography of director George A. Romero or author Stephen King, but it is a film that I do enjoy a bit, it's an interesting rumination on Stephen King's own alter-ego Richard Bachman, a pen name he wrote a handful of books under, which I found sort of fascinating, balancing a duality, while also examining the struggle of art versus commerce, it has some great ideas floating around even if I think they're not explored or executed to a degree that was wholly satisfying. 

There's also cool supernatural elements to it that I enjoyed, particularly the idea that if Beaumont stops writing as his alter-ego the newly made flesh version of that alter-ego begins to rot, which is motive for his killings, he's after the people who literally threaten his very existence. 

It's not a perfect film my any stretch of the imagination but I dig the ideas found here and I think Timothy Hutton is fantastic in the dual-role, though if you watch the extras on this disc you will learn that very few people seemed to enjoy his method style of acting on the film while making it, but I dig the end results of his labors, even when it goes a bit off the rails.   

Audio/Video: The Dark Half (1993) arrives on Region B-locked Blu-ray from Eureka 

Entertainment in 1080p HD framed in 1.85:1 widescreen. This is the same dated HD master that was used by Scream Factory for their 2014 Blu-ray, so don't expect an A/V upgrade. The image definitely looks like it's coming from an older master, grain is not resolved all that finely, colors are a bit muted, and the darker scenes are heavy with grain. Overall it just looks dated, lacking the depth and clarity that a new 2K or 4K scan would have brought to the proceedings, but it's serviceable, just not ideal, and definitely not an upgrade over the existing Scream factory release.  

Audio on the disc come by way of English LPCM 2.0 and a DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English subtitles. Both tracks are clean and free of distortion, with the dialogue and effects being well-balanced, the score from Christopher Young (Drag Me To Hell) sounding great.  

Eureka have done something here I really appreciate, they've licensed all the previously existing extras from the Scream Factory release including the Red shirt Pictures produced 'The Sparrows Are Flying Again!', a 37-min making-of retrospective with the late George A. Romero, special make-up FX creators Everett Burrell and John Vulich, visual FX supervisor Kevin Kutchaver, actor Robert Joy, editor Pasquale Buba. It's a great trip down memory lane with the gang, notably missing is Hutton, but fear not, pretty much everyone has something to say about his acting method and on-set behavior! 

We also get the excellent audio commentary with George A. Romero, who gives a very candid account of the film, the studio troubles, and the period between the making of this film and Bruiser. There is also 7-min of deleted scenes, and a bunch of archival
behind-the-scenes extras that include storyboards, EPK interviews and a special FX featurette, and the archival stuff is buttoned-up with the theatrical trailer and TV spot for the film. 

Onto the new stuff we get a 40-min episode of the UK television show 'Son of the Incredibly Strange Film Show' with director George A. Romero from 1989, it's kind of a completest-only sort of think in my opinion, but it was cool, not exactly essential but the host seemed passionate about his love of Romero. For the purpose of this review I was only sent a "check disc" from Eureka without any packaging extras - first world problems I know - but the retail copies includes a sleeve of reversible artwork, collector's 
booklet with new writing on the film from Simon Ward, and a limited edition slipcover for the film.   

Special Features:
- Audio commentary with Writer/Director George A. Romero
-  Episode of 'Son of the Incredibly Strange Film Show' with director George A. Romero (1989) (40 min)
- The Sparrows Are Flying Again! The Making of ‘The Dark Half’ Retrospective with George A. Romero, special make-up FX creators Everett Burrell and John Vulich, visual FX supervisor Kevin Kutchaver, actor Robert Joy, editor Pasquale Buba & more! (36 min)
- Deleted Scenes (8 min)

- Special Effects Featurette (16 min).

On the Set Featurette (9 min).

- Storyboards (2 min)

- Original EPK (7 min)

- Interviews (7 min)

- Original Storyboards (2 min)
- TV spot (1 min)
- Original Theatrical Trailer (2 min)
- Reversible sleeve
- Limited Edition Collector’s booklet with writing on the film by Simon Ward
- Limited Edition O-card Slipcase

The Dark Half (1993) is notable because it's a team-up between a pair of horror titans, George A. Romero and Stephen King, and also in that it's a bit under appreciated in my opinion, but doesn't quite live up to the themes and ideas it floats. That said, it is an interesting, if not completely successful, thriller with a cool supernatural element that still brings a smile to my face, with a good bit of gruesome bird-carnage at the end that would have made Hitchcock giddy.