Barbara Crampton Takes Us Back To Miskatonic In Suitable Flesh

If you're not familiar with Suitable Flesh, allow me to bring you into the fold.  In brief, it's an HP Lovecraft adaptation (specifically of "That Thing On the Doorstep") Stuart Gordon and Dennis Paoli had been trying to get funded since the 90s.  Think of his Shadow Over Innsmouth project if Dagon never finally got made.  Well, apparently, Barbara Crampton, who's been having a very gratifying scream queen comeback thee days, has enough pull with Shudder now to get a project funded.  So she reached out to Paoli, who gave her the screenplay, which she is now producing and starring in, along with Brian Yuzna, who's executive producing.  It played in a bunch of horror festivals last year, went to Shudder and just now came out on a special edition blu from RLJ (formerly Image) Entertainment.

But, of course, Gordon didn't get to actually direct this.  Instead they enlisted Joe Lynch, who frankly, I was worried about when I saw his name attached.  I mean, Mayhem is perfectly watchable if you don't go in expecting too much, but this is the guy who turned Wrong Turn into a cornball reality TV parody, did that ridiculous hitman flick with Salma Hayek where she breaks the fourth wall to make lame quips and the title Knights of Badassdom speaks for itself.  I was worried.  But Joe Lynch has proven an excellent steward for Stuart's vision.

That's not to say this is 100% the masterpiece that Re-Animator or From Beyond were, but it's better than Castle Freak and absolutely worthy of their company.  Heather Graham, of all people, stars and proves willing to go as far as out as this movie needs her to.  If you know the Lovecraft story, you can anticipate some of the body-swapping hi-jinks everybody gets up to, but of course Paoli and Co. have to crank things up a notch or two before the show's over.  A lot of this plays like a fun Tales From the Crypt episode, with whole cast having fun with its murderous premise.  But then it pushes the envelope with the sex and violence... maybe not quite as gonzo as Gordon would've taken it, but definitely in that same, demented direction.  And they manage not to lose the thread and get silly, helped by composer Steve Moore, who does a nice job capturing the spirit of what Richard Band would've done, if perhaps just a little more subtle.

2024 RLJ BD.

RLJ's blu preserves Suitable Flesh's very wide 2.35:1 aspect ratio.  This is a new release, presumably taken right from a DCP; so there's not a lot for this blu to have gotten wrong and happily they don't.  Things actually look kinda soft, but that may just be down to the look of the film itself (i.e. to look less digital and hue to its 80s predecessors).  Because this is a lot clearer than when I watched it streaming in 1080p, and we've been given a dual-layer disc for a relatively short flick, so I don't think compression would be at issue.  It's always a little tougher to gauge without film grain, how much detail is missing from a modern digital transfer.  Heck, I'd love to see a UHD of this, even without HDR, but generally I think we're lucky to even be getting BDs of these Shudder titles, so I have no complaints.

And we get a nice, bold DTS-HD transfer of the 5.1 track with optional English subtitles.  There's even an audio descriptive track, as well as Spanish and French subtitles, so RLJ has us covered.

And definitely that includes the special features department.  For starters, there's an audio commentary by Lynch, Crampton and co-producer Bob Portal.  Lynch, of course, is co-host of the Movie Crypt podcast, so he's great at doing commentaries, especially with Crampton and Portal to bounce off of.  Then there's a making of, which is fairly substantial.  I was expecting one of those ultra-brief promo featurettes, but this is a good little retrospective with Lynch and most of the cast, reminiscent of the featurettes Scream Factory creates.  Good stuff.  There's also a Zoom-style interview between Lynch and Steve Moore, a look at the storyboards (with a video intro by Lynch), a blooper reel and a couple of bonus trailers (though not the trailer for Suitable Flesh itself).

So this is a really satisfying release of a really satisfying little horror flick: the kind of thing they don't make much of anymore.  Admittedly, if you come in holding this to the extreme expectations of Gordon's all-time greatest moments in cinema, I suppose this could be a little disappointing.  But if you're not at least having fun with this title, you've brought the wrong attitude.  Everybody involved got it right and managed to deliver us one more exciting chapter from what we thought was a long finished necronomicon.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Okay, I can't do Hamlet without doing Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.  It's a minor masterpiece and a personal favorite.  The more Tom Stoppard on disc the better, I say; and this is the ultimate Stoppard film.  Image first released this on DVD in 2005, finally allowing us to replace our laserdiscs, as a bit of a neat special edition on two discs.  Later, RLJ Entertainment, which is just Image rebranded, released it as an even fuller 25th Anniversary blu-ray edition in 2016.

Based on his own play, writer/ director Stoppard gives us something wonderfully inventive with 1990's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.  It dances elegantly along the thin line between a silly comedy (with additional comic bits for Rosencrantz added to the film version) fleshing out the ironic fates of two of Shakespeare's unluckiest characters, and a weighty, existential art film.  Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth) are dealt a shrift, cruel hand in Hamlet, a work they're still trapped in here.  But this time they're given the space to question, if not defy, their most famously scripted destinies.  Of course, it's essential to know what that is exactly.  Stoppard may have over-estimated our modern educational system on that front.

"Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead" isn't quite Hamlet's last line, but it's on the last page, their doom announced as a sort of twisted punchline to the extremely bloody tragedy.  But why?  Only the traveling player (Richard Dreyfus), leader of the troupe that would elicit a confession from the king, seems willing or able to discuss it with them.  Everyone else can only follow the grim procession to its violent end.  Game of Thrones' Iain Glen is capable, not great, as Prince Hamlet himself.  But that's fine, because he doesn't have a major part here, and the three leads of this show are all fantastic.  The production values are high, with excellent locations and art design, though they clearly had to cut a few corners with the final act at sea.  But it creates a more than credible world that add s lifelike weight to the fictitious surroundings.  The moody soundtrack and firelight evoke a mood suggesting that this is something far darker and more foreboding than Abbott & Costello Meet the Prince of Denmark, though they do also indulge in some genuinely amusing Vaudeville routines.  This film truly has everything.

2005 Image DVD top; 2016 RLJ BD bottom.

It's a nice little upgrade.  The aspect ratio is corrected from 1.82:1 to 1.85:1, revealing a little extra picture along the sides.  Grain is honestly still a little soft and smudgy, but the image is definitely clearer than the DVD with sharper lines, restored detail and less (though perhaps not zero) edge enhancement.  This is a dual-layered disc, allotting the film a healthy 23.1 gigs.  It looks like Tim Roth's mouth has been erased on the DVD in that second set of shots, and recovered on the blu.  Contrast is higher, too, with noticeably brighter highlights, which does make it easier to follow the action in the film's many dark scenes.

The DVD includes both the original stereo track plus a 5.1 remix with optional English subtitles.  The blu ditches the 5.1 but bumps the stereo to lossless DTS-HD and hangs on to the subs.

Stoppard, now in HD!

We don't get any commentaries, but we get individual, on camera interviews with each of the four main players: Roth, Oldman, Dreyfus and Stoppard himself, all of which are nearly an hour long.  Well, Roth's is more like 33 minutes, but it still gets pretty seriously in depth.  It also throws in a tiny stills gallery.  And the blu-ray keeps all of that except the gallery, replacing it with something much better: a second Stoppard interview, this time in conversation with producer Michael Brandman, which is also quite good.  Although, yes, he does tell most of the same anecdotes and jokes in most of the same ways.

So happily this essential cinematic outing is more than adequately presented on home video.  Could this stand a more up-to-date release in 4k?  Sure, every film could.  And maybe Criterion, Kino or Arrow could hire a proper Shakespeare scholar to provide an educational commentary track, or get Peter Biziou to sit down and talk to us about his memories shooting in Yugoslavia.  But if RLJ's blu is the best release this film receives in my lifetime, I'll be satisfied.

You Don't Need HDR To See The Color Out Of Space

It's a rare treat for me to be able to join in the consensus of a popular horror movie.  It seems like every year, audiences rally around of pretty dopey theatrical releases and remind us that the genre's back in swing this decade, and it's frankly a little depressing.  But for once, I'm in agreement with the hype: Richard Stanley's comeback, the Nicolas Cage-starring H.P. Lovecraft adaptation Color Out of Space, produced by Elijah Wood's SpectreVision is everything it's cracked up to be.  And RLJ Entertainment gives it a satisfyingly wide home video release, readily available in mainstream stores like Target and Walmart in three formats: DVD, Blu-ray and 4k Ultra HD/ Blu-ray combo pack.  In a time when the widely celebrated Best Picture nominee Parasite* and similar major motion pictures of the year like The Irishman, Marriage Story, Richard Jewell, etc. can't get UHD releases, it's nice to see this scrappy little underdog held up so highly.

Update 9/12/21: Just adding the DVD to the mix. But since most of my UHDs are for older, shot-on-film movies, I was really struck by how impressively wide the gulf is between the SD and UHD of this genuinely shot-on-4k movie.

Now, this is hardly the first time this particular Lovecraft story has been brought to the silver screen.  AIP's Die, Monster, Die! started us off in 1965, but it's a pretty loose adaptation that basically pastes the skin of Lovecraft's story over the typical, gothic horror story skeleton AIP and their peers had produced a hundred times before.  Then, I kinda love 1987's The Curse, but it's not exactly what I'd call faithful or, you know, intelligent.  2008's Colour From the Dark is an interesting, scrappy take on the subject, but doesn't rise to the professional quality of a film you're going to want to revisit beyond your first watch.  And 2010's The Color Out of Space (a.k.a. Die Farbe) is clearly the most devoted to Lovecraft, but its limited budget really compromises the final product.  Whether this fifth venture is finally the ideal combination of filmmaker and subject matter, or if they just paid enough attention to learn from their predecessors' mistakes, I'm happy to declare what we have here to be the best Color Out of Space to date.

Mind you, I did go into this film with some concerns.  Having grown up with The Curse, I could easily see this experience devolving into Nicolas Cage just yelling Great Santini-style at his kids for 100 minutes.  Yes, that element from the story is present, but thankfully they downplay it, and never let Cage lose his sympathetic human side.  They also don't romanticize the teens as rebellious, anti-authoritarian heroes in the typical, irritating way you might expect.  I was worried, too, when I heard Tommy Chong was going to be in this, and rolling right into the first scene where we see the teenage girl doing her Wiccan ceremony, I was prepared to be in for some kind of cringey disaster.  But thankfully, everybody is used to great effect and each element Stanley introduces mixes together cohesively.

Because, hey, I'm not the hugest Richard Stanley fan in the world.  Dust Devil is good, sure, but Hardware feels like a ton of style desperately slapped onto a nothing story with a dud of a leading man.  And I'm far from convinced there was ever a good version of The Island of Dr. Moreau in the cards regardless of studio interference.  So his track record hardly pushed me into the theater with starry "he can do no wrong" eyes.  But he really strikes the right balance of restraint and going all out with the source material.  It remains a human story that understands and grapples with Lovecraft's intentions, while still throwing all the wild imagery and monstrosity in our faces that any horror fan could want.  And does it have to rely on CGI?  Sure, but it's effective and well used, tempered with plenty of make-up, rubber monsters, striking locations and even miniatures to keep us grounded.  Stanley has made his best film yet, and I'm now thoroughly excited for his take on The Dunwich Horror.

2020 RLJ DVD top; 2020 RLJ BD mid; 2020 RLJ UHD bottom.

RLJ gives us Color in its OAR of 2.39:1, except on the DVD, which is slightly squished to 2.36:1.  And if the un-enlarged screenshots look surprisingly similar, that's because this is another UHD with no HDR.  Now, I was expecting that on Turbine's Texas Chainsaw, but not on this brand new film that's literally all about fantastic, consciousness-expanding colors.  Even for the cynics who accuse HDR of being "crayons," this seems like the one movie that would've been the ideal excuse to recklessly crank. It. Up!  But RLJ has a history for whatever reason of not including HDR on their releases (though they did on Galveston and Arizona), so it is what it is I guess.

2020 RLJ DVD left; 2020 RLJ BD mid; 2020 RLJ UHD right.

Anyway, in this case, the 4k is really where it's at.  As opposed to TCM, which was shot on 16mm, and the difference primarily boiled down to how authentic the grain was presented, this is another digital film with fake grain added for effect.  So don't get too hung up on that.  But this is also a digital film that was shot in genuine 4k, so there really is a question of image resolution.  Like, just click on that enlargement of the girl on her horse and see how much more life there is in the UHD than the BD, not to mention the DVD, which looks like it was left in your pocket when you did your laundry.  Admittedly, how much this will translate to your personal viewing experience at home will depend on some basic fundamentals like the size of your television.  On a smaller set, it may be like clicking on these images embedded in the article without clicking through them to full size.  But if you have the set-up to appreciate it, you'll be glad you spent the extra, what?  $2?  ...to spring for the Ultra HD.

Oh, and both HD discs include the film's 5.1 audio track in DTS-HD with optional English and Spanish subtitles.  No fancy Atmos mixes or anything, but hey, they're bold and lossless, unlike the DVD.

As for extras, I wouldn't call these releases special editions, but we are given a few nice features (on every version), starting with a short, but surprisingly in-depth 20-minute 'making of' featurette that talks to the producers, feature's Stanley's video diary, B-roll footage, soundbites from the cast, visual effects comparisons and a look at the crew's time in Portugal (where this was shot).  It doesn't even shy away from talking about Richard Stanley's legendary Dr. Moreau disaster.  There's a collection of deleted scenes which broaden the world of the film a little bit, and a photo gallery touring the shooting locations.  We don't get this film's trailer, just a couple bonus trailers that play on start-up.

So okay, it's not the ultimate release we could all imagine in our minds: HDR, Atmos, audio commentaries... but it's still a pretty sweet film with a pretty sweet release.  Most films' discs should be so disappointing.  I wish I could get Marriage Story on UHD with no HDR and only a couple of extras.


*Okay, there are French and German UHDs of Parasite, but they're not English-friendly, so we're still stuck with 1080p at best.Okay, as of the update, we've since gotten one in the US, too. I guess the only thing worth complaining about now is that the best editions are split: UHD for the PQ and Criterion BD for the extras, so you have to buy two copies to make your own proper, special edition. But Parasite's actually in quite a good place, now, on home video.

A Christmas Horror Story

I was going to let A Midwinter's Tale stand as my Holiday post for the season, but what the hay, here's one more. Merry Christmas, everybody! Today I'm looking a new release: the succinctly titled A Christmas Horror Story. You know, I don't find a lot of horror movies I really like being produced these days. I'm discovering more 70s and 80s horror movies I dig - and that's the era I grew up in! - than new ones. I mean, sure, there are plenty I find to be okay and worth the watch. But one where I'm really excited by it and feel like I have to get the blu-ray in my collection immediately? Very rare. But I finally hit on one with A Christmas Horror Story.

Update 2/21/20: Nothing major; just added the DVD edition for a comparison.

A Christmas Horror Story is similar in style to Trick 'R Treat, the 2007 Halloween-themed horror anthology where the stories are linked and taking place more or less concurrently. But make no mistake, Krampus is the Krampus-featuring 2015 horror film made by the same guy as Trick 'R Treat (not even counting the two low budget knock-offs that went straight to DVD this year). This is actually made by a trio of other directors who came together and managed to make one of the most polished, clever and impressive horror films of the decade.

There aren't really any big names in this except for William Shatner, who essentially acts as the host of the "wrap around," or as close as this film gets to having one. And he's actually quite good in this. I was expecting a Campfest '89, but actually the performances in this film are consistently one of the strongest elements this film has going for it. Although, honestly, you could add stylish cinematography, convincing special effects (only one shot struck me as disappointing CGI) and smart writing to that list as well. It's an anthology, so of course one story's going to stand out as less compelling than the rest. In this case it's about a group of teenagers who sneak into their high school basement over Christmas break because a murder happened there last year. But even that one is so well made that it never feels like it's letting the rest of the team down.

But the other stories are more exciting. You've got the Krampus one, and it's a great monster with a simple yet effective story, like a Yuletide Pumpkinhead. No wonder three other movie studios rushed out Krampus movies this year. Then there's a story about a broken family that steals a Christmas tree from private property and gets a difficult comeuppance that feels like it should be the most boring of the lot. But everyone does such an excellent job on it, it turns out to possibly be the best of them all. And most audaciously, the last story is a zombie virus breakout that happens at Santa's workshop in the North Pole. If you're thinking to yourself, there's no way that awesome scene on the box actually actually happens in the movie, you're wrong, it does! On paper, it should be a disaster, on par with something from Scy-Fy or Asylum studios at best (Troma at worst), but amazingly it all works, leading up to a terrific twist ending I never saw coming!

2015 RLJ DVD top; 2015 RLJ BD bottom.

So this is a brand new release of a brand new film that was shot in 2k and delivered digitally, so there's no reason this shouldn't look great on blu, and it does. It's slightly letterboxed to 1.85:1 and looks beautiful in 1080p. The DVD is naturally the same transfer, just more compressed, but you really see the difference toggling between screenshots.  Besides the softness you'd expect to find, it's like all the little highlights blink out every time you click on the SD version.  And apparently this was a DVD-only release in the UK and other parts of the world, so you might want to think about importing from the US if you're overseas, and if you're local, enjoy getting this cheap and easy at your local big box store.

And speaking of getting this at big box stores, be warned if you're thinking of buying this at Walmart, as the slipcover has its title changed to A Holiday Horror Story (the DVD cover underneath retains the original Christmas title). That's either something to steer far clear of or an amusing collector's item depending on your state of mind. And the slip is a really great looking embossed image - I've scanned it, but that doesn't fully do it justice.

Regardless, the audio's a bold 5.1 mix, in DTS-HD on the blu; and both editions include optional English subtitles.

I was a little disappointed this wasn't a more packed special edition, but the one extra it does have turned out to be surprisingly good. It's a 15 minute featurette, but it's not the standard clip-heavy narration fare that plays like an extended trailer. It's a great little mini-doc that tells the story of the film's inception and production, interviewing all three directors, a lot of the cast on-set (though not Shatner), and includes some nifty behind-the-scenes shots. So maybe it would've just been bloated with a commentary and other features. What we've got was at least fully engaging, if brief. Still, you'd think they could've at least thrown in the trailer. Instead there's just a couple bonus trailers that play on start-up.

I wasn't expecting much from this film, especially after being disappointed by more promising 2015 horror films like Cooties, Deathgasm and We Are Still Here (SHOTS FIRED!!). I started out just casually streaming it, but was so impressed I stopped watching it and ran out to buy the blu the next day. That's pretty rare for me, and especially with modern horror. And now it's already held up to repeated watches, so I give this a great big recommendation, even if you've read the description and felt a little wary. That's how I felt, too; and look how much I'm gushing now. Give it a shot.