Clive Barker has essentially disowned the first two film adaptations of his writings,
Rawhead Rex and
Transmutations,
even though he also wrote the screenplays for both. You don't have to
search long or hard to find interviews where he talks about their low
budgets and general "not getting it" that inspired him to become a
director for
Hellraiser, so he could make sure his work was represented properly. In fact, let's not mince words. He's gone so far as to say,
"Oh, I hated them with a passion! I haven't seen them for many a long year and hope never to see them again." But, while they're certainly not up to the level of
Hellraiser,
they're still enjoyable little films for cult and horror fans -
certainly better than many - and it's a shame they're so poorly
represented in most of the world by low-quality, full-frame discs.
Meanwhile, in France, there's a horror magazine called
Mad Movies. I've never read it (it being in French and all), but I gather it's their
Fangoria equivalent.
And they've written that they have quite a good relationship with
Barker based on articles in the past, and so in 2009, they released his
first two films on their own line of DVDs. Now, I don't believe it went
as far as Barker actually being involved with these releases personally -
I don't imagine they actually got him to watch those movies again, and
he hasn't provided any interviews or anything for special features. And
neither has anybody else, there are no special editions, but they are
the first and only releases of the film in their OAR widescreen ratios.
Update 2/5/15 - 10/7/17: Well, Kino has done it. Later this month will see a brand new, 4k special edition blu-ray of
Rawhead Rex. And it's pretty fantastic. Read on.
Update 3/26/21: And they've done it again. Kino has re-released
Rawhead Rex
as a 2020 steelbook, which ordinarily wouldn't be so noteworthy except
to dedicated steelbook collectors. But in this case, it has all new
extras and even an updated transfer? Read on...er. Read further on!
Update 4/2/23: Kino just won't stop doin' it. Now they've re-re-released good ol'
Rawhead as
a 4k Ultra HD/ BD combo-pack, taking this unstoppable beast into the
latest generation of home video. Read on-est! Read all the way!
Update 12/31/31:
Kino can't stop updating this post, and I am here for it! This time
they've tackled
Underworld, and we get to skip the whole BD, steelbook,
UHD procession and start right off with their BD/ UHD combopack. It's the first special edition of this film ever. Read
all-er the way-er!
If you've read Barker's story, it's easy to be disappointed in
Rawhead Rex.
It's a wild, over-the-top story of a mad demigod running amuck in
modern times, told from his perspective and full of crazy inner
monologue. In the movie, he's a completely non-verbal monster. And the
special effects, while a great design, were clearly not meant to be seen
by the camera so directly or for so long; and so it looks like a big,
phony mask (in some shots they just about get away with it; in others
they clearly don't). A few other clever bits of writing in the plot
points are lost, too, as well as some social commentary. If ever a movie
called for a remake, it's this one.
But if you can get past the coulda woulda shouldas of it, the movie
we're left with is still pretty cool. It's a fun, violent monster movie
that still retains enough remnants of Barker's script to set it above
and beyond the generic monster movie. Not the least of which is the
villainous priest character who rejects Christ to worship and serve Rex.
Scenic locales, a flush orchestral score, a cool monster even if it is
on the cheap, and a collection of respectable performances are all
enjoyable. This is the kind of monster movie that's not afraid to take
out children, and while this Rex doesn't speak, they do use the
opportunity to have his crazy priest speak for him (
"he sees what I see!").
It may not be Barker's wild story fully realized, but it's still more
cool stuff going on than your average monster movie of the period, a la
the recently popular
The Boogens.
So the French DVD was pretty neat - I wish I still had one of the old,
cruddy fullscreen DVDs, just to show how much farther most people who
never tracked down this obscure French DVD are coming - but finally,
finally! In 2017, Kino rendered it obsolete by giving
Rawhead Rex
the proper special edition it deserves. And I'm not just talking
special features (although, we certainly are talking special features as
well), but a brand new 4k restoration from the original camera negative
in HD on blu-ray! Forget anything in the past, the slate was wiped
clean. And then they came back with even their newer edition, the 2020
limited (to 4000 copies) steelbook edition. But even that wasn't
enough, as now they're back with their newst 2023 edition, a UHD/ BD
combo-pack.
 |
1) 2009 Mad Movies DVD; 2) 2017 Kino BD;
3) 2020 Kino BD; 4) 2023 Kino UHD. |
Mad Movies presented
Rawhead Rex in an anamorphic widescreen
edition that was certainly a nice improvement over the prior discs. It's
slightly pillar-boxed to about 1.73:1, whereas Kino's new blu is
slightly letterboxed to 1.85:1. What this ultimately leaves us with is
less image along the top, but more along the bottom and left-hand side.
I'd say Kino's framing is better, and probably more accurate, but
they're not that different from each other. Mad Movies had gotten it
pretty close. But where Kino really excels is in straight up picture
quality. It's so much sharper and clearer. It made what I thought was a
pretty decent DVD at the time look like a murky mess. Kino has a
cooler, more robust color palette, and I don't see how anybody could be
unhappy when comparing this to anything we've ever had before.
And
the 2020 blu? Well, naturally it isn't such a drastic bound ahead, but
it is different. And not just different; it's an improvement. It's
absolutely a better encode. Where grain was patchy, it's now more
consistent. But that's the sort of thing you'll only notice in a
comparison of close-ups like we do here. Just watching it on your TV,
the only difference you're likely to spot is that the newer version is
darker. And I'm not sure if that's any better or worse honestly; it's
just a slightly different look.
If you're here for the real
upgrade, you've got to take the extra step to the 2023 UHD (the BD in
the combo-pack is just a copy of the 2020 disc). This is a new 4k
restoration from the OCN, not just the previous one slapped onto a 3840
disc. The framing is still matted to 1.85:1, but pulls back to reveal
more around all four sides, and grain is now really strongly captured,
definitely a big boost even over the 2020 BD. The color palette's a
little warmer, splitting a bit of the difference between the DVD and
previous blus. Bold colors like Rawhead's eyes pop like never before
without the rest of the image looking over-saturated. Honestly, I felt a
bit let down by the 2020 BD, at least in terms of PQ, but this
absolutely makes up for it. This is how
Rawhead Rex should look.
Since MM's DVDs are French discs, they have French audio dubs and
French subtitles. But the subs are removable, and the original English
audio track is also present in stereo. But now, Kino of course conquers (on the 2017, 2020 and 2023s), offering the
original stereo track and a new 5.1 mix, both in DTS-HD. And they also
include optional English subs.
Underworld (released in the US as
Transmutations)
is more of a mess.
Rawhead Rex
disappointed audiences by over-simplifying, but this film could've done
with a bit of that. It's full of Clive Barker themes, though, which
should please fans at least. You've got a noir-ish detective as the
lead, investigating the supernatural (a la
Lord of Illusions).
And he stumbles upon an underground collection of unique monsters (including
Miranda Richardson, slumming it in a bit part) who
at first appear menacing but turn out to be the good guys (a la
Nightbreed). These monsters are actually mutations, the result of an evil doctor, played by the always effective
Denholm Elliot,
giving them experimental and addictive drugs. There are also some
British mobster types and a prostitute who's so beautiful everyone falls
in love with her and who happens to have magical powers, as a result of
the same drug. It makes enough sense to follow the story, but when you
start
to ask detailed questions, its internal logic kinda falls apart. Plus
it looks cheap again. But it's energetic and entertaining enough for a
casual viewing with its colorful 80s music video look.
 |
1) 2009 Mad Movies DVD; 2) 2023 Kino BD;
3) 2023 Kino 103 min. BD; 4) 2023 Kino UHD. |
Mad
Movie's DVD is once again slightly pillar-boxed to 1.73:1 and
looks pretty attractive for DVD. Kino has fine-tuned the AR to 1.85:1,
which in practice consists of matting the top and bottom a tiny bit
more, and revealing more on the left and right. They've taken a new
pass at the color timing, which you mostly just notice in some of the
more stylized scenes, like the second set of screenshots above.
Underworld clearly
benefits from the jump to 4k, even on the 1080p blu, clearing away
compression noise and restoring fine lines and film grain. Both BD
transfers use the same restoration for the bulk of the film (more about
this in a minute), so they are essentially identical, although you can
see the grain shift on close examination. Of course, the grain looks
best on the actual UHD, which retains everything to an even more
consistent degree; and the Dolby Vision/ HDR presentation is truly
gorgeous, resisting the likely temptation to go overboard with the
colors, given this film's quite particular look. It's still quite
grounded. I mean, the film itself isn't, but the transfer for home
video is. ;)
Again, MM's DVD has both French and English audio and
optional French subtitles. Kino just sticks to the original English stereo track, in DTS-HD on both discs. And they again
include optional English subtitles.
 |
a composite shot from the longer cut.
|
So
I mentioned a second blu-ray transfer above? A 103 minute
version? Yes, Kino has found and included the director's longer,
original version, which they've included as a composite cut on the BD
using insert footage clearly sourced from tape. The aspect ratio shifts
to a slightly windowboxed 1.39:1, except right in the beginning, which I
guess they had in widescreen because it's so near the opening credits.
Oh yeah, speaking of which, they've also given this version the
Transmutations title
card. What's the difference between the two versions? Well, over ten
minutes. Clearly, what's happened is that someone (presumably the
distributors) cut the finished film for pacing. The stuff that's
missing often consists simply of extra shots of characters walking from
one room of a house to another, or brief transitions between scenes.
That said, though, there are a couple full, if not hugely consequential,
full scenes that were removed - most notably a scene where our hero
gets one of the gangsters who's tailing him drunk. There's also a brief
chat of him talking to the gangsters on a boat and we see a lot more of
that cheesy S&M dance scene in the nightclub.
Which version
is better? It's a bit of a 50/50 situation. Honestly, I think most of
the trims are warranted and help the film, though I do miss a couple of
the snippets, like a bit of extra dialogue from
Ingrid Pitt. In
general, though, none of it's worth the slower pacing and easily
recommend the shorter cut except for one problem. Whoever cut the film
clearly didn't have all the film elements, separate audio tracks, etc to
do a professional job. So the cuts in the film are abrupt, often
screwing up musical cues, or just making awkward edits, like cutting
from one shot of our hero to another in the same position and location.
So maybe you could say technically it's worse, but artistically it's
better? Anyway, the
Transmutations cut is only on the blu, so
you have to choose the shorter edit if you want to appreciate the proper
4k HDR presentation. And, eh, I'm fine with that.
Neither DVD has any extras, not even trailers. But Kino's BDs deliver.
First, the 2017 edition of
Rawhead Rex has an audio commentary by director
George Pavlou,
and it's great to finally hear his side of the story, after years of
only reading Clive trash the early films. Then, there's a series of
great interviews, including
Heinrich von Bunau, the actor in the Rawhead suit, spoken in German with English subtitles. Then there's an interview with
Ronan Wilmot,
who played the priest who serves under Rex. Next, is a featurette
editing together separate interviews with all of the effects artists who
worked on this film:
Gerry Johnston,
Peter Mackenzie Litten,
John Schoonraad and
Rosie Blackmore. And the final interview is with artist
Stephen R. Bissette, who adapted
Rawhead to
comic book form in the 90s, and who also has a lot to say about how the
movie compares to Barker's original story. There's also a nice gallery
of original concept art, the original theatrical trailer, and a stylish
booklet with notes by
Kat Ellinger of
Diabolique Magazine. Kino's blu has features reversible cover art and comes in a cool slip box, pictured below.
And the 2020 steelbook? It has everything the 2017 disc has (including
the booklet, though not the outer slipbox and obviously not the
reversible artwork) and more. Crucially, it has two new featurettes,
one with the two child stars, now of course grown up, which is a lot of
fun as they have some unique memories of the shoot. The other one is
good, too, a cheerful and engaging interview with the film's composer.
Are they worth upgrading for? That may be a tough call, but they do
make the special edition even more special. And it's exactly the same for the 2023 edition, except they've
dropped the booklet. But reversible artwork is back, and this latest
release comes in a slipcover.
And as for
Underworld, it's
not quite as packed, but what we get is pretty great. The chief extra
is another director's commentary, where he and his moderator really get
into the weeds of how and why this film both differs from and adheres to
Clive's original vision. It's a very candid discussion that tells the
whole behind-the-scenes story. There's also a fun, five-minute
behind-the-scenes look at the movie filmed for a BBC news show, which
briefly interviews some of the cast and crew. Otherwise, there's mostly
just galleries, though they're worth checking out, because they show
some of Clive's more fantastical illustrations the mutations could've
looked like, before the production team decided to go with something
more naturalistic. There's also the trailer for
Rawhead Rex (no, not
Underworld); and this release comes in a slipcover and reversible artwork (using the iconic
Transmutations poster).
I've seen Mad Movies'
Transmutations DVD
referred to as being out of print
and hard to find, but I think that's just some confusion about it being
available chiefly through Mad Movies' online store. It's
actually pretty cheap and in stock as of this writing; you can get it
here.
There's
no more reason to bother, though, as Kino has handily triumphed over both of
their discs in every regard, raising each film to a whole new level.
The films themselves are still dodgy, but if you're a Barker fan willing
to give them a shot, these UHDs are the ultimate way to go.
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