The YOU REVIEW feature: All YOU REVIEW features are complete and unedited written reviews independently submitted by followers of the Peter Cushing Appreciation Society , it's website and Facebook Fan Page. The opinions here in, are solely the authors and are shared here with the purpose and intent of providing a guide to dvd's and blu rays recently released featuring the work of Peter Cushing. All viewing equipment used for the reviews is domestic and typical of the range of players and tv monitors used in a domestic viewing environment.
THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN: Part of a TWO Hammer film package, with The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb, released on blu ray by Mill Creek Entertainment September 2016. Mill Creek's double feature is currently the only way to own these films on BLU RAY: They can be purchased HERE
THE REVIEW:
First. The technical to get it out of the way. First expectations. In my opinion, these are bargain basement blu-rays. Make no mistake that they have not been restored or remastered in any way whatsoever. The Revenge of Frankenstein uses an older HD encode carried over from the DVD release (I believe) of 2002. Both Revenge and Curse of the Mummy's Tomb are crammed onto a single 25GB blu-ray. Since there's no special features, or even subtitles or audio options), and since both movies are relatively short, this would've been okay had Mill Creek used a 50GB blu-ray disc. Instead, a large amount of compression exists in order to fit both movies onto the smaller sized disc. What does this mean for picture quality? Nothing good, I have to say.
THE DISC:
I'll
preface that my tv is probably 10 years old. It's a 46" 1080p LED
Samsung tv 240Hz. The picture still holds up as crisp and lifelike with
newer movies where action is fluid (and where proper care has been taken
to provide an adequate transfer). I also sit probably 10 feet away, so
I'm not on top of the tv looking for blemishes or distractions. In the
case of The Revenge of Frankenstein,
I noticed that in some scenes when people are walking across the
screen, such as when Frankenstein is holding the knife to Hans, there's a
fair amount of compression artifacts right behind him as the image
struggles to keep up with the actor's fluid motions. It's distracting
and shouldn't be happening in 2016, 10 years into this HD format.
Colors
are mostly good, but nothing really *pops*. The famous Hammer red blood
isn't any more rich now as it was on the DVD years ago. Flesh tones are
ok but some scenes lean a little more to the red side while other
scenes show actors a little paler. I did notice that some of the outside
night scenes were a little more difficult to see than I was used to.
What was perhaps most distracting is the sheer amount of scratches,
blemishes, dust, and vertical lines throughout the movie. This is a
movie that is dying for a remastering effort, although not as heavily as
The Curse of Frankenstein, which has its own problems.
As
for the sound, it's rather tinny I'm afraid. Bass isn't booming, voices
and high ranges sound thin, as does the music. I had forgotten how much
music is in this particular Frankenstein film, probably more than any
other Hammer Frankenstein. It's used to great effect to show how Karl is
a rather sympathetic 'monster' and his infatuation with Miss. Conrad.
There was no hissing or audio blips that I could hear, but it could
definitely use some oomph.
AND FINALLY:
To sum up, I paid about $8 for this combo, so about $4 for The Revenge of Frankenstein.
Sadly, that's probably all they're worth. To top it off, Mill Creek
misspelled The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb on the spine as "The Curese..."
I have yet to watch that movie. For the other double pack release with
the Gorgon, they misspelled it as "The Gorgan." That gives you an idea
of how much thought and care went into these movies.
The Revenge of Frankenstein: Codec: DISC: MPEG-4 AVC Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1, 1.66:1 Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1, 2.35:1 AUDIO: English: Dolby Digital 2.0 (448 kbps) PACKAGE: Blu-ray Disc Single disc (1 BD-25) ADVERTISED REGION: Region A
OVERALL SCORE: 2.0 from a possible 5.0
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