Here comes another review from our U.S based reviewer, Shawn Francis. This time around Shawn takes a look at the new U.S blu-ray of the low budget 1983 creature feature, The Deadly Spawn. For U.K readers, this film is available in U.K on DVD from Arrow Video, the U.S release comes from Elite Entertainment. Check out Shawn's Review after the jump...
Written By Shawn Francis
For me THE DEADLY
SPAWN is synonymous with the heyday of Fangoria magazine. I never
owned issue #17, the one where the movie made it’s bloody debut,
but for years afterwards they would occasionally run a photo from the
movie, and before I ever saw the flick, this is how I became
acquainted with it. It was always either a black and white shot of
the spawn, or—gasp!—a color one that showed the beast drenched in
blood with body parts strewn about the plasma soaked floor. Every
time I came across one of these color photos it made me squeamish,
yet at the same I was awestruck at how original this alien menace
looked.
Sad to say the
DEADLY SPAWN was never broadcast on cable, nor did I ever come
across it on TV, and even with the advent of VHS, and our family’s
first VCR on Christmas day of 1984, this movie was absent from the
home video market until 1996.
I had gotten a
catalog in the mail that was selling it, and I leapt at the chance to
own it. This was Spring of 1996, and the night I watched it, despite
being twenty-seven years old, I was grossed out and horrified by the
gut munching carnage this ET wrought upon everyone and everything it
came into contact with. And the fact that the movie was done,
effectively, I might add, on a low budget made the gore even more
palpable. It was the little spawns eating the skin off the severed
heard of Charles’ mother that did me in. I don’t think I ever
recovered from that moment.
After the movie was
over, I was still so shaken by that image. I kept the VHS, but never
watched it ever again. I remember THE MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS
was on that night, and I watched it just to cleanse my mind of
the movie. Some years later, I finally got rid of the tape, but like
always when I do that from out of nowhere I always get the urge to
want to watch it again.
Forgot all about the
movie, until one day in 2004, I see on the net THE DEADLY SPAWN
is going to hit DVD for the first time through Synapse Films, and
it’s going to be loaded with extras. As with most horror flicks
that traumatize me, I got excited and knew from the get go I was
going to buy it. I did and never looked back. To this day, I still
get anxious when it comes to all the carnage in the basement.
For those not
familiar with the movie all you need to know is that a this creature
is brought to earth one night in a meteor, it’s small, but once it
tastes human flesh it begins to grow. It hides out in the basement of
this family and proceeds to decimate any living being that comes
within reach. It produces young which reach out to other homes and
proceeds to create a living, bloody hell amongst the inhabitants.
Will anyone be left alive in the end? Can it be stopped? Watch and
see.
Here we are in the
year 2012, and the Spawn has finally come to blu-ray. Actually, it
came to blu-ray a year before, but, from what I understand, it’s
transfer was handled poorly and resulted in an uproar within the
horror community. Ted Bohus, the producer, vowed to go back and fix
it, but this new transfer doesn’t look any better.
Like the standard
DVD, it’s still windowboxed at 1.33:1, but the clarity isn’t
quite as good as the DVD, reminding me all to well of how
Image handled another cult classic—cough, cough, RE-ANIMATOR,
cough, cough—that just recently hit blu-ray.
Until we get a
proper high definition transfer I cannot, in good standing, recommend
this blu. If you want to see the Spawn, I recommend buying Synapse’s
standard DVD. Now, having said that, for those who have never seen
the movie, and don’t own the standard DVD, and really want
to own it on blu-ray no matter what, I will admit the movie is
watchable. You just need to keep in the back of your mind that the
DVD boasts a picture that is moderately more vivid.
And you must also be
aware there are some differences in the extras. What’s not
included are the two commentaries. Bohus and his editor, Marc
Harwood, did a new commentary track for this blu and that is the only
track present here. It’s informative, and I learned some things I
didn’t know, or probably forgot about, like, John Dodds, and the
director they chose not getting along, which resulted in the director
getting booted off; the fact that there’s a museum in Germany
dedicated to all things Spawn, and Bohus voicing his wishful desire
to see Hollywood remake it. Some photos in the Photo Gallery from the
standard DVD have not been ported over either, nor were the
filmmaker’s biographies.
From what I could
gather there are two new featurettes exclusive to the blu-ray:
‘Take One, (24:56)—this looks like a public access show
that Marc Harwood appeared on back when the Spawn had just been
completed. He talks about the making of it, brought along a few clips
and a Spawn prop from the movie, and ‘Local News Segments’
(40:32)—another blast from the past where the makers of the
movie hit the local news stations to promote their movie. The longest
segment was very interesting; it was a call-in show Bohus was on
during Halloween 1991, around the time METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN
FACTOR was already done and playing overseas only, for the
domestic rights were still caught in litigation. It was weird seeing
Bohus without his trademark beard, and longish hair.
The rest of the
extras on the standard DVD—Alternate Opening, Casting And Gags,
Bloopers And Outtakes, Visit With The Deadly Spawn, Slideshow and
Comic Book Preview—have been ported over. Before the movie
starts, Ted added a short video prologue to this version where he
shows off the merchandise the Spawn has generated over the years, and
the one I found the coolest was The Deadly Spawn hand puppet.
Despite the
lackluster presentation of this print, I am still a fan of yours,
Ted, and wish nothing but the best for you and this movie, which is
why I need to say, if you’re reading this, for the love of God,
man, bite the bullet and take the movie back to Synapse and let Don
do a proper HD transfer!
Film
Disc
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