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Pin AKA Pin... AKA Pin: A Plastic Nightmare
R2 - United Kingdom - Arrow Films Review written by and copyright: Samuel Scott (27th October 2013). |
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The Film
 ***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** When close siblings Leon and Ursula lose their parents in a tragic car accident, they inherit the imposing family homestead along with a creepy heirloom – their late father’s medical dummy, “Pin”. Leon has always treated Pin like a member of the family, but this bizarre relationship starts to take a decidedly sinister turn; and when the dummy starts donning dad’s old suits and terrorising the house-guests, Ursula begins to have serious concerns about her brother’s sanity. After all, Pin is just a dummy… isn't he? Starring Lost’s Terry O’Quinn (who genre fans will know best for his gleefully demented star turn in The Stepfather), Pin is a gem of late 80s horror in the tradition of classic dummy fright flicks such as Magic and Dead of Night.
Video
Arrow Films release Pin (1988) on DVD as part of their ArrowDrome range, which they describe as "a fleapit selected library of cult films". The transfer they have provided is in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, and looks better than I had expected it to. Considering this is a fairly low budget product of the 80's, I had expected it to look a little rough, but apart from some minor artifacts the print is very clean and quite sharp. There did seem to be some over-saturation in the opening credits, but colours are generally natural looking, especially skin tones and hair. There appeared to be no edge enhancement or aliasing as far as I could see, and there are no scratches. I haven't seen this film before, so I can't compare it to any other DVD releases that are available, but I would be surprised if any look better. The disc is PAL, and the feature runs 98:15.
Audio
A single audio track is available here: - English Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround Although the score is far from being reference material, there is nothing wrong with it. The surround encode at 256kbps sounds quite meaty all things considered, with the car crash sounding particularly good. Separation is solid, but it is mainly for dialogue and the score rather than for surrounding environments. Volume levels are consistent throughout, with the score never overpowering the clean sounding dialogue. I noticed no damage to the track at all such as audio dropouts or scratches, but I did hear some very light background hiss during the scene where Leon finds his sister having sexual intercourse in the car. No subtitles have been included.
Extras
On-disc extras are limited to a theatrical trailer (1:53), though a booklet with notes by Lee Gambin is in the case. Please note, the review copy did not include the booklet, hence why we cannot give any detail.
Overall
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