|
|
|
Drive-In Delirium: The New Batch
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - Australia - Umbrella Entertainment Review written by and copyright: James-Masaki Ryan (6th May 2018). |
|
The Film
 "Drive-In Delirium: The New Batch" Movie trailers have been a mainstay of the cinemagoing experience for over a century, and throughout the many years like its films that it is advertising, the aesthetics and trends have changed greatly over time. Giant text screaming how wonderful the film is with taglines might have been a huge selling point in the 1930s but later it would be replaced by critics quotes. Narration of trailers were big business all the way until the early 2000s but has all but disappeared in more recent years, relying on in-movie dialogue or no dialogue at all. Things that would sell tickets in the 1950s would not appeal today and even some might think that these older trailers are silly and cheesy in their sales pitches. Though most likely in one hundred years from now future cinemagoers will also feel the same for early twenty-first century movie trailers. Who knows? Maybe movie trailers will not exist in that time and would evolve into something else entirely. But in the name of silliness and cheesiness there is a nostalgic factor to older movie trailers, whether the mainstream features from big Hollywood spectacles or the exploitation indies that filled the drive in theaters and independent cinemas across the world from the 1950s onward. Whether people were alive at that time and reminiscing their old favorites or newbies that discovered these older trailers from DVDs or Blu-rays as bonus features, or in various trailer compilations such as "42nd Street Forever" from Synapse Films, "Trailers from Hell" from Joe Dante's Trailers from Hell website, Grindhouse Trailer Classics from Nucleus Films, "Shock Festival" from Stephen Romano, "Trailer War" from Drafthouse Films, and others. Umbrella Entertainment's third Blu-ray installment of their "Drive-In Delirium" series (and fifth installment if counting the two DVD editions), "Drive-In Delirium: The New Batch" follows "Drive-In Delirium: '60s and '70s Savagery" and "Drive-In Delirium: Maximum '80s Overdrive" both released in 2017. Trailer compilation DVD and Blu-ray sets may seem like an odd choice to the masses. Most people don't care for preview trailers before movies in cinemas or on home media as they would rather skip straight to the movie itself. Why pay for a set only comprised of trailers without an actual movie? Some people may not understand the value or the fun, but once people get into it, they will not be able to stop watching. There is certainly an artwork to the editing of movie trailers very different from feature films - the pacing, the length, what to show, what not to show. Granted not every trailer out there follows an artistic set of rules and they are bland and unconvincing. But for the ones that stand out, they can be even more memorable than the film itself. While the two previous collections in the "Drive-In Delirium" series focused on differing decades of movie trailers, this third collection entitled "Drive-In Delirium: The New Batch" features a vast array of trailers from the 1950s to the 1980s in three segments. The first and second parts labeled "Part One: The Quickening" and "Part Two: The Spawning" are three hours each of theatrical trailers presented in full 1080p, all from remastered high definition transfers. The third segment is dubbed "VHS Delirium" which collects a vast hour and a half of VHS-sourced trailers found on VHS tapes from the 1980s all from standard definition sources and encoded in 720p. The list of trailers are as follows: - PART ONE "The Quickening" (180:50) -- Pre-Show -- The Creeping Unknown (The Quatermass Experiment) -- The Angry Red Planet -- The Green Slime -- Chosen Survivors -- Meteor -- The Dark -- It Came Without Warning -- Xtro -- Altered States -- Silent Rage -- 1990 The Bronx Warriors -- Night of the Comet -- The Quiet Earth -- TerrorVision -- The Hidden -- The Curse -- Our Man Flint -- When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth -- The Golden Voyage of Sinbad -- Doc Savage - The Man of Bronze -- Wizards -- They Call Me Mister Tibbs -- The Stone Killer -- The Laughing Policeman -- Freebie and the Bean -- Brannigan -- Night Moves -- 10 to Midnight -- Tightrope -- Gorky Park -- Dead Heat -- Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia -- Convoy -- Death Machines -- Game of Death -- Swordkill -- Exterminator 2 -- Death Wish 3 -- Striking Back -- Rolling Vengeance -- The Killing of America -- Savage Attraction (Hostage) -- Fair Game -- Hellhole -- The Naked Cage -- The Cassandra Crossing -- The Domino Principle -- Eye of the Needle -- Cabo Blanco -- Death Hunt -- Fragment of Fear -- The Eyes of Laura Mars -- The Last Embrace -- Still of the Night -- Death Valley -- Highpoint -- The Naked Face -- Dead Ringers -- Escape to Athena -- Attack Force Z -- Missing in Action -- Mata Hari -- Death Rides a Horse -- Adios Sabata -- Valdez Is Coming -- The Hunting Party -- Breakheart Pass -- From Noon Till Three -- Linda and Abilene -- Last Tango in Paris -- Caligula -- They're Playing with Fire -- Every Home Should Have One -- The Pink Panther Strikes Again -- The Kentucky Fried Movie -- The Nude Bomb -- History of the World - Part 1 -- The Man with Two Brains -- Cannonball Run II -- Amazon Women on the Moon -- Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo -- Intermission - PART TWO "The Spawning" (172:55) -- Pre-Show -- Terror in the Aisles -- Blood Mania -- What's the Matter with Helen? -- Point of Terror -- Don't Look in the Basement -- Don't Go in the House -- Silent Scream -- Demented -- The Prowler -- Happy Birthday to Me -- The Funhouse -- Night School -- The Slumber Party Massacre -- Alone in the Dark -- The Slayer -- Double Exposure -- The House on Sorority Row -- The Mutilator -- Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter -- Friday the 13th part V: A New Beginning -- Friday the 13th part VII: The New Blood -- Slaughter High -- April Fool's Day -- Destroyer -- Ghost Story -- The Survivor -- The Entity -- The House Where Evil Dwells -- Poltergeist -- Poltergeist II: The Other Side -- Poltergeist III -- Amityville II: The Possession -- Amityville 3D -- House -- The Mephisto Waltz -- The Exorcist -- Exorcist II: The Heretic -- The Sentinel -- The Hearse -- The Final Conflict -- The Power -- Prince of Darkness -- Angel Heart -- The Seventh Sign -- Warlock -- Phantasm -- Sole Survivor -- The Serpent and the Rainbow -- Cathy's Curse -- The Dead Zone -- Firestarter -- Pet Sematary -- The Crimson Cult -- Death Line -- The Comeback -- House of the Long Shadows -- The Doctor and the Devils -- The Bird with the Crystal Plumage -- Lisa and the Devil -- Spasmo -- Deep Red -- City of the Living Dead -- Manhattan Baby -- Phenomena -- The Shiver of the Vampires -- Count Dracula's Great Love -- The Night of the Sorcerers -- The Night Visitor -- Possession -- A*P*E -- Orca -- The White Buffalo -- Deadly Eyes -- Razorback -- Dark Age -- Jaws IV: The Revenge -- The Bat People -- Humanoids from the Deep -- Wolfen -- An American Werewolf in London -- The Howling -- Howling II -- Cat People -- The Fly -- Near Dark -- The Being -- C.H.U.D. -- Hobgoblins -- Pumpkinhead -- The Incredible Torture Show -- Basket Case -- Brain Damage -- The Video Dead -- Post-Show - VHS Delirium (94:21) -- Christiane F -- Live a Little, Steal a Lot -- Sisters -- Starflight One -- Fake-Out -- Full Moon High -- Q - The Winged Serpent -- High Road to China -- They Call Me Bruce -- Fritz the Cat -- Hostage -- Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday -- Yellowbeard -- Breathless -- Jaguar Lives -- The Lonely Lady -- Split Image -- Yor, The Hunter from the Future -- Zulu Dawn -- Kill and Kill Again -- The Last Hunter -- Flesh for Frankenstein -- Blood for Dracula -- House by the Cemetery -- Get Crazy -- Threshold -- Brainwaves -- Caligula -- Never Say Never Again -- 21 Hours at Munich -- Count Yorga Vampire -- Chrome and Hot Leather -- High Ballin' -- Stone Cold Dead -- The Cold Room -- An American Werewolf in London -- Alligator -- Empire of the Ants -- The Return -- Young Doctors in Love -- Melvin Son of Alvin -- Scanners -- The Philadelphia Experiment -- Cujo -- Defiance -- The Fifth Floor -- Jennifer -- Secrets of the Phantom Caverns -- Kill Squad -- Inseminoid -- Savage Islands -- Battletruck -- Cannonball -- Cannonball Run II -- Something Wicked This Way Comes -- The Rutles -- Cloud Dancer -- Hysterical -- Roadhouse '66 -- 1984 -- Lassiter -- Losin' It -- The Key -- Insatiable -- Bedside Headmaster -- Julia -- When a Stranger Calls -- Tilt -- Pursuit of D.B. Cooper -- Condorman -- Scarred -- Seven -- Flight 90 -- Angel -- Dominique -- The Day After -- The Exterminators of the Years 3000 -- Cross Country The first part starts with a "Pre-show" which includes some refreshment and toy advertisements which then leads straight into the trailers back to back. Various trends in genres can be seen in the first part collecting 82 trailers. Alien invasion films such as "The Creeping Unknown" (1955) and "Without Warning" (1980), post apocalypse films such as "1990 The Bronx Warriors" (1982) and "Night of the Comet" (1984), cop films such as "They Call Me Mr. Tibbs" (1970) and "The Stone Killer" (1973), war films such as "Attack Force Z" (1981) and "Missing in Action" (1984), plus comedies such as "Kentucky Fried Movie" (1977) and "Cannonball Run 2" (1984). Some odds and ends are thrown in with a mix of major Hollywood productions from Columbia, Universal, etc. with independent and smaller studio productions in the mix. The second part starts with an interestingly rare anti-smoking PSA starring C3PO and R2D2 of all characters, followed by another 92 trailers. From here, slasher movies take center stage, with classics such as "Silent Scream" (1979), "Happy Birthday to Me" (1980), "The Slayer" (1982), "The Mutilator" (1984) and much more. Following are trailers in the possession genre with "Poltergeist" (1982), "The Exorcist" (1973), "The House Where Evil Dwells" (1982) and more. Italian giallo films get a significant amount of attention with "Bird with the Crystal Plumage" (1970), "Lisa and the Devil" (1973), "Manhattan Baby" (1982) and others. Creature features such as "Possession" (1981), "Razorback" (1983), "Dark Age" (1987), "The Fly" (1986) and many more. The "Post-show" at the end feature an outro and a promo trailer for the first two Blu-ray volumes in the "Drive-In Delirium" series. The third part features a variety of VHS trailers which are on the much shorter side as teasers with a total of 78 titles. They are in no particular order and a few are titles seen in the main section such as "An American Werewolf in London" (1981), though the versions of the trailers are completely different. Some of the trailers also have the VHS price offered at the tail end. AU$80 each for a VHS title? Yes, hard to believe they cost that much at retail price, but they did. With this third volume, there is a wider range of trailers but quite a few things seem to be left out. Very few in terms of zombie trailers. Australian cinema is few and far between. The 1950s were underrepresented. There was more concentration of mainstream titles rather than the obscure ones. Granted it all must deal with licensing and if the HD masters were available or not. As fun as it is to have 7.5 hours of trailers all on one disc with a handy "Play All" function, it may be hard to have it all in one go. Thankfully there are chapter stops for (almost) each trailer where you can pick up wherever you wish. Though there is no chapter listing page on the menu screen. If you are not sure of which chapter, the insert inlay includes a list of all the trailers in the first and second parts (though not the VHS portion) with numbers by the side of each trailer to help with numerical navigation. "Drive-In Delirium: The New Batch" is a fun ride of nostalgia though don't expect too many obscure surprises in this particular set. Note this is a region ALL Blu-ray which can be played back on any Blu-ray player worldwide
Video
Umbrella Entertainment presents the trailers of Part One and Part Two in 1080p in the AVC MPEG-4 codec in various aspect ratios. Each trailer is different but most are in the 1.78:1 widescreen size, with a handful of others being 1.33:1, 1.85:1, or 2.35:1. All trailers come from high definition sources, restored and remastered from various sources around the world. Some trailers look absolutely gorgeous with very little damage while others have some noticeable specs, scratches, or off balanced color. Considering the compilation is supposed to mimic the trailers played at drive-in cinemas from years ago, I highly doubt the trailers ever looked this good at those venues. The VHS trailers are presented in 720p in the AVC MPEG-4 codec in various aspect ratios. Most are in the 1.33:1 ratio though some are slightly windowboxed within the 1.33:1 ratio. The transfers are from standard definition video sources so weakness is very obvious with color bleeding, unstable picture, tape error, and blurriness, though some can look fairly good.
Audio
English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo Lossless audio has been provided for all trailers in parts one and two while the VHS section has the trailers in standard Dolby Digital. The trailers are a mix of mono and stereo depending on the title. Like the picture, the sound has been restored but there are some obvious defects like hiss, pops, distortion on some of the trailers. The VHS trailers are bound with substandard audio like the picture, though all are on the audible side. There are no subtitles offered for the trailers.
Extras
Technically, the VHS Delirium selection of trailers can be considered extras, but other than that there are no others. The trailer for this collection has been embedded below, courtesy of Umbrella Entertainment:
Packaging
As stated the inner inlay has a list of the trailers from parts one and two listed as well as an ad for the two previous Blu-ray releases in the series.
Overall
"Drive-In Delirium: The New Batch" is another fine collection of nostalgic trailers from Umbrella Entertainment filled with horror, action, suspense, science fiction, comedy, and much more. This compilation is a bit more on the mainstream side rather than the obscure collection, but still manages to be a load of fun for hours on end. Highly recommended.
|
|||||
|