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Vampire (The) AKA El vampiro (Blu-ray)
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Powerhouse Films Review written by and copyright: Rick Curzon (15th October 2024). |
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The Film
 In The Vampire (El vampiro), the beautiful, bereaved Marta (Welter) travels with Enrique (Salazar) to visit her sick aunt in her ancestral home. There, the mysterious neighbour Duval (Robles) offers to buy the family's decrepit hacienda. However, Duval is really Count Karol de Lavud, a vampire whose aim is to drain Marta of her blood and revive his entombed brother. In the sequel, The Vampire's Coffin (El atad del vampiro), grave robbers bring Lavud's corpse to Enrique's city hospital, where Marta now works as a nurse. Duly re-animated, Lavud sets about his bloody plan to make Marta his bride. Pre-dating Hammer Films' Dracula by a year, The Vampire's uniquely Mexican take on vampire mythology was the first film to give its antagonist elongated fangs, and its success kick-started Mexico's horror boom. Restored from the original negatives, these films finally receive their world Blu-ray premieres in this individually numbered Limited Edition two-disc set, complete with new and archival extra features, and a fully illustrated 80-page book.
Video
Whilst Riccardo Freda and Mario Bava were making I Vampiri in Italy, Terence Fisher was creating The Curse of Frankenstein in the UK which became the blockbuster film which triggered Hammer's great success and the post Universal horror boom. Dracula (1958) did even better but in Mexico Fernando Mendez had made The Vampire. There must've been something in the water worldwide because the boom seemed to hit the cinema stage from several directions within the same year, 1957: I Vampiri on April 5th, The Curse of Frankenstein on May 2nd and finally The Vampire on October 4th. Hammer's Dracula followed on the 7th of May 1958. The Vampire's success led to Mendez directing the sequel which was released August 28, 1958; less than a year after the first film. Like several other key players in vampire or horror cinema - Jean Rollin, Jess Franco, Paul Naschy, Santo - I became aware of The Vampire when I picked up a copy (in 1984) of David Pirie's excellent The Vampire Cinema (1977). I first saw the film in 2002 when Mondo Macabro released it in the UK and I also picked up the superb US Casa Negra DVD double bill (with The vampire's Coffin). In 1986 I bought a copy of the seminal The Aurum Film Encyclopaedia: Horror which reviewed these films, had plenty of pictures and introduced me to many others. The 1990s onwards was a great time to be a fan of world horror cinema with Redemption releasing many on VHS in the UK and the DVD era built on their good work. Both films are't the best of the Mexican horror boom but they remain entertaining, florid horror melodramas if a little too talky and padded. The Vampire was restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative by Labo, Mexico City. Additional restoration work was carried out by Fidelity in Motion. The film's original Spanish mono audio was remastered from the original optical track. Further clean-up of the audio was undertaken by Powerhouse Films using iZotope RX10.both films look fabulous in their cool monochrome palettes with no gamma bias, deep blacks with plenty of shadow detail and lots of filmic grain that looks natural. Detail is generally good although The Vampire being mastered from a 4K scan edges it over the 2K of the sequel. These couldn't have been easy films to encode owing to the many scenes of swirling fog, mist and atmospherics. The images are thick with these effects at times and not once did I notice any noise or clumping. The exterior and nighttime scenes fare best with a brighter, flatter approach to interior sequences. Overall an 'A-' for the image quality with The Vampire benefitting more from it's 4K scan. 1080p24 / AVC MPEG-4 / BD50 / 1.37:1, 1.85:1 / 83:56, 82:09
Audio
Spanish LPCM 1.0 (48kHz, 16-bit) English LPCM 1.0 (48kHz, 16-bit) Subtitles: English (for the Spanish track, English HoH (for the English track) The Spanish tracks are really the only sensible option owning to the fact that the films were shot with production sound in that language on set. The English dubs are inferior in every way: muffled, loud, garish and generally not good. Dialogue on the Spanish is always clear, the melodramatic scoring effective and well integrated. There's some mild analogue hiss but that's to be expected, even desirable because it's the way these tracks would've sounded on release although the restoration efforts have cleaned them up nicely. English subs on the Spanish tracks are excellent as are the English hard of hearing on the English dubs (B').
Extras
Audio commentary on The Vampire with actor German Robles in Spanish with optional English subtitles) (2007) Vintage yaktrak with the star. He's articulate and interesting covering a fair amount about the production from his point of view. We hear about his career and how he is associated with horror amongst plenty of interesting anecdotes. Presented in lossy Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (48kHz, 112Kbps) with optional English subtitles. "The Mark of Abel: The Salazar Sisters Remember Their Father" 2024 interview (21:44) "Who's Afraid of Carmen Montejo?: Abraham Castillo Flores on Carmen Montejo and Her Co-Stars" 2024 interview (30:24) "Memories of a Storyteller: Juan Raman Oban Remembers His Father" 2024 interview (21:40) "The Great Mexican Vampire: Roberto Coria on German Robles and the Figure of the Vampire" 2024 interview (19:32) "From the Drawing Board: Elisa Lozano on Artist and Production Designer Gunther Gerzo" 2024 interview (14:42) 108:02 worth of new featurettes presented in 1080p24 1.78:1 with lossy Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (48kHz, 112Kbps) with excellent, optional English subtitles. The Oban piece is a reminiscence by the son of the writer covering his career and his own role typing up his dad's work and his later writing endeavours. Coria covers the Mexican vampire films and actor Robles. I disagree with his assertion that we wouldn't have had the Hammer vampire films if it wasn't for The Vampire; Hammer made their first gothic in the same year and several months before the Mexican film debuted in Mexico. It was unlikely that .jimmy Sangster had seen The Vampire before he began writing Dracula (1958) which was a blockbuster on release. Lozano Covers the production design fairly thoroughly. The Vampire: Theatrical Trailer (3:07) The Vampire's Coffin: Theatrical Trailer (3:19) Vintage trailers for both films in 1080p24, 1.37:1 for The Vampire, 1.75:1 for the sequel with lossy Spanish Dolby Digital 1.0 (48kHz, 192Kbps) sound and optional English subtitles. The Vampire Image Gallery: Original Promotional Material (65 images) The Vampire's Coffin Image Gallery: Original Promotional Material (62 images) The Vampire's Coffin Image Gallery: French Photonovel (30 images) A whopping 157 images in HD. 80-page liner notes book with new essays by Jesus Palacios and David Wilt, archival essays by Eduardo de la Vega Alfaro and Carmen A Serrano, cast interviews, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits The essays are the stars of this excellent book, both old and new. And the interviews and contemporary criticl responses always interesting.
Packaging
Not sent for review.
Overall
Another welcome release from Powerhouse Films brings two more Mexican horror hits to Blu-ray as part of the Indicator Series. Image and sound are topnotch as are the extras. Sadly, the 2006 CasaNegra commentary by film historian Robert Cotter obviously couldn't have been included, nor the episode of Mondo Macabro television programme from the 2002 UK release (I shall be keeping my old discs). Fans of gothic horror (Hammer, Universal, Italian and .eiropean) will lp this new set up. Highly recommended ('A-').
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