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Released by: Westlake Entertainment
Released on: 6/28/2005
Director: Various
Cast: Patrick MacNee, Erik Estrada
Year: Various
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The Series:
TV rules. Where else can you find out all you need to know about ghosts, aliens, the paranormal, and history's greatest serial killers all in less than an hour's time without even having to get your ass off of the couch? TV provides us with all the information we need. Libraries are for sissies. With that in mind, I give you… Tales Of The Unexplained. This DVD compiltion from Westlake Entertainment cobbles together four episodes of the docudrama-reenactment show that explains to you those unexplainable things that make your life suck. Need the skinny on ghosts? Aliens? Jack The Ripper? Look no further. It's all right here.
U.F.O. CHRONICLES
The first episode gives us a look at the bizarre happenings that have occurred around Roswell and the subsequent alien sightings that have occurred. After a twenty minute crash course in the history of the events that took place there on that fateful day way back when, we're introduced to Pleadians. What are Pleadians? Well, that's a good question and I'm not sure that they know the answer to that themselves but what the TV tells us is that they're born of a government experiment in which alien tissue was fused with them while they were still in fetal development and as such, they're 'different' than we are. To finish things off with a bang, we get to meet a few interesting people who claim to be part of the Galactic Federation. The Galactic Federation is sort of a United Nations of outer space - they exist to solve interplanetary disputes and keep an eye on things in the galaxy. I didn't know that Earth had any representetives in The Galactic Federation but apparantly I was wrong.
CREATURES OF THE NIGHT
Moving right along, this next episode we're treated to the retelling of some interesting ghost stories such as the legend of Montgomery Clift who apparantly still does his thing in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel up there in Hollywood. Supposedly he treats some of the guests to impromptu sessions on his violin and makes things chilly in the building. There's also some bits in here about werewolves, a few random Holy Virgin sittings, and a truly strange segment on a mushroom that was brought here by space aliens that some people have turned into a miracle cure serum. This one doesn't get as wacky as the Galactic Federation people in the first episode, but the mushroom guys do give'em a run for their money and then some.
LONDON UNDERWORLD
Heading across the Atlantic, we're giving a look at all of the sinister and horrible things that have happened in jolly old England. Actually, that's not really the case at all. Things start off that way when we get a reasonably interesting and not so crazy look at some of the theories behind the still unsolved and still highly interesting Jack The Ripper murders, but once that's out of the way with, we head into Erik Estrada territory, where we learn of an out of body experience that he's had that has nothing to do with London at all, making me scratch my head in absolute amazement at all of this. Larry Wilcox also shows up to lend some creedence to Estrada's story, in which he barely survived an accident while filming C.H.i.P.S and travelled around the hospital for a bit in spirit form before heading on back into his body to make the world safe again. What the Hell? I'm not making this up. After that we learn about reincarnation and life after death but who cares about all of that crap when we've got Erik Estrada in spirit form!
THE MYSTERIES OF LIFE
Bringing it all to a smashing conclusion is this grand finale in which our intrepid reporters bring us everything we've ever wanted to know about weird occurances in our day to day lives but were afraid to ask. This one is segmented into four different stories: a woman gets burns over ninety percent of her body and still manages to survive only to save a family from a house fire a few montsh later; a few guys who are in touch their inner beings are able to walk over hot coals; we learn about the process of cyronics in which bodies are frozen supposedly to be able to be brought back to life sometime in the future; and finally we learn how cult leaders are able to use their amazing powers of suggestion to control the minds of their followers. What makes this episode interesting is that there are some people who were former David Karesh followers who are interviewed in this final segment who attest to some of the methods that their former leader used back in his glory days.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The colors look a bit washed out on this 1.33.1 fullframe image which, seeing as it was originally meant to be seen on television, is presented in its original aspect ratio. The black levels are closer to a dark grey and the image is quite soft. That being said, there aren't any problems with print damage even if there are some mild compression artifacts and some mild edge enhancement present. Not a good transfer by any stretch, but at least everything is watchable.
The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix might as well be mono as there aren't really any instances at all where you'll notice any channel seperation. Dialogue is clean enough and not too difficult to understand but there's nothing to write home about here either, as the entire thing is a little on the flat side.
Aside from a menu, the disc is barebones.
The Final Word:
A remarkably goofy series, Tales Of The Unexplained gets a mediocre DVD release. The episodes are fun if you don't necessarily need to take them seriously, and while a lot of it plays out like tabloid television, that doesn't take away from the moderate entertainment value that these episodes contain.