Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Reptile, The (Das Schwarze Reptil)
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Reptile, The (Das Schwarze Reptil)
Released by: Anolis Entertainment
Released on: September, 2015.
Director: John Gilling
Cast: Ray Barrett, Jennifer Daniel, Jacqueline Pearce Noel Willman
Year: 1966
The Movie:
Directed for Hammer Films by John Gilling in 1966, The Reptile tells the story of a couple, Harry George Spalding (Ray Barrett) and his wife Valerie (Jennifer Daniel), who moves to the town of Clagmoor Heath when Harry's recently deceased brother leaves them his home. Harry would like to figure out just what exactly happened to his brother, as the circumstances surrounding his death are foggy to say the least, but nobody in town is talking save for Tom Bailey (Michael Ripper), the pub owner who advises him to sell the place and get out while he can.
Making strange events even stranger is the presence of their new neighbor, Dr. Franklin (Noel Willman), who hides away in his huge mansion home with his daughter Anna (Jacqueline Pearce) and a strange man referred to as The Malay (Marne Maitland). As it turns out, Franklin has returned with Anna from a trip to Borneo where he was studying a strange tribe of snake people and that when they became unhappy with his presence they turned poor Anna into one of their own. As such, Anna has the tendency to turn into a horrible snake monster now and then. Meanwhile, Harry and Tom start digging up bodies of recently deceased townsfolk and learn that all of the corpses have one thing in common... markings that look like they could be a snake bite.
This is a fun watch, really well-paced vintage Hammer Horror to be sure. It's a little on the predictable side but Gilling does a pretty good job here creating both atmosphere and tension at regular intervals throughout the movie. The sets (some of which will look familiar to fans of The Plague Of The Zombies made the same year and also featuring Ripper and Pearce!) are pretty great here too - Franklin keeps a special area under his home that contains a sulfur spring, just what a reptilian woman might need to keep warm during the colder months in England - and visually speaking the movie is pretty impressive. There's great use of color on display throughout much of the picture and if the makeup effects are understandably a product of their time they are still creative and fun to see.
As far as the performances go, Ray Barrett and Jennifer Daniel are fine as the two 'hero' types but they're not the ones you really remember. That honor goes to Michael Ripper, who is genuinely really good in this role (a much more substantial one than we're used to seeing him in) and to beautiful raven haired Jaqueline Pearce as our poor snake woman. Noel Willman is also pretty good as her father, at first his character is a bit off putting, his behavior towards the new home owners nearby unpleasant, but once we understand why, you can at least feel for the guy and his actions make sense in their own way. The cast all do fine work here, and that helps things quite a bit.
As to the story, well, there are occasional logic gaps and questionable actions on the part of the characters in the movie, but it goes at a good pace and offers up the right mix of drama and monster related mayhem to hold our attention. The period setting, typical of Hammer's output of this era, seems to fit things rather well (it just wouldn't work as well if this were set in the mix-sixties). This isn't on par with the best of Hammer's output but it's definitely plenty entertaining and absolutely worth seeing. This new Blu-ray from Anolis offers a great way to do just that…
Video/Audio/Extras:
Anolis presents The Reptile on Blu-ray in AVC encoded 1080p high definition framed at 1.66.1 widescreen. Things shape up pretty nicely here as the transfer offers up fantastic color reproduction and strong black levels. Detail is strong throughout and there are no compression issues aren't really ever a problem. Some shots show better detail and more refined grain than others, but print damage is never really a problem. Skin tones look good and there aren't any obvious issues with edge enhancement.
Audio options are provided in German and in English DTS HD 2.0 Mono format with optional subtitles provided in German only. The English track fares well here, the dialogue is clean and clear and properly balanced and the score has more depth and range than you might expect to hear. There are no problems with any hiss or distortion and the sound effects have decent presence to them.
As far as the extras go, the disc starts off with an audio commentary track from Dr. Rolf Giesen and Volker Kronz. Unfortunately the commentary is in German language only, there are no English subtitles provided. There is, however, a thirty-three minute long video commentary presented by the same two participants that is in English that talks about the origins of the project, it's place in Hammer history, where some of the story ideas originated from and quite a bit more. This is a very thorough, well researched track and a nice addition to the disc.
Thankfully the rest of the supplements are also English friendly, starting with The Serpent's Tale: The Making Of The Reptile, a featurette that runs roughly twenty-eight minutes in length. Here Hammer Film Historian Marcus Hearn is joined by writers Mark Gatiss, Jonathan Rigby, David Huckvale and Wayne Kinsey as well as and the film's art director Dom Mingaye for a discussion of the history of this particular entry in the Hammer filmography. This does a fine job of putting the film into context alongside some of the other horror pictures that Hammer was churning out around the same time but also points out how and why this one stands out alongside some of those same movies. It's a pretty interesting talk and does a fine job of detailing all of this.
Aside from that we get a British theatrical trailer, some American television spots, a still gallery of promotional materials and behind the scenes bits and pieces, a German pressbook gallery, menus and chapter selection.
The Final Word:
The Reptile may not be the first movie you think of when talking classic Hammer horror pictures but it's a fun watch to be sure. This Blu-ray release from Anolis continues the studio's trend of delivering top notch Blu-ray editions of Hammer films, presenting the film in excellent shape and with a nice selection of supplements as well.
Posting comments is disabled.
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (270)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4133)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2512)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (385)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (293)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (496)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Quality X
Released on: February 28th, 2024.
Director: Chuck Vincent
Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
Year: 1982
Purchase From Amazon
Roommates – Movie Review:
Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),...-
Channel: Movies
03-15-2024, 01:10 PM -
-
Released by: Radiance Films
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
Year: 1969-1972
Purchase From Amazon
The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:
Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this...-
Channel: Movies
03-13-2024, 11:30 AM -
-
Released by: MVD Rewind Collection
Released on: January 8th, 2019.
Director: Albert Pyun
Cast: Olivier Gruner, Jennifer Gatti, Tim Thomerson
Year: 1992
Purchase From Amazon
Nemesis – Movie Review:
Albert Pyun's 1992 film Nemesis takes place in the future of 2027. Here it's common for criminals and cops alike to ‘upgrade' themselves using cybernetic bits and pieces in an effort to make themselves more than human. In this world...-
Channel: Movies
03-13-2024, 11:22 AM -
-
Released by: Severin Films
Released on: February 1st, 2024.
Director: Alec Mills
Cast: Leon Lissek, Christine Amor, Helen Thomson, Ian Williams
Year: 1990
Purchase From Amazon
Bloodmoon – Movie Review:
The directorial debut of Alec Mills, the cinematographer on such films as Polanski’s MacBeth and Return Of The Jedi, 1990’s Bloodmoon, a later period slasher film, is set around St. Elizabeth’s, an all-girls Catholic School...-
Channel: Movies
03-07-2024, 03:55 PM -
-
Released by: Scream Factory
Released on: March 12th, 2024.
Director: Mick Garris
Cast: Steven Weber, Rebecca De Mornay, Melvin Van Peebles, Courtland Mead
Year: 1997
Purchase From Amazon
The Shining – Movie Review:
Stephen King somewhat famously didn’t like Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel, The Shining, so he signed on to work with Director Mick Garris on this three-part TV mini-series take which hit the airwaves...-
Channel: Movies
03-07-2024, 03:50 PM -
-
Released by: Shout! Factory
Released on: February 13th, 2024.
Director: Liam Lynch
Cast: Jack Black, Kyle Gass
Year: 2006
Purchase From Amazon
Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny – Movie Review:
Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny opens with a prologue where we meet a young man named Jables (JB, played by Jack Black) who, despite his strict religious upbringing, only wants to rock n roll. When his father tears down all of his posters...-
Channel: Movies
02-29-2024, 06:17 PM -