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[Blu-ray Review] ‘Underworld Trilogy: The Essential Collection’
After the success of Resident Evil, Sony Screen Gems was looking to create another action-horror hybrid to release during the slower movie-going months of the year, and went with a pitch from a music video director/guy from Roland Emmerich’s art department, Len Wiseman. Underworld, which did decent business in the RE spot before becoming a January tentpole for the distributor, is a slick-looking but ultimately hollow series with some neat monster designs and a good looking heroine. I have to give credit where credit is due: they created a series with a slightly intensive mythology, filled with lineages and centuries-old feuds, but give almost zero character development to anyone. Now THAT’S impressive. For this review, I’m going to be focusing on the box set and the new features on it rather than the films themselves, since we already have stand-alone reviews for them on the site. With the fourth entry hitting theatres in less than a month, Sony is double-dipping their Blu-ray trilogy box set with a few minor changes. Underworld Trilogy: The Essential Collection features a new box design, a bonus disc – which was clearly an afterthought since it’s housed in a white paper sleeve in between the Blu-ray cases of the theatrical films – titled Underworld: Endless War, and UltraViolet copies of all three flicks. Aside from the absence of a traditional digital copy of Rise of the Lycans, the Blu-rays for the feature-length releases are exactly the same. Same cover and disc art, same excellent A/V quality, same bonus features, same everything. So, if you already own the stand-alone discs or the original trilogy box set, picking this up is kind of a waste unless you’re looking to expand your Ultraviolet collection or want a cartoon that’s eighteen minutes long.
Endless War’s story, split into three parts and done in an Americanized anime style that reminds me of Teen Titans, spans more than a century as Selene tracks down three Lycan brothers who have been living as wealthy aristocrats in Paris. Like the franchise it’s based on, it’s heavy on action and light on story. In the eighteen minutes it took to run its course, it really didn’t leave an impression, nor did it strike me as anything really important in the grand scheme of things… or the franchise’s mythology. On top of that, the Blu-ray disc itself is pretty sparse and disappointing; there’s no bonus features, a bare menu, a cloudy, murky transfer, and a Dolby Digital 2.0 track that’s not lossless. If anyone needed any evidence of how much of a rushed, cash-in this release is, the specs and quality speak for themselves.
Underworld Trilogy: The Essential Collection is anything but essential; in fact, it’s pretty pitiful considering the only selling points of the new set are a not-that-great cartoon, and digital copies on a cloud service that I haven’t heard the kindest things about thus far. If you’re a fan and don’t own any of them yet, this is probably the release to get in terms of supplements – and a movie ticket to see Underworld: Awakening, which was not included with my set and or Amazon’s stock, from what I’ve read – but otherwise, the cartoon is not worth the purchase. At all.
Night School, director Ken Hughes and writer Ruth Avergon‘s tale of a headhunting slasher on the streets of Boston, arrived in the early Golden Age of the slasher film and never quite broke through the endurance test that other films in the subgenre, like Friday the 13th, managed to pass with flying colors. Blame it on a more cerebral tone, a crowded market, whatever you like, but saying it’s a shame that the film didn’t break through doesn’t begin to cover it.
Night School isn’t just an underrated slasher, or an underseen one. For my money, it’s one of the best films the subgenre has ever produced, full stop, and Vinegar Syndrome’s new 4K UHD restoration, arriving just in time for the film’s 45th anniversary, is must-have proof. Stacked with special features highlighting the craft of the film and its place in slasher history, and headlined by a gorgeous restoration showcasing the wonderfully textured production, this is Night School as it’s meant to be seen for slasher devotees everywhere.
So, what makes the film so effective? It starts very simply, with the revelation that a killer with a very cool knife and a motorcycle helmet as a mask is murdering young women in Boston, taking off their heads, and dropping those heads in the nearest body of water (no matter how small).
Solving the case falls on Judd Austin (Leonard Mann), a detective with an academic background who traces all of the victims in one way or another back to a local night school. There, suspicion falls on a womanizing professor (Drew Snyder) who sleeps around on his research assistant and romantic partner, Eleanor (Rachel Ward), whose own death could be right around the corner.
I’m doing my best to stay as spoiler-free as possible here, not just because I think plenty of slasher fans still need to see Night School, but because the film is quite determined to be a whodunit in the classic Italian giallo sense. The kills are brutal and elaborate, the killer deliberately covered head-to-toe in leather and a gleaming black helmet, the knife and the headhunting a disturbing signature. Avergon’s script is well-versed in the trappings of exactly this kind of story, complete with red herrings galore. And yet, by the time it’s all wrapping up, there’s also the sense that the answer was right there in front of you the entire time, something the very best films by legends like Mario Bava and Dario Argento could also achieve.
But on to the restoration: Like the best of the gialli, Night School is also a beautifully engineered film full of colors and delicate camera compositions and sound design. The opening kill, which takes place on a playground carousel outside of a daycare, is rich in exactly this kind of thing, from the cityscapes that lead into the scene to the sound of a motorcycle slowly rolling forward, its engine already dead. Cinematographer Mark Irwin, best known for his many collaborations with David Cronenberg, paints the film in rich reds, absinthe greens, and haunting, chilled blue-white light on wet Boston streets, all of which are preserved beautifully by the restoration team at work on this one.
It’s a movie that very deliberately evokes a specific place – the aging streets of Boston in the 1980s, and the halls of relatively low-level academia – and then takes that place into haunted territory, saturating every frame with color and shadow that suggests a killer lurking just out of view.
Night School is not a massively gore-heavy film, but it does deliver the slasher goods with a series of tense, often unpredictable kills and body discoveries that range from the darkly comic to the flat-out jaw-dropping. That’s thanks to the sound design, the score, the editing from Robert Reitano, and more, all of which add to the film’s giallo soul.
In every case, the scene’s geography is outstanding, and it’s easy to see where the simplest possible kill shot might land, but the film never goes for the obvious. Throw in a surprisingly (for 1981, anyway) feminist bent to the storytelling and some very progressive moments for an early slasher film, and this one fits right in with Black Christmas and The Slumber Party Massacre as a film with depth you can just keep unpacking.
That depth, helped along by a load of featurettes and two new commentary tracks featuring members of the crew, is what stands out the most in this new 4K set. Night School may be a niche film recognized mostly by horror addicts and the slasher faithful, but it deserves to be something more, a landmark on the roadmap of slasher cinema history. It’s one of the best in the genre, and this restoration highlights, underlines, and shouts that from the rooftops.
Night School is now available in 4K UHD from Vinegar Syndrome.
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