Product: Tremors (1990)
Rating: 5.0
"perfection" in a comedy-horror film
Successfully mixing comedy and horror is a near-impossibility. There aren't many good comedy-horror films -- "Gremlins" and "Army of Darkness" come to mind. And, of course, the mother of them all, "Bride of Frankenstein". "Tremors" is another outstanding film to add to this list.What is particularly remarkable is that Ron Underwood, in his first job as director, nails it. Everything is... perfection. The timing, the tone, the pacing, are all models for this sort of film. It's as if he'd been directing all his life.The casting is good, too. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward make an interesting odd couple of handymen, with Ward about 20 years older than Bacon. Ward easily out-sexies Bacon, sauntering with widespread legs and swaying hips, as if he's just wandered in from a blue jeans commercial.Except for the excessive edge enhancement (the worst I've seen in any Blu-ray), the image quality is excellent. The film appears to have been shot full-frame, without an in-camera mask, and the widescreen Laserdisk version looked as if it had been cropped too closely (which seems to be a problem at Universal), with a decidedly "claustrophobic" quality to some scenes. This edition appears perfectly framed.TECHNICAL NOTE: The Blu-ray seems to be derived from the same source as the HD-DVD, with severe edge sharpening. This is particularly noticeable in the travelling matte shot in Burt's basement -- you can see a white line surrounding him. A few seconds later, the Gummers are on the roof, and there are white lines around /everything/. It's pathetic. (These aren't the only examples, just the worst ones.)Listen, Universal... I doubt most films need much (if any) sharpening. Certainly not /this/ much. If "The Searchers", a film more than 50 years old, can look breathtaking without sharpening, why is it needed for recent films? As far as I know, you can sharpen the image without introducing Gibbs artifacts. (You don't even know what I'm talking about, do you? Your transfer technicians merely locate the Sharpen knob and turn it all the way up to 11, without regard for the consequences.) This is typical of American companies -- they screw up good things so they'll appeal to the lowest common denominator of customer.