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DVD Review: ‘Tales From The Black Freighter’
In retrospect, maybe it wasn’t wise to wait three weeks to release Tales From The Black Freighter on DVD. The movie, while still more successful than a good chunk of comic based films (it has certainly out-grossed any other Alan Moore adaptation, as well as Sin City), was not quite as financially successful as Warner Bros may have hoped, and thus the fanfare they assumed would be greeting the March 24th release of the spinoff will mainly be limited to the same die hard fans that would have bought it whenever it came out. Luckily, for them and for new fans, it’s a great disc. Read on for a full review.
Sometimes the extra features are better than the film itself, but I think that Tales From The Black Freighter may be the first DVD in history in which the bonus features are LONGER than the film itself. While Freighter, ostensibly the main feature (as judged by the DVD cover, which is 90% Black Freighter related), only runs 24 minutes, the disc also contains a 38 minute mockumentary based on Hollis Mason’s “Under The Hood” novel, as well as a making of featurette on both stories that runs about a half hour. Hell, the disc also includes the first issue of the Watchmen Motion Comic (reviewed HERE) which runs a couple minutes longer than Freighter as well.
That’s not to say it’s any lesser an effort. On the contrary, the Black Freighter story is well told with traditional hand drawn animation. Zack Snyder originally wanted to put these segments in the Watchmen feature, utilizing the same stylish greenscreen approach he used on 300, but budget/time concerns jettisoned that idea. I couldn’t be happier with that decision, as not only did it keep the movie from ballooning into a length that prevented the film’s point from getting across, but it also allowed Snyder to reconsider and give a job to old school 2D animators, many of whom are probably facing layoffs with the ever increasing focus toward 3D CGI animation a la Pixar.
Plus it’s a good story to boot. Like Rorschach and Veidt in the main film, the unnamed protagonist of Black Freighter is a guy who simply misses the forest for the trees, and ends up doing reprehensible things in order to do what he thinks is right. I thought that the panels presented throughout various issues of the original “Watchmen” series would be fleshed out into a more complete tale (such as, if nothing else, giving the guy a name), but if you’ve read the comics, there isn’t much new here in terms of the story. However, it’s far more exciting to see certain events, like the shark battle and return to Davidstown, in full blown animated sequences. Plus, Gerard Butler provides the voice of the main character, bringing a sense of gravitas that the Motion Comic (which also included the Black Freighter panels) lacked.
It’s also exceedingly gory. It’s rare to see a 24 minute DVD get an MPAA rating, but it certainly earns the “R for violent and grisly images” tag. Bodies are torn apart, folks are beheaded, seagulls are eaten in gory detail… it actually gives the film (itself gorier than I expected) a run for its money, in about 1/6th the time. Needless to say, anyone doubting that this tale belongs being reviewed on a horror site should know that it offers more gory violence than half of the films we cover. Also skeleton/demon dudes.
As said though, Black Freighter makes up less than
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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