Search DVDBeaver |
S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r |
|
Touch of Death aka "Quando Alice ruppe lo specchio" [Blu-ray]
(Lucio Fulci, 1988)
Review by Gary Tooze
Production: Theatrical: Alpha Cinematografica Video: 88 Films
Disc: Region: FREE (as verified by the Oppo Blu-ray player) Runtime: 1:25:57.735 Disc Size: 23,914,237,187 bytes Feature Size: 19,202,697,216 bytes Video Bitrate: 24.89 Mbps Chapters: 12 Case: Transparent Blu-ray case Release date: August 7th, 2017
Video: Aspect ratio: 1.33:1 Resolution: 1080p / 23.976 fps Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC Video
Audio: LPCM Audio English 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit LPCM Audio Italian 1536 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1536 kbps / 16-bit
Subtitles: English, none
Extras: • Reflections in a Broken Mirror - Working with Lucio Fulci and Making Touch of Death - featurette with contributions from Michele De Angelis and Marco Di Stefano (21:43)• Reversible sleeve
Bitrate:
Description: The financially strained and increasingly
desperate, Lester Parsons (50s matinee star Brett Halsey),
concocts a brilliant get-rich-quick scheme; cruise the
lonely hearts adds for rich women to fleece. Too bad then,
that Lester’s also a psychotic cannibal who enjoys
mutilating these lovelorn souls, via his trusty chainsaw,
and using their flesh for his dinner. When a copycat killer
threatens to bring him down, Lester must do all he can to
prevent this new killer’s sloppy work from ruining them
both.
The Film: Lester is a well-to-do man with a love and affection for gambling on the races, he also has a love and affection for killing women and hacking them to bits before eating their bodies and feeding the remains to his hogs. So yeah, you could say he’s a pretty adventurous kind of guy! Recently he has devised a plan to seduce rich old widows he finds in the newspapers, convince them to give him a load of money/jewelry and then slaughtering them off. A brilliant plan no doubt! With a little advice from his tape casette player which speaks and has conversations with him – he is off to nab some more widows! The only hitch in the plan though is that now after killing a few girls, it seems that someone else must be following the same plan. Every night on the news he is seeing killings that took place in the exact same fashion that his have, and with the exact same circumstances – but only this other killer is leaving behind evidence. When Lester kills and chops up a body, this other killer leaves it behind. When Lester kills the only witness to his crime, the other killer simply harms them and leaves them to testify that a tall man with a beard and rimmed glasses did it – just like Lester. Things really start to get to ol’ Lester when he makes a bet that goes wrong and becomes $10,000 in debt to the mob – which he has just one week to pay off. Will Lester somehow get out of this predicament? Excerpt from Varied Celluloid located HERE
Lester Parson (Brett Halsey) is a cannibal psychopath who regularly
abducts and mutilates women, eating certain cuts and disposing the rest
in his back yard to his horde of pigs. He converces schizophrenically
with himself via tape recordings of his own voice. He is also being
hounded by Randy (Al Cliver), a shady loan shark whom he owes money to
after accruing bad gambling debts. Excerpt from Wikipedia located HERE Image : NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc. Touch of Death gets an impressive transfer to Blu-ray from 88 Films, cited as a "1080P presentation of the film sourced from the original negative." I've been told the previous DVDs produced a very poor image. Only video sources could be obtained for the SD as no original elements or prints were located. It was assumed that the original elements either no longer existed or were temporarily lost/unavailable. This Blu-ray is single-layered but looks quite good with visible grain. It's clean and tight - no significant damage. It offers both the English and Italian versions - seamless ( same transfer) in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The 1080P supports pleasing contrast with frequent depth. The grain textures are fine and consistent. This Blu-ray exports a surprisingly impressive HD presentation considering the state of the previous digital releases and sources.
CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION
Audio :Both English and Italian tracks on the Blu-ray of Touch of Death offer uncompressed liner PCM transfers (both 16-bit). The dialogue is imperfect in clarity and the DUB'ing weak - probably a notch below the video. The effects are modest. This has another score by Carlo Maria Cordio (Body Puzzle, Aenigma, Pieces, Amok Train) and, modestly, it adds to the film. There is an English subtitled option for the Italian (see above) on the Region FREE Blu-ray playable word wide.
Extras : Supplements include a 22-minute featurette entitled Reflections in a Broken Mirror - Working with Lucio Fulci and Making Touch of Death. It has contributions from Michele De Angelis, Assistant director on Touch of Death, and, actor, Marco Di Stefano - who played the Hobo in Touch of Death. It is in English and Italian with subtitles. The package has a reversible sleeve.
BOTTOM LINE: Gary Tooze July 31st, 2017
|
About the Reviewer: Hello, fellow Beavers! I have been interested in film since I viewed a Chaplin festival on PBS when I was around 9 years old. I credit DVD with expanding my horizons to fill an almost ravenous desire to seek out new film experiences. I currently own approximately 9500 DVDs and have reviewed over 5000 myself. I appreciate my discussion Listserv for furthering my film education and inspiring me to continue running DVDBeaver. Plus a healthy thanks to those who donate and use our Amazon links.
Although I never wanted to become one of those guys who
focused 'too much' on image and sound quality - I
find HD is swiftly pushing me in that direction. 60-Inch Class (59.58” Diagonal) 1080p Pioneer KURO Plasma Flat Panel HDTV PDP6020-FD
Oppo Digital BDP-83 Universal Region FREE Blu-ray/SACD
Player APC AV 1.5 kVA H Type Power Conditioner 120V Gary W. Tooze ALL OUR NEW FORMAT DVD REVIEWS
|