Why So Blu?

Roar (Blu-ray Review)

On November 3rd, Olive Films will release on Blu-ray Noel Marshall’s sole––and career-derailing––directorial effort, the notorious 1981 family affair with big cats, Roar (1981).Produced over the course of ten years, Roar is an audacious cinematic experiment: a thriller showcasing the majesty and ferocity of African lions, filmed on location amidst dozens of actual untrained cats. Photographed by Jan De Bont (d.p. of Die Hard and director of Speed ), the result i s a spectacular achievement — though often terrifying to watch — as actors (not stunt men) flee, wrestle, and come face – to – face with the massive hunters.  Not surprisingly, many members of the cast and crew suffered injuries during the making of the film though care was taken to ensure that no animals were harmed. Since filming Roar , Hedren has become an advocate for the protection of big cats, founding the Roar Foundation and the Shambala Preserve.

Film 

Noel Marshall stars as Hank, a doctor and outspoken naturalist in Africa who allows lions, tigers, cheetahs, and other big cats to roam freely around his remote estate. While away protecting animals from poachers, Hank’s family — including Marshall’s real – life wife and daughter, Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith — arrive at his home and are stalked by the massive lions that have overrun the house.

You wanna watch something crazy?  How about a movie where actors share the screen with untrained lions, elephants and more.  Scenes of the animals attacking and invading the home.  Yes, that’s pretty much what this movie is.  Tippi Hedren and her husband were bound and determined to make a movie with animals acting as natural as possible.  So dedicated, that they brought on their own daughter, Melanie Griffith to put in harms way as well.  No animals got hurt, but plenty of people working on the film were.  The film also took over ten years to finish.

If you take the core of the movie and then judge it upon things like story, acting, direction…well, you know, stuff that you typically look at a movie for, this thing sucks.  Its really bad.  Noel Marshall’s performance is almost downright hilarious with how bad it is.  I’m sure there is a script for this thing, but most of the film feels like improvisation.  There are a lot of lines and the like repeated over and over and over again.  Much of the film feels totally monotonous.

However, with all that said, this thing is pretty entertaining.  Yes, it has the “so bad its good” thing kinda going for it.  More importantly, it has you fearing for the health and lives of the performers of the film going for it too.  You are constantly worried for their safety and will be shocked at some of the beatings they take.  If you ever show this movie to people, its important you let them know the background of it before watching it.  Its a very important part of making this thing work for an audience member.  This is one of those crazy movies that cinephiles and people who enjoy film history or whatnot have to see.  I don’t think it maintains the amusement for the entire runtime and does start to drag, but for a good hour this is a whole lot of what the f*** enjoyment.

Video 

Encoding: MPEG-4 AVC

Resolution: 1080p

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Clarity/Detail:  What’s impressive on this film is how clean it looks and that it maintains a certain aesthetic throughout even though it was shot over a decade.  Detail is mainly just decent on here.  Notable peaks for the transfer are on wood in the house, seeing its grain, cracks and blemishes.  Clothing, fur and stuff is all rather average.

Depth:  Movements are very cinematic-like with minimal blur.  Background images look decent when focus allows.  Spacing is actually impressive between people/objects and environment.

Black Levels:  Blacks are deep.  They do hide some detail, no crushing witnessed.

Color Reproduction:  Colors in this are very brown.  Beiges and the like feature a wide array and come across with a bold look.  Greens look good when they appear.

Flesh Tones:  Skin tones look natural throughout.  In a few spots there is just a tad of a flicker.  There’s some solid detail in close-up shots.  Overall, pulling back beyond that, things look a little bit smooth.

Noise/Artifacts:  No real heavy grain, and a hint of aliasing. 

Audio 

Audio Format(s): English 2.0 DTS-HD MA

Subtitles: English

Dynamics:  Music and sound effects come across quite good and clean in this mix for the most part.  Vocals tend to be weird and muffly in this.  Its kinda back and forth on clarity and sounding muffled.  The lions’ roars do come in nice and deep and loud.  

Low Frequency Extension:  N/A

Surround Sound Presentation:  N/A

Dialogue Reproduction:  Dialogue varies.  Some of it is nice and normal, but other times its very muffled, like someone threw a towel over the speaker.

Extras 

Audio Commentary

• With John Marshall and Tim League

The Making of Roar (HD, 33:19) – A vintage retrospective documentary hosted by Tippi Hedren.  Some of her footage looks to be taken from earlier interviews and such.  Other cast and crew weigh in on this crazy inspired experience as well.  Its quite good, and adds to some value to watching the film.

Q&A with Cast and Crew at The Cinefamily, Los Angeles, Ca 4/17/2015 (HD, 39:52) – John Marshall does a bulk of the Q&A, then the editors, composer and some other various crew members come on for some more.

The Grandeur of Roar, an Essay By Tim League – A seven page essay that gives a terrific background on the production of the film.  If you’ve not seen the movie before, read this prior to watching.

Photo Gallery (HD, 6:26) – Color and & black and white on-set photos and promotional stills.

2015 Trailer (HD, 1:43)

Summary 

I don’t know if I’d necessarily call the folks behind Roar “brave”, “courageous” or brag that they beat the odds on making this film.  Its almost stupidity and lunacy that seemed to be fueling this one.  However, either way, we all benefit.  This is a film that I feel like everyone needs to see, as its one crazy watch.  The picture quality and audio quality don’t really beef this up much, but thanks to Drafthouse Films this release has some of the best and most comprehensive extras ever seen on an Olive Films release.  If you’re a fan of crazy cinema (Like the stuff in the Tim League mentioned “Holy F***ing S***!” section at Cinephile Video), outrageous films or the So Bad They’re Good ilk, you gotta check this out.  Its also got a hell of a Day 1 price too.