Communion (Sonart) (1989) |
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Communion (Sonart) (1989) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Science Fiction |
Main Menu Audio Scene Selection Animation Biographies-Cast & Crew Filmographies-Cast & Crew Gallery-Photo Outtakes-with Director's commentary Featurette-Bonus Promotional Materials Trailer-3 Featurette-Excerpt from "According to Occam's Razor" Notes-Credits |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 1989 | ||
| Running Time | 100:12 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | No/No | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 1,2,3,4,5,6 | Directed By | Philippe Mora |
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Studio
Distributor |
Pheasantry Films Select Audio-Visual Distrib |
Starring |
Christopher Walken Lindsay Crouse Frances Sternhagen Andreas Katsulas Terri Hanauer Joel Carlson John Dennis Johnston Dee Dee Rescher Aileen Fitzpatrick R. J. Miller Holly Fields Paula Shaw Juliet Sorcey |
| Case | Alpha | ||
| RPI | $29.95 | Music |
Eric Clapton Allan Zavod |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 2.0  (224Kb/s)
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.30:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles | None | Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
It starts with the writer, funnily enough named Whitley, having nightmares. Whitley's wife, Anne (Lindsay Crouse) starts having some dreams, too, as does his son, so they get in on the hypnosis action as well, under the guidance of the very fashion-conscious Dr Duffy (Frances Sternhagen, who I couldn't stop visualizing in her role as Cliff's mother in "Cheers"). After a brief dalliance with a support group, it's back to the hypnosis, and then, it's really a free-for-all in the alien abduction department.
Who better to direct than noted filmer of weirdo stories Phillipe Mora (Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills, The Beast Within) and possibly the finest weirdo actor in the business, Christopher Walken. Despite Walken's presence (I always find him instantly engaging and eminently watchable), Communion has one fatal flaw: it's just too literal. One aspect of the movie that had potential to make it more interesting than it became was issue of whether Whitley was in fact abducted, or just nuts. We're never in any doubt, and this leaves the movie without any real dramatic tension, and nothing better to do than to marvel at some of the cheesiest aliens you've ever seen. Despite a couple of eerie bits, and the odd scare, Communion just scrapes in as "interesting", when it had the potential to be so much more. Fictionalized fiction, for me, always beats fictionalized truth... I don't think that actually makes sense... oh well, neither did the movie, really...
Call me cynical, but the mid-80s saw a craze for all things alien, which just happened to coincide with a craze for all things "glow-in-the-dark"... or was that just a spooky coincidence? Communion struck a chord with a public whose disenchantment with organized religion grew with the fatalism attached to the cold war, the nuclear stand-offs all over the world, and the economic rationalisms of Thatcher's England and Reagan's America. It was no spooky coincidence that at this time, alternative theologies proliferated, and the obsessions with superior beings from outer space became just another belief system to replace those that were disappearing before our very eyes.
Disappointingly, the entire feature is very soft and diffuse, with grain a constant feature, especially so in the darker scenes. At many points, the black bars above and below the image proper became so grainy that they couldn't be described as black any more. This was so bad that I often found myself squinting, and leaning out of my chair to get closer to the display. The shadows were, as to be expected, quite murky as well. Low level noise made more than the occasional entrance, most obviously at 42:24 and 44:14.
Probably the best thing about this transfer (although it's not a great achievement when looked at in context) was the representation of the colour palette. It was a little faded with age, and the blacks were tinged with grey, however it was reasonably natural. There were, however, many instances of colour bleed, with the big culprits being reds - most notably at around 33:00, 45:27 and at 79:48. Cross colouration got a look in, too, especially in the scenes of alien visitation where there were lot of extremely bright lights. Dot crawl was a problem as well, especially when there were straight lines separating contrasting colours.
MPEG artefacts riddled this transfer, as did film-to-video artefacts. Pixelization and posterization affected many scenes: see 56:48 to 59:44 on Andrew's ear for examples. The Gibbs effect was a problem on almost any text presented: the end credits were something of a nightmare to read. Examples of aliasing, which ranged from mild to extremely severe, appeared on the many horizontal blinds at 2:37, 24:33 to 25:15, 40:00 to 42:05, 50:23, 54:43, 79:12 and 94:59 to 95:34. Other instances were on car chrome (7:27, 46:10), brickwork (27:35 to 28:10), curtains (35:25) and a garage door. Moiré patterning also occurred quite regularly on a shirt (31:25 to 31:50), on some pyjamas (62:30) and again on a dress (62:54). Film artefacts, surprisingly, weren't really a problem, however at 37:40 three lines of static crawled across the entire display, not just the movie frame, so I don't really know what was going on there.
Another defect that I noticed was the occasional brief freezing of the action, akin to a layer change. This may or may not be an issue attached to the pressing of the particular DVD I was watching, or my player, but it happened at 38:54, and then again during the Bonus Promotional Materials.
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The dialogue was always reasonably easy to understand, although audio sync was something of a problem. I first noticed it around the 73:00 mark, and then it subsequently went right out between 75:22 and 78:00.
Eric Clapton (Rush) provided the main theme, and some of the remainder of the music. This was always distinguishable from that composed by Allan Zavod (Martians Go Home) as it consisted of electric guitar solos over synthesizer chords. Together, both composers provided a reasonably well-matched score, although it is most recognizably 80s in its tone.
With a Dolby Surround encoded track, you're going in without an expectation of directional effects from the surrounds. They were, however, reasonably well utilized to enhance the atmosphere during the hypnosis and abduction scenes (of which there were many), although very little else was heard from them.
The subwoofer was was reasonably active in supporting the lower end of the score, as well as for the low, rumbling sound effect for some reason almost always associated with aliens. It also was utilized during the many "dream" sequences.
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NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Extras | |
| Plot | |
| Overall | |
| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Toshiba 2109, using S-Video output |
| Display | Sony Trinitron Wega (80cm). Calibrated with AVIA Guide To Home Theatre. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with AVIA Guide To Home Theatre. |
| Amplification | Pioneer VSX-D608 |
| Speakers | Front: Yamaha NS10M, Rear: Wharfedale Diamond 7.1, Center: Wharfedale Sapphire, Sub: Aaron 120W |