The Brain from Planet Arous (1958)

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Menu Animation & Audio Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Project Moonbase, Rocketship X-M, Destination Moon Trailer-Flight To Mars, Invaders From Mars, Attack From Mars Trailer-The Hideous Sun Demon, Devil Girl From Mars, Things To Come Trailer-The Flying Saucer, The Brain From Planet Arous Trailer-Phantom From Space, Kronos, Killers From Space Trailer-The Astounding She Monster, The Crawling Eye
Rating
Year Of Production	1958
Running Time	68:00 (Case: 70)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Nathan Hertz
Studio Distributor	Howco International Beyond Home Entertainment	Starring	John Agar Joyce Meadows Robert Fuller Henry Travis
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$19.95	Music	Walter Greene

    The Brain From Planet Arous is a 1950s B-grade science fiction film revolving around the attempted enslavement of the earth by a disembodied brain from outer space.

    While investigating a number of strange radioactive readings from nearby Mystery Mountain, nuclear physicist Dr. Steve March and his partner encounter an alien in the form of a disembodied brain. This alien, known as Gor, possesses Dr. March's body and plans to take over the world before returning to his home planet Arous. Luckily Vol, another alien from the same planet, is pursuing Gor and manages to take over the body of the doctor's dog. Teaming up with Dr. March's girlfriend and her father, Vol develops a plan to stop Gor before it is too late.

    Like many of the science fiction films that were made after the Second World War, the newly discovered power of atomic energy features heavily in the movie. While the script is predictable and quite shallow as expected, this is an entertaining low budget science fiction film that should appeal to fans of B-grade productions.

Video

    The full frame transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

    The transfer is constantly soft and never exhibits high levels of sharpness. During the dark scenes, little shadow detail is visible but this, like the lack of sharpness, may be mainly attributed to the source materials.

    This is a black and white transfer and the image remains consistently grey with no visible colour shifts at any time.

    The transfer often appears as if it is viewed through a fly-screen and appear to constantly be on the verge of macro blocking. At various points throughout the transfer, obvious MPEG artefacts may be seen. Some examples of these artefacts may be seen at 8:39, 9:48, 25:55 and 26:23. Some severe examples of posterization may be seen at 11:33, 13:41 and 54:29. All of these artefacts are quite obvious and are moderately distracting to the viewer.

   No instances of aliasing were detected during the transfer.

    Numerous film artefacts are present throughout the transfer. Some examples of these artefacts may be seen at 0:03, 2:47, 11:03 and 16:53. Due to the age of the movie, these artefacts are expected and at no stage become highly distracting to the viewer. A tape splicing artefact may be seen at 3:49, but this occurs for only a single frame and is not distracting. Obvious film grain may also be seen during the transfer, but this is easily ignored.

    This transfer has been taken from a theatrical print and reel change markings may be seen in the top corner of the picture. Some of these markings may be seen at 37:44, 54:09 and 67:54. A slightly distracting hair may also be seen in the top left corner of the image from 56:36 to 59:10.

    A relatively high number of analogue tape errors may be seen during this transfer, such as at 40:54, 48:58, 50:16 and 62:32. Each of these errors only occur for a single frame but due to their frequency they are slightly distracting.

    No subtitles are included on this disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The dialogue is always easy to understand but does sound a little muffled, as is often the case with older low budget productions.

    The dialogue constantly sounds ADRed and often appears to be very slightly out of sync. It is probable that these small problems with the audio are inherent in the source material and are not a fault of the transfer.

    The musical score by Walter Greene is very typical of this type of film and did not leave any lasting impression on me.

    The surround and subwoofer channels are not utilised during the transfer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The animated menu is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1.

Theatrical Trailer (0:33)

    This trailer is presented at an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. The image is presented as a projected image played at a drive-in theatre. The result of this is that the trailer appears in only approximately half of the frame with the rest of the image being a static image depicting the drive-in.

Additional Trailers

    This is a collection of trailers presented in the same way as the theatrical trailer. The following films are included in this extra and each trailer is presented as a separate chapter.

• Project Moon Base (1:39)
• Rocketship X-M (0:32)
• Destination Moon (0:26)
• Flight To Mars (0:25)
• Invaders From Mars (0:24)
• Attack From Mars (0:30)
• The Hideous Sun Demon (0:20)
• Devil Girl From Mars (0:26)
• Things To Come (0:23)
• The Flying Saucer (0:49)
• The Brain From Planet Arous (0:33)
• Phantom From Space (0:26)
• Kronos (0:36)
• Killers From Space (0:34)
• The Astounding She Monster (0:23)
• The Crawling Eye (0:25)

    Both versions of this film appear to be identical and I therefore would have no preference for either version without a direct comparison of video quality.

    The Brain From Planet Arous is an entertaining 1950s B-grade science fiction film and should be enjoyed by all fans of this genre.

    The video transfer for this film is acceptable but does have a number of minor disruptive artefacts.

    The audio transfer for this film is adequate for the material presented.

    The only extra is the collection of other trailers but these give the viewer some idea of other titles that will become available.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall