{"id":7506,"date":"2014-02-02T14:44:32","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T19:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7506"},"modified":"2014-02-02T14:46:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T19:46:43","slug":"dvd-power-the-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=7506","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Power, The (1984)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>P to R<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: Very Good\/ DVD Extras: Standard<\/p>\n

Label: Scorpion Releasing<\/a> \/ Region: 0 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: January 14, 2014<\/p>\n

Genre: Horror \/ Supernatural<\/p>\n

Synopsis: A Mexican idol pushes its owners into states of possessiveness, paranoia, and murder!<\/p>\n

Special Features: \u00a0Original Theatrical Trailer \/ Optional \u201cKatarina\u2019s Nightmare\u201d format \/ Bonus Scorpion Releasing Trailers: \u201cGrizzly\u201d + \u201cDay of the Animals\u201d + \u201cDogs\u201d + \u201cLurkers\u201d + \u201cSorceress\u201d<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

It seemed inevitable that after the Blu-ray special edition release of Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter\u2019s slasher The Dorm That Dripped Blood \/ Pranks<\/a><\/strong> (1982), a release would have to follow of their similarly no-budget second work, The Power<\/strong>, executive produced by Edward Montoro and Dick Clark, the same unlikely due behind Mutant \/ Night Shadows<\/a> <\/strong>(1984).<\/p>\n

Scorpion Releasing already put out a few films from the Film Ventures catalogue, so lucky for the directors\u2019 fans The Power<\/strong> gets its due on DVD, but lacking the heavy extras \u2013 director commentary, isolated score, interviews \u2013 which made Synapse\u2019s Dorm<\/strong> release such a treat. On the one hand, that makes this a missed opportunity, but it may also be a case where Obrow and Carpenter\u2019s hearts have more affection for Dorm<\/strong>, the film that launched their careers.<\/p>\n

Working from a story crafted by themselves and two others, the director-editors (with Carpenter also serving as cinematographer) still come off as narrative sophomores, starting their film with a bang, and then weaving between ideas grafted from better films, and often completely forgetting needed connective details.<\/p>\n

The Power<\/strong> is essentially about a carving of the Mexican deity Descatyl, which compels each handler to go on a murderous power trip \u2013 just for fun. The handler becomes immediately enamored by the little mud statue, kills its current keeper, and becomes exceptionally paranoid until he or she is overcome by another future owner. As each one discovers, the statue can only work through its handler, but Obrow and Carpenter contradict this key in the first scene in which the statue kills its host \u2013 a professor \u2013 on a pikey flagpole.<\/p>\n

Clearly the Descatyl has a mind of its own, but that fact is dumped aside, along with how the statue manages to move from the professor to an old man in Mexico, and then a high school student\u00a0 in Rodondo Beach, California. There\u2019s no explanation for the statue\u2019s journey, and much of the film feels like a collection of scenes shot in advance of a finished script, with key details ignored as time and money started to dwindled.<\/p>\n

The Mexico scenes are arguably the film\u2019s most interesting because of the eerie desert night scenes; everything thereafter occurs in suburban California, with lesser actors and the kind of perfunctory dialogue heavy in Dorm<\/strong>. There is a measure of enjoyable fromage to the uneven talent that looms in each scene, but it ultimately becomes very dull, leaving any genuine scares to the finale.<\/p>\n

Obrow and Carpenter\u2019s pastiche also includes sleuthing high school students whose ill-fated s\u00e9ance in a cemetery mason shop hook them up with a beat reporter working for a sleazy city tabloid. Amazingly, everyone in the film reads this rag, and amazingly, the teens are soon on a first-name basis with reporter Sandy (every-cheerful Susan Stokey) and her ex-boyfriend Jerry (mighty-haired Warren Lincoln); calling either on the phone at home is as easy as pie.<\/p>\n

While Sandy shrugs aside the kids story of a supernatural experience, Jerry does more: he lies to get hold of the statue, and soon starts to murder people. The film\u2019s finale takes place in Sandy\u2019s family home, and not unlike The Evil Dead<\/a> <\/strong>(1982), Jerry\u2019s face changes according to the level of spiritual possession \u2013 just not really scary.<\/p>\n

Obrow and Carpenter do manage to stage some effective shocks \u2013 a wonky answering machine, Jerry forcing the hand of Sandy\u2019s co-worker into a garburator, and the final shot \u2013 but there\u2019s the film\u2019s middle\u2019s a slog because nothing interesting happens, and character discourses are dreadful. One of the teen\u2019s bedroom is turned upside-down, but its familiar wind pyrotechnics, and its recurrence in Sandy\u2019s home (heavily inspired by the \u2018redone kitchen chairs\u2019 scene in Poltergeist<\/a><\/strong>) clearly wasn\u2019t enough to goose the film so the directors inserted a quickie shock scene.<\/p>\n

The inserted reshoots \u2013 hands grabbing Sandy from her bed – is obvious because Stokey\u2019s long hair is now much shorter and curlier, and the nightmare sequence is very redolent of Wes Craven\u2019s A Nightmare on Elm Street<\/strong> (although Power<\/strong> was released a good 9 months earlier).<\/p>\n

The reason Power<\/strong> manages to work in spite of its major flaws is Christopher Young\u2019s score, which gives this no-budget film a ridiculously underserved scope. Having worked out his need to emulate Bernard Herrmann almost to the theme in Dorm, Young crafted a more original work, and his intricate instrumentation and orchestrations are really beautiful. Mediocre scenes have actual mood and tempo, and meandering montages almost<\/em> have purpose. (Young\u2019s music did enjoy a commercial LP release, but there\u2019s never been an expanded edition, making the lack of an isolated score a real<\/em> shame, because it\u2019s that good.)<\/p>\n

Scorpion\u2019s source is a relatively clean print, and like Dorm<\/strong> the filmmakers likely shot their movie on 16mm or Super16 and blew it up to 35mm, because it shares the same heavy grain and washed out colours, and oversized burnt-in subtitles for the Spanish dialogue in the Mexico scenes. The audio mix is fine, but every reel change is signaled by scratches in the sound mix, so there\u2019s much work to do if this is a rare surviving print in need of restoration.<\/p>\n

The label\u2019s B-movie matron, Katarina, provides a short intro & outro which are as scarce on production details as exist online \u2013 there\u2019s very little info on this film, except what was written on the old soundtrack LP (and maybe in some genre magazines) \u2013 so there\u2019s a missed opportunity for getting some lesser known facts.<\/p>\n

The Power<\/strong> has moments and cheese, not to mention a pair of amusing gaffes (the doomed professor\u2019s wire rig is visible, and one of the directors is visible in a mirror just as Stokey walks from her bedroom into the Poltergeist<\/strong>-affected kitchen) but like Dorm<\/strong>, it kind of disappoints by not being sufficiently gory, or ridiculous (although Sandy leaving a notepad on her front door telling Jerry she\u2019s not home is amazing for telling any curious \/ enterprising passersby \/ robber that the home \u2013 always unlocked \u2013 is open for pilfering).<\/p>\n

Warren Lincoln also appeared in the Young-scored, Carpenter-photographed Torment<\/strong> (1986), and Chris Morill appeared in Dorm<\/strong>, after which both actors vanished from the film scene.<\/p>\n

Carpenter and Obrow would collaborate on one more film The Kindred<\/a> <\/strong>(1987) before tackling their own projects.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2014 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Vendor Search Links:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a>\"\" \"\"—New movie releases on iTunes<\/a>\"\"
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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0P to R<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ P to R . Film: Good\/ DVD Transfer: Very Good\/ DVD Extras: Standard Label: Scorpion Releasing \/ Region: 0 (NTSC) \/\u00a0Released: January 14, 2014 Genre: Horror \/ Supernatural Synopsis: A Mexican idol pushes its owners into states of possessiveness, paranoia, and murder! Special Features: \u00a0Original Theatrical Trailer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[304,467,468,2481],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1X4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7506"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7506"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7516,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7506\/revisions\/7516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}