​VINTAGE 3-D SCI-FI/HORROR NOW ON 3-D BLU-RAY

Three-dimensional movies remain a significant portion of today’s Hollywood releases, but younger viewers may need to be reminded that 3-D was both popular and effective well over half a century ago.

Fans of 3-D can rejoice that within the past six months two restorations of vintage 3-D science-fiction/horror films have come out on feature-packed 3-D Blu-ray editions. While neither is particularly a “classic” film, both have excellent 3-D and fine picture quality, as well as a generous selection of extras.

It’s wonderful to have the opportunity after 60 years to see the Ivan Tors sci-fi film “Gog” (1954) in its full 3-D glory with its color and aspect ratio restored in full 1080p high definition.

The downside is, that although the 3-D looks great, the picture is sharp, and colors are very nice, “Gog” simply is not a very good film. It’s a mediocre genre picture at best, strictly for diehard fans of science-fiction, murder-mysteries, and/or of 3-D movies, but should also prove of interest to social historians as a valuable document of 1950s concerns and attitudes.

The film actually gets off to a pretty good start, with scientists in a secret underground laboratory performing an experiment to freeze a live animal and thaw it out so it revives with no physical damage, a process they expect to use for human space travel. Shortly thereafter, scientists start to get killed off either by accident or malfunction of the supercomputer running the lab, or by intentional sabotage or murder. A military investigator is called in and the plot almost immediately screeches to a halt while the scientists spend the next half-hour or so explaining in unnecessary detail how their operation works as more personnel wind up dead due to equipment malfunctions.

During the last half-hour, events and pacing start to pick up a bit, building more interest as it all proceeds to a conclusion. The actors do the best they can with the material, and many of the plot elements are actually quite interesting, but the pedestrian directing and editing, and especially the poor script, make it hard to get through. With this film even more than most, it is the presentation quality (sharpness, color, and 3-D) that accounts for a large percentage of its entertainment value.

Picture quality is generally quite good on Kino’s Blu-ray, in fact amazingly good considering the condition of the surviving film material, and the vivid 3-D cinematography can finally be appreciated. Audio is also good.

The bonus features are what make this disc worth getting for fans of sci-fi and/or 3-D. These include an audio commentary that’s arguably more entertaining than the film itself, very interesting separate interviews with the director and the cinematographer (both in SD), and an effective HD demonstration of the restoration needed. There is also a trailer along with trailers for two other 3-D movies released on Blu-ray by Kino.

GOG on Blu-ray -- Movie: C+ (but without the 3-D it barely rates a C-) / Video: A- / Audio: A- / Extras B-

The Canadian-made “The Mask” (1961) is actually an above-average psychological thriller about the power of the mind, masquerading as a horror-exploitation film thanks to a few 3-D horror fantasy sequences. Re-released in the late 60s and 70s as “Eyes of Hell” in a slightly abridged version, this Blu-ray edition restores the rather hokey opening prologue (a mask collector/promoter explaining the mystery of the mask and instructing viewers to put on their 3-D glasses when the character puts on the mask in the movie), and expands a few other scenes.

After the prologue, “The Mask” gets off to a rousing start in a forest at night with the movie’s first murder. Then a young archaeologist tells his psychiatrist that he has been disturbed by unusual nightmares and the urge to kill after he began to study a rare ancient ritual mask, blaming the mask for his problems. Skeptical, the psychiatrist tries on the mask himself and finds himself pulled into a bizarre, hallucinatory, and surreal world (which the audience suddenly experiences in 3-D and stereo sound). The basic plot is an interesting variation on the classic “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” story.

Decent acting and effective noir-style black-and-white cinematography help hold interest but the plot sort of grinds to a halt whenever one of the three five-minute 3-D sequences starts. The result is interesting, if problematic and a bit monotonous after awhile.

The 3-D is very well done, as is the peculiar electronic stereo music that accompanies these scenes, but the sequences themselves show their low budget all too often. They are still somewhat surprising and groundbreaking for 1961, a few years before the psychedelic hippie era, and some viewers even today find them disturbingly hypnotic and more memorable than the rest of the film. Overall, however, they’re a bit of a disappointment, run just a bit too long, and seem to bear only minimal connection to the inner thoughts of the characters wearing the mask. Faults aside, the 3-D segments add a novelty appeal.

Picture quality is extremely good, and sound is very good. As with “Gog,” “The Mask” has a surprisingly large selection of bonus features for a Kino Blu-ray, including a fairly interesting audio commentary by Canadian filmmaker and 3-D fan Jason Pichonsky and a 20-minute documentary on the director and his career. There is a trailer to the original release, another for the re-issue, and two TV spots for the reissue (all in HD).

Besides all that, there is an amusingly quaint new British seven-minute 3-D musical short, “One Night in Hell” (2014), as well as two shorts and several montage sequences by experimental filmmaker Slavko Vorkapich, all in HD.

THE MASK on Blu-ray – Movie: B (perhaps a B- without the 3-D sequences) / Video: A (an A+ on the 2-D version) / Audio: A / Extras: A-