The Faculty (1998)

Movie: 4/5
Video: 3/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 3/5

"Another Robert Rodriguez Classic."

The Faculty starts off with Robert Patrick (T2, From Dusk Till Dawn 2) as Willis who is the stereotypical brute football coach hounding his players as he vents his rage on a water sprinkler, an unseen person approaches him and we fade out. After a faculty meeting regarding budgeting classes comes to a close, the coach appears and begins to assult one of the school heads. We then introduce our leads Zeke (Josh Hartnett; H20, 30 Days of Night), Casey (Elijah Wood; Lord of the Rings, Maniac), Stokely (Clea DuVall; Identity), Stan (Shawn Hatosy), Delilah (Jordana Brewster; The Fast and the Furious), and Marybeth (Laura Harris). Each student represents all the basic cliques that you would probably encounter in most, if not all, high schools.

While Casey, who is the nerd/reject, is eating alone out on the football field finds a strange fish-like animal. They all gather in the science class, which is taught by Jon Stewart! Remember when he used to act in movies? Once this happens, they realize that this is possibly an alien life form and Casey suspects the coach as being one of them. The six realize that they may be the only humans left in the school as one by one students are being called into the principal's office for testing. Will they be able to kill the aliens or die trying?

Written by Kevin Williamson of the Scream series, he basically recycles the whole "teens in peril at high school" routine. However, what saves the movie is Robert Rodriguez's direction and the special effects of Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero, and Howard Berger who have worked on a lot of other Rodriguez's films. Most of the casting seemed to fit as I can kind of see these actors playing these types of characters. Personally, I thought the alien looked amazing and live action version of it looked a lot better than the CGI variations that we see throughout the film. I give the film a 4/5.

Video: 3/5
Presented in it's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio in 1080p, Filmyard Holdings has given Echo Bridge another problematic transfer. I will gladly assume, like with initial release of The Crow: City of Angels and some of the previous Miramax/Dimension films that I have reviewed, that this is the original high definition transfer that Disney created back in the day. Detail and clarity comes and goes and leaves the image with more to be desired. Grain levels are also weak as well and most times it feels like it's been scrubbed away with DNR. While, it's not a complete disaster, I give the video presentation for The Faculty a 3/5.

Audio: 5/5
Here's a problem that I have with this disc, we have three audio presentations. All are English; we have a 5.1 DTS-HD MA, 5.1 Dolby Digital, and LPCM 2.0. The default audio track that plays is the DTS-HD MA track and it sounds fantastic. The LPCM 2.0 track sounds exactly the same as the DTS-HD MA. And finally, a horrifying and dull 5.1 Dolby Digital track. Why is there a need for this many audio tracks for the film? We would be substantially fine with just the 5.1 DTS-HD MA track. Do not mistake this rant, the audio is fantastic, and I give it a 5/5.

Extras: 0/5
Sadly, nothing.

Overall: 3/5
Despite the rough video, this is one of Echo Bridge's better Miramax releases. I was able to get this for around six dollars when it came out. For the price, I can gladly recommend it. And considering it was written by Kevin Williamson, it is better than all of those Scream sequels. And it also shows me what I miss about what made Robert Rodriguez a great director in the day. Now it feels like broken promises about sequels we'll never get or are delayed and all this other nonsense we get from him. I give this Blu-ray of The Faculty a 3/5.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) / From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999) / From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000) / Full Tilt Boogie (1997)

Movie: 4/5
Video: 2.5/5
Audio: 3.5/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 2.5/5

From Dusk Till Dawn - Round 3.

Upon scanning the files on my laptop, the encodes on From Dusk Till Dawn 1 & 2 are the same encodes as the double feature release. I will be skipping straight to The Hangman's Daughter and Full Tilt Boogie. Scores are still of all four films together. To see my opinions on the double feature, please read my review over there.

From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter; the third and supposed last entry in the series until these past few months when Harvey Weinstein stated that he wanted to work with Miramax's new owners and make sequels to past projects he's produced at Miramax when it was once owned by Disney. I think this is an open and closed book with these three films and the documentary. As a step up from the second film, I still felt somewhat disappointed by the film.

The film is based around the character Esmeralda who is played by Ara Celi in this film since it's obvious that they couldn't get Selma Hayek back for the role. We learn that she was once a girl who was "The Hangman's Daughter". This is a very basic cash in sequel to milk the series dry. Sure, we got Michael Parks and Danny Trejo back, but the material feels very recycled. The acting is average to poor in a lot of scenes; the actor who plays Johnny Madrid could have done better. Orlando Jones' performance was campy and he's one of my favorite comedic actors, so it's always great to see him whenever he does a movie. Movie barely scores a 3 out of 5 in my book.

One big problem with this encode is that Echo Bridge cut the film off during the end credits which effectively removes a scene past the credits with Michael Parks sitting in a bar. It's such a shame that they would mess that up. I feel that this also effects my opinion towards this disc. The movie is presented in 1080p and it's OAR, but it's still a mess. A proper restoration should have been done on the film as some shots have a complete difference in color tone. A lot of the film has a brownish tone to the film, but even some shots of the sky in the opening minutes of the film has this purplish hue in the blue which shows that this film's master print has not been handled properly.

Another big problem I have with this film's presentation is the computerized effects in which they were rendered and it hurts the visual presentation for the film. In a shot on the professional review for the individual release, there's a shot of Temuera Morrison fighting a snake and the picture has the lowest resolution I believe I have ever seen; even possibly lower than VCD resolution. Maybe it's because this was a straight to video flick and they possibly never thought about high definition at the time this film was released in the year 2000. These low resolution shots mainly happen towards the end half hour of the film. With these problems aside, the transfer feels soft and just a real average transfer; but with these problems factored in, video scores a 2/5.

The audio presentation on the disc is DTS-HD MA 5.1, even though it seems like Echo Bridge is stepping it up with audio the audio on their releases, this track could have been better. The first film's audio presentation was pretty decent whereas with this, we have the audio from a straight to video flick where I don't think the care was really given to it in the first place. Audio scores an average 2.5/5.

And for the final film in this set, we have "Full Tilt Boogie". A documentary catching behind the scenes of Robert Rodriguez's film, "From Dusk Till Dawn". And that's the gist of it. We see that they had problems during production of the film and that we see how some of the people work behind the cameras. The documentary is pretty solid in my opinion, but there's some sluggishness to it in a spot or two, mainly when we have some women talking about on set crushes and stuff like that. I could care less about it. Movie scores a 4.5/5.

The video presentation is surprising to say the least. It looks as if this was remastered in the process over the years as we have a very nice image from the 16mm and VHS sourced material. Obviously the film footage of "From Dusk Till Dawn" is the newly remastered footage thrown in. One thing that I question is the OAR. I think it would be safe to assume that this was presented open matted on VHS and DVD throughout the years by Disney as this new HD master gives a cropped 16:9 version of the shot footage. Usually when the OAR is really effected, I would really lower my score; but I think this is the best the documentary has ever looked, 3.5/5.

The audio presentation is a DTS-HD MA 2.0 track. Considering this a documentary, I think the audio works well for this. I really don't have any real complaints towards it. I know I might be giving it an advantage by giving it 5/5.

Let's total up:
Movies: 5 + 2.5 + 3 + 4.5 = 15/4 = 3.75 = 4/5
Video: 2.5 + 1.5 + 2 + 3.5 = 9.5/4 = 2.375 = 2.5/5
Audio: 3.5 + 2.5 + 2.5 + 5 = 13.5/4 = 3.375 = 3.5/5
Extas: 0x4 = 0/5
Over all: 4 + 2.5 + 3.5 = 10/4 = 2.5/5

This disc is average with it's 2.5/5 rating. Considering that you can pick this up currently at $8 to $10, I can say that I can recommend it to you even though "From Dusk Till Dawn" is the same compressed encode from the double feature. Also, this is the only Blu-ray release Echo Bridge has given us for "Full Tilt Boogie". A 2.5/5 doesn't seem that bad really. Maybe the score could have been higher if it would have been just the first film and the documentary.

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) / From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)

Movie: 4/5
Video: 2/5
Audio: 3/5
Extras: 0/5
Overall: 2.5/5

From Dusk Till Dawn Has a Different Encode.

Ok, let me begin by stating that I have compared both the individual release of From Dusk Till Dawn and the double feature containing the first film. The individual release has a video encode of 19.63GB whereas the first film on the double feature is compressed down to 14.70GB in size.

Lets begin:

From Dusk Till Dawn:

From Dusk Till Dawn is a film almost everyone is familiar with, George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino are the Gecko Brothers who are on the run from the law and kidnap a family and head to Mexico to meet some gangster friends at a bar known as the "Titty Twister". Once they enter the bar, all hell breaks loose as they discover that everyone is a vampire and must fight to stay alive. The film is a classic 90's horror film. Movie gets a 5/5.

The video does have some compression, but it is watchable. My biggest question is why didn't Echo Bridge just release From Dusk Till Dawn 2 and 3 as the double feature instead of 1 and 2. It's the same color wise and still has that annoying discoloration on the right hand side of the screen. Since it's compressed, my original 3.5/5 score on the individual release goes down to a 2.5/5 on this release. The audio is also the same English DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio from the individual release, thus the score is still 3.5/5.

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money:

From Dusk Till Dawn 2 is a cash in straight to video sequel of the 1996 horror classic. The only returning actor in this film is Danny Trejo who appears in the film for about five minutes and then just vanishes. The story is that an escaped convict and his group of friends are planning a bank heist in Mexico. Once the convict makes his way into Mexico, he has car trouble and finds that a bat has gotten under his hood. He shoots the bat and makes his way to the "Titty Twister" and finds Razor working the bar. Razor offers him a ride and then takes the convict out to his car to find a man shot up and bloodied, uh-oh, it's a VAMPIRE. Then the convict is bit and makes his way back to his friends and slowly turns them all one by one.

From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money is nowhere as good as the original, but I do find Robert Patrick's performance as the anti-hero entertaining. The cameos in the film were also entertaining as we see Bruce Campbell in the opening and Danny Trejo for a few minutes. The film scores a 2.5/5. The acting is all over the place and the story is just a lame attempt to be like the first film but instead of going to a bar, they go to a bank.

The video, oh my God, the video. From Dusk Till Dawn 2 makes it's way to Blu-ray with a dismal 8.21GB video presentation. The transfer is DVD sized. But, I will say that it's HD and not an upscale. There's definition whenever there is close up shots and there's a nice level of grain, but it's just a dull image. 1.5/5 for the video.

The audio is an average English DTS-HD MA 2.0 track. The audio scores a 2.5/5.

To break it down:
Movie: 5+2.5 = 7.5/2 = 3.75 which I will round to 4/5.
Video: 2.5+1.5=4/2 = 2/5
Audio: 3.5+2.5 = 6/2 =3/5
Extras: 0
Overall: 4+2+3 = 9/4 = 2.25 which I will round to 2.5/5.

If you do want to buy the From Dusk Till Dawn films, I suggest that you buy the individual From Dusk Till Dawn release or import the Canadian. Then get the double feature for Texas Blood Money. Then, finally, purchase The Hangman's Daughter. Why didn't Echo Bridge just release Texas Blood Money and The Hangman's Daughter together? It would have been a lot easier!