Them

" Them (1954) was one of a handful of science-fiction films that helped define the genre, as well as creating a distinct sub-genre that remains enduringly popular today, to judge by the success of Eight-Legged Freaks. The movie's success is anchored in its uniformly excellent and earnest performances, from the top to bottom of the cast list -- with especially good contributions by Dub Taylor, Fess Parker, and Olin Howlin -- and director Gordon Douglas's sure hand in pacing the action. It starts off as a straight police proceedural, gradually opening out into a tale of radiation-spawned horror. The movie -- despite the fact that it was one of Warner Bros.' top money-earners of the 1950's -- has had a spotty history on high-end home video. Warner Home Video issued it on laserdisc around 1991, but many copies of the original pressings (done at Warner's own plant) were poorly manufactured and went bad very quickly. Since the demise of the laser format, the title has languished on people's wish-lists, until now. Warner Bros. has done right by Them, with a beautiful film-to-video transfer, rich in contrasts and crystaline detail, off of a near-flawless source -- there's one small audio drop-out in one shot that you have to listen to very closely to pick up. The care taken by the producers is demonstrated in the disc's capture of the delicate lighting in chapter 15, when the search party finds the egg chamber -- the eeriness of the shadows and the motion of the flashlights is presented about as well as at any time since the movie's original release. The film's denouement, inside the storm drains underneath Los Angeles, is also mastered beautifully in terms of lighting and detail. The audio is very clean, albeit at a slightly low level that boosts up very nicely, and is well balanced so that the special effects and musical stings aren't excessively louder than the dialogue adjacent to them (a problem when one watches DVDs with the sound pumped through a stereo or surround system). The 1954 movie was always intended to be seen in 1.33-to-1 aspect ration (the configuration of a normal television screen) and is presented in that format. The menu opens automatically on start-up and is a tiny bit confusing at first, mostly because it is very ""busy"" -- though the ""Play"" option is in the default position, so no one need ponder its complexities for too long unless one wishes to. There is a cast list and a couple of minutes of silent behind-the-scenes outtakes showing the giant mechanical ants being manipulated, with audio from the finished scenes used over the footage. The original trailer is very interesting, as it manages to convey the horrific and mystery elements of the story without revealing more than a few glimpses of the giant ants, and almost nothing of the actual story -- a handful of minor supporting actors are also shown in scenes and speaking dialogue that isn't in the film; it's also easy to return to maneuver around the menu once one gets accustomed to the structure. The 30 chapters are more than generous in outlining the 92 minute movie."