https://www.fnac.com/a20625163/Orca-Edi ... Blu-ray-4K
ORCA (1977) - Andy's Kino Lorber UHD Review
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AndyDursin
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Paul MacLean
- Posts: 7533
- Joined: Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:26 pm
- Location: New York
Re: ORCA 4K UHD
I reckon so...
That movie is an incessant barrage of bad taste.
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AndyDursin
- Posts: 35758
- Joined: Tue Oct 05, 2004 8:45 pm
- Location: RI
Re: ORCA 4K UHD
My review of the Kino Lorber UHD:
In the wake of “Jaws,” countless imitators sprang up from the depths, from Joe Dante’s “Piranha” to AIP’s “Tentacles” and William Girdler’s “nature run amok” outings “Grizzly” and “Day of the Animals.” Not one to be outdone, prolific mogul Dino De Laurentiis joined the fray with 1977’s ORCA, THE KILLER WHALE (90 mins., PG; Kino Lorber), a laughably bad – if beautifully shot – cash-in that mixed “Jaws” with a dash of “Moby Dick” and a particularly poor performance by Richard Harris.
Starring as the captain of the fishing boat “Bumpo,” Harris delivers a starring turn far removed from his glory days as an Old Man of the Sea who gets more than he bargained for when he attempts to capture a shark in order to sell it to the highest water-park bidder. When that plan goes awry, he quickly sets his sights on nabbing a killer whale – but misses the mark, literally, slaying the whale’s pregnant mate who promptly aborts a fetus on the Bumpo’s deck (a disturbingly gross moment in cinematic history). Harris learns he’s made a mistake from marine biologist Charlotte Rampling, and finds out the hard way when “Orca” takes his revenge on the Bumpo’s crew, doing all the things you’d anticipate from a killer whale: eating its crew members (though he spares Bo Derek, save for biting off her leg as a snack), attacking the house where Harris is holed up, and in one spectacular sequence, rupturing a gas line that nearly destroys an entire Newfoundland fishing village!
“Orca” is an absolute mess on every dramatic and narrative level: characterizations are beyond “thin” (Kennan Wynn and Robert Carradine appear as fish food with barely a line of dialogue between them) with its protagonists’ motivations barely explained. One moment Rampling is at loggerheads with the drunken Harris – the next she’s holed up on the Bumpo’s trek to the Arctic to slay the beast, going so far as to beckon “let me warm you” to his Ahab-esque charms. Will Sampson appears as a local with knowledge of the mumbo-jumbo-mystic world of the Orca – he’s likewise indifferent to Harris, but then also decides to join his whale hunt for reasons that are never spelled out. Perhaps something was lost in the translation from Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati’s screenplay (with an uncredited, alleged assist from Robert Towne) – or large portions of the film were left on the cutting room floor (indeed, sections of the film are awkwardly narrated by Rampling, suggesting it was a post-production patch for the picture’s gaping holes).
It’s also unclear who viewers were supposed to be rooting for in “Orca.” Harris’ dismal performance – you can just see him muttering through his lines in an effort to hit the nearest watering hole as quickly as possible – makes it impossible to pull for him, though at the same time, the film tries to make him more sympathetic as the picture progresses. Orca himself isn’t very interesting either – each time the whale knocks down a dock piling or causes trouble, we’re greeted with a hysterical, dramatic stab from Ennio Morricone’s overwrought score and the same matted-in shot of Orca doing a back flip…over and over again. It’s a duel between two fishy anti-heroes in a movie desperate to rekindle the thrills of Spielberg’s 1975 classic, but only generates more chuckles than chills, especially with Carol Connors’ weepy end credits ballad concluding things on an unintentionally funny note.
“Orca” apparently did well enough in theaters back in the summer of ‘77 to warrant De Laurentiis exploring the prospects of an “Orca 2″ – going so far as to offer it to Joe Dante, who wisely turned it down. Since then, the movie hasn’t circulated a whole lot on home video, appearing on a Paramount DVD in 16:9 with no extras and assorted Blu-Rays around the globe with varying degrees of technical quality.
Kino Lorber kicks off their 4K UHD slate for 2025 with a terrific presentation of “Orca,” mastered from a 4K scan of the 35mm OCN by Paramount (2.35) with Dolby Vision HDR. This transfer offers fine grain and natural looking colors throughout, doing justice to Ted Moore’s cinematography. Between Moore and director Michael Anderson, “Orca” is beautifully rendered in Panavision, with the scope frame beautifully capturing the Newfoundland locales, majestic sunsets and foggy harbors by the sea. (Note this is not entirely the same master seen in Studio Canal’s international UHD release from 2024, one which featured yellow-ish color tinting as seen in some of the label’s restorations over the last few years).
On the audio side, the original mono sound is included, as is a really good 5.1 Paramount remix produced for the DVD years ago. Morricone’s score is lovely in places on its own – and makes for a nice listen on the album – but it’s hopelessly overstated in the film, and those “oh no, here comes Orca!” brief orchestral stabs are anything but subtle. Then again, nothing in this haphazardly constructed turkey is.
Extras include the trailer and two commentaries: one featuring the historian trio of Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson that (quite seriously) praises the movie’s ecological messaging, the other an archival track from an Umbrella Blu-Ray release with the late Lee Gambin.
In the wake of “Jaws,” countless imitators sprang up from the depths, from Joe Dante’s “Piranha” to AIP’s “Tentacles” and William Girdler’s “nature run amok” outings “Grizzly” and “Day of the Animals.” Not one to be outdone, prolific mogul Dino De Laurentiis joined the fray with 1977’s ORCA, THE KILLER WHALE (90 mins., PG; Kino Lorber), a laughably bad – if beautifully shot – cash-in that mixed “Jaws” with a dash of “Moby Dick” and a particularly poor performance by Richard Harris.
Starring as the captain of the fishing boat “Bumpo,” Harris delivers a starring turn far removed from his glory days as an Old Man of the Sea who gets more than he bargained for when he attempts to capture a shark in order to sell it to the highest water-park bidder. When that plan goes awry, he quickly sets his sights on nabbing a killer whale – but misses the mark, literally, slaying the whale’s pregnant mate who promptly aborts a fetus on the Bumpo’s deck (a disturbingly gross moment in cinematic history). Harris learns he’s made a mistake from marine biologist Charlotte Rampling, and finds out the hard way when “Orca” takes his revenge on the Bumpo’s crew, doing all the things you’d anticipate from a killer whale: eating its crew members (though he spares Bo Derek, save for biting off her leg as a snack), attacking the house where Harris is holed up, and in one spectacular sequence, rupturing a gas line that nearly destroys an entire Newfoundland fishing village!
“Orca” is an absolute mess on every dramatic and narrative level: characterizations are beyond “thin” (Kennan Wynn and Robert Carradine appear as fish food with barely a line of dialogue between them) with its protagonists’ motivations barely explained. One moment Rampling is at loggerheads with the drunken Harris – the next she’s holed up on the Bumpo’s trek to the Arctic to slay the beast, going so far as to beckon “let me warm you” to his Ahab-esque charms. Will Sampson appears as a local with knowledge of the mumbo-jumbo-mystic world of the Orca – he’s likewise indifferent to Harris, but then also decides to join his whale hunt for reasons that are never spelled out. Perhaps something was lost in the translation from Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati’s screenplay (with an uncredited, alleged assist from Robert Towne) – or large portions of the film were left on the cutting room floor (indeed, sections of the film are awkwardly narrated by Rampling, suggesting it was a post-production patch for the picture’s gaping holes).
It’s also unclear who viewers were supposed to be rooting for in “Orca.” Harris’ dismal performance – you can just see him muttering through his lines in an effort to hit the nearest watering hole as quickly as possible – makes it impossible to pull for him, though at the same time, the film tries to make him more sympathetic as the picture progresses. Orca himself isn’t very interesting either – each time the whale knocks down a dock piling or causes trouble, we’re greeted with a hysterical, dramatic stab from Ennio Morricone’s overwrought score and the same matted-in shot of Orca doing a back flip…over and over again. It’s a duel between two fishy anti-heroes in a movie desperate to rekindle the thrills of Spielberg’s 1975 classic, but only generates more chuckles than chills, especially with Carol Connors’ weepy end credits ballad concluding things on an unintentionally funny note.
“Orca” apparently did well enough in theaters back in the summer of ‘77 to warrant De Laurentiis exploring the prospects of an “Orca 2″ – going so far as to offer it to Joe Dante, who wisely turned it down. Since then, the movie hasn’t circulated a whole lot on home video, appearing on a Paramount DVD in 16:9 with no extras and assorted Blu-Rays around the globe with varying degrees of technical quality.
Kino Lorber kicks off their 4K UHD slate for 2025 with a terrific presentation of “Orca,” mastered from a 4K scan of the 35mm OCN by Paramount (2.35) with Dolby Vision HDR. This transfer offers fine grain and natural looking colors throughout, doing justice to Ted Moore’s cinematography. Between Moore and director Michael Anderson, “Orca” is beautifully rendered in Panavision, with the scope frame beautifully capturing the Newfoundland locales, majestic sunsets and foggy harbors by the sea. (Note this is not entirely the same master seen in Studio Canal’s international UHD release from 2024, one which featured yellow-ish color tinting as seen in some of the label’s restorations over the last few years).
On the audio side, the original mono sound is included, as is a really good 5.1 Paramount remix produced for the DVD years ago. Morricone’s score is lovely in places on its own – and makes for a nice listen on the album – but it’s hopelessly overstated in the film, and those “oh no, here comes Orca!” brief orchestral stabs are anything but subtle. Then again, nothing in this haphazardly constructed turkey is.
Extras include the trailer and two commentaries: one featuring the historian trio of Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson that (quite seriously) praises the movie’s ecological messaging, the other an archival track from an Umbrella Blu-Ray release with the late Lee Gambin.