[UK] The Fury UK Review

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Starring living Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas alongside John Cassavetes (Rosemary’s Baby, The Dirty Dozen) and Carrie Snodgress (Diary of a Mad Housewife), THE FURY is an experience of both terror and suspense.
Cassavetes gives his most sinister performance since Rosemary’s Baby as a man who kidnaps the telepathic son of his colleague (Kirk Douglas), aiming to turn him and similarly gifted individuals into human weapons. Meanwhile, Gillian (Amy Irving), is worried enough about the destructive potential of her own powers to agree to be institutionalised – but is the Paragon Institute all that it’s cracked up to be?

The Fury is another feather in Director’s Brian DePalma’s cap. Suspenseful and thrilling from the start, The Fury builds itself up as a thriller up until the halfway mark and then descends into a completely different beast.

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The Fury is presented on Blu-ray with a MPEG4-AVC codec that preserves the film’s original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Recently restored exclusively for Arrow by James White at Deluxe (who oversaw the tremendous Zombie Flesh Eaters transfer), The Fury is again another tick in the box for Arrow’s quality releases. Scanned from an original 35mm print that featured a very natural filmic look, which is helped by a healthy dose of grain that refines some of the smaller detail in the print, colours are rendered superbly and no bleed was visible. Shadow and black detail are carefully defined so no detail is lost in the darker lit scenes. No evidence of any post processing such as edge enhancement or digital noise reduction were observed either.

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The Fury unleashed two main audio tracks for its Blu-ray release. An English DTS-MA 4.0 remixed audio mix and a LPCM 2.0 mix which preserves the original mono mix. Switching between the two tracks and key scenes, admittedly there isn’t that much of a difference with the exception of a few surround elements mixed into the rear speakers for good measure. The front stage is practically the same with dialogue being crisp and clear and filling the front speakers. John William’s score is the biggest winner with the DTS-MA 4.0 track though and fills the sound stage nicely. No hiss or crackle could be heard throughout which displays the work that Deluxe went into cleaning up the original sound elements.

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Isolated Score track – John William’s original score preserved on the disc and encoded as LPCM 2.0

Archive Interviews – Four interviews that were used during 1978 to promote the film. These interviews with key cast and crew give some insight into the making of The Fury and how the characters were developed.

The Fury: A Location Journal (50 minutes) – An in-depth interview with Sam Irvin, who served as an intern on the production of The Fury, who shares a lot of behind the scene stories and recalls his first meetings with Brian DePalma

Spinning Tales (14 minutes) – A sit down interview with actress Fiona Lewis who discusses working on The Fury and working with Brian De Palma.

Blood on the Lens (27 minutes) – A sit down interview with cinematographer Richard H. Kline who discusses shooting The Fury

Double Negative (18 minutes) – A short film directed by Sam Irwin in 1985, starring Bill Randolph, Dori Legg, and Justin Henry

Trailer (3 minutes) – The film’s original theatrical trailer.

Gallery (1 minute) – A scored collection of behind the scenes stills from the making of The Fury.

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Another great addition to Arrow’s line up and one for Brian DePalma fans, The Fury is certainly a thriller of a film that manages to keep the viewer on edge until its final moments. Arrow have one again pulled out all the stops for this release with a new HD scan supervised by James White and a array of new exclusive bonus features.

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The Fury Blu-ray from Arrow has the option of reversible covers that feature newly commissioned artwork and original key theatrical artwork

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About the author

UK Reviewer - Rob is a nostalgic film fan and always adores sci-fi, horror and action. He loves the technical side of film making and collecting his favourite films across all type of home media formats. He inspires to be saviour of the universe