BLACK RAINBOW (1989) Blu-ray
Director: Mike Hodges
Arrow Video USA/MVD Visual

The director of GET CARTER and FLASH GORDON gets spiritual (and ecological) in the underrated and undeservedly obscure supernatural thriller BLACK RAINBOW, on Blu-ray from Arrow Video.

Martha Travis (Rosanna Arquette, DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN) is a "world famous medium" touring the Deep South with her father Walter (Jason Robards, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES) who promotes her as a "telephone exchange service" connecting the spirits of the dead to their loved ones. She promotes an idyllic vision of the other side and offers words of comfort and tells the congregations of various churches what they want to hear; that is, until one night when she connects Mary Kuron (Linda Pierce, THE HANDMAID'S TALE) to the ghost of her violently murdered husband Tom (Olek Krupa, MILLER'S CROSSING) who Mary vehemently insists is still alive. Walter, who has already never believed the psychic powers of his daughter or her mother, thinks Martha has a fertile imagination even when Tom Kuran is murdered a few hours later exactly as Martha described. Cub reporter Gary Wallace (Tom Hulce, AMADEUS) pursues the case and its irresistible hook – Martha also claimed to have seen the killer and even knows his name – but is unable to get police lieutenant Irving Weinberg (Ron Rosenthal) to take him seriously about questioning Martha even though he himself does not believe in her powers. What Gary does not know is that Irving is in the pocket of factory robber baron and mayoral candidate Ted Silas (John Bennes, WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S) who ordered the killing of whistleblower Kuron ahead of a Health and Safety investigation of his plants, and warns Silas that his Chicago hitman (Mark Joy, RADIOLAND MURDERS) better get to Martha before he does. Wallace follows Martha and her father to Ironsboro hoping for an exclusive and ambitious enough to take Martha up on her invitation into her bed, but Wallace is no more sure than her father about Martha's mental state when she is assailed on stage by multiple voices of audience loved ones who are still alive (including one actually in the audience). As Wallace becomes a believer, Martha is frightened by her newfound gift of prophecy which may end when she finally meets the hitman who has been sent after her… but will she see it coming?

Coming after MORONS FROM OUTER SPACE and A PRAYER FOR THE DYING, Mike Hodges' BLACK RAINBOW was undeservedly consigned to HBO and the home video wall with nondescript artwork and a logline that failed to distinguish it from a mostly televisions subgenre of films about psychics put in danger by seeing killings and their perpetrators. Ironically, BLACK RAINBOW may actually be Mike Hodges' best film in a filmography that is uneven but not without its prestigious highlights. While not as disorienting as Nicolas Roeg's "psychic thriller" DON'T LOOK NOW, BLACK RAINBOW does similarly subvert expectations by making the "psychic may predict her own murder" aspect to a subplot in a film more concerned with our fears of death and preoccupation with the other side at the expense of the ground beneath our feet. It is no coincidence that the film is set in an economically-depressed Deep South where plans of modernization and gentrification will marginalize the very people who live there (underlined by the recurrent use of the gospel song that states "Everybody is God's somebody" and that "it matters not if you're rich or poor"). Martha's vision of Heaven appeals to her flock with its promises of no work, no time (a human construct), and people who died sick or violently made whole again; and even Martha is revealed to be using that construct as an escape from her unhappy existence until events disabuse her and members of the flock of its ability to console. On the surface, the film seems unfocused with some tantalizing bits seemingly abandoned early on but its construction is actually quite clever with the shadings given to supporting characters including the banter between Silas and Irving in which the former projects onto the latter being a hypocrite and literally "full of shit" or the suburban home life of the hitman who answers his one of his children's question that "the population of the world is too many." Arquette is more reserved here than usual, so much so that she is very believably unsettled by a preacher's claim that "we steal if we touch tomorrow," and the usually warm Robards is also quite effective here as a failure of a father figure who exploits his daughter but still loves her even as he laughs at her when she accuses him of stealing her life. Hulce gives a typically low key performance in which the shades of his professional ambition are as relatable as they are slimy, putting a humorous spin on the ambiguous ending. Technical credits are top rate with subtly eerie photography by Gerry Fisher – who conjures up some subtle lighting changes and creeping camerawork that anticipates his flashier work on EXORCIST III – weathered production design by Voytek (a Polish immigrant who worked in British television before making his feature debut on fellow countryman Roman Polanski's CUL-DE-SAC), and a layered and unnerving score by John Scott (SATAN'S SLAVE). After the film's underwhelming reception, Hodges dabbled in the vaguely metaphysical with the BBC TV movie THE HEALER and then two well-received Clive Owen crime thrillers CROUPIER and I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD but has not taken on anything as personal as BLACK RAINBOW since.

Given scant British theatrical release thanks to the money problems of distributor Palace and consigned to cable and direct to video stateside by distributor Goldcrest through Media Home Entertainment three years after the film was completed (Fox sent out screeners so their possible release might have been cancelled at the same time as Image Entertainment's announced laserdisc). While Anchor Bay Entertainment in the U.K. released an anamorphic widescreen DVD with commentary by Hodges and a behind the scenes featurette, BLACK RAINBOW's >S. DVD release was a barebones, tape-mastered, possibly unauthorized edition from Trinity Home Entertainment. Arrow Video's dual-territory Blu-ray comes from a new director-approved HD transfer from the original negative, and the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer gorgeously renders the Southern settings' kudzu greens, pollution-hazed sunsets, and the cooler interiors in which blues war with occasional hellish red gels. The Dolby Stereo soundtrack is only occasionally inventive but atmosphere and scoring is fairly active throughout on the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 stereo tracks. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided.

The audio commentary by Hodges from the Anchor Bay DVD is ported over here. He recalls discovering Charlotte, North Carolina while shooting the TV movie FLORIDA STRAITS in South Carolina, and his desire to explore the industrial corruption – including accidents and the beating and killing of whistle blowers – and the revival of evangelism and fundamentalist religion in the South, using the medium story to tie it all together. He recalls writing the script as a "speculative venture" that his agent happened to pitch to producer John Quested (AMERICAN GOTHIC) who was looking for an ELMER GANTRY-type story, and getting the script to Arquette through Martin Scorcese (AFTER HOURS). Although he has some interesting stories about the stars, he also fondly recalls the thrill of casting local actors and faces (Rosenthal's day job was as a dentist), and the enthusiasm of local actors and extras for the filmmaking process. A second commentary features Diabolique Magazine's Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan who makes some valid observations about the film's gothic and Southern Gothic elements (particularly as they relate to family relationships and notions of female hysteria) as well as how it subverts the expectations of its thriller elements, particularly those that have parallels with the gialli films DEEP RED and THE PSYCHIC in which the killer stalking the psychic elements is at the forefront.

Also ported over from the Anchor Bay DVD is "Message in a Bottle: The Making of BLACK RAINBOW" (19:18) in which Hodges repeats a lot of the same stories from the commentary but is supported with remarks from Quested who notes that his favorite element of the film is actually Robards' character and his actions in the film. Also ported over is the film's electronic press kit – which suggests that Goldcrest did indeed plan for a wider U.S. theatrical release – with short soundbite interviews with Robards (2:23) who recalls being intrigued by the script but not entirely understanding it, Arquette (2:16) who muses on the reality of psychic powers, and Hulce (2:22) who discusses the thrill of working with more experienced co-stars. Also ported over are some EPK featurettes: The title "8 Minutes" (8:22) describes the length of this paired-down version of the longer "Behind the Rainbow" (20:32) from – along with the three short interviews and the other featurettes "Disasters" (2:12) and "Seeing the Future" (2:19) – clips are derived, offering little beyond the later "Message in a Bottle" documentary apart from remarks by the actors. The theatrical trailer (1:41) is also included, and one can see a rough assembly of it in the EPK pieces. The reversible sleeve features original and newly commissioned artwork by Nathanael Marsh, while the first pressing includes a booklet featuring new writing on the film by author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Mike Hodges and more illustrated with stills. (Eric Cotenas)

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