New Zealand cult classic DEATH WARMED UP comes to Blu-ray from Severin Films.

Drs. Ray Tucker (David Weatherley, SECOND TIME LUCKY) and Archer Howell (Gary Day, BLUE MURDER) have moved beyond cryogenic research and extending life towards a groundbreaking discovery. While Tucker is cautious about the implications and using human subjects for testing, Howell is convinced that "we are the generation of the end" who will make death obsolete. When Tucker refuses to continue with the experiments, Howell targets Tucker's teenage son Michael (Michael Hurst, HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS) and brainwashing him into brutally murdering his parents. Seven years later, Michael is released from institutionalization and tracks Howell down to an island where he is continuing his experiments under the guise of running the medical facility Trans-Cranial Applications. Ostensibly traveling to the island on holiday with girlfriend Sandy (Margaret Umbers, SMASH PALACE), buddy Lucas (William Upjohn, DARK CITY) and his girlfriend Jeannie (Norelle Scott) with an interest in hitting the beach and then exploring the underground World War II tunnels, Michael and Lucas deliberately pick a fight with clinic henchmen Spider (David Letch, DARK OF THE NIGHT) and Spike, the latter having apparently been one of Howell's test subjects as he like the ferry's hunchbacked engineer Tex (a heavily made up Bruno Lawrence, THE QUIET EARTH) is on the verge of a brain-pulsing explosive hemorrhage. The quartet's attempt to infiltrate the clinic through the tunnels is foiled by a motorcycle attack by Spider and Spike in which Jeannie is badly injured. Spider however is bringing the clinic to them by defrosting and setting free Howell's cryogenic zombie psychopaths.

A then-rare example of New Zealand horror, DEATH WARMED UP with its unethical experiments, splattery gore, and freakishly-mutated country folk has more in common with Australian cousin BODY MELT than its own contemporary MR. WRONG, a more restrained story about a haunted Rolls Royce (released stateside as DARK OF THE NIGHT). The imagery and scoring is consistently stimulating to pass the film off on first viewing as just "weird" but one soon becomes aware of its sloppy construction in which one is uncertain whether certain things are left ambiguous due to the shooting and coverage or out of a clumsy attempt to be arty. The nature of Howell's and Michael's relationship in the first act seems almost homoerotic while the entire setup of the central quartet arriving on the island with some sort of intent for Michael to settle his score with Howell has them going about things very haphazardly as if to split the film neatly into three acts by padding them with incident and mostly coincidence instrumental in effecting the climax. The film was always intended as a cult midnight movie hit, and it really does not have to try particularly hard to be so, while the reckless nature of the ending could be interpreted as punk nihilism. While imperfectly put together, DEATH WARMED UP certainly takes the viewer for a ride. Director David Blyth's next film was to be his Hollywood debut with THE HORROR SHOW but he was fired during the first week and replaced by effects artist James Isaac. His subsequent works included the DTV vampire film RED BLOODED AMERICAN GIRL and its in-name-only sequel, as well as the comedy MY GRANDPA IS A VAMPIRE with Al Lewis. Writer Michael Heath's prior works were the macabre coming of age film THE SCARECROW/KLYNHAM SUMMER and the initial more satirical concept that eventually became the artier, more gothic slasher NEXT OF KIN.

Released theatrically stateside by minor indie/arthouse label Skouras Pictures (THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS, VAMPIRE AT MIDNIGHT), DEATH WARMED UP found much of its American cult audience on Vestron Video's VHS release (the source for various PD label DVDs). While the version that went out on home video in various territories (as well as laserdisc in Japan) ran roughly eighty-two minutes, the original camera negative was accidentally junked and Blyth discovered that the archival one-light print he could find was cut in thirty-two different spots, reducing the running time by roughly three minutes, consisting of single shots and shortening scenes without being necessarily censorious. Although the reason for the cuts is unknown, Blyth had to resort to a PAL VHS tape to reconstruct his cut for a new video transfer created in 2000. Severin's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray – seemingly a direct port of the Umbrella Entertainment edition due to the tell-tale menu design – represents a scan of what is presumably the same archival 35mm element. The film's saturated colors are rich and the bright daylight exteriors and some of the more controlled interior lighting situations have some nice clarity while the underground scenes and night exteriors – as well as the siege sequence in the pub – are almost impenetrably dark is certain shots. While the disc producers have not done a new composite with the HD master, they have inserted two missing gore shots from VHS looking enlarged and noisy, and one brief shot from what looks like grease-penciled work print. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 remixing of the Dolby Stereo track has its share of directional effects and less defined surround atmosphere, with the score best served by more breathing space. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.

The film can be viewed accompanied by an audio commentary by director Blyth and writer Heath who unfortunately spend much of the time doing play-by-play on the onscreen action, being most interesting when it seems like they have realized how unclear certain aspects of the story are and expand on character motivation (while they joke about the homoeroticism of the shower scene, it does raise questions as to whether Howell's attentions are unwelcome or if a preexisting taboo relationship is why Michael felt so comfortable showering in Howell's presence after seeing him physically attack his father). They discuss the footage missing from the element and the earlier reconstruction, and some of the details do make one aware of how a shot missing here or there does alter the effectiveness of certain scenes (particularly a single shot that reveals Howell gloating over Michael's institutionalization. More concise is the 2009 interview with Blyth and Heath (40:01) in which they perhaps over-praise the film, with Heath comparing it to Jacobean tragedy.

The disc's major extra is the "New Zealand VHS cut" (83:04 versus the 78:53 feature presentation, and presented at 24fps rather than the 79:44 timing of the Australian disc which misleads viewers into believing the differences were even slighter) which is the aforementioned 2000 reconstruction in 4:3 and upscaled with Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo audio. The bulk of the presentation looks more than passable but the VHS inserts reinstate not only a handful of effects shots but also show just how random some of the cuts really are. The deleted/missing scenes are also presented separately in context (15:56) with optional commentary by Blyth and Heath who are not of a consensus as to just which shots were missing from the other transfer and still puzzled as to why they were taken out in the first place. A screen before the featurette suggests damage but it seems unlikely.