The 1970s occult thriller THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD gets a second life on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber.

In the six months since his last birthday, Harvard college history teacher Peter Proud (Michael Sarrazin, EYE OF THE CAT) has been having the same dream in which he witnesses the murder of a man (Tony Stephano, TRON) from his point-of-view by a woman named Marcia (Margot Kidder, BLACK CHRISTMAS). Just as unnerving is the revelation from his engaged associate professor lover Nora (Cornelia Sharpe, SERPICO) that he has been speaking in another man's voice in his sleep. When his medical colleagues cannot find an explanation for his recurring dream or the spasms in his hip for which there is no medical explanation, he is recommended to parapsychologist Sam Goodman (Paul Hecht, PRIVATE PARTS) who has been conducting sleep studies. When his instruments fail to register that Peter is having any dreams at all when he goes to sleep, Peter wonders whether they are actually hallucinations or the possibility of reincarnation after visiting an occult bookstore. He is even more sure when he spots a church seen in his dream on a television documentary, but the TV station is unable to identify its location other than a small town in Massachusetts. Taking a leave of absence, Peter goes on a car tour of the state's small towns until he happens upon landmarks he recognizes from the dream that eventually take him to the town surrounding Crystal Lake where he learns about the death in 1946 of war hero Jeff Curtis which was ruled an accident. He soon makes the acquaintance of the dead man's daughter Ann (Jennifer O'Neill, THE PSYCHIC), a divorcee who has returned home to take care of her mother Marcia. While Sam sees Peter's evidence as a breakthrough in parapsychology, Peter is not so eager to reveal it to the world when he falls for Ann. Marcia starts to become suspicious of Peter's motives when she starts to recognize some of Jeff's mannerisms in the younger man and hears him speak in the dead man's voice.

With Hollywood studios tackling Satanism, possession, the Antichrist, and other occult subjects in the 1970s, someone would eventually explore past lives, and that someone was Bing Crosby Productions who had already dabbled in horror with WILLARD, BEN, and ARNOLD. Scripted by TV writer Max Ehrlich from his own novel – possibly either penned with a film adaptation or a movie tie-in in mind – and directed with workmanlike professionalism by jobbing J. Lee Thompson (whose only other genre efforts were EYE OF THE DEVIL and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME), THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD is a glossy production aimed at suburban adult audiences with lip service to the in-vogue academic paranormal studies and the Me generation's interest in the New Age-ier aspects of the occult ("Have you read Edgar Cayce?"). The film rarely manages a chill, favoring titillation from some male and female nudity that is quite tame by 1970s exploitation standards but would stand in for frank sexuality in the mainstream. Sarrazin, Kidder, O'Neill, and Hecht all give good performances but are at sea in a muddled script in which Nora's response to all of the weirdness on Peter's part is to make sexual suggestions. The circular ending comes as no surprise and the resolution nowhere near as shocking as it was likely intended. Victor J. Kemper (THE EYES OF LAURA MARS) lenses the film with a glossy sheen but the more notable contribution is the score of Jerry Goldsmith that introduces electronic effects that would be more subtly employed in his later score for DAMIEN: OMEN II.

Released theatrically by Cinerama Releasing and then reissued by American International – the latter logo appearing for a split second here before the former – THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD was one of the more obscure of the Bing Crosby Productions with only an overly dark transfer having been previously available from Vestron Video and then an LP reissue by Video Treasures. Kino Lorber's deal with Paramount has allowed them to source a new 4K scan from the original camera negatives for their 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray which is a revelation from the start. The deep black of the credits no longer obscure the lettering of the credits or anything that we are meant to see as a nude figure cuts through black waters. The images retains a certain 1970s softness – particularly the flashbacks – while the muted colors are down to the art direction and some nice texture is revealed in clothing, settings, and close-ups of pained or perplexed faces (the sharpness, however, does no favors to Kidder's aged make-up) while some faint vertical scratches are evident only in some of the second unit footage suggesting these bits might have been shot on the same day on the same roll of film. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track vividly renders Goldsmith's score and the sometimes soft-spoken dialogue. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided.