MIND RIPPER (1995) Blu-ray
Director: Joe Gayton
88 Films

Before Wes Craven sold out to Dimension Films, HILLS HAVE EYES partner Peter Locke recruited him to lend his "presentational" input to the in-name-only THE HILLS HAVE EYES sequel MIND RIPPER.

Deep in the Mojave desert in an underground bunker, scientists are experimenting with a virus for cellular regeneration created by Stockton (Lance Henriksen, PUMPKINHEAD) who agrees with his co-workers – Alex (John Diehl, STARGATE), Joanne (Claire Stansfield, DROPZONE), Rob (Gregory Sporleder, THE GRIFTERS), Frank (producer Peter Shepherd, MADHOUSE), and Larry (John Apicella, POINT BREAK) – to make a human guinea pig out of "Thor" (Dan Blom, BODY BAGS), a young hiker near death after falling from a cliff near the bunker. As Thor's vitals start to go south and Alex insists on continuing the experiment, Stockton walks off the project and tries to salvage his neglected family life. While Thor seems to be dying, he has increased in size and it becomes apparent that his senses are becoming enhanced. When he suddenly wakes and kills some of the team, Joanne and Rob discover that Alex has been accelerating the virus treatments behind their back to create a super soldier to sell to the highest bidder. As Alex forces the remaining crew to help him hunt down Thor whose body is undergoing rapid changes that require him to feed off the brain cells of his victims, Stockton decides to make an ill-advised side trip to the bunker while taking his estranged son Scott (Giovanni Ribisi, THE POSTMAN), daughter Wendy (Natasha Gregson Wagner, LOST HIGHWAY), and her boyfriend Mark (Adam Solomon) on a camping trip.

Produced as THE OUTPOST and distributed overseas as THE HILLS HAVE EYES III, MIND RIPPER has more in common with other 1980s and 1990s underground bunker terrors like J.S. Cardone's SHADOWZONE with a side of THE X-FILES than Craven's HILLS films other than the desert setting of which we see little (the film was shot on location in Canada and tax-break-friendly Bulgaria). A post-PUMPKINHEAD/pre-MILLENIUM Henriksen was not yet phoning it in for genre parts but Stansfield is the more interesting strong heroine while Diehl is also more entertaining as the ruthless and unethical project supervisor during his time onscreen. Ribisi gets in on the action during the climax but he and Wagner have little to contribute as the hero's estranged family. The film – scripted by Craven's son Jonathan who also scripted the sequel to THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake and produced the remake of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT – was a strange sophomore effort for director Joe Gayton after the indie drama WARM SUMMER RAIN, but it presumably gave him the chance to direct action as it consists of a lot of running around corridors (Gayton's more recent success has been as the creator/writer of the AMC series HELL ON WHEELS). The effects work of Image Animation (HELLRAISER) is of a high standard (a shot of a toenail being separated from its digit looks quite painful), as is the mobile photography of Fernando Argüelles (who went on to more mainstream prominence as a DP on shows like PRISON BREAK and SCORPION), but the film is recommended for Craven completists and fans of 1990s DTV fare.

MIND RIPPER was released on tape stateside by Warner Vision in a serviceable digitally-mastered fullscreen transfer that did the best with the film's hazy, backlit nineties visuals. A widescreen transfer appeared overseas from Anchor Bay UK but that turned out to be a PAL conversion of an NTSC master. Stateside, the fullscreen transfer prevailed on streaming services until Code Red's Blu-ray last year. 88 Films has licensed the same transfer from owner Multicom for their 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray which sports some inconsistent black levels from shot to shot – apparent in the first underground bunker scene a minute or so into the film as the camera buts between shots of the doctors looming over Thor in which the background is sometimes inky black and sometimes gray – as if the master had not been color-corrected. Apart from that, it provides an improved visual experience with better delineation of light and shadow in the bunker settings while the enhanced detail does not detract from the Image Animation prosthetics the way new transfers have for the HELLRAISER films. The pointless nightmare sequence in the middle of the film has slightly chalkier shadows than the rest of the film, but that appears to be a stylistic choice. The Dolby Stereo soundtrack is reproduced here in a clean DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track that reveals just how anemic the synth scoring of J. Peter Robinson (RUMBLE IN THE BRONX) is compared to the full orchestral work he provided for WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE the previous year.

As with the Code Red edition, the original trailer (2:26) has been included but 88 Films have decided to up the stakes coming a year late and locked in Region B territory by including a newly shot featurette “Stories from the Outpost" (39:24) with screenwriter Jonathan Craven who discusses his early jobs in Hollywood and the surprise when he pitched NIGHTMARE CAFÉ to his father who just happened to be about to take a meeting with MGM Television. The series lasted six episodes before a regime change at NBC lead to its cancellation. He recalls Peter Locke approaching his father about a third HILLS HAVE EYES film with a script by Bruce Wagner (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS) about a brain-sucking alien in space of which he only wanted to retain the brain-sucker. He recalls developing the script with Phil Mittleman (THE LAST TIME I COMMITTED SUICIDE) at the offices of Kusher-Locke, a television company that produced the show DIVORCE COURT along with some projects by O.J. Simpson who, along with his wife Nicole, sent some actors to be seen for the film (including Kato Kaelin) before her murder and the Bronco Chase that Craven could observe from the production office's windows that looked out onto the 405. He also recalls that they saw a couple directors before settling upon Gayton including Alexander Payne (SIDEWAYS) who even they felt was too good for the project. Gayton polished the script and fleshed out the character relationships more but apparently hated the Bulgaria shoot which Craven describes from the sketchy porn magazine publisher production company to the former Communist work ethic, much vodka and smoking, and crew incompetence that required the production to send for materials from Los Angeles. He seems to think more highly of the film than it deserves but it was his first feature and the shoot certainly seemed memorable. Limited to the first pressing are a 4-page liner notes booklet by Callum Waddell in which he places the "bastard stepchild" of the HILLS HAVE EYES series in the context of the earlier two films and the remake (and its sequel), noting that MIND RIPPER returns its emphasis over the second film to the family unit in the desert but that the relationships take a back seat to the action. Also included in the limited pressing is a reversible sleeve with choice of artworks and a card sleeve with the original artwork. (Eric Cotenas)

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