A very decent release from Toho, featuring
a beautiful presentation of the second film
in Michio Yamamoto's "Bloodthirsty"
trilogy. |
| Video: |
 |
| The image quality is stunning. Lake
of Dracula no doubt features the prettiest
cinematography of any of the Bloodthirsty
films and on this beautiful DVD Rokuro Nishigaki's
stunning Mario Bava-like photography is no
doubt nearly as nice looking as it was when
the film was in presented in theaters 35 years
ago. The colors are beautiful as well. Many
of the Toho DVDs I've seen have a slightly
muddy hue to them, the colors are quite vibrant
on this disc, however. My only two very minor
gripes with the transfer is that there is
a layer of fine grain that covers the film
throughout and the fact that the image is
more severely window-boxed than the average
Toho DVD. But those two little nit picks aside,
its damn near perfect.
|
| Audio: |
 |
| The Dolby Digital 1.0 mono audio is unspectacular,
but sounds just fine and is very decent and
servicable, and anyways, this is one film
that would not really benefit much from a
5.1 remix.
There are also optional Japanese subtitles
for the hard of hearing and no English subtitles,
but the plot in Lake of Dracula is
very simple and easy to follow.
|
| Extras: |
 |
This DVD doesn't offer much in the way
of extras, mainly an audio commentary from
producer Fumio Tanaka (which I can't review
since my Japanese is amateur at best) and
the film's theatrical trailer, but again,
its quite servicable and the fact that there's
an audio commentary on the disc adds extra
points.
|
| Overview: |
 |
For fans of Yamamoto's Bloodthirsty saga,
this is definitely a worthwhile investment. |
- J.L. Carrozzas
|
