Black Eye Blu Ray Review (Warner Archive Collection)

Black Eye is a 1974 crime film directed by Jack Arnold (It Came from Outer Space, Revenge of the Creature, Tarantula, This Island Earth, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Swiss Conspiracy, Boss, and Creature from the Black Lagoon). It was written by Mark Haggard (The All-American Girl, The Love Garden, and Masseuse) and Jim Martin (The Long Shot). It’s based on the novel from author Jeff Jacks. Since he gave up his police badge, Shep Stone’s (played by: Fred Williamson from From Dusk till Dawn, Black Caesar, Hammer, Hell Up in Harlem, M*A*S*H, Bucktown, The Inglorious Bastards, Vigilante, Original Gangstas, VFW, and Boss) tried to make a go of it as a Private Investigator. A snoop job here and a shakedown there work hasn’t exactly poured into the rundown bar where he occupies a stool keeping office hours. One night, Stone walks into his apartment and into a room where a murder victim is still warm. The vicious killer is lying in wait for Stone to arrive. His search for a murder weapon spins into a spider’s web of suspense linking a religious cult, a porno ring, a missing person and a notorious drug underground all involved with this wild situation. Stone sorts out clues and sidesteps increasing numbers of corpses as he investigates the murder. Will he survive this living nightmare as his existence spirals out of control???? Black Eye is something a little different from the action and blaxploitation star Fred Williamson. He usually did similar type of features back in the day when he was popular but this is more aimed at an mainstream audience. I covered his other collaboration with director Jack Arnold which was “Boss”. That was a fantastic Urban Western, definitely give it a shot sometime. Speaking of Jack Arnold, he was mainly known for directing horror and science fiction in his earlier days. He switched up and he put together a variety of different sub-genres behind the camera later on including Black Eye. The script takes your typical private eye angle and puts it in extremely dark scenarios. It has a nice balance of crime, action, suspense, drama, and some humor thrown in the mix. Fred Williamson is impressive as private eye Shep Stone. He’s a former top cop but he let some costly mistakes ruin that career for him. Now he’s forced to take whatever jobs to pay the bills. This gets him all kinds of serious trouble with various questionable people. The rest of the cast includes Belinda Balaski (The Howling), Teresa Graves (Get Christie Love!), Rosemary Forsyth (Ghosts of Mars), Richard Anderson (The Six Million Dollar Man), Cyril Delevanti (The Invisible Man’s Revenge), Richard X. Slattery (Walking Tall), Larry D. Mann (The Octagon), Frank Ashmore (Airplane!), Bob Minor (Commando), and Teddy Wilson (Good Times). Black Eye provides everything that you would expect for this type of movie plus it has some killer car chases. Fred Williamson plays such a cool character in this. He goes through hell trying to solve this case. It’s so much fun and it’s very entertaining. This one rarely gets brought up, it’s not your typical blaxploitation from Fred so that’s why I appreciate it even more, RECOMMENDED!!!! Let’s discuss this high definition presentation and special feature from the Warner Archive Collection! This 1080p (1.85:1) transfer is from a brand new 4K restoration from the original camera negative. It’s a big improvement over all the previous DVD and VHS home video releases. It’s probably the best that it will ever look, I just don’t see this one going to 4K at all. It has an English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track on the disc. The audio is better than expected for being a smaller 70’s action feature. Black Eyes doesn’t disappoint when it comes to some high impact loud action. All of the dialogue is very clean, the madness is elevated, and the music has a killer boost to it. It has English SDH subtitles. It’s available everywhere right now, CHECK IT OUT!!!!