The Spine No. Column: Kino Cult 0005 Clive Barker’s ‘Underworld’ (1985) 4K UHD

Welcome to the Spine No. Column, a review series that will examine a uniquely branded collection from a distribution company or boutique label by exploring each individual release and evaluating Package Design, Curator’s Choice, and Disc Specs in order to conclude with a qualifying Collection Grade of one of the following:

Peak Criteria, Set Standard, For Completest Only or Buyers Lament.

On review for today is Kino Lorbers 4K UHD release of Underworld under their Kino Cult line.

When I first heard about the Kino Cult line, it really wasn’t until I heard about this title that I actually became excited for what the line had to offer. The main reason for that is because I wasn’t familiar with the titles that were spine number 1-4, I am now well acquainted with them now and very glad to own those. My excitement for “Underworld” though came from my awareness of the works of Clive Barker, mainly for my fascination with the Hellraiser series. I had always wanted to dig deeper into Clive Barker’s filmography, including the titles he only had a writing credit on. Now throughout the years, I’ve done best I can to keep up with my Barker collection, even picked up titles I haven’t seen yet like “Nightbreed”, which I know I would like, I just need to make time to actually sit down and watch it.

That’s in part the point of doing this Spine No. Column review series, to allow myself the prompt to watch the movies and dive into the disc specs that I have coveted so. Now Underworld is also a Barker title that I had not seen before, or was actually aware of really, that’s because I knew it by a different name: “Transmutations.”

The things that made me most excited for this release was not only was this going to have a 4K UHD restoration of the 92 minute cut of the film, but it will also include the 103 minute version, that people say is the weaker cut. But as a completest who loves owning alternate versions of the same movie, I was thrilled to have a comprehensive edition of this title.

Okay, so why don’t we start the review by checking out the package design.

Package Design

The newly commissioned cover artwork, to me, is exquisite. It has very strong composition and layout that looks pretty exciting. The hollowed out white eyes and the electricity emulating from a halo beam of light, all works to evoke otherworldliness and dark happenings. I even like the font for the title “Underworld”. The key art is credited to Vince Evans (vinceevansart.com), who did just an incredible job on this piece. *Vince Evans was also featured in last week’s review of Sinner as the cover artist to that release as well.*

Out of all the releases that have come before this one has had the best quality of cardboard. The 4K UHD bluray case is a double disc holder and Elite branded, a sturdy and well-designed product. The discs are easily accessible, although you may want to be careful with the arrow shaped center press because those shapes do sometimes break off. Not a big deal because it’s a simple solution to replace the case if issues ever do arise, just a fair warning.

Kino Lorber goes all out with this release giving us our second reversible cover in the collection. The alternate cover art is the promotional art that uses the alternate title of “Transmutations”. This is the image I was most familiar with as I had seen this one on the video store shelf at times and honestly I don’t love that design. I much prefer the new artwork but I do like that we have the option to represent the original artwork here.

The disc art are both exactly the same (both using the title in the font shown on the spine) but with the clear distinction that one is 4K UHD and the other is Bluray. The contents inside are not the same though, as most features are on the bluray disc.

Overall, I think this package design is top notch.

Curation Choice

I have always been more familiar with the grotesque and horrifying side of Clive Barker monsters, with the cenobites looking like living nightmares and Rawhead Rex looking like a terrifying humanoid beast, but I had been mildly aware of the other type of monsters he would show. Like from what I know about the characters in Nightbreed that they are more humanistic, downtrodden, and tragic creatures. The monsters in Underworld, are presented more in that vein and I’m really on board for it.

Underworld has a so very 80’s aesthetic that is pristine and slick. A lot of the production in the movie reminded me of a lot of music videos of that time; examples like Duran Duran, The Cure or Billy Idol come to mind. Plenty of smoke and atmospheric lighting, dark sunglasses and trench coats. Much of the action settings and make up appeared to be very comic book-ish, like Batman 89 or Dick Tracy. Clearly, this isn’t trying to emulate those movies but I have to believe this movie is a precursor to how production on those movies must have been like.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie and although there are elements in it that are a bit cheesy or campy, I think the deeper themes of what Clive Barker’s script brings are there. Themes about addiction, the underclass and the dangers of medical maleficence are all interesting and oddly humanistic even though it’s wrapped around a corny bounty hunting hero that needs to realize who the real bad guys are all while trying to rescue a young damsel who is unlocking her own inner strength. It’s cool and its lots of fun.

Does this fit into the Kino Cult brand?

An enthusiastic yes! The Kino Cult collection has been bringing the unapologetically weird that somewhat defy categorization and all with quality editions.

Now considering what the Kino Cult line has been offering I think I can try to solidify what I believe the line ought to be. Like any worthwhile collection line you want to have truly great movies in your collection or ones that you want to shine a light on that are underappreciated, or to a lesser extent movies that might have some value in preserving.

For the great movies you want to make an edition that it deserves; that shows that there was an effort to make it as comprehensive as can be.

For the movies that are underappreciated you want to make an edition that highlights its merit with features that emulate the positive.

For the films that are in need of preservation the edition needs to be able to elevate its value enough to make it worthy of its inclusion.

If the edition falls short in presenting those things it would end up with a poor grade of regret.

Underworld I would say is probably a top tier candidate for the Kino Cult treatment.

But did they give it its due? Let’s find out by checking in to the disc specs.

Disc Specs

· Audio Commentary by Director George Pavlou, Moderated by Stephen Thrower, the author of Nightmare USA

· Transmutations (103-Minute Alternate)

· Archival Behind-the-Scenes Footage

· Artwork, Stills, Storyboards, Makeup Tests, and Clive Barker Designs

There was real effort into making this a worthwhile reason in various areas, first of which is with its all new commentary track. This track has the director George Pavlou giving insights and historical context of the making of the film. Getting the director to do commentary is already a great perspective to have, the only other person you might want to have on this might be Clive Barker, but it’s understandable that he not take part he only contributed the script. For this commentary though they had it moderated by Stephen Thrower, an author that has been featured pretty predominately in a few of these releases so far. The track itself is pretty good and is actually a reteaming of Pavlou and Thrower as they also produced a commentary for Kino Lorbers release of “Rawhead Rex”. There is a bit of consistency between features that I think is really cool, especially because the people that are featured in these extras are so well researched and adept at contextualizing the films.

One of the things that I value a lot in having a film on home video is having comprehensive versions of the title. I’ve always been a stickler for owning a variety of alternate versions of movies, I think Ridley Scott spoils us with the many cuts of almost all of his movies. So having the 103 minute “Transmutations” cut is important to include for someone like me, even though I know many consider it to be lesser than. Now while having this cut is great, just want to adjust expectations of what you’re getting here. The video quality of this version goes from the crispness of the 4K UHD transfer to a much lower Standard Definition quality. While the quality shifts are notable, I didn’t find it to be intrusive to my viewing of the longer cut.

As far as other extras in this set there isn’t too much more than a 4 minute archival behind the scenes feature centered on Makeup FX. There are also 2 minutes of poster artwork and production stills and 3 minutes of storyboards. Although these are all very short features, I’m glad they are included.

I am not left wanting by the features in this release. The new commentary covers a lot of ground and the alternate cut brings a heck of a lot of value for me.

Collection Grade

I’ve got to say Kino did an incredible job with this release, in all honesty. I started already excited for this release because I wanted to add to my Clive Barker collection and fill in some blind spots. Not only did they release it with a great 4K UHD transfer, they gave it a two disc set with beautiful packaging, an alternate slipcover, an alternate cut, an all-new commentary track featuring the director, but also with some nice brief behind the scenes features and storyboards (always love looking at some storyboards!).

I think that the Kino Cult was made for titles like Underworld. It’s a bit underrated and perhaps underseen. It is certainly of its era, and something that could have been lost to the ages. It does fit their own criteria of presenting movies that are unapologetically weird and perhaps without categorization. I can try to categorize it as action noir horror fantasy, but that sounds like a lot of qualifiers. Hmm, maybe Kino Cult can be a category all in of itself.

Well, with that in mind it’s time to offer up the rating for this release and my final grade for it is: Peak Criteria.

Alright, so that’s it. Kino Cult concludes its first set with a total of three Peak Criteria and absolutely no Buyers Lament grades. Well done!

Thanks for checking in on this edition of The Spine No. Column, be sure to come back next Monday on March 31^st 2025, where I commemorate this set of reviews with the first Kino Cult Checkpoint post. I will be speaking broadly about the five titles reviewed and also announce the next set of titles to be reviewed.