Universal Pictures
In the annals of black comedies, Robert Zemeckis’ Death Becomes Her is right up there with the blackest of the black. It may seem like a frothy, special effects fantasy-comedy because of its many hilarious moments and lines of dialog, but it’s about more than that, poking a sharp stick into the Hollywood mindset that women must remain young and beautiful to still be viable as stars. And it’s still a hot topic today with actresses always feeling the need to undergo some procedure to look ageless and fighting for the same pay as their male co-stars. The sad message of Death Becomes Her is as timeless as its two main characters, Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp.
Universal Pictures
If you’ve never seen Death Becomes Her (and why haven’t you??), now is your chance. Fans of the film have long been begging Universal to release the comedy classic on Blu-ray, and they were finally willing to license the title to Shout! Factory’s specialty horror label Scream Factory (for its clever blend of horror and comedy) for that long-awaited high def treatment. If you don’t know the story, Meryl Streep (who gets third billing!) stars as Madeline Ashton, aging star of stage and screen suffering the critical barbs of her new stage musical flop “Songbird!” In the audience is her longtime frenemy Helen Sharp (Goldie Hawn) and her fiance, plastic surgeon Ernest Melville (Bruce Willis). Madeline has alway wanted — and gotten — what Helen has and when she meets Dr. Melville, she quickly lures him away from Helen, sending her poor rival into an emotional tailspin (resulting in some major weight gain).
Universal Pictures
When Helen writes a book seven years later and invites Madeline and Ernest to a signing event, they are shocked to see a slim, stunningly beautiful Helen, wondering how she could possibly look so … different. Helen, of course, has revenge on her mind, but Madeline is still dealing with her own aging process which leads her to the mysterious Lisle Von Rhoman (Isabella Rossellini) who offers Madeline a magical potion that will make her appear young again. After drinking the potion, Lisle then gives her a warning to take care of herself. Returning home she finds Helen attempting to seduce Ernest and blasts her with a shotgun. Except Helen doesn’t die, she gets right back up … with a big hole in her abdomen. The two women realize both have visited Lisle and a battle royale ensues. But as each becomes more and more damaged, they realize they need Ernest more than ever at this point and try to encourage him to drink the magic elixer as well. But does Ernest want to spend eternity tending to these two women?
When Death Becomes Her was released, the three stars were certainly at the top of their games with Steep coming off of Defending Your Life>/i> and Postcards from the Edge, Hawn’s Bird on a Wire seemed to be broadcast on NBC every other week, and Willis (in a brilliant comedic performance) was coming off of a series of box office flops including the notorious The Bonfire of the Vanities. The three plus Bob Zemeckis made some real movie magic, but it wasn’t the star power that was drawing audiences to the theater.
Universal Pictures
Death Becomes Her was one of the first Hollywood films to make extensive use of the then brand new computer graphics effects process from Industrial Light and Magic. This was a year before CGI dinosaurs set the CGI standard in Jurassic Park. But even in its infancy, the special effects whizzes were able to create some remarkable images that still hold up to scrutiny today, particularly the massive hole through Hawn’s mid-section, which is used for several sight gags. Some of the shots of Streep’s twisted neck are a little more obvious, but for the time the effects were, and still are, a remarkable achievement.
Universal Pictures
It’s just a shame, though, that no one thought at the time to document the whole process extensively enough. The new Blu-ray release does feature a few behind-the-scenes bonuses, but we’ll get to those shortly. The presentation of the film itself is adequate to very good. The 1080p transfer brings the film grain to the forefront and sometimes it’s more pronounced than at others, with either the original film stock or effects processing to blame. Where things get a bit more questionable is when one looks closely at the actors’ faces. Either the image is too bright or there was an attempt to do some digital cleaning up of the grain, but very often the actors’ faces appear to have swarms of ants crawling around in and out of the very bright spots that just look a bit too contrasty. For those used to pure digital images with zero film grain, this may pose a problem (but movies shot on film have grain, so you have to get used to it). It’s not the best presentation of the film, but it’s probably better than it’s looked in years.
The Blu-ray also offers the film’s original 2.0 audio track and a remastered DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that allows the effects work and musical score to open up a bit, but for the most part everything remains front and center with the crisp, clear dialog.
Universal Pictures
That bonus material mentioned earlier consists of a newly produced mini-doc, “The Making of Death Becomes Her” (25:03), featuring Zemeckis, Rick Carter, David Koepp, Steve Sharkey and Dean Cundy reflecting on the making of the film, the cinematography and the groundbreaking effects work. Sadly, none of the priciple cast is on hand to share their own stories. The stars do, however, make an appearance in a Vintage Behind-the-Scenes Featurette (8:58) where they do talk about the challenges of creating the effects, notably how Steep had to shoot many of her scenes twice, once with a blue bag over her head … while walking backwards at the same time! For those really interested in how all this was done, the bonus material is a bit lacking. There is also a Photo Gallery, and the Original Theatrical Trailer (2:05) which includes a shot of Lisle’s potion before the glowing effects were added.
Universal Pictures
Death Becomes Her is a terrific, funny, thought-provoking comedy with great performances, cinematography, production design, writing, directing and special effects. It’s great to finally have the film available on Blu-ray, but it would have been nice for Universal to care a bit more about the movie so that Scream Factory could have produced an even better package. As it stands, it’s worth adding to your collection because you probably won’t get anything better.
Death Becomes Her has a running time of 1 hour 44 minutes and is rated PG13.
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