Yor: The Hunter From The Future is a 1983 science fiction fantasy film that was directed by Antonio Margheriti and stars Reb Brown, Corinne Clery, Luciano Pigozzi, and John Steiner. The film was an Italian-French-Turkish co-production and is based on the Argentinian comic titled Yor the Hunter.
The film starts off with Your (played by Reb Brown) as he is jogging through a seemingly prehistoric desert landscape, just past the stone towers of Cappadocia, Turkey. In a nearby village, Kala, a very primitive cavewoman, and her mentor and protector Pag are hunting. Suddenly, they are attacked by a “stegoceratops,” a cross-breed of a Stegosaurus and a Triceratops. Yor appears and kills the dinosaur with his axe, drinking some of its blood immediately afterwards. Yor is then befriended by the village, and together, the villagers cut the choice meats to be feasted upon in celebration.
Though the film was one of Margheriti’s most financially successful films, it received really poor reviews from Variety and The New York Times and drew three nominations at the 1983 Golden Raspberry Awards.
The Film Itself (2/5):
Yor: The Hunter From The Future has to be one of the absolute worst movies I’d ever seen in my life. Taking itself way too seriously, the movie takes a variety of elements from science fiction and fantasy and just mashes them together in this B-grade film experience. It’s so bad, that all I could do was laugh at the fact that I was watching this the other night. The story is considerably mundane, and extremely uneventful, and presents itself as a semi-low-grade He-Man that lives during the prehistoric era. The fact that they were able to conjure up almost 90 minutes of material like this is extremely impressive. Thank god for distractions around the house while this was playing.
Picture Quality (2.75/5):
Overall, Yor: The Hunter From The Future looked exactly how it had intended to present itself. With its 1080p scan, the movie did a really decent job at maintaining that original feel of an early 1980s release in that the picture quality itself wasn’t terribly clear and kept that original grain from the film. Some of the sequences were rather difficult to visually see and understand without additional focus directed to a particular part of the screen. The special effects were just as low-budget as the rest of the film; however, for low-budget visual effects, they didn’t look too terrible and blended in very well with the overall visual representation of the film.
Audio Quality (2/5):
The Blu-ray release of Yor: The Hunter From The Future comes bundled with an English LPCM 2.0 audio track. While the audio itself was mostly clean and clear and able to be understood as the sound echoed through my front channels, there is absolutely no immersion with this movie. The included audio track felt as if I were watching an earlier VHS or LaserDisc copy of the film and really offered no benefit to the overall experience. Dialogue was clear, for the most part as I had my ear tuned to the front channels to establish and maintain the required amount of focus to be able to not lose track as the movie played onward.
The Packaging (2/5):
The Blu-ray release of Yor: The Hunter From The Future is made available to us from Mill Creek Entertainment and comes packaged in your standard single-disc Blu-ray amaray case. Within that case is the standard Blu-ray copy of the film, with the disc featuring no artwork. The title of the film on the disc is presented using the same font as the case art; and other than that, the disc just has the standard release text and black background There are no DVD copies of the film included with this release nor are there any digital copy redemption pamphlets included. The release does come with a slipcover that’s been made available during the original pressing that features a completely different piece of artwork than what’s featured on the case art.
Special Features (2/5):
I should be surprised that Mill Creek Entertainment decided to include some special features on the Blu-ray release of Yor: The Hunter From The Future. The content that was provided does offer some of the first-hand experiences from the guy who played the role of the titular character and his experiences in making this film. In that commentary, he shares his experiences behind the scenes and tries to offer some explanations on what is occurring on the screen as you’re watching along. Other than that, the features on this disc are extremely bare, and practically nonexistent. Included with this release is:
- Feature Audio Commentary From Reb Brown
- Theatrical Trailer
Technical Specs:
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
Original Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audio
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit)
Subtitles
English
Runtime
Original Film: 89 minutes
Final Thoughts:
Jesus, am I glad that this release was less than $10 to pick up. Yor: The Hunter From The Future was a terrible, but entertaining mess. In fact, the only reason I grabbed this was at the recommendation of a couple of members from the /r/dvdcollection subreddit. I can’t really endorse grabbing this film for your collection unless you’re into films that are like this. The visual and audible presentation of the Blu-ray were right on par with other films of this era, in that they offer a much lower quality experience for viewers. Special features are at a considerable bare minimum; while the included audio commentary from the lead character was a nice touch. Yor: The Hunter From The Future is available on Blu-ray for $7.88, so check it out if you dare.
