DVD Review: The Philadelphia Experiment
Written by: Kage Alan

Film Rating: C+
DVD Special Features: None

            Thank God for Anchor Bay! If not for them, I don't think some of the older classics would ever see the light of day. Any company that releases uncut Dario Argento films, "Elvira: Mistress of the Dark" and the upcoming "Near Dark" for our viewing pleasure is a company worth supporting. Now, "The Philadelphia Experiment" came out around the same time as "The Final
Countdown," so I guess it was the year of the time travel movies, sort of
like when "Deepstar Six," &"Lords of the Deep," &"Leviathan" and "The Abyss" all came out during the year of the underwater movies. Mother Nature has seasons while Hollywood has seasonal genres. You've gotta love it…or at
least tolerate it.

David, Michael Pare ("Streets of Fire" and "Eddie And The Cruisers"), and
Jim, Bobby Di Cicco ("Night Shift" and "Maniac Cop 3"), are two Navy sailors in 1943 assigned to a ship that is the subject of a top-secret Government experiment. Apparently there aren't enough science fiction movies around back then to clue them in that this stuff never works out like it's supposed to. Instead of just making the vessel invisible to radar, it disappears
altogether and ends up in some bizarre time warp. David and Jim try to shut
down the reactors, only they are both injured and end up jumping overboard.
When they wake up, they discover they are in the middle of the dessert and
far away from any military installation.

Upon walking for a time, the two come across an empty German beer bottle and a can of Coke, which leads them to wonder if they are somewhere occupied by Germans and also what the can is made out of. Meanwhile, a storm start brewing over the area where they woke up and begins to travel in their direction, eventually catching up to them at a roadside diner.  Jim's wound
from the ship starts to glow and an electrical discharge destroys some of the
arcade games in the diner, which prompts the two sailors to flee. Enter
Allison, Nancy Allen ("Carrie" and "Robocop"), a woman traveling to
California for a job. She ends up being taken hostage by David and Jim and
the group is soon pursued by the authorities and the Navy, but why? It turns
out that the two men have been transported to 1984 and the aforementioned
storm is directly related to their appearance. Unless the generators on the
ship can be shut down, the hole in time and space will eventually grow and
destroy the world. Yeah, you always have to threaten the existence of   
everything in order to make the plot sound larger than it is.

"The Philadelphia Experiment" is actually a fun little film with some decent
special effects. A number of people have expressed their dismay at those
effects, but I've seen worse on more recent low budget outings. One area
that does feel a bit sub par is the acting. Michael Pare shows all the right
emotions and expressions being a fish out of water in a new time, but his
dialogue delivery rarely changes and that tends to hamper things. I like
Pare and have noticed that his delivery tends to be the same from film to
film anyway. Bobby Di Cicco gives an average performance, but does little to
enhance the friendship chemistry between himself and Pare. Nancy Allen does
the best that she can, but I believe her role is underwritten, which makes
the romance between her and Pare feel out of place. Hey, is any movie ever
perfect?

Anchor Bay has done an outstanding job coming up with a beautiful Widescreen transfer of the movie. Effects tend to look extremely dated and poor, but these appear better than I've ever seen them. I don't have any complaints about the audio either, but I did notice that there is some print defect that warbles a little with the audio in one of the closing scenes. Aside from that, the rest looks and sounds great.

There aren't any real special features to speak of. I'm not in the habit of
thinking that a trailer is, but I do include it if there are others. In this
case, it's a movie only disc and a trailer. That's it. Anchor Bay usually
puts out some great extras that include documentary retrospectives and   
commentaries, so my feeling is that the $25 price tag on this disc is a bit
high. I like the film, though, and never realized before that John Carpenter
("Halloween" and "Ghosts of Mars") produced it. Maybe Anchor Bay will    
consider asking him to participate in a commentary track one of these days if
they ever do a Special Edition. I'll be waiting.

Kage holds degrees in Creative Writing, as well as Film & Video. He has been featured in a Life Journey Tele-Course, published poems in several national anthologies, been a contributor to The Third Coast Magazine and written several novels. kage@modamag.com

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