Frederick Friedel's Axe has gone through many hands and several changes over the years. I am proud to say I have followed it from it's 35 mm projection on a drive-in screen in 1977 in New Orleans, to several bootleg low quality edited VHS, to a cleaner DVD Special Edition from Something Weird Video and FINALLY a Fully Restored HD Bluray from Severin Films. In all it's variety of presentations, I can honestly say the HD 1080p from Severin is the BEST Axe has ever looked. The image is sharp, crisp and clean and the sound is the best transfer from it's original source you will ever hear.
After receiving my bluray from Severin, I immediately began comparing it to the older DVD from SWV. Already, it looks like a brand new film. Colors are a bit bolder and pop more, and details are sharper. However, the only drawback to a purer image from the original negative found in Harry Novak's office, is the obvious wear on the film itself. Dirt and artifacts continue to pop and collect on this beautiful transfer from Severin. The image has been restored, but not cleaned up. (EDIT: Severin has told me they have cleaned up most of what they could, but Harry Novak never protected his negative as most studios do. It would have cost thousands of dollars to do a frame-by-frame clean up job, and they simply couldn't invest that much into this release) The video 'noise' was also obvious on the SWV DVD, but since it had fewer lines of resolution, you didn't notice it as much.
This is not necessarily a bad thing for the Severin HD transfer, sometimes the 'noise' adds to the grittiness of the film and maintains it's exploitation low budget appeal, revealing it's true dark nature.
The film might have benefited from an occasional sound boost during certain scenes of dialog, but this is not the fault of the transfer, this was a fault of the original film itself. Severin has done their very best and have done an amazing job on this film, and given it's amount of bonus features, it's obviously a labor of love and respect, and not a throw together quick release.
I applaud this presentation and encourage fans everywhere to add this long lost treasure to their collection.
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