Blu-ray Review: Comin’ At Ya!

In the early and mid-1980s, we suddenly got a bunch of 3D movies – Friday The 13th Part 3, Jaws 3D, Amityville 3D (basically the third entry in any horror series had to be in 3D – that was the law), plus crap like Treasure Of The Four Crowns. Most of this stuff was awful. But the movie that really kicked off that 3D craze was actually pretty good. It was a strange western titled Comin’ At Ya! And now it has been released on Blu-ray. The case and the disc itself say that there is the option of watching it in either 3D or 2D, but there are no 3D glasses included, and the menu doesn’t provide any option on viewing. When I hit “Play,” it was the 2D version that I got to watch. So the deal is you need to have a 3D Blu-ray player and a 3D compatible television in order to watch it in 3D; from what I understand, if you have those items, then it will automatically play in 3D and you don’t have the option to watch it in 2D.

Comin’ At Ya! has a very simple story, but is an interesting film. At a small wedding ceremony, two gunmen come in and shoot the minister and groom, and kidnap the bride. The scene is in slow motion, and is set to music, without any dialogue, and is kind of beautiful. The groom survives and goes looking for his wife. That’s basically the entire plot. But the movie has an unusual vibe, which is set up right from the beginning with a creative opening title sequence and odd mix of color and black and white elements. Plus, the movie is surprisingly gritty and brutal.

Hart (Tony Anthony) learns that the group is led by two brothers, and that they kidnap women and then auction them off. He finds one of the brothers, who has paid for the time of a not-quite-willing young woman. And even after finding his wife, our hero’s troubles are far from over (mainly because at first he tried to save her without shedding too much blood). There are so many great shots and moments in this film, such as when the bad guys round up the women like cattle, and end up dragging the bride through shallow water behind a horse. There are also some wonderful landscapes, and good use of music.

Really, the weakest thing about this movie is the 3D stuff. It’s one of those movies where objects (like a wedding ring and a naked baby) are passed out toward the audience for no purpose other than to utilize the 3D effect. And things are deliberately dropped on us, like coins and bits of food and playing cards. And of course there are bats on strings flying at us. The movie is much better than this gimmick. And, perhaps because what I saw is a 2D version of a 3D film, often the things at the edges of the frame are blurry. And at times, especially near the beginning, it looks like the filmmakers neglected to clean the camera lens.

Special Features

The Blu-ray includes a five-minute promo reel of various shots from the film, as well as the movie’s trailer.

Comin’ At Ya! was directed by Ferdinando Baldi, and was released on Blu-ray on January 26, 2016 through MVD Visual.