Review: 'The Incredible Shrinking Man' Blu-ray

The sci-fi boom of the fifties produced a lot of flicks that trafficked in the fear of the Gothic-horror era it superseded. Paranoia about communism and the atomic age was paramount. However, certain creators took a more nuanced view of science-fiction to create some of the genre's most thought-provoking items. Writers such as Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson and directors such as Robert Wise and Jack Arnold saw sci-fi's potential to tell us more about ourselves than merely what we fear. One of the most profound picture's of the era originated with a Matheson novel simply titled The Shrinking Man. Matheson assessed his own position as a man transitioning from the action of World War II to domestic life where he spent a good deal of his time hunched over a typewriter in his basement. He channeled those impotent feelings into the story of a man who literally gets smaller and smaller. 

When Universal Pictures recognized the sci-fi craze potential of Matheson's novel, the author insisted on adapting his own work for the screen. When Universal assigned the project to Jack Arnold, the director recognized the human concerns at the center of potential pulp and insisted on treating the material with the utmost respect.

Yes, The Incredible Shrinking Man is a showcase for the special-effects its title promises, but its human component is the film's most intriguing element. It is a picture about a guy (the underrated Grant Williams) who gets doused in radiation, does battle with a spider and a house cat that appear to him as giants, and everything else matinee crowds would want from a movie called The Incredible Shrinking Man. But it is also the story of a man struggling with increasing isolation and ineffectualness and trying to come to terms with his changing situation. Many-- including Universal, test audiences, and Matheson, himself--were disappointed in a denouement often regarded as anticlimactic, but Arnold insisted on it. The final monologue is a thoughtful and poetic message of peace and acceptance for all men concerned about losing their bullshit, macho power positions that will ring in the minds of viewers more profoundly than any of the picture's special-effects feats. 

Admittedly, Blu-ray's high-definition is not always kind to the kinds of effects Arnold had at his disposal in 1957. A fuzzier format would make the traveling matte and rear projection shots less glaring, but the Criterion Collection's new Blu-ray edition of The Incredible Shrinking Man looks excellent. The image is sharp enough to present the picture satisfactorily and soft enough for the special effects to still work (mostly) splendidly. The frames are clean and the grain is natural. 

There are also plenty of supplements to keep fans busy. Chief among them is the unedited version of Auteur on Campus: Jack Arnold at Universal, which adds about seven minutes of material to the previously available documentary. It's a bit dry and offers more information about Arnold's films than it does about him, but there's also an interview with him from 1983 that at least provides more intimate time with the man as he discusses the making of Shrinking Man and shows off and discusses original storyboards for the film. 

Matheson gets his due in a 2016 interview with his son Richard Christian (who was collaborating with his dad on a remake of the film shortly before Richard Matheson died in 2013). Other extras include a fun chat about every aspect of the film between sci-fi geeks Joe Dante and Dana Gould, featurettes on the film's effects and music, a new audio commentary by genre historians Tom Weaver and David Schecter, and the 8mm home-movie cut of the film released in 1969.