Customer Reviews

Idaho Transfer [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The 1 star is for the DVD which is appalling. It appears little more than video quality transposed to DVD which defeats the point. Surely someone can find the negative or a 35 or 16m print somewhere?

The film itself is of it's time, but probably brilliant. It's environmental warning is as pertinent as ever and it shows that there was plenty of early scepticism amongst the forever young/free love generation. The film is populated by barely clothed, nubile, erotic dollybirds (Isa's protruding tongue and peeling of a banana got me all of a quiver) and strapping young men. I thought there might be some other agenda behind the hiring of these unknowns but it's right for the story. The young scientists are emotionally immature and easily distracted (Karen with her ring) and their free love idealism soon receives a painful rebuke. Their lack of foresight over the possibilities of lingering contamination, especially in the light of their 'discovery', is puzzling. Idaho Transfer is a strangely serene and relaxing experience, a spell that even the introduction of aggression and inevitable tragedy cannot dissipate. It's disturbing ending, described in a review I read as 'ridiculous', is actually to my liking, brilliantly banal in the way life tends to be. The pessimistic metaphor is the skimming rock earlier in the film. We can only go so far in the natural order is the message. Subtly directed, this Paradise Lost set in the future is well worth investigating, but a better print is sorely needed.

If you're looking for explosions, lasergun battles, or alien spaceships, forget it! IDAHO TRANSFER has none of the trademark sci-fi trappings. What it does have is an excellent story and a terrific actress (Kelly Bohanon as Karen) in the lead. Karen is caught in the middle of a time-travel experiment that proves to be one horrific experience! I like this one a lot. It has that 2001 / PHASE IV atmosphere going on. The ending is bizarre and abrupt, and may leave a lot of viewers unsatisfied. This is especially true if all movies must end happily w/ no loose ends. I watched it w/ someone who absolutely hated the whole thing! I'll watch it again without them...

I first saw this movie about 10 years ago on video and was amazed at how affecting it was. This low-budget sci-fi shocker is about a group of college kids who transport themselves 50+ years into the future and discover that mankind has been wiped out by some sort of natural disaster. Watching it again recently on DVD, I was stuck by the fact that it doesn't seem that out of date. The early 70's fashions are now back in style, so the kids seem appropriately hip, the special effects (while minimal) are realistic, the cinematography is quite good, and the music was certainly ahead of its time. A soundtrack of the film would be interesting mood music. My only complaint is the quality of the disc - looks like someone burned a copy of an old VHS tape right onto DVD. But, since this is the only way to see it (for now), I'll let it slide. This movie has several memorable scenes, including a "transfer" gone bad, the discovery of an abandoned railroad train, and the ending, which seems even more ironic today. If you're a fan of intelligent cinema and don't need to be stimulated constantly by lots of action and violence, then this movie is for you. If not, go rent "The Matrix".

Ironically, this film IS about armaggedon, but it is acted, filmed, directed and scored in a diametrically opposed style to the dumb, budget-bloated garbage of today. Incredibly subtle, disturbing and visually spectacular, this forgotten masterpiece is ostensibly about the environment, ecology, and the total consumption of our natural resources---but it has a lot more than that to say.
It ultimately leaves you with an existentialist viewpoint, stated clearly in one character's speech regarding the bleakness of the future and how the self-important idea of the propogation of the human species is, frankly, a crock. An utter masterpiece.

I watched this movie and it stuck with me for several hours. Since I remember the energy crisis back in the '70s, when this film was done, I picked up on a number of cultural references of the time. Not to mention we again have the same sort of problems going on today with high fuel costs.

And since I'm an English major, this allowed me to dissect the story line and pick on several references that explain the end. The frightening final use for the transfer system for instance. The people found in the rail cars and the deaf girl the group found, are all clues to the final scene.

What I did find annoying was no clear reference to what happened to create such a world nor the fate of what happened to the rest of the group heading for the coast.

Finally, the film was an interesting experiment and could be used as an exercise in story telling for classes. I would recommend it for anyone who likes to think about visual images and story lines.

I'm not saying the movies "Soylent Green" and "Idaho Transfer" are of the same type or taste, but I did find myself engrossed in the movie experience of "Idaho Transfer" quite similar to the way I was when I first saw "Soylent Green". In this: that the message of imagination from so many years ago has trickled on down to today.
I'm in my early twenties mind you, I have only just discovered these films, and to my dismay, they ring truth to me in ways I really hate.
So I will first start off saying, I gave this film three stars because of how it left me feeling. I have to say I'm horrorified by the ending most of all...I cannot get the scream of the main character out of my head. Most likely though, being the type of movie this really is, the point is to MAKE a viewer FEEL this way. Being that this is most likely the goal, and for someone like me the goal was achieved, then they should probably have 5 stars. I will agree with one viewer above in CONS. I have this movie on a DVD called Time Travelers, and the back cover description does NOT match what the movie was about. It is this reason I believe that I went into watching the movie with an expectation of a lighter movie with a more concluded ending.
If you go to watch this film, look at it from the view point of following the life of a girl who becomes involved in the complex time travel process of avoiding a natural disaster and keeping it secret from the government. You get to meet the character in the midst of the goings on of this project , follow her through the problems she encounters, through her desperation, and then finally, her end. You pretty much come to know about as much as she does and not much more, with the exception of following her sister in the beginning of the film who seemed to know quite a bit about everything going on. The point however is, when movies are portrayed in the manner I've just described, you tend to be left with a lot of loose ends that might not be left in other films, and left with questions that either is left to be answered by oneself or is left to be a mystery.
So putting aside the bad VHS-like film quality, and the horror feelings I was left with, this movie deserves 7 stars. This movie is NOT from my time, NOT from my generation, and yet, the intelligent storyline grabbed a hold of my psyche and would not let it go until I saw it through to the end. I immediately realized how engaged I was so quickly and as mentioned already, this was done WITHOUT big guns, WITHOUT big lasers and creature monsters, WITHOUT huge special effects or flashy attempts to create something "out-of-this-world". On the contrary, they made the film very down to earth and realistic, which is probably why it rattled me. I tend to also agree about the clothes and music; they seem very fitting for these current times. The clothes were plain (yet I bought into the concept that they were high-tech), and the music must have been ahead of it's time for me to not be too distracted by it...which is what tends to happen with other 1970's movies that I have watched.
I'm not entirely certain about the time-travel process, but the messages sent through this film regarding natural disasters and resource shortages is something I see as a very real possibility. If you are more of a pessimistic prediction maker, I would say this would fit right up your ally.

The title is the answer to what a woman say after she's transported to the future and finds out she is sterile from the transfer process; she says (as best I can remember after 30 years), "But that will mean the end of the human race!"

I have quoted that line every since; I can't begin to count the number of times. There were 10 people in the theatre, and it was the 3rd day after opening; no one I know has seen it except for the 9 other people I went with. However, like "A Boy and His Dog", it's a film you will never forget.

The ending is also something I've talked about for 30 years; it'll be nice to be able to show this to the many people I've told about it. (I think it should have been a Craftsman screwdriver, and not a Great Neck.)

Hey, Peter, if you're out there, I liked your unappreciated film.

Look, I like Fellini and Antonioni and DeSica and Scorcese, but this early, unsung effort by Peter Fonda has some eerie spell, and a haunting litte music theme that was ahead of its time. Yes, it has 1973 written all over it, so what. It's competently done, and I found myself ... transported. The ending is sick, twisted, funny, and hey, considering how the yuppies behaved in the 80s and 90s, I don't see it as altogether improbable.

It's not a popular film to like - even then it was hushed away by Big Money, even after Jay Cocks gave it a great review in TIME. The prognistication for man changing his greed was dire, and no one in SUV-Consciousness still wants to hear anything bad about their football team. I mean, 'Get With the Program! '

Ummm, to quote the little kid in the UltraLexus at the end,
"What happens when we run out of them, Daddy?"

I saw this film purely by accident in 1974 at a 24 hours independent film festival marathon in Los Angeles called Filmex. I'd recently been to Idaho, driven through that landscape, and saw some very strange goings on near the nuclear testing facilities. So the title and the scenery immediately grabbed me. I suspected the title may have been a hint to otherwise classified experiments held for real at a secret facility in that state.

The film left an indelible mark on me because of its ending, and for years I would bring it up in conversation when discussing the future fate of the human race and the conspiracy by the oil companies. This was before video tapes, so I couldn't share the film with anyone, the film just vanished. It's good to see it now on DVD, though I have not seen the quality, and from what I read, seems like Peter Fonda needs to retrieve the master and re-release it with restored commentary.

I just watched this movie, no, not on the individual dvd for sale, but a fairly decently viewable copy in the 50 movie set of "Nightmare Worlds", probably no better or worse than for sale individually. I was impressed with the premise of time travel, and what they did with a likely low budget. Wow, I was impressed with how they made those likely new cars look so grundged with dirt and dust, very impressive. The story seemed passable for a sci fi movie, and the affects of someone disappearing were stunning for a movie I've never heard of before. I'd bet this would have been a more popular movie with a different ending that wasn't an eco message aimed at our dependence on fossil fuels, and THAT must have been what "catastrophe" must have befell the human race by 56 years into the future according to the story.
But grabbing other humans by the side of the road and throwing them into the trunk like space in the back of that vehicle, I am guessing for fuel(?), how stupid was that...., now that was likely demised this film as a regular re-run, the reason I have never seen it previously, and I am near my mid fourties in age.
Anyway, I have just recently purchased nightmare worlds 50 movie collection, so I am sure anyone can still view a copy of it in there. Other than that, it was a pretty decent movie for a b movie, its too bad the ending was a eco joke, I mean I couldn't figure it out after watching the ending twice what just happened, and only had an assumption till I read others opinions here. Thanks goodness the end was short in length, and ya know, I think a better ending would have been meet up with elderly former acquaintances who had found out from records that she reset herself to reappear in a certain time far ahead, and they were there to greet her, or she really did appear in time to stop the crazy girl from killing the other two, or at least the one she slept with, and he could have told her she really was able to get pregnant and probably was, and that they were not really all sterile like he was thinking. Instead, she turned out to be a nifty trunk, errr, "tank", of gas.
Endings to t.v. shows, even movies still haven't progressed all these years later, and they still fudge them up regularly, like sopranos, like lost, like the newer battlestar galactica where the survivors went back to nature and no technology koombya-ing with the cylons, among many that fudged the endings. Hey, I know, how about in the future(not too distant future?), that when someone in the entertainment industry fudges the ending to a good show or movie, that they get thrown into a trunk as a good trunk of, errrr, "tank" of gas! Now, THAT will end our dependence on foreign oil!