Will (Mike Conway) is cruising out west in his sick Trans Am to go see his brother, who lives in a small town up in the mountains, when he foolishly picks up a sketchy hitchhiker named Justin. They are on the road for about 2 minutes before they are forced off the road by some thugs who murder Justin. Will barely escapes and goes to see Daphne, a woman Justin said he was looking for. Over a meal of roast beef sandwiches, cookies, and milk, Daphne tells him that the gang he ran into is an evil cult and that she and Justin used to be members. And bonus: Will is now in grave danger because they think he has their magical crystal (which he totally does)!  

My wife saw the title of this one and said, “Ooh. Really?” And I quickly said, “No, it’s not The Dark Crystal.” To which she replied, “Oh.” However, The Black Crystal (1991) has a lot in common with Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s 1982 fantasy film if you think about it. They both have the world “crystal” in the title and they are both movies! I joke but of the two user reviews on IMDB for this film, one of them is for The Dark Crystal. It’s almost like the distributors knew what they were doing when they changed the name of this one from “The Black Triangle”.

Writer, director, composer, and chef (of turkey bologna sandwiches) Mike Conway brings us his vision, a micro budget actioner with some tinges of fantasy and horror blended in. The Black Crystal is heavily influenced by Mad Max (1979) -there’s even a poster of George Miller’s masterpiece featured prominently on someone’s wall in the film- but Conway puts his heart and soul (and a little bit of weirdness) into his film making it somewhat unique.   

I mostly enjoyed the ride (pun intended- wait, that’s not a pun) of this dusty and sweaty number called The Black Crystal (or Triangle), but it needed some more meat on its bones. My biggest issue is that even with its short running time of only 70 minutes, there’s a lot of down time in the form of some listless driving sequences. Some of them are tense and add to the tension, but others have more of a “Okay, so we’re doing this again” feel to them. The cast and crew bring their best to this little film and you can really feel that it’s a labor of love. I like the parts where all the men are scared of the powerful woman. That’s good stuff.

The AGFA/Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray of The Black Crystal looks as good as it can. The film was shot on Super 8 and then transferred to video at some point as the print for this disc was sourced from the original 1” tape master. The Black Crystal is very watchable and the sound is surprisingly professional for a low budgeter. So, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t have to turn on the subtitles.

This disc is loaded with extras. Director Conway does an excellent audio commentary track and there is also an interview with he and his co-star Mark Lang (who played Daniel, the leader of the evil cult) that are definitely worth checking out. Conway seems like a great dude and his enthusiasm for his projects is palpable. Also on the disc are several of his short films, a trailer for The Black Crystal, and the VHS version of the film.