PhantomStranger

I'll wait until I see it under $50. Horror sets sell very poorly once Halloween has passed and it doesn't look like Paramount spent a fortune on restoring these films.

asianxcore

The two reviews I've read for this set sound a lot like the NOES Collection reviews. The transfers aren't botched but aren't revelations either. Very serviceable I guess is the word?

mattysemo247

So I haven't been following this set at all, does it include the Crystal Lake Memories documentary?

Cardsfan111

No, it does not. Just the films and a bonus DVD.

OldBoy

that would have been a great bonus!!

robin2099

Yeah I caved. Honestly I was hoping for a $60 price point before biting but I couldn't wait.

OldBoy

i'm really excited for tomorrow...though, not entirely sure why

wahlers

Not that it's a huge deal, but just for completist's sake, has it already been reiterated that the commentaries for 6, 7,and 8 on the Deluxe Editions (and this blu-ray set) are different than the commentaries on them in the old From Crystal Lake to Manhattan dvd set?

Alan Smithee

I was rather kind to the "Nightmare on Elm Street" set in my review- it does look and sound good, but compared to the original DVD set the aspect ratios are fiddled with (full 1.77 rather than 1.85), the older New Line Cinema logos are replaced with the current one with the "A TimeWarner Company" byline, and "Freddy's Dead" does not include the red/blue 3D segment (which WAS how that movie was shown in theaters, unlike "Friday the 13th Part 3" which was polarized). Overall the standard DVDs were a more accurate presentation.

Matthew Chmiel

Really? Like past, current, and future releases, all Warner did was open up the mattes*. Unless you have your television set to "dot by dot/pixel by pixel" mode, one would never be able to tell the difference between the two due to overscan.

* The masters Warner used for the Blu-ray set of the Nightmare films were far different from what was seen on the DVD. The Blu-ray set is not only darker/less color accurate than the DVD set, but the framing is also "off" (if you will.

TheMovieman

Not 100% positive, but I believe those commentaries (for 6-8) are on the Blu-ray sets. I'm writing up a review now and will check to make sure in a bit.

Edit: Ok, I checked and 6-8 on the BDs did port over those commentaries as well (in addition to the commentaries from the Deluxe Edition). So the only thing missing, like I said earlier, was the commentary for #3.

hanshotfirst1138

So is there a BR version of NOES and WCNN that have the original aspect ratios and mono track or not?

wahlers

Good to know. Thanks for the info!

Alan Smithee

The first movie does have the original mono track as well as a new 7.1 mix. New Nightmare was released theatrically with DTS, and that mix is included along with the 2-channel analog mix, but that was never released in mono. Aspect ratios are 1.77, but as Matthew said they're just open-matte- still a bit annoying considering the DVDs were 1.85.

Josh Z

Both Warner and Paramount open the mattes on all 1.85:1 movies to 1.78:1. The difference is miniscule and doesn't affect the compositional intent of the photography.

Spiderbite

Yeah, that doesn't really bother me at all. Now 2.40:1 to 1.78:1 pisses me off. Was watching Heat on HBO or Cinemax the other night and the framing looked really poor. I checked and they had reduced it from 2.35:1 to "fit my 16x9 TV." It encountered the same problems as the old 4:3 pan & scans...people not fitting into frame, talking to people either partially or fully cut off screen, etc. If I didn't watch so many shows on some of those pay channels, I would dump them just for that.

Alan Smithee

What about movies that are 1.85 hard-matted though? I'm pretty sure the first Friday the 13th was, at least the old 4x3 versions of it are cropped rather than open-matte.

OldBoy

watching the 1^st tonight. yay!

wishbone

I bit on this as well, thanks! Hopefully WBshop doesn't ship this in a bag...

Josh Z

That's incredibly rare. Even back to the early days of widescreen in the '50s and '60s, directors would shoot without in-camera mattes because they knew their movies would turn up on television eventually. Matting was always applied at the final stage, during projection in theaters.

There may have been a small handful of films shot with in-camera hard mattes, but those are the exception, not the rule.

Could have just been a crappy transfer, not necessarily indicative of the movie being shot with hard mattes.

Even if we suppose that Friday the 13th actually was shot with in-camera mattes for a hard 1.85:1 ratio and the studio has now cropped it to 1.78:1, we're talking about miniscule slivers of picture on the sides being removed. This is still well within tolerances for variances in theatrical projection or television overscan.

Cropping from 1.85:1 to 4:3 is a big change that alters the compositional intent. The difference between 1.85:1 and 1.78:1 (whether cropped or open-matte) does not.

PhantomStranger

For the most part, I agree it's not a big deal and nothing to get riled up over. Cropping to 1.66:1 is a different matter and a drastic enough change to start affecting composition.

hanshotfirst1138

There is a difference between 1.85 and 1.78. It's subtle, but it is noticeable.

Gizmo

Mine hasn't even shipped.

Gizmo

I just don't get it. Why is it Amazon is the only place that can ship and deliver stuff on the release date?

Quack

Ended up just getting mine from Best Buy....I'll sell my old box set to help offset the cost. Also ordered the Crystal Lake Memories from the official site.