Brian Yuzna says Re-Animator is getting a 4K restoration in the comments of this post:

Apparently Troma is putting out their first Ultra HD release next year: The Toxic Avenger (tying into the remake)! This is just going by what someone in the know is posting on blu-ray.com, but Vinegar Syndrome is doing the scan/cleanup and Troma is releasing it themselves.

The fact that Vinegar Syndrome is doing the cleanup makes me have a lot more confidence in this release.

I just had to read a bunch of yahoos complaining about Escape From LA getting a uhd. I hope the Toxic Avenger news makes their head explode.

Do they need a reminder of why Criterion occasionally releases titles like Armageddon? *




*quick cash boost to help pay for subtitled, black & white films about the human condition that only sell a few copies

The people in question think there's one almighty They who decides what does and doesn't come out, so The Toxic Avenger means that The Abyss is deprived of a 4K release, or Tammy and the T-Rex prevents Gone with the Wind or something.

As a teenager who was into all the pretty standard 90s action flicks, that release also served as my gateway into the criterion collection. As my first criterion title, I saw how well it was done and wanted to see what else criterion had to offer. And many thousands of dollars later, here I am now.

On the topic of people complaining at Blu Ray.com, I went to the Alligator thread (because like most other fans of the film I am stunned it is coming out in UHD, and was curious if a lot of other fans were expressing the same sentiment) and yes, there were a lot of normal Holy Cow we are getting Alligator on UHD posts, but also one poster who repeated his complaint that the compression/colors on Alligator will suck because of Shout's history of botching 4K releases and to wait until a foreign blu ray distributor gets ahold of the masters for a proper release.

Maybe this person is right, maybe they are wrong, but it was pointed out that what we are likely to get is still a noticeable upgrade from a DVD or even VHS copy (which a lot of fans still have copies of this film on, and the DVD has been OOP for 10 years), and it is not a lot of fun to read a post that buries a release of a beloved cult classic like this movie before it gets properly released.

I have not kept up with the issues folks have with Shout releases, and other than folks on this site occasionally being rightfully frustrated at the lack of communication between Shout and them when it comes to confirming when a title will finally ship, etc, I have no dog in the bad compression/colors argument.

It’s gotten to the point that I rarely venture away from the deals forum. I don’t have the patience to even wade through the individual disc threads anymore. All their complaining does have the opposite of their intended effect though. I want to pick up Misery and Silence Of the Lambs just to see what the crying is about. Invasion Of the Body Snatchers is on its way.

Yeah, discussion of any Shout/Scream Factory or KL Studio Classics UHD release is destined to be overwhelmed by pre-emptive complaints about a title no one's actually seen yet. I'm as seasoned a nitpicker as the next guy -- I have the reviews to prove it! -- but the relentless sky-is-falling onslaught is exhausting.

Between that, and a handful of people who dominate some of the label mega-threads and mess up the signal/noise ratio (particularly an issue on the VinSyn thread), a lot of my interest in blu-ray.com's forums has waned. I still scan for release announcements, there are some threads that are lower-profile that I really enjoy (Ultraman/tokusatsu, Japanese films on BD, giallo on BD, Mondo Macabro), and the deals forum (aside from the 4K deals subforum nonsense) is outstanding, but I don't really have much urge to engage.

Were there issues with Misery? I thought that one was pretty well-liked, but I haven't really kept too close an eye.

I braced myself for the worst with Silence of the Lambs, and it was...fine? The colors are undoubtedly on the undersaturated side early on, and I'd happily take a replacement disc if the colorspace issues were to be resolved, but to my eyes, anyway, it's hardly as ruinous as so many people are making it out to be. And it sounds as if the compression artifacts with Invasion of the Body Snatchers largely vanish in Dolby Vision, and the issues with chroma noise appear to be exaggerated.

I'm all for pointing out technical issues; I've been doing it for literally decades at this point. I certainly think it's great to highlight such things, to bear that in mind when making purchasing decisions about a particular product, and to even bear that in mind when making purchasing decisions about future products. But it doesn't take much of a spark to turn into a blu-ray.com wildfire, based even on one or two posts or a single set of screenshots, to the point where it feels like people just really want to be outraged about something.

Issues with replacement discs aside, are the Scream and Kino releases really that bad?

I actually hadn't really run into anything. I know Shout has received criticism in the past on Blu-ray but hoped some of that was resolved for UHD - or was at least better than the foreign Carpenter releases that I did read criticisms about. I was very happy with The Thing.

Scream Factory - They Live and Prince of Darkness are reportedly in the wrong colorspace, leaving colors looking drabber and duller than the European releases. (I don't have the Scream Factory UHD version of They Live -- already happy with the Studiocanal release -- but I can say that even before reading about the issue, I thought Prince of Darkness' colors looked pretty bland despite the HDR.) The Halloween titles are reported to have lousy compression, but it seems like it's mostly a concern in HDR10. I did note some issues in my review of Halloween 4, but nothing jumped out at me in 3 or 5 (which I also reviewed and examined very closely) or in more casual viewing of 1 and 2: admittedly, in Dolby Vision all around.

KL Studio Classics - the first 20 minutes or so of Silence of the Lambs are in the wrong colorspace, the left and right front channels are reversed in Hard Target (and there's a replacement program for that), and Invasion of the Body Snatchers suffers from some degree of chroma noise (the extent of which is heavily debated) and sub-standard compression (which again seems to be more of an issue in HDR10 vs. Dolby Vision). The only one of those I can speak to firsthand is Silence, which is noticeable but (at least for my money) bearable.

The UHD BD for that is from Universal rather than Scream Factory.

Oh, I forgot that they didn't release The Thing on UHD, and I also forgot about all the recent Halloween releases (but hadn't read anything about them). I had avoided the foreign releases because I heard about issues with them, but I guess I'll need to look again at them.

Also, the 2.0 stereo track on Silence of the Lambs is not the original but rather a downmix of the 5.1.

UHD provides the chance to give people a definitive release. It's a shame that there have been so many dropped balls.

EDIT: Belladonna of Sadness Limited Edition 4K UHD Blu-ray https://www.alltheanime.com/products...4k-uhd-blu-ray


https://www.alltheanime.com/products...ay-book-bundle

Belladonna of Sadness Limited Edition 4K UHD Blu-ray + book bundle

On the discs

Features the film on 4K UHD Blu-ray and standard Blu-ray disc.

Along with the film itself the discs also include the Red Band trailer, Green Band Trailer and original trailer. Plus interviews with Director Eiichi Yamamoto, Art Director Kuni Fukai, and Composer Masahiko Satoh.

Packaging and physical contents

Comes packed in a rigid slipcase with an Amaray to hold the two discs.

Also included in this bundle is the 272 page hardback book "A Companion Book to the 1973 Japanese Anime Cult Film". Book dimensions: 28cm x 21.5cm x 2cm.

Product details

Release Date: 07/02/2022
BBFC: 18
Audio: Japanese
Subtitles: English
Format: 4K UHD Blu-ray / Blu-ray
No. of discs: 2
Region: Region free (4K UHD Blu-ray) / B (Blu-ray)

SRP: £49.99 (Limited Edition 4K Blu-ray product only)

Fuck how many times am I going to have to buy this movie???

KL Studio Classics just announced High Plains Drifter. New master; Dolby Vision.

Well damn, that’s great news. Looking forward to buying it, then sending the disc in for replacement.

Two new Criterions releasing in March with today's announcement.

The Last Waltz and Le Cercle Rouge

Awesome!

From the email, I thought only Le Cercle Rouge was being released in UHD, but I'm happy to see Last Waltz get upgraded as well.

I have the Studio Canal version of Le Cercle Rouge. Should be interesting to see if CC drops an identical encode, or their own. People on that other site seem to have a problem with the SC version.

Scream Factory is putting out Albert Pyun’s The Sword and the Sorcerer, which I can honestly say I never saw coming. Extras TBD. Slated for March 15th.

I have been waiting for years and years. Is it too soon to preorder?