Recent content by Ignatius

The infamous horror film Nekromantik was shot (almost) entirely on 8mm. The opening scene was shot on 16mm, but is so dark and indistinct that it may as well be 8mm. The Blu-Ray releases include a scan of a 35mm blow-up as an alternate presentation to the 8mm original.

I know, and given that the film has only been screened until now in anaglyph form it's a perfectly legitimate way to watch it, but I'll still feel as though I'm missing out without the option to view the discrete 3-D version. I'll just have to track down someone with the right equipment and...

You've got your South Korean directors mixed up! Snowpiercer was directed by Bong Joon Ho (Memories of Murder, The Host). Park Chan-Wook is best known for Oldboy.

Hooray! The only problem with so many genre films getting lovely, respectful releases is having to prioritise your purchases.

Are the Vorkapich montage films in the extras presented in HD? 3-D titles tend to be a low priority for me since I'll likely never own the right equipment (or know anyone who does) but I'd happily buy this just to get the Vorkapich shorts in high-def.

The feature film is a superb social satire which incorporates the original short brilliantly. Seeing the original short on its own for the first time was quite a shock to the system - even understanding the ironic nature of the work it still feels almost indefensible. It's also worth noting...

A couple of minor corrections - It was Borowczyk himself who removed the 'Beast of Gévaudan' segment in order to expand it to feature length, therefore the shorter theatrical cut is regarded as his preferred version. While most of the film was taken from an IP, the 'Thérèse Philosophe'...

Since there's often questions surrounding the intentions of independent and low budget film-makers in the decades following the adoption of widescreen, I thought I'd offer an example I was recently able to confirm for myself. The New Zealand Film Archive (Ngā Taonga) recently ran a...

I've read various anecdotal comments that claim wider ratios are more effective because they mimic the wide field of view of our own eyes. Though given that some of the most exciting and effective films I've ever seen were framed at 1.19:1 (M, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, Wooden Crosses) I'm...

I believe the censored scenes are still extant in some form, Disney seems to have a habit of carefully preserving their archives, even material they never intend on publically releasing. The fact that the nature of the censorship has changed over the years - going from cutting and optically...

I'm sure there are better ways to bring something back into copyright that don't involve tampering with the artistic intentions of its creators. It's also fairly naive to say that nobody else could use the newly-copyrighted transfer. Most grey-market and bootlegging companies don't much care...

This lengthy article from Synapse about the numerous problems they encountered preparing the masters for Blu-Ray is well worth a read. Turns out receiving an uncorrected negative scan (complete with digital errors) from the licensor was only the half of it!

I have no expectation that the uncut version will ever be released, particularly given how early in the film's release history the cuts were made. While they bother me in principle, I've honestly never been particularly fussed by them. Otherwise I agree with pretty much everything everyone else...

Fantastic. I didn't think they'd find the original film elements since earlier searches had turned up nothing. And this is more than just a simple re-scanning of the newly discovered elements; I'm pretty sure that Barker's original version never got past the rough cut stage before the studio...

There certainly is a tendency to release popular horror films over and over and over again, though the sheer number of Halloween re-releases has always seemed a bit OTT to me. I just think that if I were a big Halloween fan I would be a bit annoyed to have already bought good releases of most of...