A Few Words About A few words about...™ Black Cats -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Arrow Video has created an interesting product, that I presume will be quickly sold out to fans of 1970s/1980s Italian horror films.

The concept is that both films are based upon the same Poe horror short story, The Black Cat, originally published in 1843 in The Saturday Evening Post.

Hence, The Black Cats...

While I'm not a fan of the era's Italian horror, nor the gialli, I can appreciate a high quality product when it arrives, and this one has it in spades.

Separately packaged, with both Blu-ray, as well as DVD, the two films are:

Sergio Martino's 1972 Your Vice is a Locked Room, and Only I Have the Key, and;

probably the better known (at least in the Colonies),

Lucio Fulci's 1981, far more easily entitled, The Black Cat, starring Patrick McGee and Mimsy Farmer.

Especially, for collectors of Mr. Fulci's work, the arrival of The Black Cat on Blu-ray will be cause of celebration.

The most important point of this discussion, however, is not simply "arrival," but arrival in style.

Both films have been nicely digitally cleaned, and restored, where necessary by L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna, and supervised by UK archivist James White, whose work has been acknowledged in these words previously.

Both films have been scanned from their original camera negatives in 2k resolution.  Their tracks have come from optical track negatives, and while that is unusual for films of this era, as opposed to working from mags, things seem fine.

Both films possess a pleasing grain structure, with superb shadow detail, and color that I can only presume is representative of the filmmaker's wishes.

While both look lovely on Blu-ray, I might give a slight nod to The Black Cat in terms of overall quality.

Make no mistake, this is a boxed set for fans of the films, and it's street price, around $60 may seem steep for the genre, but for the amount of work involved in preparing the films, especially for a limited market, and also, the major addition of a quality 75+ page paperback book, included with the set, I feel that the value is definitely in place.

Your Vice is a Locked Room, and Only I Have the Key

Image - 4

 

Audio - 4

4k Up-rez - 4

 

Pass / Fail - Pass

 

Recommended

 

 

The Black Cat

 

Image - 4.5

 

Audio - 4

4k Up-rez - 4.5

 

Pass / Fail - Pass

 

Recommended

 

RAH

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Thanks for reviewing this one, Robert. I am picking this one up.

 

[Ruz-El]

Spun Locked Room over the weekend and really enjoyed it. the extras were a nice touch too. Plan on watching Black Cat tonight.

 

[alpy]

Intrigued by the review writtn by Mr. Harris and the screenshots i've seen on the internet, although i don't particularly love that kind of movies, I bought this Blu-Ray, mostly attracted by the technical quality.

I have to say this release is very excellent and, even though both movie transfers are very good, i preferred the Sergio Martino's movie picture quality, especially for the typical colors so 70s. About Fulci's film, i've found the picture quality is affected by the lower resolution due to the Techniscope 2 perf original format. Of course it's just a matter of personal taste, since both transfers are perfect.

Restorations are very respectful of the original picture and especially the Fulci's film has many imperfections of 'OCN, as scratches and vertical stripes on the right side of the frame in a few sequences. But that's okay for me. The grain is perfect from start to finish and photochemical appearence is great.

The usual comments i've read on the web made me laugh: some speaks of color revisionism, comparing those new masters with the ones used for the old DVD versions. Most likely they've never seen a movie at the movie theater projected in 35mm film.