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UHD Review A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Funhouse -- in 4k UHD Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Robert Harris

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Knock, knock, knockin' on Criterion's door...

Scream Factory has gone full-out with extras for this fan favorite, Tobe Hooper's follow-up (with other in between) to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - The Funhouse.

An odd film that will still work for rabid fans, while not really standing the test of time, except as bringing a stream of truth to that wonderful commercial that mocks the genre...

"Let's go to the running car!"

"No, the shed with the big guy and the chainsaws..."

With quite a bit of drooling, and a bit of blood, the film - which I presume was satire of the genre - takes some odd turns.

What precisely was the little brother doing in the film at all? Unless one is to presume that he would be the savior of the errant teen couples.

The lesson here is simple.

When your parents tell you to steer clear of the traveling carnival, listen to them.

Derived from a new 4k scan of the OCN, Scream Factory's new 4k gives fans a beautiful rendition of the film, with every last grain in place. Beautiful color and densities, black levels, et al.

A superb release.

But then there are the extras - some commentaries on the 4k, with the rest on the accompanying 2k, also from the new 4k scan.

It's a Criterion-worthy conucopea of featurettes, interviews and extra scenes.

I sometimes wonder if a disc really needs to be 4k, or whether a high-quality 2k will do nicely, and this one fits into that category.

Fans, however, can bathe in its perfection.


Image – 5 (Dolby Vision)

Audio – 5 (DTS-HD MA 2.0 & 5.1)

Pass / Fail – Pass

Plays nicely with projectors - Yes

Makes use of and works well in 4k - 4

Upgrade from Blu-ray - For fans, absolutely

Recommended

RAH
 

Robert Harris

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As a fan, I'm looking forward to this disc.


For the sheer size, tons of rooms and multiple floors of that funhouse, the carnies definitely deserved a raise for having to break down and rebuild that place on a regular basis.
Got a feeling that the actual Funhouse was studio bound.
 

Vincent_P

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There's some not unreasonable speculation that this might be mis-framed compared to previous transfers, which were presumably transferred from IPs. It has noticeably more image at the left, while losing about an equal amount from the right. It almost looks like they arrived at the 2.39:1 framing by cropping equally left/right from the full-aperture negative scan (which would be about 2.66:1 unsqueezed), whereas they should have only cropped from the left where the optical soundtrack would go: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?go=1&a=0&d1=17681&d2=17482&s1=198766&s2=195042&i=0&l=1

Vincent
 

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