Black Christmas (1974) Blu-ray Disc 11/11/2008 (1 Viewer)

[Paul Arnette]

The Original Black Christmas on Blu-ray in November | HDR TheHDRoom


I have to admit, I am a bit suprised to see this title announced so soon for Blu-ray Disc. I think seeing how this film turns out on BD should be very interesting. The latest DVD had a ton of grain and not the most exemplary picture quality due to the limitations of the source. Will this new BD be transparent to the source or 'spruced up'. If it is the former, count me in.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

I would expect the BD to be grainy. This is a low budget, Canadian-made thriller, and as such I would suggest that there's not going to be any source with significantly less grain. Film has not historically been very well maintained in Canada, so we typically take what we can get.

 

[MattFini]

Wow!! This has got to be the most surprising announcement yet.

I think the original Black Christmas is one of the best horror films of the 1970s (and all time--for that matter). I won't hesitate to grab this disc up to see a real chiller in high def.

 

[Scott Temple]

Any reviews yet? With only two weeks to go, I can't believe we haven't heard much of anything on this release.

And even though I have the 2006 remake on HD DVD, I'd like to own it on BD too. I'm surprised Weinstein hasn't announced it yet.

 

[MattFini]

I'm hoping the picture quality on this upcoming BD will be FAR superior to any of the DVD versions ... I've got all three and I've never been fully satisfied with any.

 

[Scott Temple]

Dan posted the cover art for the upcoming Black Christmas BD at BLACK CHRISTMAS ITSMEBILLY.COM

I think it's awesome. A new twist on the classic (and best) 1974 cover. Much, much better than the cover used on the 2006 SE DVD, which at first looked like it was going to be making another appearance with this BD release.

Correction: It looks as though this new cover may be a Canadian exclusive. The Canadian BD is being released on December 2nd and a new DVD is also being released in Canada (apparently with this same new cover) on November 18th. US retailers are still showing a November 11th release date for the BD - probably with the same ugly cover from the 2006 SE DVD.

 

[Paul Arnette]

I've got this pre-ordered through DVD Planet, and I am still greatly looking forward to it cover art be damned. Though I do agree, the cover art above is a lot better than the previous art.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Amazon list Sommerville as the distributor/studio putting this out in the US, whereas Critical Mass is responsible for the Canadian release. Is CM affiliated with Sommerville or should we expect two entirely different releases from entirely different transfers? I used to own the original full frame release (25th anniversary) which I believe was from CM. The screenshots I've seen from the anamorphic release looked disappointing to me which is why I replaced it on dvd. I thin DVDbeaver has caps and a comparison.I was considering breaking down and getting the new (US) release, but maybe I should wait to see how the Canadian release compares?

 

[Segarsj]

Hi guys,

We've got our (HighDefDiscNews.com) review up. Not sure if it's the first, but Justin and I are huge fans of the film.

Pop on over to see what we thought of the release.

Black Christmas [1974] - Blu-ray Disc Review | High Def Disc News

 

[Segarsj]

Paul,

We at HighDefDiscNews have been in contact with one of the guys who oversaw the entire transfer process. Critical Mass funded/supervised the transfer process, and Somerville House is merely the distributor, along with Koch if I'm not mistaken.

Basically, there are a lot of company names being thrown around, but the bottom line is that both the Canadian and US releases will be the same, with the only perceivable difference being the cover art.

Hope this helps shed some light on a rather shady subject!

 

[Stephen_J_H]

James,
Dan's comments apply not only to Black Christmas, but numerous other Canadian-produced films of the same vintage. Frankly, a distributor is lucky to find a decent print in most circumstances. Some digital futzing probably could have been applied, but given the condition of the materials, detail inevitably would have been lost.

 

[Paul Arnette]

DVD Beaver has their review of the BD and a comparison to the previous DVD releases here:

Black Christmas Blu-ray Margot Kidder Olivia Hussey Keir Dullea

My copy shipped from DVD Planet today!

 

[MattFini]

The verdict of the two reviews is disappointing.

Saying as I own all three DVD editions (sucker I am) I will likely wait for a price reduction on this one.

A shame too, as I was really hoping for marked improvement.

 

[Paul Arnette]

I'm sorry to say that I just don't think that is a reasonable expectation where this film is concerned.

 

[Vincent_P]

I can live with grain and dirt, but DVD Beaver mentions that the film on this BD takes up under 12 gigs! I'm thinking this encode was planned for a single-layer HD-DVD release, then after HD-DVD died simply ported for Blu-ray. The grain itself isn't the issue, it's the terrible, obvious digital artifacting that's evident in the DVD Beaver screen caps. Grain is one of the hardest things to encode and demands a hgher bit-rate, and the awful artifacting evident in the DVD Beaver captures bears this out.

Vincent

 

[Dave Mack]

I saw this 2 years ago on INHD and it looked terrible. I would've thought they would have done a better job for a disc release but it looks pretty close to what the caps show.

 

[Kriztoffer Swank]

On the screencaps I've seen (DVD Beaver, DVD Talk), the grain looks like a digital mess. Lots of blemishes and I think what would be considered macroblocking. (I'm not really familiar with tech jargon.) I assume this is due to the lower bitrate. If they had encoded the video at a higher bitrate, I'm sure it would look just fine. Apart from the grain not being represented properly, I think it looks like a pretty darn good transfer, and to expect any better is kind of silly.

I ordered this from DeepDiscount at 25% off, but then really inspected the caps closely and decided to cancel, but they told me it was too late. Guess I'm stuck with it (since I don't want to spend the few bucks to send it back, ha ha), but hopefully it will end up looking a little better when watching it. Still, maybe Critical Mass of whomever will say, "We were dumb, here's the movie with less compression" (since, really, all that beautiful grain needs a lot of space to flourish), and offer up a replacement program. Wishful thinking?

Maybe with my pitched-in dollars there will be more a chance of a more proper BD edition in the future. According to the maintainer of itsmebilly.com the 5.1 track uses an earlier mix rather than the final, director-approved one. Not cool.

Edit: Dan Duffin of ItsMeBilly.com assures me on a thread at High-Def Digest that those artifacts are really JPEG artifacts, so here's hoping. If they're really just bad screencaps and those problems aren't apparent in the actual picture, I'll be happy. Again, I really do think it looks like a fitting transfer. He claims, "I've seen the print on the same monitor without any encoding at all - the raw avi capture - pre AVC encode, and it looked no different to the Blu Ray does now." I'm inclined to believe he knows what he's talking about considering his involvement with the project and status as a fan of the film.

 

[Gordon McMurphy]

It has always seemed to me that the 35mm film elements used for video editions of this film have been poor. None have looked like prime elements, ie. original negative, dupe neg, interpositive. They all have looked like 4th or 5th generation. And they always appear either too dark or too bright. Something has always been fishy about the transfers of this film - either a high-quality 35mm element or bad telecine is at fault. Or maybe this is as good as the film can look... but I highly doubt it.

 

[Bleddyn Williams]

Well, according to Dan, all DVDs to date have come from the same print. Unless the negatives or a superior source appears, that's it for now. I found the Blu-ray to look very similar to the 2006 DVD, but apparently the Blu has undergone numerous nips and tucks on the video since the DVD.

 

[Paul_Scott]

Just from flipping thru a few chapters I would say the problems here are ALL source related. This is the exact kind of release that I think of when someone posts about how they can't tolerate standard definition anymore. I've defended plenty of releases that have been slagged here over the years, but lately I'm seeing more and more Bds where I feel like an idiot for choosing 'the highest grade copy available' and paying a premium for it only to realize that a cheaper sd dvd would have easily sufficed. This is easily the weakest HD disc I've ever seen. Doesn't matter that the source is wonky with color breathing/contrast flucuations/heavy grain, etc...a high bit rate dvd would have been able to present a similar unimpressive presentation to what's on display here. The only thing mitigating my disappointment/disdain for this is the fact I was able to sell the first full frame release for $25 a year or so back and this only cost me $15. OTOH, I could have saved an extra $5 if I'd just picked up the 16:9 DVD release. And had I known what this looked liked, that's what I would have done.