Blu-ray Review HTF Blu-ray Review: Halloween (1978) (1 Viewer)

[Nick Graham]

With High Def Digest's review, chatter is starting to pick up about the color timing issue.

I'd REALLY like to get some sort of effort going to reach out to Anchor Bay and see if they are willing to address the issue. I know that Anchor Bay is aware of the controversy, so hopefully an effort can get underway to engage them on resolving the issue.

 

[Jari K]

Good info Felix, thanks.

Now: Is there *any way* that e.g. Don May or Felix could actually contact Dean Cundey and ask about this issue in a polite and respectable way? Instead of having these on-going debates, we could at least try to have an proper "answer" from the DOP himself.. Is this possible in any way? I´m sure that Cundey is busy and probably not that easy to reach (?), but at least we could try. Since Don actually has seen the negatives etc, I´m sure he could ask the "right questions"..

 

[Nick Graham]

"While it may not be colour timed to the tastes of purists who are referring to old quotes in magazines from Carpenter, old VHS copies and the horrible looking Cundey-supervised 1999 Anchor Bay DVD, this Halloween Blu-ray will knock everyone else's socks off."

A quote from our own reviewer, Michael Osadciw, on AVS. Just as an FYI, Don May Jr. was a co-founder of Elite Entertainment, who produced the very first SEs of many classic horror films, from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, to Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, to the Nightmare On Elm Street series.

As someone who has worked in the industry for many years (in fact, I'd call him a pioneer in terms of giving genre material special edition treatment), and actually owns 35mm prints and negatives from Halloween, I'm not sure how he is basing his analysis on "old quotes in magazines, old VHS copies, and the horrible looking Cundey-supervised Anchor Bay DVD".

I have no issue with anyone here personally, but I don't know if someone should make derogatory statements about people who are familiar with the history of a film and it's presentation, when the person making the statements is not familiar with that history. I know I sound incredibly anal, but so be it. The fact that an Anchor Bay pr rep hinted to the webmaster of Horrorview that Don's comments were due to Synapse doing a couple of releases on HD-DVD and not because there was an actual problem with the transfer has me even more upset.

 

[Michael Osadciw]

whoa whoa whoa!

Vince...I love original mono recordings, and in fact I prefer them to listening to the fake stereo tracks that Fox pumps out all of the time. It's clear I've been misunderstood about my "dirty mono" comment, yikes. I meant in comparison to the cleaner sound of the 5.1 track, when immediately switching over to mono, it's rougher sounding..."dirty" in a sense with all of the hiss, clicks, and compressed nature. That's all. If one wants to listen to mono, all the power to him/her. That's fine, I have no problem with that as I occasionally do that.

I'm not a Halloween "purist" by any means but I've always loved the film and it remains one of my favourite horror films - but in this case I prefer to listen to the 5.1 track. That's it. So I was just a little surprised you threw in the 5.1/mono comment at me when it had nothing to do with the topic at hand.

I can understand your (and everyone else's) sensitivities to the original colour timing. Tinkering with films is common today, yet everyone still buys the latest incarnation of the original Star Wars (not so original anymore). I praised the image as it's presented on the Blu-ray disc. I rate the image as I see it. I am not knowledgeable enough to comment about the hows and whys the colour timing is the way it is and it would be unfair to expect this from every reviewer out there on every DVD/BD that they review. So giving a phenominal looking image a score of 1.5/5 is ludicrous. While you are correct the colours are off (I have all of the old discs that I've enjoyed up to this point), this is the best looking edition of the film I have - and I enjoy every second of it.

At least this thread is addressing the issue and showing that there are fans that care. Hopefully Anchor Bay/Starz is reading this and will make adjustments on any future release to make it a "true to the vision" definitive edition.

 

[Michael Osadciw]

Nick


I'm just repeating what everyone else is saying here, that's all. (The "horrible looking" is my addition, because I really do think it looks dated). I'm done on this topic.

 

[Dave Mack]

I see Bracke has quoted me in his review. I'm going to get murdered now in sme forums. Great...

 

[Nick Graham]

Dave, they are already preparing the wood and the nails for you over at blu-ray.com MUAHAHAHAHA.

Mike, I understand where you are coming from. The transfer in terms of detail and clarity is stunning, and I wasn't intending to jump all over you. This was my number one anticpated HD/BD title this year, so I'm WAAAAY more anal on it than I would be any other release.

 

[ppltd]

I have also cancelled my pre-order with Amazon after having read a few alarmingly negative reviews on this release (a must have in my opinion). Michael, your review has given me a little hope, enough to at least rent it and give it a viewing. Might be the other reviewers where wrong, in which case, a purchase is in order.

On the other hand, if the colors are as far off as many are reporting, I will wait for the inevitable re-release sometime next year.

 

[Felix Martinez]

Man, if I could get ahold of Cundey, I would have posed those Qs the day the DiviMax was released.

Wouldn't it be funny if he would say, "looks good to me!"?

EDIT:

Ah, what the hell. Just emailed Sandy King. Let's see if she can get me in touch with Cundey. No promises, but let's see...

 

[Don May Jr]

No worries... comments like the one from the PR person mentioned above roll right off my back. I'm used to it. Bottom line, they screwed up. I was talking to an ex-ABE employee today who actually said they screwed up (and he even said that, when he inquired about it, that they told him weeks ago that everything was "fixed"). They outright didn't tell him the truth. That's the way the "new" ABE/STARZ wants to roll, then so be it.

Anchor Bay doesn't have to like me... (just like many other companies... remember the JUST BEFORE DAWN comments that were made about me for a title I had nothing to do with?)... but the bottom line is they were telling people close to the company that everything was fixed when it wasn't. On the AVS Forum, there is a fellow there that said he emailed them a while back about the BD having the blue tint corrected and they told him everything was fixed when it clearly isn't. They can make veiled insults to me all they want... it doesn't change the fact that they are the ones who will be hurt by all this.

No company is perfect... even we (at Synapse) have made some mistakes once in a while. But, just be honest... if you didn't fix it right, then don't tell people you did and, when people complain, don't start taking shots at other companies because you have nothing to defend yourself with.

They knew YEARS ago that the DiviMax transfer wasn't correct... people complained. Anchor Bay even CALLED me to ask about fixing it. The reviews spoke for themselves. Seems to me they've had PLENTY of time to fix it. They didn't fix it correctly. Period. The End.

You can like the sharpness, detail and the way the new HALLOWEEN looks on BD. That's fine. I have no problem with people's opinions on what they like or dislike and I'm not going to insult someone for the way they feel about a film's presentation. But, based on previous editions that I've seen and the fact that I own original OUT OF THE CAMERA 35mm camera negative (not dupe neg, not print, not IP) for HALLOWEEN shows that the blue tint SHOULD be there in a much stronger way than presented on the current BD version.

HALLOWEEN is a classic of the genre. A film like this deserves to be properly restored each and every time it comes out on a new format. On VHS, LD, DVD, BD or watching on MONSTERS HD or your favorite cable station, you can certainly love it any way you see fit. If you dig it, that's fine. The way it looks, the way it sounds, in whatever format you decide to watch it in... But, the BD isn't necessarily the way the filmmakers intended it to look and, as a person who does digital film transfers and has been working in the film industry for almost 15 years, I personally feel that all transfers need to be signed off on by one of the filmmakers close to the project (whether it's the DP, the director, etc.). Almost every one of our transfers has been looked at by the filmmakers, or personally supervised at OUR expense by the filmmakers BEFORE it goes to DVD... that's the way WE roll. It's a courtesy and a respect that we have for the films we release and the filmmakers that spill blood, sweat and tears over their life's work. Perhaps larger companies don't see that as a viable expense, but we do and, in many of our fans' minds, that what they appreciate the most about us. We just try to do it the right way, every time, so that these sort of situations don't continue to pop up.

 

[Dave Mack]

It honestly looks like they did tweak the dayscenes as they do look much closer to the Cundey THX dvd.
Most of the divmax at nite DID have blues. The scene where the shape is watching Annie through the kitchen window, all 3 look the same. Nice and blue. It really just is particular scenes/shots where the divimax, (and now the BD) look greyish-white and not deep blue, like the kitchen scene.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Which isn't enough for me not to buy this release. I can understand why others would have a major problem with this release, but the problems with this presentation noted in this thread are not enough to deter me from purchasing this BRD. I love this film and I intend to have it on one of the two best home video formats available to me.





Crawdaddy

 

[JonZ]

Great post Don.

Unfortunately, the % of people who are knowledgeable about such things is miniscule. The average guy who buys this out in the world isnt gonna know the difference.

They arent going to know about how Stone color corrected the Pioneer LD of Platoon to be closer to his vision or that Celestials restored/remastered Intimate Confessions of A Chinese Courtesan is cut and so on.

So to a business is it worth the time and effort to satifsy a tiny part of the general public?



I agree with you, just saying......

 

[Felix Martinez]

Sandy just responded and gave me Cundey's contact info. An email of Qs has been shot out into the ether. Cross fingers...

 

[Don May Jr]

You are absolutely, positively correct. Most larger companies also consider their audiences in this way. They care more about how many pieces they can move, for the cheapest amount of money possible to the masses. For us, satisfying a small group, as you say, is our utmost priority... mainly because our company caters to a VERY small group of people (unlike a multi-million dollar company like Anchor Bay that goes for the mainstream crowd for the most part).

As an independent company which started as just two fans throwing their life savings into preserving these types of films, we cater to a very small, niche, "collector" crowd and to "genre" fans. Synapse Films looks at every release as a labor of love... we love these films, so we just want to treat them with the right amount of respect, even if many of our disc buyers have no idea how much time and effort we put into them. We do our best to make sure our releases are the best they can be. So, if we have that extra blue tint in LEMORA (THAT blue was at least approved and supervised by the director), the few extra seconds of footage in CASTLE OF BLOOD (a complete revelation and much gratitude to us from the late director's family, by the way), or the extra 10 minutes of footage in something like STREET TRASH (also completely supervised by the producer and, as a courtesy, the completed transfer was shown to the director before we went to authoring), that wasn't on home video in the US before... at least WE know it's there.

We know, when we wake up and go to work in the morning that we are doing the best darn DVDs we can and treating the filmmakers with the respect and attention they deserve. And, surprisingly, many people do write us letters, email and call us and speak to us at shows and appreciate what we do... that's all that matters to us, really.

Whether a fan of Synapse, or someone who stumbles across one of our releases for the first time, we just want our fans to be happy... and for us to PERSONALLY know that we didn't consciously short-change our fans in any way, and that we did the best we could no matter what, is what keeps us going every day.

 

[JonZ]

Keep up the good work (FYI, I do have a few Synapse releases)

"Sandy just responded and gave me Cundey's contact info. An email of Qs has been shot out into the ether. Cross fingers..."

Thanks for the effort. Let us know what you find out.

 

[Dave Mack]

fully agreed. It still looks jawdropping and the vast majority of the film looks close. It seems thay DID do something to the dayscenes to better match the THX transfer. It's just SOME scenes at nite where Cundey very well might have really OVERPUMPED the blues in some shots where the blue didn't register well on the prints.

 

[AlexBC]

Great posts Don,

to get access to such thoughtfull and informed comments is the marvel of these foruns.

Can you please answer just a little off-topic question.

It's great to hear about the lenghs you guys at Synapse go to pursue the best video transfer. Considering your future HD releases (hopefully BD), would that also go on the direction of including un-altered original mixes in full lossless fashion?

Thanks again for your inputs ; )

 

[Dave H]

Michael,

Not the same thing in this case. The latest Star Wars DVD is fully approved by George Lucas. The latest BD Halloween is not approved by Cundey nor Carpenter. I don't want some "unapproved" individual(s) arbitrarily tinking with a film's color timing that I'm going to buy/watch.

With that being said, I still might spring for this - likely to rent it. While I acknowlege the color timing being incorrect - it is what it is - I'd still like to see this in high definition at 80% correct colors (or whatever it is). But, I will still hang onto my THX DVD.

 

[RobertR]

Not everyone, such as....me.