What in the hell happened to (remastered) An American Werewolf in London?! (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

At $11.99, I just bought this release from Amazon.

Which release? The new one appears to be 20.

 

[Mike2001]

I just bought the new one at Robert's price from Amazon. Plus Cat People. Robert is being quite the enabler this morning (Thx Robert).

 

[Cranston37+]

Which release? The new one appears to be 20.

I see the restored version for $11.99

Some Best Buy's have stock for $9.99 as well

 

[Robert Crawford]

Which release? The new one appears to be 20.

The restored version.

 

[SAhmed]

I just picked it up for $9.99 (as mentioned above by Patrick) at Best Buy in the Indianapolis area. I did not have the previous Blu Ray release so it didn't feel like double dipping but still had concerns - but at $9.99 it was worth a risk

Regards,

 

[Robert Harris]

The restored version.

Apparently price changed overnight. Amazon would not price match against their own new price, even though not delivered.

Gotta love 'em.

 

[dpippel]

Sounds like a reorder at the new price and a return of the original order due to "Inaccurate website description" is in order here Robert.

 

[questrider]

I too just picked this up for $11.99 at Amazon. Thanks a lot, Crawford!

 

[Mike Wadkins]

Universal are clueless, people went nuts for Jaws and seeing that on the big screen before the disc hit showed the smearing and trails.
It's a shame that since universal screwed the original releases this and the Thing are given a pass as they are "better"
Sad really, it's like when people shouted me down on AVS when he first Werewolf disc hit when I said it was degrained and then fake grain added.
Here they missed that step

 

[Bryan^H]

I love this scene. Horror, comedy, drama. All in this short scene(with the eeriest part of the musical score creeping up behind the dialogue).

I bought this film 8 times. Why stop now?
"Beware the moon David".

 

[Dave H]

The new disc is vastly superior to the 'full moon' edition; the grain everyone is talking about on the old transfer was largely the result of artificial boosting. What many are referring to herein as a de-graining process is actually truer to the original film elements.

The 'grain' in the previous release was primarily compression-based and exaggerated by artificial sharpening tools, which Universal loved to apply to virtually all of its first generation Blu releases; believing that sharpness alone was a cause to label any Blu-ray 'an improvement' over the DVD release.

Uni has since gone back to rethink that flawed methodology. Have they succeeded herein? Hmmmm.

Colors on the 'restored edition' are undeniably truer to the original color spectrum; no artificial boosting, no red bias either. Contrast is subtler, black levels deeper, flesh tones more nuanced.

Movies are not really meant to be paused, then analyzed and scrutinized in freeze frame. Don't do it. You'll find too much to complain about, and not just on this release. A pointless exercise IMO.

Does this 'restored edition look good in motion - yes.
Are the colors more refined than the previous edition. Yes.
Is the grain better resolved - except in cases where optical printing of titles has been applied - yes - and even then, better than the original Blu release.

Does this release deserve our respect. Yes.

Is it perfect?
No.

Could it have been better.
Debatable.

Will we get 'perfection' from Universal.
Don't hold your breath.

But you can retire the old Blu-ray. It's a Frisbee compared to this reissue. Good stuff from a studio that, believe it or not, is trying to earn back disc collectors' trust.

The colors, contrast, and shadow detail are excellent. Blacks are nice and inky.

Detail is very good.

They just royally flopped with their "grain management" process as this disc doesn't look like film compared to many, many other remasters from this era or even compared to what the did for The Breakfast Club and Apollo 13. Someone on another forum mentioned a "digital soup" left over from the noise reduction and that's exactly how I would describe it.

But, yes, it's an improvement over the previous disc for sure and probably the best we'll ever see this on BD and eventually UHD BD as I assume it will be from the same master.

My question is, why did Universal resort back to their nasty habits? I thought they were well past that.

The original, unpitched audio would have been nice too. This has been an issue since the 2001 DVD release.

 

[pinknik]

The original, unpitched audio would have been nice too. This has been an issue since the 2001 DVD release.

I was unaware of any audio issue. What's the story there?

 

[Dave H]

I was unaware of any audio issue. What's the story there?

Different audio pitch. Not the original audio.

 

[MattHR]

With all the other horror titles Universal has licensed to Shout/Scream Factory for release, it makes me wonder why they handled this one in-house. Too bad, as I'd have preferred to see this title lined up next to the other 30+ SF horror titles on my shelf.

 

[Nick*Z]

I don't know if I can agree with that assessment. One of my all time favorite horror/comedies, Death Becomes Her, was given real short shrift from Shout! with a less than impressive transfer from Universal, farmed out. Shout! is basically at the mercy of the elements on tap from Uni, so quality wise they too are a very mixed bag. Where Shout! generally excels is in the extra features department, except that in Death Becomes Her's case they dropped the ball too - only a really truncated 'making of' featurette - light on just about every detail. A real disappointment considering how long it has taken Uni to release this movie state's side. Their Euro Blu has been around for well over a decade. Same crummy transfer, though.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

Different audio pitch. Not the original audio.

Can you clarify this a bit? I'm not certain exactly what you mean. I know the theatrical release was mono only, so they must have done a new stereo mix at some point. Did they change things (ala the Bond remixes)?

 

[Lord Dalek]

Can you clarify this a bit? I'm not certain exactly what you mean. I know the theatrical release was mono only, so they must have done a new stereo mix at some point. Did they change things (ala the Bond remixes)?

The old dvd sounded like a reprocessed upmix and not something taken from mags/stereo music masters/etc. for what its worth.

 

[questrider]

I watched this last night on my 50" Panasonic plasma and it looked fine to me. No complaints here. It looked the best I've ever seen it considering the old blu-ray looked like it was being broadcast on a snowy UHF channel in the late 70s. As far as I'm concerned with this release, I'm happy.

 

[Randy Korstick]

With all the other horror titles Universal has licensed to Shout/Scream Factory for release, it makes me wonder why they handled this one in-house. Too bad, as I'd have preferred to see this title lined up next to the other 30+ SF horror titles on my shelf.

Not me. Since it would be the same transfer licensed from Universal but it would cost me $10-$12.00 more from Shout/Scream. I wish Universal would release more of their horror titles themselves. There are many of the Shout/Scream titles I would buy for the $10-$12.00 price that Universal titles sell for but not for the $20-$23.00 the Shout/Scream titles always sell for on Amazon.

 

[2HB]

Not watched the whole blu Ray yet just checked out a couple of scenes this evening.
One of my favourite horror films that I've seen several times including on its initial theatrical release. For me the new restoration is streets ahead of the previous release. The excessive grain/noise from the last Blu is gone and I don't think this is due to dnr. There's still plenty of grain but it looks appropriate. It's always been a grubby and dour looking film but to me it looks liked I'd hoped it would outside the cinema.
To be honest it was a struggle not to watch it straight through again. I'll save it for a Halloweenathon.