Halloween
- 35th
Anniversary Edition (1978/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: C Film: A
Who wouldn't be
afraid of a William Shatner mask?
35 years later and
audiences all over the world continue to be freaked, spooked,
shocked, and petrified by John Carpenter's 1978 Halloween.
Call the emotions this film elicits what you will, but it is certain
that this simplistically refined film was the first of its kind;
constantly copied, but never duplicated Halloween secured its
place film history as the mother of all slasher flicks.
35 years and
countless home video releases later, Halloween is the same
classic horror tale. For those unfamiliar, Halloween starts
with a young Michael Myers killing his sister only to be locked away,
never to be seen or heard from again; or so they thought (hoped).
Fifteen Years to the day (on Halloween of course) Michael returns to
once again terrorize and slaughter in the house where it all began;
this time taking out some babysitters. As much as critics and film
enthusiasts like to flesh out the premise of Halloween that is
basically it. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis as the ‘scream queen,’
Halloween is at its core a simple, to the point horror film
about a psychotic, merciless killer. Yes, the film is well cast and
well acted; but again, a simple film.
What takes this film
to the next level and continues to astonish audiences year after year
is the style, suspense, and surreal fear that the manages to produce.
So, I could lecture on this film for pages (and many have), but
again at its core the question is does this home video release
portray Carpenter's original vision of the film? In short, no; as it
again loses the key elements which made the style so unforgettable to
start with.
After a disastrous
2007 Blu-ray release (reviewed elsewhere on this site), which had
heightened contrast and all too bright colors; audiences were
clamoring for a new remastering of the film. For this 35th
Anniversary, Anchor Bay enlisted the help of original cinematographer
Dean Cundey; leading many to believe THIS WAS IT! Sadly, the eerie
night time blues and the essence of fall in Illinois are all again
absent here. Diminishing and watering down the final product. Yes,
the horror film remains, but stripped of its soul as the original
color palette has been bastardized, over saturated, and done
incorrectly once again.
The film's picture
is presented in a 1080p, MPEG-4 2.35 X 1 widescreen image that does
manage to deliver some deeper, inky blacks (when compared to the 2007
release), but other than that I am not seeing much of a remastering
or upgrade here. Perhaps Cundey did a few nips and tucks throughout
the film, but overall I would say (though crisp/clear) the image is
again overly saturated and bright; destroying the illusion of
Halloween night. Instead it feels like another fine day in
California. The sound is also somewhat ‘blah’ as the 7.1 Dolby
True-HD track (replacing PCM 5.1 on the 2007 Blu-ray and regular DTS
on the Australian Blu-ray also reviewed elsewhere on this site) does
not make use of the full speaker range; mostly coming from the front
and feeling subdued in the surrounds. The one thing that does
project with ease is the musical score, which does put chills down
your spine.
Most of the extras
are ports, but there are a few new features presented here. The
extras are as follows:
Fans will have to
wait once again for the perfect Halloween film release to home
video, but at least there are some nice extras here to enjoy.
- Michael P.
Dougherty II
