What's Going On In the Land Of the Dead?

Land Of the Dead is the fourth film in George Romero's historic Dead films.  It came out in theaters in 2005 and was released on DVD later that year, later hitting blu-ray in 2008.  So Scream Factory's brand new blu-ray edition, due to be released on Halloween, will actually be the film's second blu-ray release in the United States.  In addition to all new special features, they announced that their release will be a new 2k scan of the interpositive.  Great, right?  Well, the scuttlebutt surrounding this release is that despite being shot on film, it was completed digitally... because, after all, it's full of digital special effects.  And the 2008 blu was struck from that digital intermediate.  But to play the film in theaters, the DI was struck back to film, creating an IP that was then used to make prints.  So if Scream made a new scan of the IP, they'd actually be using a generation further removed and therefore of inherently lesser quality than the 2008 blu, presumably just for the sake of being able to announce "new 2k scan!" to fans who don't know any better.

...But is all of that accurate?  The theory sounds right based on what we know, but it still relies on speculation and presumption.  Do we know for a fact, for example, that the Universal blu was taken from the DI and not the IP, or are we just assuming?  And one interesting detail is that while all of Scream's announcements (on Facebook, their store website, etc) have clearly said "interpositive," the case itself repeatedly says "internegative."  But really, the best way to know which blu-ray came out better is to look carefully at both of them and see for ourselves.

Update 10/16/17 - 10/21/24: Scream has given us a fancy, new 3-disc UHD/ BD combo-pack.  This time the packaging says it's a "2024 4K Restoration From The Original Camera Negative."  Really?  So does that mean they scanned the original negatives and then re-finished all the digital effects?  You wouldn't think so.  Do they mean the "internegative" again, if that wasn't a mistake before?  Their listing on their website does correspond with the packaging, unlike last time.  I'd love to hear someone from Shout explain what was done, precisely, each time.  But in lieu of that, we can at least crack this sucker open and see how these discs look for ourselves.

If you've never even seen Land Of the Dead, well, I reckon you should if you're a horror fan.  Yeah, it's got a decidedly lesser reputation compared to the previous films in the series.  But then again, Day of the Dead enjoyed a pretty similar lesser reputation until being reappraised by fans and critics alike in more recent years.  And I think Land is due for a similar reevaluation; and Scream Factory including it in their collection may be the first sign of that happening.  I mean, for all the Walking Deads and Zombie Flesh Eaters we've had over the decades, this is the original, core zombie series that started it all, written and directed by the man himself.  Then, will we see the same thing happen for Romero's final two films, Diary and Survival, a few further years down the road?  Well, let's not go crazy.  But really, I think Land deserves more credit than it gets.

Not that I don't get the criticism.  First of all, some of the digital effects are shaky.  Romero's dead films are famous for having some of the greatest, cutting edge horror effects in the genre.  ...Up until this one.  There is still a ton of fantastic practical effects, but the digital blood and crazier CGI moments don't entirely blend in with the rest of the film.

And even more critical than the effects, the story is, well, awfully ambitious.  I mean, this is the only film set in the series that basically takes place in a sci-fi future.  Okay, technically you could say Day of the Dead has to be set a couple years ahead of the present in order to be able to present half the world as having already been overrun by zombies.  But it's basically contemporary people dealing with the situation the way contemporary people would.  Land, however, imagines a whole new, society that's developed after the world as we know it has crumbled.  And that's taking a big risk with a series that got most of its strength by tackling a supernatural horror in the most credible, authentic way possible.  The original Night Of the Living Dead was the most powerful "what would it be like if this unnatural horror actually happened to us in the real world right now?" that had ever been made up to that point, and arguably since.

Meanwhile, Land sets a scene in an underground saloon where Asia Argento is dressed in black leather wrestling two zombies in a cage match scored with Spanish rap music, while our other heroes have a shootout with a midget pimp dressed in purple shouting "they ruined my suit!"  One of the soldiers rides a skateboard in every single scene.  At this stage, the tone of the series has veered dangerously close to Escape From LA; so I can see why fans shunned this entry.  But if you can get past the most egregious moments, this film is actually pretty effective, both as a compelling zombie story with good, if not so subtle, social commentary, and in delivering genuinely atmospheric horror that also never skimps on the goods.  For the most part, it plays far straighter than Escape From NY, let alone LA.

Land's got a pretty great cast, too, including Dennis Hopper, Simon Baker The Mentalist, John Leguizamo who can be quite over the top but here gets it just right, and even Tom Savini, bringing back his character from Dawn Of the Dead for a cool cameo.  The score's effective, the film's shot really well, and George was finally able to bring his Dead Reckoning dream to life.  The story gives us a nice follow-through on the set-up of Bud from Day Of the Dead, and if you just want to see cool zombie kills, Greg Nicotero (who also has a cameo... in fact, this film is laden with cameos) and Howard Berger do their damnedest.  I guess this is one of those films like Halloween 3 or Hellraiser 3, where you have to let go of your expectations from the previous films in their series to appreciate; but if you can just do that, it's hard to imagine anyone not having a good time with this sequel.

A shot only in the theatrical cut.

Now, you may've noticed that Scream's giving us multi-disc sets.  That's not just because they're overflowing with extras (although they are), but because they've included two different cuts of the film: the R-rated theatrical version (92.54 minutes long) and the unrated director's cut (96.48 minutes long).  You might be wondering why anybody would bother with the shorter cut version.  Well, that's because the difference between the two versions amounts to more than just extra CGI blood squirts and extra frames of gut munching.  There are substantial changes made between the two edits, and not only does the unrated version also have extra lines of dialogue and a whole, long dramatic scene where Leguizamo fights a zombie in a high-rise, but the theatrical cut also has some alternative shots and tiny pieces not seen in the unrated version.  It can be rather confusing, and movie-censorship.com has even created two distinctly different comparisons of alternate Land Of the Dead cuts (here and here).  I carefully checked both, and can say that the latter is the one that accurately reflects the two different cuts on the Scream sets, while the other changes seem to be unique to the old, R-rated DVD.  So anyway, certainly the unrated version is the one you want to watch, but there's good reason to preserve both, and credit goes to Scream for doing so.

A scene only in the unrated cut.

And alright, now I'll finally stop beating around the bush and get into comparing the blu-ray releases.  I've also still got the original, widescreen unrated DVD, so I'll throw that one into the mix, too.  So that means we've got Universal's 2005 DVD, their 2008 blu (which also consists of the unrated director's cut) and both versions on Scream Factory's 2017 blu-ray set.  Both of Scream's 2017 transfers are taken from their 2k scan; but their unrated cut required HD inserts, because they weren't part of what played in theaters.  The shot above this paragraph, of Leguizamo and the butler, is one of those inserts, so you can see how it compares to the bulk of the film in the shots below.  Then, of course, we've got the 2024 release, which includes 1080p BD transfers of both cuts and the UHD of the unrated (they didn't put the theatrical cut on UHD), all of which they specify come from the new 4k restoration.

1) 2005 Universal DVD; 2) 2008 Universal BD; 3) 2017 SF theatrical BD;
4) 2017 SF unrated BD; 5) 2024 SF theatrical BD;
6) 2024 SF unrated BD; 7) 2024 SF unrated UHD.

So, the framing (2.35:1), color timing, etc is pretty much identical across the board.  Maybe the newer transfers are a smidgen cooler, and the 2024 scan pulls back to reveal a sliver more image around the edges.  Anyway, except for the inserts, addressed above, the two 2017 Scream Factory transfers are taken from the same source; but I threw them both in to be thorough.  And the same goes for the 2024s.  There are effectively no differences between the uncut and theatrical transfers.  Though interestingly, even though the shot appears in both cuts, they seemed to use different sources for the second set of shots above.  Watching this on a large (65") TV, though, I didn't notice the "seams" between between the newly scanned footage and the inserts at all.  The biggest difference in quality is of course the DVD, which naturally has a blurrier look.  Detail was definitely smudged off by the standard definition compression, which the Universal blu did a fine job of restoring, without any noticeable flaws like DNR or artificial edge enhancement.  But what about detail between that and the Scream blus?  That's what we really care about these days.  And, well, especially looking at the second shot there, I have to say the Scream blu looks sharper, with maybe a little extra detail drawn out of the heavy shadows.  Let's zoom in for a close-up.

Universal blu left; 2017 Scream Factory right.

Scream's transfer is definitely grainier.  But is that because it's a better scan, or just due to the fact that they used a more filmic source?  Or a combination of the two?  It doesn't appear that we're actually getting any new detail, though the added grain makes it look that way, though we haven't lost any either.  So at least it's not the downgrade some of us were fearing.  But now let's take a close look into the 2024 UHD.

2024 Scream Factory UHD.

Well, bye bye grain.  This looks like a return to the 2008 BD.  But that's a good thing if that grain was just the remnants of a later generation source, anyway.  Again, we don't seem to have had much of a gain or loss in detail.  It feels like we've sort of peaked once we jump from SD to HD.  But, with that said, the Dolby Vision HDR does give us some legit benefits on the UHD.  In fact, it's there in the 1080 BDs, too, just harder to see without bumping up the gamma.  There is definitely more detail now in the shadows, like the folds and creases in Baker's coat in that second set of shots, that wasn't there in any of the past releases.  And the contrast levels are a little more naturalistic.  So by clearing away the "fake" grain (in quotes because SF didn't actually add fake grain, which is a thing some labels have been said to do... it's just grain we probably don't want, as it comes from a lesser source and only interferes with the original image) and re-scanning in 4k, Scream really have given us a legit PQ upgrade, which they arguably failed to do in 2017, and delivered the best version yet.  But these are all very slight distinctions casual viewers won't even notice.

By the way, the audio options keep shifting with this flick.  The DVD gave us the choice subtle choice between DTS 5.1 and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks, with optional English, French and Spanish subtitles.  Then the 2008 blu-ray dropped the Dolby, just giving us the DTS 5.1 in HD, along with the same subtitles and a Spanish dub.  In 2017, Scream Factory gave us the DTS-HD 5.1 track plus a new DTS-HD 2.0 stereo mix, as well as English subs.  And in 2024, they've carried all of that over, and also thrown in a new Dolby Atmos track.  So that's a net positive.

Universal's releases were already pretty swagged out with goodies, including probably the most important extra, a George Romero audio commentary (also with producer Peter Grunwald and editor Michael Doherty).  There are a few momentary lapses of dead air, but for the most part, it's everything you want it to be.  There are also a whole bunch of featurettes (Undead Again: The Making Of Land Of the Dead, A Day With the Living Dead, Bringing the Dead To Life, When Shaun Met George - a fun behind-the-scenes look at a cameo by the stars of Shaun Of the Dead, which was still pretty new at the time - Scenes Of Carnage, which is just a skippable montage of gory scenes from the film, Zombie Effects: From Green Screen To Finished Scene, Bringing the Storyboards To Life and Scream Tests: Zombie Casting Call), that range from fifteen to as short as one minute.  There's also a few brief deleted scenes and bonus trailers, including one for a Land Of the Dead video game.  The blu-ray converted a couple of those features into picture-in-picture commentary with their funky U-Control gimmick, which is slightly annoying, but it's all the same stuff on either release.  The DVD also came in a nice slip cover.

Road To Fiddler's Green, the Land Of the Dead video game trailer.

Scream Factory has carried over all of that, even the stupid Scenes of Carnage montage (though not the video game trailer).  And they've also added plenty more.  There's now an additional audio commentary by four zombie extras (Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures, plus Matt Blazi, Gleena Chao and Rob Mayr... I haven't listened to this one yet; I'll get back to you guys.  It's okay.  Very self-indulgent.  It would've made a great featurette, but they don't have enough to say to fill 97 minutes) and the additional television documentary, Dream of the Dead, which Roy Frumkes, director of the original Document Of the Dead, shot for the Independent Film Channel to promote the film.  This is apparently a slightly altered "director's cut" of the doc as opposed to what originally aired on television, that runs about twenty-five minutes and also includes its own collection of deleted scenes and audio commentary by Frumkes.  It's a great addition that nicely ties Land to the previous Dead films.

Then you've got new on-camera interviews with actors John Leguizamo, Robert Joy who played Charlie, Pedro Miguel Arce and a featurette that edits together interviews additional cast members Eugene Clarke, Jennifer Baxter, Boyd Banks and Jasmin Geljo.  Disappointingly, Baker and Argento gave Scream a miss; but Leguizamo was a good get.  Anyway, there's also a new photo gallery, the original theatrical trailer (surprisingly absent from the Universal discs), and a cool slip cover.  It also came in reversible artwork and included a poster if you ordered it directly from their site (and it's rolled; they stopped folding them!).

Scream's 2024 release doesn't have any new extras, but it's hard to complain given how packed their set already was; and they've hung onto all of it.  They've also got a better cover and slipcover, returning to the original poster art, which I appreciate.  Plus, if you order direct from their site, you can get two exclusive 18"x24" posters (yes, rolled) and a second, exclusive slipcover.

So at the end of the day, yes, Scream Factory's latest Land Of the Dead is an upgrade and the definitive edition going.  If you're going to pick this movie up, and you should, their new 2024 Collector's Edition is the one to get.  That said, if you've already got the 2017 edition... yes, this is still better.  Not so much in the resolution, but in the dynamic range.  Still, I'd prioritize upgrading other BDs in my collection to UHD before this one, especially since that one already netted you all the latest and legacy extras.  I was worried when this I saw this title get announced, but no, they didn't muck it up.  And, if anything, maybe they've corrected a slight misstep from their previous version.

The Definitive Tales From the Darkside

"Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality.  But there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit... a dark side."  So spoke the syndicated narration of the notorious horror series Tales From the Darkside every school night after I was supposed to be in bed.  Curiously, however, the words are never uttered in its subsequent, official feature film, 1990's Tales From the Darkside: The Movie.

Update 9/7/20 - 11/30/23: Three years feels a little fast for a double-dip of the same movie from the same movie, but what the heck?  Scream Factory has now updated Tales with to UHD with an all new scan, so let's see how it looks.

Like the show, this film is a horror anthology, very much in the vein of Creepshow.  That's because it's George Romero and co again, still working with Stephen King.  In fact, the Tales series was originally conceived as a Creepshow show, but they dropped the IP and comic book angle due to rights conflicts.  In fact, I'd say this is an even better unofficial follow-up than the proper Creepshow 2.  This time it's three stories, plus a wraparound (deflatingly titled "The Wraparound").  The writing, production values, style, music and cast are all on fire this time around.  The highlight is definitely Romero's adaptation of a King short story where Buster Pointdexter is surprisingly effective as a hitman hired to kill Darkside alum William Hickey's cat.  But the opener, a clever mummy story very much in the EC vein starring Christian Slater (who got his start in an episode of Tales), Steve Buscemi and Julianne Moore, is almost as great.  The weakest link is a the last story, which tries and fails to invest you in a flat and very 80s love story, playing like Scorsese's New York Stories segment minus all the drama.  But even that one's got a super cool, life-size animatronic monster and a charming supporting appearance by Robert Klein.  This worst segment could be a lot of movies' best.

Tales From the Darkside: The Movie debuted on DVD from Paramount in 2001.  It's been reissued a few times over the years (there was the burning book cover in 2006 and a 3-disc triple feature with Graveyard Shift and April Fool's Day in 2007), but it's always been the same disc.  Which was actually pretty fine: anamorphic widescreen with an audio commentary by George Romero and director John Harrison.  But it's been calling out for an HD upgrade for a long time, and preferably a more substantial special edition to boot, and Scream Factory finally answered the call in the summer of 2020 with their new collector's edition - the film's long-awaited blu-ray debut.  And now, in 2023, they've already updated it to a new BD/ UHD combo pack with a fresh scan and everything, so even the two 1080p blus should be different.

1) 2001 US Paramount DVD; 2) 2020 US Scream Factory BD;
3) 2023 US Scream Factory BD; 4) 2023 US Scream Factory UHD.

Despite the many years between editions, this isn't that huge a leap in image quality.  Again, for 2001 standards (and despite it's ugly cover), Paramount's DVD was pretty alright.  It's anamorphic but not interlaced.  And Scream's new disc seems to be using an old master, presumably the same old master, so we're not getting any fresh 2 or 4k revelations here.  But that's not to say we haven't gained any ground.  Scream properly mattes the film to 1.85:1, which Paramount had lazily just left at 1.78:1 (or, 1.77:1 strictly speaking, due to a little pillar-boxing on the left-hand side in the overscan area), and the brights are pulled down just a smidgen, making the contrast appear a little more natural.  And we are still talking about the basic step from SD to HD, so compression noise is cleared up (you really see it around Julianne's hair!), edges are cleaner and grain is at least somewhat accounted for.  It's disappointing Scream didn't spring for a new transfer, but it's still definite progress.

Oh look!  Now they have sprung for a new transfer.  I can kinda see why they didn't bother in 2019, since that transfer doesn't look so different from what we have now in 4k.  Like we don't suddenly see a whole bunch of picture information we couldn't before, and the 1.85:1 composition is virtually identical (closely examine the bottom edge, and you'll see it's shifted very slightly).  But there's no denying this is an improvement.  Even when just comparing the two blu-rays, the new one really captures and renders all the grain, which was much spottier in 2019.  The colors look a little more natural, if muted, on the new blu, but they come to life on the UHD.  It's not exactly an explosion of saturation, but even subtle colors like the books on the shelf way behind Moore are more vivid now.  More obvious, though, is detail that had previously been washed out in the brights, like the lampshade in the first set of shots, has been recovered on the new 2023 transfer.

And here's another nice advantage with SF's new edition.  The DVD features a new 5.1 remix that makes a lot of changes to the regular mix (which Harrison made himself and is quite happy with).  So that's cool.  But unfortunately, Paramount forced the choice on us by eliminating the original theatrical stereo track.  But both of Scream's editions includes both, naturally bumping them up to lossless DTS-HD in the process.  All four discs also include optional English subtitles.

Again, Paramount's DVD wasn't completely unsatisfying in terms of special features either.  Besides your basic trailer and chapter insert, they provided an audio commentary with Romero and Harrison.  It starts a little slow, and at first you might be worried this is going to be one of those dry tracks with a lot of dead air.  But soon enough they get into it, become much more conversational, and the insights don't stop until the final credit.

Thankfully, Scream Factory has held onto that commentary (and the trailer).  But they've also come up with a whole bunch more.  The jewel in this crown is a new, feature length documentary from Red Shirt, that talks to pretty much all the major players in the crew (the director, producer, DP, set designer, all three KNB guys, the stunt man who played the monster and the stars of the final segment, James Remar & Rae Dawn Chong).  It's arbitrarily broken up into six segments with no "Play All" option, but that's a tiny nitpick of a thorough and absorbing exploration of this film's origins and production.  Also included is a new audio commentary with producer David R. Kappes, but perhaps should have been an on-camera interview rather than a commentary, since they rarely focus on what's happening on-screen.  Finally, there's a fun collection of behind-the-scenes footage captured by KNB on VHS, a couple stills galleries, radio spots, TV spots, reversible artwork and a slipcover.

Scream's 2023 hangs onto all of that and adds a new audio commentary by podcasters Emily Higgins and Billy Dunham, which I can't say I got much out of.  They mostly just point out all of the things they like, and they liked everything.  Even so, they managed to have consistent gaps of dead air in the back half of the film.  So no real value added there.  But this release does come in a much better slipcover using the classic artwork, so that's a plus.

But before I leave you, I'd also like to talk about the original Tales From the Darkside... the TV series, which ran from 1983-1988.  It was originally released on DVD by Paramount season by season from 2008-2010, eventually combined into a boxed set in 2010.  Paramount's since reissued the full series as a budget set in 2016, but apart from some funky casing (the disc trays don't actually connect to the outer shell, they just float inside it), it's the same 12 discs with the same extras, original disc labels and everything.

As you'd expect from an anthology series, it's uneven.  Some big name directors (Romero, Bob Balaban, Tom Savini) and writers (Stephen King, Clive Barker, Robert Bloch) touch some episodes, but not many others.  The show is surprisingly packed with stars... some stalwart character actors doing their normal runs though 80s television, some rising stars before they were famous, some industry friends, and some flashy "big gets."  The production values are consistently low, though.  Most episodes consist of two to four characters in a single, one-room set, and outside of a few showpiece episodes, even with the good ones, you can feel the crew was just pounding these episodes out at a breakneck pace.  Some episodes go for a scary, horror atmosphere, others are quite silly; you never know what you'll get week to week, ranging from a delightful surprise to something pretty rough and tedious.  Kareem Abdul Jamar could be playing a wacky genie or a young woman could be tormented by a small monster in Fritz Weaver's creepy boarding house.  In general this series wound up playing like a lower budget Twilight Zone than anything, with no particular genre but replete with the big twist endings.

2020 US Paramount/ CBS DVD.

Where to start?  Well, the show's meant to be fullscreen of course, though at 1.30:1, it's probably a smidgen too skinny.  The real problem is that these are clearly ancient masters.  They're problematically interlaced, though the non-interlaced frames are so noisy they barely look any better.  I've seen it suggested that you can't expect much better, since these episodes were shot on video, but there's plenty of print damage on hand to betray this series' filmic origins, so a restoration could do wonders.  If I had to guess, though, the shows were likely edited on tape, which means restoring the whole series would be a major endeavor, which would explain why we haven't been given anything new or improved since the old VHS days.  But as it is, the quality seems below CBS and Paramount's standards even for an old television show.

The audio's alright, though.  A fairly clean and easily listenable Dolby Digital mono track in 2.0.  There are no subtitle options, of course, but there are a few extras.

For starters, we get a George Romero commentary over the pilot.  It's good... during the portions of the show he speaks.  Romero's audio regularly starts and stops, as if the plan was for him to just comment over clips from the episode and make that a featurette.  That would make sense also because, in season two, there's a featurette just like that, where he comments over clips of another episode.  It makes for a bit of a frustrating listening experience, but it's still a treat to get to hear Romero reminisce about his show, even if the presentation is borked.  The season 2 one winds up only running five minutes, but at least it's a lot tighter.  The only other extra consists of two episodes of another anthology (no, not Monsters) made by the same team... an untitled series that never aired.  These episodes are pretty good, with slightly higher production values.  They're not better than the best episodes of TFtD, but they could play in the top 20% or so, and it's a nice treat to see them preserved here (in the same quality as Tales).

So there was no question that Scream's new UHD is now the definitive edition of The Movie, which is a real expectation-exceeding affair.  2020 to 2023 is a short time for a double-dip, but it was sort of asking for a new scan, so I can't say this wasn't welcome, especially since we're moving up to a higher gen release anyway.  And the new commentary didn't do much for me, but hey, more is still better than less.  As for the series, there's no difference between the new and old DVD sets, except that the new budget edition's price makes the show, despite its flaws in content and home video presentation, hard to resist.  Both are easy recommendations from me.  And remember... "The dark side is always there, waiting for us to enter, waiting to enter us.  Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight."

The Total Creepshow Experience Just Got Totaller

Creepshow has always been released barebones in the USA. But in the UK, it had a sweet 2-disc DVD special edition. When it was time for blu-ray, Creepshow stayed barebones in the US, but the UK blu got even more extras! But finally, the director of the Creepshow documentary Just Desserts from the UK releases, Redshirt's Michael Felsher, put together an indiegogo campaign to release just his doc in the USA, even if it had to be by itself, as opposed to paired with Warner Bros' Creepshow discs. Well, that happened, and Synapse picked it up, including a bunch more special features. Just what's carried over from one special edition to another - and what isn't - can be a little confusing, so let's break it all down.

Update 10/14/18: And suddenly there's a lot more to the Creepshow story!  Scream Factory has restored the film in 4k from the original camera negative, and they've issued it in a fancy new special edition, with even more all new special features.

Update 7/1/23: And now that we're solidly in the 4k Ultra HD age, it only make sense that Scream Factory circle back around and release Creepshow on a proper UHD, which they've now done, in a brand new 2-disc BD/ UHD combo-pack.

First of all, Creepshow is a blast. It's one of those movies I loved as a kid and still get just as much out of today. You know, usually movies fall on one side of that line or the other, but this is one of those treats that fills both spaces. It's an anthology film directed by George Romero, written by (and co-starring) Stephen King, based on the old E.C. horror comics of the 1950s. That's already some top of the line talent, bolstered by the fact that they have a respectable (for a horror movie) budget and a big studio behind them. But then add to that the effects-work of Tom Savini and a terrific all-star cast, all delightfully shot and dramatically framed over-the-top, capturing the style of the original comic books perhaps better than any other, with the possible exceptions of much later entries like Sin City or Ang Lee's The Hulk. But unlike The Hulk, this doesn't suck, so it's really the best of both worlds.  ;)

Every story is great. You have a wrap-around segment where a young boy is forbidden to read his trashy comic books by his father, Tom Atkins. But he reads anyway, and each story is is one of our anthology's segments, starting with Father's Day, starring Ed Harris. He marries into a wealthy family who owe all their spoils to their deceased patriarch, but their lack of respect has him not just rolling in his grave, but crawling up out of it. Next, King himself stars as an over-the-top hillbilly hick who thinks his luck has turned when a meteorite lands in his backyard, but we all know things can't go as well as he hopes. Next, Leslie Neilsen exacts some morbidly fatal revenge on his wife and the man she cheats on him with (Ted Danson), but it winds up backfiring on him. And speaking of murderous solutions to marital problems, Hal Holbrook thinks he may have figured out a way to finally rid himself of his delightfully shrewish wife, Adrienne Barbeau, when he finds a mysterious crate in the basement of his university. And finally E.G. Marshall is a rich man who takes germophobia to new extremes in his futuristically designed penthouse apartment, but unfortunately for him, nature always finds a way.

Creepshow was originally released on DVD in 1999. I unfortunately sold it off long ago, so I don't have it for today's comparison, but it at least an anamorphic widescreen presentation. I got rid of it, though, because in 2007 Second Sight put out their loaded 2007 special edition 2-disc DVD set, which I do still have and am including here. Back in the USA, Warner Bros gave this film its HD debut with their 2009 blu-ray, but it was barebones.  Eventually in 2013, Second Sight gave us the best of both worlds: a special edition blu-ray. At the time, it was the champ.  But then in 2018, Scream Factory raised the stakes with a fresh 4k restoration from the original camera negative on BD.  And although that release had remained unchallenged to this day, SF are raising the stakes again, with an all new 4k scan of the OCN in Dolby Vision HDR, now released on a proper 2160p UHD disc (and a 1080p BD, too).

1) 2007 SS DVD; 2) 2009 WB BD; 3) 2013 SS BD; 4) 2018 SF BD.

So, by and large, it's the same root transfer on the DVD bumped up to HD on the original blus. It's got the same occasional flecks and dirt (look at the white speck at the top left of all three Halbrook shots), roughly the same colors etc. I say roughly, because the DVD's a teensy bit darker, but only so's you'd notice in a direct comparison like this. One more notable difference, however, is the framing. Second Sight matted it to 1.85:1 on the DVD, but Warner Bros left it open to 1.78:1 on the blu-ray, and so did they. Apart from that, though, they're pretty similar. What was a great looking DVD becomes an okay looking blu. It is a bit cleaner and more clear without the DVD compression, but it's still soft and generally feels like the older master that it is. A mild upgrade from the already pretty strong DVD.

But now the new blu!  First, to start off, the proper 1.85:1 aspect ratio is back.  And that white speck in the Halbrook shot is gone, along with plenty of others like it (though I did still catch a few specks).  The film's a bit darker, with more naturalistic colors, except in key shots where the impressionistic, comic book-influenced coloring comes in, and it actually goes a bit further in that direction.  Detail is improved and grain is definitely more distinct and natural by a wide margin.  The older blus didn't have any problems per se, crying out for correction; they're just older.  And Scream's edition brings Creepshow to the higher standards of quality on par with today's tech.

5) 2023 SF BD; 6) 2023 SF UHD.

And yes, in 2023, it's another new 4k scan, not just the 2018 transfer on a higher res disc.  Just comparing the two BDs, you'll notice the colors are a little subtler.  The encodes and grain distribution are clearly different, though it's hard to say one's really better than the other in that regard.  I was happy to notice, though, that the already very minor film damage, like a few tiny white spots behind Leslie in the sky there, have been cleaned up between the 2018 and 2023 releases.  And the UHD is, as you'd hope, an even bigger improvement, with much more consistent and thorough grain representation and more natural coloring and resolution of fine detail, notable, for instance, on his necklace.

The DVD gave us a choice between a 5.1 remix or the original Dolby 2.0 stereo track, plus English subtitles. The Second Sight blu gives us the same audio options, but bumps them up to DTS-HD and LPCM respectively. However, unfortunately, this time around they neglected the subs.  On the other hand, Warner Bros remembered the subtitles (and French ones as well), but left off the 5.1 option, leaving us with just the TrueHD stereo 2.0.  And Scream?  Well, its 2018 release claims "DTS-HD Master Audio Mono" on the back of the case, but that's a little incorrect.  In fact, both the 2018 and 2023 releases offer us the choice of a 5.1 Surround mix or the 2.0 Stereo track, both in DTS-HD.  And yes, they have English subtitles.  The UHD also adds a new Dolby Atmos track, not mentioned on the back cover.

Now, like I said, the US Warner Bros release is barebones except for the trailer and a lame ad for Warner Bros releases in general.  So just forget about that and let's start with the DVD, which provides all the key staples. First, there's a very cool audio commentary by Romero and Savini, who provide a lot of great backstory to this film. But topping that is the feature length documentary Just Desserts, making its debut here. This is a great, very upbeat retrospective which talks to all the key players. It's very well made, in Red Shirt's usual, top notch fashion. And besides those two key features, there's also fifteen minutes of deleted scenes, a featurette compiling almost half an hour of Tom Savini's behind-the-scenes footage, the trailer and a stills gallery. The DVD also came in a cool slip-sleeve box.

Again, the US blu-ray didn't pick up any of that and remained barebones. Well, except for the trailer. But Second Sight's blu-ray carried over everything from their excellent DVD set, right down to the stills gallery, even bumping Just Desserts up to HD. Then, they added an all new audio commentary. This one, isn't really a proper audio commentary, though. It's more a collection of audio interviews that are laid over the film, but not commenting directly on it. They talk to director of photography Michael Gornick, actor John Amplas (the father in Father's Day), property master Bruce Alan Miller, make-up effects assistant Darryl Ferrucci and Bernie Wrightson, the artist who did the poster and the awesome oversized Creepshow comic book that my best friend and I used to borrow from the library like every other week for years.  Plus, they added an additional vintage TV spot.

And then we come to Synapse's 2016 blu-ray release of just Just Desserts.

1) 2007 SS DVD; 2) 2013 SS BD; 3) 2016 Synapse BD.

So, not much has changed apart from what you'd expect. The DVD looks a little more compressed, naturally, being in standard def. All three are framed at 1.78:1, but the 2013 blu-ray looks a little bit lighter than the other two, and the DVD is a little heavier saturated. I think I like Synapse's middle-of-the-road look the best. But oh no, wait - there is a big difference here: the whole lower third label is missing from the DVD shot! Well, watching the doc through, that label is on the DVD version, too; it just fades out a little earlier. So I guess Felsher did a little tinkering with the edit for the blu-ray reissue? I didn't notice any substantial changes between the two versions, though, but there might be more subtle alterations and flourishes for the particularly curious to discover.

So anyway, you might think getting Just Desserts is great for the Region A locked who've been stuck with entirely featureless Creepshow releases, and it is. But Synapse has packed their release with additional features which might just tempt owners of the Second Sight special editions. First, though, let me cover the other stuff they included from the Second Sight blu, because they did do some of that. You remember that collection of Savini's behind-the-scenes footage I mentioned before? That's been ported over to here, as has the not-quite-an-audio commentary with Gornick, Amplas, Miller, Ferrucci and Wrightson, which now plays as a commentary over the documentary (again, they're not commenting on anything in particular, so it's the same difference). They also carried over the stills gallery.

Scream Greats: Volume One

But Syanpse's blu also has a bunch of new stuff. There's an audio commentary (for the documentary, not Creepshow) by Felsher, an on-camera interview with Michael Gornick (which is actually the same interview heard on that second audio commentary, except slightly re-edited and now we get to see him), extended interview clips from the doc with Romero, Savini and Wrightson (the last of which, like the Gornick interview, is the same as on the audio commentary). There's also a Creepshow episode of Horror's Hallowed Grounds (these are always a blast), and a vintage segment of the Pittsburgh public access show Evening Magazine that interviews Romero and shows some behind-the-scenes footage of the filming of the movie. Finally, but perhaps most excitingly, is Fangoria's old Scream Greats: Volume One documentary that they released on VHS way back in the day, interviewing Tom Savini in his studio. It's presented here, along with its own audio commentary track by Savini. I imagine some fans will find this release worth the purchase price for this alone.

Also, if you supported the indiegogo campaign, you got an exclusive booklet and poster.  Good on ya.

The original cell animations.

And what about Scream Factory's new blu?  They have an interesting mix of new features and older stuff they carried over.  So let's start with the old.  The two commentaries, deleted scenes, trailers, galleries and half hour of Savini footage from the UK blu-ray are here.  In other words, everything except the Just Desserts doc.  And the Horror's Hallowed Grounds from the Synapse Just Desserts disc is here.

So the new stuff?  It's mostly also by Red Shirt Pictures, and basically feels like a collection of every other little thing they missed with their Synapse disc.  There are great new interviews with the costume designer Barbara Anderson and animator Rick Catizone.  There's a round-table discussion with Felsher, Amplas, Atkins, Savini and Marty Schiff which manages to cough up a few anecdotes which I don't think were in the previous extras.  And there's a couple interviews where it really begins to feel like they're stretching it, including one with a guy who collects Creepshow props, and another with two guys who commission new posters for older films, including Creepshow, though none of them compared to the classic original posters.  There's also two new audio commentaries.  One by Michael Gornick, which was good but repeated stuff from some of his other interviews, and another with composer/ assistant director John Harrison and construction coordinator Ed Fountain, which was fairly low energy and frankly boring.  More interesting for me, though possibly not for more casual viewers just interested in the film rather than the technical stuff, were new interviews with Gornick and sound designer Chris Jenkins, who talked about the finer points of the new 4k restoration.  However, fair warning: purists may wince at some of the changes Gornick made that border on the revisionist.

Scream Factory's 2018 blu comes in a thick hardbox, with reversible artwork for the inner case, and a glossy, 40 page book by Michael Gingold.  Also, if you pre-ordered early enough, you got a limited edition poster and lithograph.  And their 2023 set makes no changes, additions or subtractions, to their extras package, but comes in a standard amary case with reversible artwork and a slipcover.  It also came with a poster if you pre-ordered directly from Shout.  And if you really went all-in, you could their flush set with two slipcovers, two posters, five lobby cards, five enamel pins and a prism sticker.

So, together, Scream's UHD set and Synapse's Just Desserts disc nets you everything.  If you have those, there's nothing left exclusive on the Second Sight blu, or any of the other past releases.  If you don't have Just Desserts, though, Scream's disc feels a little bit off in terms of extras.  Like you've got a lot of odds and ends, but they never talk to the major cast members or anything.  I feel like Felsher specifically designed this set of extras to work as a companion piece, in conjunction with the Synapse blu, rather than something meant to stand alone.  And that's fine if you're happy to get both, but could be a little annoying to fans who think just shelling out for Scream's Collector's Edition should be pretty definitive on its own (especially if you laid down the $140 for the full swag set!), and feel stuck watching a couple of hipsters showing off their drawings instead of Adrienne Barbeau and Ed Harris.  In the end, it's certainly worth it, though, with a smashing new transfer of the film and - again, if you get both releases - an incredibly comprehensive and enjoyable set of features documenting what's still one of the most fun horror movies going.