Clive Barker's Lord of Illusions

For our second Scream Factory pairing, well, I just couldn't leave out this essential Clive Barker film any longer.  Not that it's his only other worthwhile picture... I was pleasantly surprised with that Midnight Meat Train movie.  But this completes the trilogy of the only films he's actually directed, plus nipping at the heels of Hellraiser and Candyman, the trilogy of his best work on film.  So let's see what Scream Factory did with it.

Update 2/16/19 - 8/14/25: Scream Factory's done more with it this summer, with their 4k Ultra HD upgrade.  Let's get into it.

The premise feels a little self-indulgent, but Barker manages to pull all the elements together to work more effectively than they really should.  Scott Bakula plays an archetypal NY private eye. straight out of a 40's noir, hired by a mysterious and wealthy love interest (Famke Jannsen) to come to Hollywood and "help me help my husband... I know he's in some kind of trouble."  Said husband's a celebrity magician (the comic relief guy from The Mummy and Deep Rising, here for once in a convincing serious role) who's somehow mixed up with an evil cult in league with actual magical forces.  It gets pretty convoluted, with misleading illusions, classic noir plot twists and a huge cast of characters; but Barker manages to keep it all straight.

It's actually based on one of his Books of Blood stories, called The Last Illusion, but the story here goes in completely different directions.  It's full of eye candy, traveling from one exotic location to another, including the real Magic Castle in LA.  There's an army of vicious killers, an elaborate Vegas-style magic show, overt hetero- and homo-eroticism, secret doors, a killer monkey, flying monsters, gory special effects... clearly, Barker aimed to give audiences they could possibly want and mostly succeeds.  Not that it's a perfect film.  It's a detective story where we're introduced to all the villains before the hero, so the audience is mostly just waiting for the protagonist to get caught up and figure out what we already know.  And while most of the special effects are beautifully crafted by KNB, it also suffers from a terrible case of the Bad CGIs, being one of horror's earliest adapters and throwing some awful animation in our faces for what should be the film's biggest money shots.

a frame only in the theatrical cut

a scene only in the director's cut

And I suppose I should also talk about the two cuts of the film.  There's the original, R-rated theatrical cut, and then an extended director's cut that largely replaced it on home video.  It's a solid eight or so minutes longer, and movie-censorship gives a nice scene-specific breakdown of the distinctions.  But in short, the film was clearly cut for two different reasons at the same time: length for the studio and violence for the MPA.  So the extended cut gives us a nice dose of extra bits of nastiness as well as dry "regular" scenes that enrich the story and characters.  Barker's stated, and I strongly agree, that it's the preferable cut of the film.  The theatrical cut has very little unique footage, just a few trims and frames as specific edits are different - it's mostly just missing stuff.  Frankly, I see very little reason to ever revisit the theatrical cut; but hey, if labels want to give us the option, I'll take it.

MGM first issued Lord of Illusions on their DVD, which contains the director's cut, way back in 1998.  And except for them occasionally porting that disc over to another region, that's been all we've had right up until 101 Films commissioned it for blu-ray in 2014.  They put out a new HD transfer with a separate blu for each cut, and that's also what Scream Factory released State-side the same year, but with their reliably more fleshed out special features package.  Recently, the BD rights wound up in the hands of Sandpiper, who licensed a bunch of the MGM titles, and in 2024, they put out a barebones theatrical cut-only disc, which I guess is okay for a budget alternative?  But now in 2025, Scream's gone the opposite direction, releasing the director's cut on UHD, with all of their previous extras plus a little something more.  Yes, this is yet another instance of Scream releasing only one cut in 4k when they'd previously released two, but in this case they chose the right one, so it's all good.

1) 1998 MGM DVD; 2) 2014 SF theatrical BD;
3) 2014 SF director's BD; 4) 2025 SF UHD.

Unlike our last post, the difference between MGM's DVD and Scream's BD is huge.  That might be just as much about how surprisingly poor MGM's DVD is, though, considering it's a major studio disc of a modern film ...though it is a pretty old disc.  Anyway, it has a real murky look to it, almost like a tape source (but not) except with a bunch of artifacting, too, just in case you thought details weren't obscured enough.  Possibly they just up-res'ed the laserdisc?  It's at least anamorphic widescreen, and free of interlacing, but the DVD is distinctly below par, giving Scream an easy win.  For their part, the box just refers to their version as an "all-new, high definition transfer," and considering how light the grain is, this clearly isn't a fancy 2k scan or anything, but it's a pretty solid HD transfer that, again, stomps all over what came before it.  Besides the obvious boost in clarity and fine detail, and cleaner digitization, it also smartens up the color, which felt a little washed in a heavy red hue.  And they tighten up the aspect ratio from 1.77 to 1.84:1 (despite claiming 1.78:1 on the case).  Oh, and for the record, the theatrical and director's cut transfers are for all intents and purposes identical, though I did spot a little more film dirt/ damage on the few moments unique to the TC than the rest of either cut,  But even there, it's just a few sporadic moments, like the black spots you can see on the upper right of that TC screenshot I posted above.

That's all academic now, anyway, as Scream has struck an all new 4k master from the original camera negative, and issued it on a proper 4k disc in Dolby Vision HDR.  Grain is finally represented, so the image looks far more filmic, and more actual picture detail is discernible for the first time.  Look at dude's eyes in the first set of shots, for example.  Everything's just softer and less finely captured.  And the aspect ratio is now exactly 1.85:1, showing a little, but not unnoticeable, more picture along the left-hand side.  The color scheme for this movie is surprisingly muted, full of browns and gray shadows.  But the colors on the UHD still come off as more vivid and lifelike than ever before.

All the MGM and Scream discs feature a robust 5.1 mix, boosted to DTS-HD on the blus and UHD, with optional English subtitles.  But Scream has also gone back and recovered the original stereo mix, also in DTS-HD on the BD and UHD, which is a very nice touch.

And in terms of extras, Scream Factory certainly topped the 101 blu-ray, which only included the old commentary.  But they still came up surprisingly light in the special features department for this movie.  Almost all of the extras are legacy, which certainly doesn't mean that they're bad or anything, but I think we're just used to SF cooking up more goodies, especially on their "Collector's Edition," like this one. So yeah, the MGM has the commentary by Barker, plus a handful of deleted scenes, also with optional commentary by Barker.  He's a little stiff, but as the man so clearly behind all aspects of this production all the way back to the original short story, he has a lot of great insight to share.  They also have a text intro by Barker (definitely a laserdisc-era thing), an isolated music track, the trailer and an 8-page booklet.  And speaking of laserdiscs, as a former owner of the original 1996 one, I didn't notice until making this comparison that MGM dropped the 17-minute 'making of' featurette.

So one nice plus of the Scream disc is that they not only hold onto all the DVD stuff (except the isolated score... they dropped that for some reason), they bring back that little 'making of.'  And they dug up a substantial, hour long collection of behind-the-scenes footage, which is completely engrossing.  But in terms of newly produced features, there's just one thing: a 12 minute on-camera interview with the storyboard artist.  It's a good interview - even if you think storyboard artist doesn't rank high enough to pique your interests, I recommend giving it a watch - but that's it.  Well, that and a photo gallery, reversible cover art and a slipcover.  But for a Collector's Edition of such a high profile title, it kinda felt like the budget got somewhat slashed.

I suppose that's the case with the UHD, too, especially since we're down to a single disc.  But it's got everything from the 2014 edition plus a new interview with composer Simon Boswell, bringing us at least a little closer to a fully flush feeling special edition.  It's basically audio-only though (there's about 10 total seconds of black and white webcam they barely show), which is disappointing, but it's the first time we've heard from him regarding this film, so I'm glad to have it.  This 2025 comes in a slipcover, too, but no reversible artwork this time.  You do get an 18"x24" poster, though, if you order direct from Shout's site.

Scream's BD was already the best edition going, and an absolute must-upgrade over the DVD, unlike some of its peers (again, see how their Bubba Ho-Tep blu stacked up against MGM's initial DVD).  For such a widely released Barker film, you'd expect this film to have gotten more lavish treatment every step of the way.  But this upgrade to 4k levitates Lord of Illusions to a higher plane and feels more worthy of a permanent spot in our collections.

Carnal Knowledge Restored and Released In 4k

We conclude Import Week with a recent goodie.  The long-awaited restoration of Mike Nichols' 1971 classic Carnal Knowledge.  I remember a couple years ago when Studio Canal announced they were restoring the film in 4k, and everyone said "stay away from the old discs, now!"  But the actual 4k transfer on disc seemed to sneak out pretty quietly.  And of course, it didn't make it to America.

Update 8/9/23 - 8/10/25: Two years later and it's reached our shores!  And it's on a proper 4k disc to boot.  Also it's a special edition with some quality extras.  Woot!

When I've been away from Carnal Knowledge for a while, I start to lose my affection for it.  "Do I really need to sit and revisit two guys being sexist for two hours with the lesson that sexism is bad?"  But as soon as I start to rewatch it, I'm instantly sucked in.  The writing is too real, the performances are too strong.  Yes, not just Jack Nicholson.  Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen, Ann-Margret and West Side Story's Rita Moreno are all operating on the same level (keep your eyes open for the onscreen debut of Carol Kane, too).  It's elegantly photographed and scored, but most importantly, the script feels like a stage play... in the best way.  And in fact, it sort of is.  It's based on an unproduced or published play written by Jules Feiffer, who actually won the Pulitzer Prize as an editorial cartoonist.  And I think it's that mix of satirical edge and observation insight that elevates this beyond some banal battle of the sexes think piece.

MGM released Carnal Knowledge on a barebones flipper DVD (fullscreen and widescreen) in 1999, and that's been the entire story in the United States until 2025.  So in the meantime, I'd had my eye on previous BDs from Japan (expensive) and Spain (forced subtitles) over the years, but that all went out the window when Studio Canal restored the film in 4k, and that transfer was released in France and Germany.  I went with the German one, co-released by Art Haus and Studio Canal.  That was pretty sweet, but now Criterion's given us the 4k restoration on a proper 4k UHD as a full-blown special edition combo-pack.

1) 1999 MGM fullscreen DVD top; 2) 1999 MGM widescreen DVD;
3) 2022 Art Haus BD; 4) 2025 Criterion BD; 5) 2025 Criterion UHD.

Wow!  MGM's DVD is a perfect example for novice viewers of why it's important to watch a film in the correct aspect ratio rather than avoiding "the black bars."  Their 1.33:1 fullscreen presentation just lops off both sides of the picture, almost removing more of the image than it leaves in.  Though they do at least Pan & Scan to keep the most important element in the frame.  MGM's widescreen 2.35:1 is actually drawn out slightly further, showing a sliver more than Art Haus's 2.35:1, but obviously in terms of picture quality, it's a whole different world.  For starters, apparently Anne Margaret's bathrobe isn't blue!  The DVD looks like it's taken from a print, with its excessive contrast, while Studio Canal is giving us a fresh 4k scan of the original camera negative and looks it.  Colors are more subtle and natural, detail is clearer, and information that was once lost to the shadows is now restored.  Film grain, that just came off as vague splotches on the DVD, is now rendered clearly and authentically.  It's generally brighter, but without blowing out the highlights.  In short, it's night and day.

Criterion, as you'd expect, are using Studio Canal's 4k restoration, which their booklet tells us was taken from the 35mm separation masters because the OCN is too damaged.  Comparing the two BDs, I'd say Art Haus has slightly better compression.  But they also gently tweaked the saturation and contrast, which is an equally slim improvement.  So if you're just getting a standard blu-ray, it's pretty much a tie.  But the UHD with HDR and naturally higher resolution is the obvious winner.  Any issue with the 1080p compression is wiped away, and the colors are even more attractive.

Every disc offers the original mono track, in DTS-HD on the BDs and UHD.  MGM also had English and French subs, while AH/ SC has additional French and German dubs, also in mono DTS-HD, and German and French subs.  Criterion brings back English subtitles, which is welcome.

MGM's DVD is completely barebones, without even the trailer.  The new BD doesn't have it either, but they did come up with something: an untranslated audio-only interview with a French critic.  I'm vaguely curious as to what he said and I certainly would've given it a listen if it were English friendly, but I'm not too brokenhearted about it.  It's not like they managed to interview someone from the cast or crew.  So unless you're fluent in French or German, this release is as barebones as every one in the past.

But now we've got some English stuff!  And I have to say, when the specs were announced, I thought, ehh... okay, definitely better than nothing.  But actually, it's better than better than nothing, it's a good little package.  Let's start with a vintage interview with Mike Leigh, done by Jason Reitman after a screening.  Again, I was thinking, well, best they could get since he passed... at least we get to hear from him in some capacity on the disc.  But actually, it's a really good interview, and the sound and picture quality are solid.  Neil Labute does a commentary, which starts out strong, though he runs out of things besides "I love this shot, too" by the second half.  I'd say start listening to it, and just shut it off when you get bored; you won't miss anything after that.

Then there's an interview with Feiffer.  Unfortunately, it's audio-only.  But it's over 45-minutes long and pretty great!  Be sure to listen to it if you have the patience to sit and stare at a still image for almost an hour.  There's an interview with two critics sitting very close together, which is pretty good, and gives out you the basic info about the film.  And there's a nice little interview with the editor's biographer, including a snippet of audio from the man himself, talking about his approach to the film.  There's also the trailer, a radio spot, and a full-color, 42 page booklet.

Outside of netting Nicholson or one of the other celebrity leads for a sit-down, Criterion's package was about as good as you could hope for.  And man, it looks great.  And it's a real must-have film, even if you might have to push yourself to go back every so often to remind yourself.  And now it's got a first-rate disc to help lure you.

Doing Right By Dirty Work

Man, Vinegar Syndrome is full of surprises these day, and I am here for it.  I remember in the early days of DVD that somebody would give the Norm MacDonald vehicle Dirty Work a special edition.  And I remember long ago giving up any hope of that.  But now Vinegar Syndrome has done it!  We're talking commentaries, interviews, a documentary... the whole bit.  And not just that, but they've restored footage cut for its PG-13 rating for a packed 3-disc, UHD/ BD set.  Oh yeah, they've restored it in 4k from the original negatives, too.  Yes, I'm talking about 1998's Dirty Work; this is not a prank.

I saw was a big enough Dirty Work fan that I saw this in theaters, unlike most of America.  It's a crazy, irreverent and cheerfully lowbrow comedy, and even though it's a small supporting role for him, one of Chevy Chase's best film work.  Really, everybody's great from Jack Warden (12 Angry Men, Bullets Over Broadway) to Chris Farley, and of course Artie Lange in a rare starring role.  And even back then I noticed there had to have been stuff cut out of it, because there's this running gag where Norm records all these "note to self"s throughout the film on a pocket tape recorder.  And there's a scene where he's thrown out of a building without the recorder in his hand, and in the next shot, he's standing up and putting it in his pocket.  So clearly there was a note joke there they cut out.  And so when the DVD and laserdisc came out, I was checking the back of both thinking, there had to at least be some deleted scenes.

A scene only in the "dirtier" cut top; a scene only in the PG-13 cut bottom.

So when Vinegar Syndrome announced they were restoring the R-rated cut that MacDonald and director Bob Saget (America's Funniest Home Videos) had always wanted to release, I was psyched.  It's actually only one minute and fifty-four seconds longer, but that's because they there's a lot of substitution.  Explicit words and phrases like "anal rape" had been replaced with "other thing," which this new "dirtier" cut was now putting back.  And a whole sequence, where Norm and Artie got revenge by putting doughnuts on their cocks had been replaced by an equally long bit where they're hired by a circus midget to get revenge on the bearded lady (Rebecca Romijn).  So, one was replaced by the other, meaning it's a huge difference, even though the running time is barely effected.

a scene only in the assembly cut.

You know what isn't there, though?  that "note to self" gag, which is cut the same way in both versions.  That tape recorder just magically appears in his hand after a cut, only for him to immediately tuck it away into his pocket.  I would've been bummed except, by the time I was watching the newly restored "dirtier version," I already knew VS had also included a rough "Assembly Cut" on another disc - and this one's thirty-nine minutes and fifty-one seconds longer!  And sure enough, that gag is in there, and so is a whole bunch more deleted footage.  I'm particularly fond of Adam Sandler as Satan now telling Norm, "your grandmother's down here with us."  Nice touch - should've left it in the movie!  Now, this is a rough cut that was never intended to be released, so the pacing is off.  There's no score, few sound effects and you can occasionally hear Saget giving direction off-camera,  It's more of interest as a collection of deleted scenes and a historical artifact than a properly viable version of the film (luckily, since it's sourced from tape and looks terrible).  But fans should be thrilled.  And if we're being perfectly honest, not even the "dirtier" cut is really any better than the theatrical cut.  It's just different, and definitely of interest, but not actually better.  It's not worse either; it's essentially a side-grade in that regard.  So it's great that VS restored and included the PG-13 cut as well.  We get it all here.

MGM released Dirty Work on DVD as a new release in 1999.  It was a barebones, but at least respectably anamorphic widescreen disc.  And that was all fans had to live on until Olive Films eventually upgraded the film to blu-ray in 2015.  It was still barebones, but it would've been unrealistic to expect any more at that point.  At least we had the film in HD.  And that's where everyone expected it to end, until Vinegar Syndrome announced their massive, 3-disc UHD special edition set this year featuring all three aforementioned cuts.

1) 1999 MGM DVD; 2) 2015 Olive BD; 3) 2025 VS BD;
4) 2025 VS (assembly cut) BD; 5) 2025 VS UHD.

All the blu-rays are displayed in the film's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but the DVD went the "no black bars" route of 1.77:1, which you can see crops some off the sides.  The assembly cut actually trims the sides similarly, but stays 1.85:1 by also trimming along the top and bottom.  That cut is in SD, though, and is really more of a bonus feature than a serious presentation of the film: ripped from tape, over-exposed and has a frame-rate issue where some frames are doubled.  In terms of earnest presentation of the film, it's a steady progression from release to release.  The DVD has a very slight red hue, which Olive corrects, while naturally sharpening up the image simply by boosting it to HD.  It doesn't have the compression issues of the DVD, but it still looks pretty soft up close.  Compare that to VS's fresh 4k scan of the OCN, and it's a massive improvement even when comparing the two 1080p blus.  Olive's disc doesn't even hint at the film grain that's comprising the picture, while VS brings it fully to light, almost as perfectly represented as the UHD.  One thing to note about VS's transfer though, is that the contrast is deep with bold blacks, and really striking saturation.  In the extras, the filmmakers talk about how the primary colors are meant to be strong, to hint at the cartoon-like nature of the film; but even so, I'd say VS have made a strong choice here.  It's possibly a little too much, but it is a striking look, and the picture quality is such an upgrade in every other respect, you can't be too mad at it.

MGM's DVD presents the film in its original 5.1 mix, with an alternate French dub (also 5.1), plus English and French subtitles.  Olive drops the French stuff, and more disappointingly the English subs, but bumps the English 5.1 to DTS-HD.  And now Vinegar Syndrome brings back the English subs and gives us both the 5.1 and a stereo mix in DTS-HD for both versions.  The Assembly cut, though, just has lossy 2.0 with no subs.

MGM and Olive both had the theatrical trailer, but that was it.  Vinegar Syndrome, on the other hand, is packed with a ton of great stuff.  The one caveat?  Redundancy is off the charts.  First, we have two audio commentaries, one with writer Frank Sebastiano and a second with Sebastiano and co-writer Fred Wolf.  Both have some great info, but the phrase you'll hear most often on the second commentary is, "as I said on the other commentary," followed by him repeating an anecdote or whatever nearly verbatim.  There are unique bits in each one, so dedicated fans will want to listen to both.  But for more casual fans, I'd recommend just picking one.  Either one.

"As I said in my interview" comes up a couple times, too.  There's a great hour-long documentary, which features both the above writers and a ton of cast and crew.  Admittedly, none of the big stars, but an impressive list of small players, like the guy who played the crossing card in the flashback or the woman who played "the Saigon whore who bit my nose off!"  They all have fun things to say, though yes, some of them will repeat the same observations about the stars, and yes, both the writers from the commentaries are here, too, repeating some content from those.  Then there's a series of interviews, ten in total, all but one culled from the documentary.  You could call them "documentary extended scenes," honestly, because they all use the same clips from the documentary, telling the same stories, but each one is expands on what they had to say in their solo interview.

The documentary is pretty great, and each interview taken in isolation is a treat, but just watching this disc straight through becomes a bit of a grind, listening to the same things again and again.  Especially when they all use the same small handful of clips from the film over and over again, too.  You might've found the line "here's your two dollars" funny the first time, but we'll see if you're still laughing the ninth or tenth time in a two hour stretch.  Anyway, I said "all but one," because there is one unique interview where actor and fellow SNL alumni Jim Downey shares some of his humorous text messages with Norm McDonald.  That's unique to that one interview, so go ahead and watch that.  Besides that, there's an alternate extended ending (they were right to cut it, but it's interesting to see) and the trailer.  This release comes with reversible artwork, and if you bought the limited edition, a slipbox and 40-page booklet.

So don't let my criticisms (did I mention that the artwork on the discs themselves is heinous and makes it annoying to determine which disc is which?) discourage you from picking this up and diving in; just be selective as you go.  Because they did a fantastic job pulling all of this together.  It's clearly a labor of love, and it's what fans have spent decades wishing for.  It's truly an ultimate edition, and as I've said before, I always prefer a release err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion.  They've certainly done that.