Could That Be... Clockwatchers I See?

Wow, talk about "under the radar!"  1997's Clockwatchers has been one of my most-wanted titles on blu for years.  One: because it's a favorite film, and two: because it's one of the few remaining non-anamorphic discs in my collection.  I check disc announcements every day, but still had no idea Shout Factory was releasing this on BD until McBastard's Masoleum posted that it was already out and in hand.  I nearly fell out of my chair.  Shout Factory didn't even have it listed on their own site until a week after its release; it just popped up there like three days ago.  It's not on Amazon, or the usual boutique shops that carry Shout releases, like Diabolik or Grindhouse.  Weird.

Clockwatchers is the first and still the best film by the Sprecher sisters.  All three are worth watching, but this is their sole masterpiece.  It's a timeless examination of rudimentary working class life, both comic and tragic, similar in tone to, say, Friends With Money.  It probably has suffered somewhat for audiences going in expecting a more sitcom-level out and out comedy like Office Space.  But despite its scarcity on home video, it's maintained a consistent audience thanks largely to its stellar cast.  It's an important early role from Toni Collette, one of the signature, career defining performances by Parker Posey, and a rare mid-Friends co-lead by Lisa Kudrow.  Alanna Ubach is the final part of the quartet who didn't go on to such heights as the others, but she's just as good as the rest of them here.  And the supporting cast is just as strong, including Bob Balaban, Paul Dooley and yes, Jamie Kennedy.  I know, it's easy to think of his MTV rap career and grimace, but he excels in offbeat comic parts like this one.

Fox Lorber released Clockwatchers on DVD in early 2000.  So, as you might guess, it's non-anamorphic.  It was reissued by Wellspring in 2006, and there have been DVD editions in other parts of the world, but none of them are anamorphic either.  And until this month, that's all we've had, until Shout Factory surprised us with their new blu-ray.  Apparently it's a Made On Demand disc, which I guess counts for its limited release; but I'm happy to report that it is a properly pressed disc, not a BD-R.

2000 Fox Lorber DVD top; 2024 Shout Factory BD bottom.

So again, the biggest selling point is just jumping to 16x9 enhancement.  We've got it; we won.  But besides that, how is it?  Well for starters, the aspect ratio has shifted from 1.84:1 to 1.78:1, at the expense of some info on the left-hand side, but if that has to be the price of going from non to anamorphic, I'll take it.  You can see that there's been extensive color correction, too - look how much lighter Toni's hair is - which I'll take on faith is more accurate.  Going from SD to HD gives a cleaner, sharper look; but there's still little to no film grain visible on the blu.  I'm guessing this is an old master.  It's a big upgrade, but more because the only available DVD is so poor, not because the new blu is particularly impressive.

The DVD just has a clean Dolby Digital 5.1 remix, which Shout has replaced with a the original Dolby stereo mix in DTS-HD.  They also added HoH subtitles, which the DVD lacked.

The DVD only has the theatrical trailer, while Shout's blu doesn't even have that.  You'd think they could have at least ripped that off the DVD, but I guess being no frills is protocol for MOD releases.  Oh well.  I'm way too happy to complain.  😁

The Stepfather, From Shout To Scream

1987's The Stepfather is a taught little horror thriller that stands out just by virtue of being a little better in every department. It's got above average writing, thanks largely to a terrific idea taken from a shocking, true life story. There's this very traditional, middle-class, high family values kind of guy who seems completely innocuous and friendly. He's got a beautiful wife, nice kid; and everything's great as long as things are going his way. But if anything starts to go wrong, he'll murder his whole household rather than face their failure to live up to his idealistic fantasy of the perfect American family. And just like his real-life counterpart, instead of spending the rest of his life in jail, the titular stepfather simply changes his identity and moves in with a new family to try again. A family who has no idea that they'd better try their best live up to his fragile expectations, because their lives are on the line.

Update 2/12/16 - 9/12/24: Well, The Stepfather is no longer pre-Scream Factory, and it's also freshly restored in 4k, on UHD, with all new special features as a Collector's Edition.  And it's about time!

More than just the writing, though, it's an effective, well-directed little film with a subtly haunting score and most notably a defining role played by Terry O'Quinn. He delivers one of cinema's all-time memorable performances, as he turns from charming to chilling on a dime, to the point where it's taken him decades to go from being known simply as the stepfather to "that guy from Lost." He's crafted the perfect image of the very last guy you'd ever want to marry your mom and take over your home.

Not that the film's flawless. The plot flops around a bit in the middle, introducing and eventually just getting rid of a whole other lead character. A surviving member of a prior family is plodding along on the stepfather's trail while bickering with the local police, and it just never gets interesting or has any influence on the main characters. Really, everybody who gets between the audience and the main nuclear family, which is where all the drama is, just feel like they're padding the running time. But hey, you can't begrudge a horror film too much for tossing in a couple extra murders, and every time the camera focuses back on the leads, the film's back to firing on all cylinders again.

There's another potential issue that hangs over any issue of this film: is it uncut? The Stepfather's IMDB board is full of people looking for a television version with alternate scenes. And having grown up with a copy of this film taped off of cable TV, those scenes sound familiar to me, too. I'm pretty sure they're right.  They confirm it in the director's commentary, too, so we know Shout's aware of it.  But they're not included on any commercial release to date, either as part of the feature film or deleted scenes. Knowing Shout, I'm sure they tried.  So it's a nice dream, but unfortunately the standard R-rated cut is the only version on the table.

For the longest time, The Stepfather was conspicuously MIA on DVD, at least here in the US. There were a couple of generic, fullscreen VHS-sourced releases overseas. And in the mid-2000s, an alluring German DVD became the disc to try and import. It was anamorphic widescreen, and a must-have for US fans who didn't even have a domestic barebones disc. But finally, the 2009 Stepfather remake made the studio realize, hey, we don't even have the original out there. And so, there was no Scream Factory back then, but the parent label Shout Factory had dipped their toes slightly into the horror genre with their line of Roger Corman cult films and Miike's Audition. So they got this high profile title and made what is essentially the first Scream Factory Collector's Edition before there were Scream Factory Collector's Editions. At first this was a DVD-only title, released on its own in late 2009. But then they came back and issued a blu-ray version in 2010. And now, it's a full-blown, UHD/ BD 2-disc combopack Collector's Edition under the Scream Factory brand.

1) 2009 Shout DVD; 2) 2010 Shout BD; 3) 2024 Scream BD; 4) 2024 Scream UHD.

Both Shouts are full 16x9 widescreen at 1.78:1. The DVD has a very slight single letterbox bar going across the top that's lifted on the blu, giving the blu a very slim extra bit of image. Otherwise, these look very similar and are obviously struck from the same master. So naturally, the difference isn't terribly overwhelming, and that's less a compliment to the DVD than it is a mark against the blu. It's not bad, just kind of soft and light on detail. The grain looks kind of uneven and random on the blu; whereas it's almost entirely smoothed away on the DVD. So for sure the blu is better, with a clearer, slightly more distinct image.

But now we have a fancy, new 4k restoration for the modern era.  And it's not that the original footage has a vast wealth of detail hidden away that Shout had neglected to tap into, and they hadn't borked the color timing or added unwelcome edge enhancement or other tinkering, but things are still better all around.  For one thing, the image is now more properly framed at 1.85:1, and that's actually unveiling a little more along the sides rather than just matting the top and bottom.  Even just comparing the two 1080p blus, grain is much more thorough, edges are sharper, and colors are a little more muted (Terry's apron, for example, is noticeably darker in the newer shots).  It's almost like the initial step from DVD to BD repeated.  It's not a massive change, but it's another clear move ahead.  And then of course on the UHD, colors are richer and more vibrant, sort of restoring the stronger colors of the Shout BD, but now in a more natural, realistic palette... though it's all very subtle across each version. In a few key scenes, the colors really are more attractive in HDR, though.

All four discs have fairly basic but solid 2.0 stereo tracks with the initial blu presenting it in lossless LPCM, and the Screams in DTS-HD.  It's worth noting that neither Shout Factory release included subtitles, but the new Scream set does.

Extras-wise, it was a pretty unexciting double-dip from DVD to BD, but at least there was a difference. Most of the extras were the same. You have a pretty solid audio commentary with director Joseph Ruben, who's thankfully got Fangoria's Mike Gingold enthusiastically prompting him along. Even more engaging, I found, was the almost half-hour documentary The Stepfather Chronicles, which is a great portender for the excellent featurettes we'd find on Scream Factory's releases. It's made by Red Shirt Pictures and is very slickly edited, talking to almost all the key players, from writer Brian Garfield to fan favorite Jill Schoelen. The only one we really miss Terry O'Quinn, who apparently doesn't like to talk about this film? That's a shame, and so that's about it for the DVD. The only other features are the theatrical trailer and a fold-out insert with notes by Cliff MacMillan.

The Shout blu keeps the commentary, doc and trailer, but loses the insert. Instead, they added a couple additional trailers including a German one, a video store promo, and trailers for both of the sequels. A slight improvement, but nothing to break out the checkbook for.

And now we have the new Scream Factory set, which ostensibly adds a lot, but really not a lot of value.  All the old extras are here except, curiously, for the German trailer and the video store promo.  No great loss, but still an odd decision.  Instead, we get three, count 'em three, new audio commentaries, in addition to the original.  The first is with Jill Schoelen, which is fun.  She's a good sport and enthusiastic about the film, but unfortunately she's forgotten a lot and was never part of a lot of the big decisions in the first place.  So when she's asked how the writers were brought together, or what was in those deleted scenes, she doesn't know.  And the moderator isn't a great help.  He certainly has a challenge, which I appreciate.  Jill says she never watched the sequels, and he says, well there goes several of my questions.  But unfortunately, his solution is to just keep offering his opinions on everything.  Want to know if he liked Anthony Hopkins or Brian Cox as Hannibal Lector?  You'll find out!  It's like, if you're not asking Jill a question or prompting her to share something, stop pontificating.  Who even are you?

And that's a perfect set-up for the next two commentaries,  both of which are by, I guess, experts (the back of the case smartly doesn't designate them as anything).  And they both just constantly describe what's clearly happening on the screen: "she's now completely suspicious of him and seeking answers, and newspaper articles, so he's on the cusp of getting found out, which is driving up the tension, which we see because he's not handling it well."  Yeah, obviously, we're seeing the movie, too.  They're like audio descriptive tracks for the blind, not audio commentaries.  But I still prefer those parts to all the "I love that line," "I love this shot," "oh, this is perfect"s.  These three people spend hours giving us their opinions (and surprise, surprise, they all love the movie - we already knew their opinions before we started).  Why do they think we'd care?  It's one thing if the director tells us he never really cared for a certain detail, or has a surprising favorite scene.  But when Schoelen and Shelley Hack are having the leaf fight, we get some random soliloquizing, "how fun is that?  I don't know about you guys, but every Fall that is an activity that I would get into, is just crashing around, making a bigger mess with the leaves I had just raked.  But it's worth it, you know?  These are the kinds of things, seasonal activities, you have to do."  What?  I can't imagine why Scream Factory thinks we want to hear these people keep telling us about themselves.  But I'm sure the ideal is just that it looks like a big deal when they list three new audio commentaries in their specs.

Besides the commentaries, we get a new on-camera interview with Schoelen, which is nice, but between the audio commentary and her participation in the documentary, you know.  Do we really want to hear all her anecdotes in triplicate?  To be fair, she doesn't say all the same things in all three, but still, a lot is repeated.  The only other new stuff is a stills gallery and a slipcover.

No matter what, the new Scream Factory is the definitive release.  The best transfer, finally in 1.85:1, finally with subtitles for those who need 'em.  This is the way to go.  It's too bad the new extras didn't add much value; but just taking this release on its own, it looks and sounds terrific, and the older extras are still here, and they're pretty great.  I mean, part of the problem Scream had this time, is that apart from roping in O'Quinn or unearthing those deleted scenes, their package didn't really need much else.  They weren't lacking for features from the start; they just had to look like they were giving us more.  So highly recommended, just know that you don't have to waste your time sitting through all four commentaries.  Read a book or play a video game instead.

Quatermass and All His Pits

Happy 2016, gang! To bring in the new year, we're going to take a look at our first Hammer Film on DVDExotica. Actually, I'm not a huge Hammer guy, but I know a ripping science fiction tale when I've got one in my mitts. Today's film is Quatermass and the Pit, often released as Five Million Years To Earth in the US and other markets generally less well versed in the brilliant writings of Nigel Kneale. This third chapter in the Quatermass saga has been released on DVD plenty around the world, but we haven't got it in HD yet, here in the USA. Fortunately, that's no problem for everybody who's region free, as Studio Canal has issued a top notch blu of it over in the UK.

Update 1/1/16 - 1/8/19: Originally I just had a little bit about the 1958 original version of Quatermass and the Pit, in comparison to the 1967 I was covering.  But now that BFI has just re-released and remastered the original on an awesome new special edition blu, I'm adding full coverage of that, too.

Update 11/8/22: In 2019, Shout Factory brought the HD Quatermass and the Pit (Hammer version) to the US.  And for Update Week, I'm bringing it to DVDExotica.

Prof. Bernard Quatermass first ran into trouble in 1953, in the BBC production of The Quatermass Experiment. Now it's 1967, and Quatermass's story is in the hands of Hammer, with Dracula: Prince of Darkness's Andrew Keir now in the title role. It's a fairly heady science fiction story for Hammer, low on monsters and action, but rich in character and ideas. Paleontologists are called in when primitive skeletons are found during the excavation of a new subway tunnel. Then the military is called in when they find what appears to be an unexplored WWII bomb. And Quatermass winds up in between these two factions when they realize that both of these discoveries have been buried beneath the Earth for over five million years. How can that be possible? What does that imply? Everything from ghosts, to Martians, to the devil himself seem to have a hand in this bizarre mystery that reaches right into heart of man's evolution.

The same moment in 1958...

...and 1967.

Like the previous two Quatermass films from Hammer, this is another remake of an earlier BBC serial of the same title (all of which were released on a highly recommended DVD set by the BBC in 2005, pictured right). Unlike the previous two, however, which sometimes lost some crucial points in the crossover, Kneale himself wrote the screenplay, leading to a much more successful cinematic conversion. Expert direction by Roy Ward Baker and lavish production values certainly don't hurt either. This is the first time we see Quatermass in color. The longer version is certainly a richer, fuller story in some aspects, and I miss some details in this tighter recreation, but this is the first time Hammer has really lived up to the BBC originals.

Quatermass and the Pit's DVD debut was Anchor Bay's 1998 Hammer Collection DVD, which was essentially a port of Elite's laserdisc that was released earlier the same year with roughly the same 1.66:1 transfer, audio commentary, etc. It remains the definitive release in the USA to date. Over the years, it's come out on DVD in just about every region of the world, but it wasn't until 2011 when it was given an updated, HD release by way of a blu-ray/ DVD combo pack from Studio Canal in the UK. I've got it here, along with Anchor Bay's original disc, so let's see how much of an upgrade we really got.

1) AB 1998 DVD; 2) SC 2011 DVD; 3) SC 2011 BD; 4) SF 2019 BD.

Well, Studio Canal had the carpet pretty well laid down for them by the fact that Anchor Bay's disc is so old, it isn't even anamorphic. I left the negative space around each image in the first set of shots so you can see how they'd appear on a widescreen set. Studio Canal would have to fail pretty hard not to improve upon that. And they certainly didn't fail. What did strike me, though, was the surprisingly strong difference in quality between even Studio Canal's blu and the DVD they included in the same pack. Sure, it's roughly the same transfer, but it looks even softer and less detailed than you'd expect from an SD copy.

Anyway, Studio Canal preserves essentially the same 1.66:1 ratio as the past releases, but has unveiled additional picture on all four sides. For a non-anamorphic image, Anchor Bay's disc looks pretty good, and it's not interlaced, but Studio's new blu certainly stands apart with its crisper, finer picture. Grain and colors look a bit more natural, too (those army uniforms look genuinely green now); though the difference is only really noticeable in certain shots. Honestly, had AB's disc been anamorphic, I probably wouldn't have bothered to upgrade; but now that I've seen it in high definition, I'm glad I did.

And Shout's blu?  Clearly using the same master, with the same framing and color-timing/ brightness levels.  The two are virtually indistinguishable from each other.  You can only tell they're not completely identical when you zoom into the screenshots to see the compression make the grain shift slightly throughout the image.  But even then, there's no clear winner.  It's really a dead tie in terms of PQ.  But as we'll see, that's not the entire story.

Anchor Bay provided both a 2.0 stereo track and a 5.1 mix. Studio Canal does away with the latter, but bump it up to lossless LPCM 2.0.  Shout has it in DTS-HD. SC has also added optional English HOH subtitles, which AB didn't bother with, and Shout has kept.  So another tie here.

Another reason I'm glad to have upgraded is the collection of special features. Now, the original DVD was already pretty good in that department. The aforementioned audio commentary is a treasure as it pairs Kneale and Baker, both of whom have now left us. There are a few pauses and gaps, but for the most part they're full of excellent insight and rather fun to listen to. AB's disc also ported over the trailers (one for Quatermass & the Pit and one for Five Million Years To Earth) and TV spots from the laser. It's also added an episode of World of Hammer, a video series Anchor Bay created for their Hammer Collection series, with each DVD including a 20+ exploration of Hammer's films, narrated by Oliver Reed. This particular episode focuses, naturally, on Hammer's entries into science fiction. Unfortunately, it's pretty much all just long clips from the films rather than any kind of documentary look at them, so I found it fairly disappointing. And if you're worried about spoilers, definitely don't watch it, as it shows you the ending of pretty much every film it introduces. The one good thing about it, though, is that it shows you a lot of Brian Donlevy's performances as Quatermass from the first two films, which is pretty illuminating if you're starting with Keir and the Pit. So it is nice to have in that respect.

AB's DVD also had a nice cardstock insert reproducing the film's original lobby card.

Happily, nothing was lost on the blu-ray except for the TV spots. The commentary, World of Hammer and both trailers are still here. And also on hand is a collection of terrific interviews, all fairly robust and not padded out with films clips. We get Kneale's widow, Judith Kerr, who thankfully has a lot of memories about Kneale's work to share. We get a jovial one with Colonel Breen himself, Julian Glover, and we get four expert testimonials from the excellent Kim Newman, Marcus Hearn, who focuses more on Hammer overall, Mark Gatiss and even Joe Dante! Also thrown in are the American opening credits with the Five Million Years title.

Interestingly, however, Studio Canal has only included the extras (any and all of them) on the blu-ray. So if you were planning to purchase this combo-pack for the DVD half, you're in for quite a disappointment.

And now here's the real reason why you might want to upgrade from the SC blu to the SF blu.  Shout retains all of the special features from Canal's disc, but they also created a bunch of new stuff.  First of all, there are two new expert audio commentaries, one by Bruce G. Hallenbeck (which is quite good, especially when he reads quotes from a number of vintage interviews with the film's participants) and one by Constantine Nasr & Steve Haberman (which is also rather good, and different enough from Hallenbeck's; but I had some quibbles with Newsom's commentary of The Witches, in part because he made long-winded criticisms of the script for details he was misremembering, and he kinda does it again here).  But if you're not too impressed by more "expert" content, there are also four short, new on-camera interviews with actor Hugh Futcher who played Sapper West, special effects technician Brain Johnson, clapper loader Trevor Coop and an especially brief one with focus puller Bob Jordan.  Shout also adds the alternate Five Million Years To Earth opening credits, a couple TV spots and a stills gallery; and their release includes reversible cover art.

Meanwhile, the original Quatermass and the Pit debuted on DVD in 2000 from Meridian Entertainment as a slightly abridged version, where all six episodes of the series was edited into a single feature.  In 2005, BBC restored it to its original serial version in a 3-disc set with the other surviving Quatermass serials.  And now, in 2018, the BFI was able to perform further restoration on the film portions and create a new HD version for blu.

I say "film portions" because Quatermass and the Pit, like most BBC programs of the time, was mostly filmed live, with pre-filmed 35mm segments in between.  So, typically, that would involve a brief filmed exterior shot of someone walking into a house, and then cut to the actors on set in studio performing the bulk of the scene live.  Because Quatermass and the Pit is a much more ambitious project with a larger scope and greater production values than your average BBC teleplay of its time, it features more substantial filmed segments featuring longer segments and special effects.  But, still, the bulk of the drama was performed live, and all of that footage was just preserved on video shot by cameras recording the live broadcast.  This means you wind up with a shot like this:

...cutting to a shot like this:

As you can see, we're looking at two different worlds in terms of picture quality here.  In the old days of 1950s television, it would all be reduced to pretty soft, hazy quality and match pretty seamlessly.  But in the days of HD, that means we see some pretty obvious jumping between the two tiers of quality, where it's obvious when we're watching the live vs filmed footage.  This could be a little annoying and immersion-breaking, but I'd say it's more than worth it considering how brilliant looking the footage is.  The opportunity to see the scenes in real cinema quality is something even original BBC viewers in 1958-59 got to appreciate.  So now let's dig a little deeper and compare the SD and HD restorations.

BBC's 2005 DVD top; BFI's 2018 blu bottom.

I remember popping in the 2000 DVD (which I no longer have, so sorry no screenshots from that edition) and being disappointed that they interlaced the transfer.  Now that I'm a little older and better informed, I realize that the broadcast television footage is inherently interlaced, that footage is just as interlaced on the 2005 and 2018 blu.  The live footage has pretty much peaked on the DVD; there's really no perceptible improvement over the DVD and blu.  Until, that is, you get to the 35mm footage.  That footage had already been restored once for the 2005 DVD, so it was already a very visible jump in quality over the live stuff (and no, that footage isn't interlaced), but as you can see, it's another big jump on this 2018 blu with natural film grain, cleaner lines and much clearer detail when you get in close.  Contrast is also a bit better, with truer blacks, but really it's all about that fine detail we're seeing for the very first time in 2018.

All editions preserve the original mono audio, but the BBC DVD restored and cleaned it up in Dolby Digital for their edition, making the dialogue a lot clearer.  The BFI blu utilizes that same restoration, but as the booklet states, "the reduced compression of the Blu-ray format mean[sic.] that this audio is now presented with far greater clarity than has ever previously been possible."  But the really noticeable jump in quality happened between the 2000 and 2005 DVDs.  The 2005 DVD also added optional English subtitles not included on the older disc, but which have been carried over to the new blu.

After Meridian's barebones edition, BBC's 2005 DVD came up with some nice special features, especially given the age of the original programs.  But because that's a set featuring all three BBC Quatermass serials, not all of the extras directly or exclusively apply to Quatermass and the Pit. I doubt there are very many Quatermass and the Pit fans who take a complete disinterest in The Quatermass Experiment and Quatermass II, but I'm just letting you know.  So the star special feature has got to be the 40-minute documentary, The Kneale Tapes, which interviews critics, Kneale and even the creators of The League of Gentlemen TV show on the entire Quatermass legacy. Then there's a great, 11 minute split interview with Kneale and Rudolph Cartier, director of all three original Quatermass serials.  There's a brief interview with the special effects team who made the aliens for Quatermass and the Pit, the alternate titles made for the abbreviated version of Quatermass and the Pit as seen on the 2000 DVD, a photo gallery and weird easter egg where footage from Quatermass II is overdubbed with comedic voices.  It also has an in-depth 48-page booklet.

The BFI's blu only ports over the stuff solely related to Quatermass and the Pit, so the special effects interview and the alternate credits, plus some of the photos from the gallery.  Hopefully, this means they're holding onto the rest for a planned upcoming restoration of the first two Quatermasses?!  Anyway, don't be disappointed, because BFI has come up with some stellar, extensive audio commentaries.  It's primarily presented by a comedian named Toby Hadoke, who thankfully plays it straight here and provides much of the standard, information-dump style of expert commentary, but over various episodes, he brings in various people who worked on or were connected with the series to join him, and also plays audio recordings he made of other cast and crew who are sadly no longer with us.  It all adds up to a pretty massive audio-documentary experience.  Toby also beefs up the photo gallery with never before seen images from the production, and there's a brief but informative 8-page booklet.

It's all good news for Quatermass fans. Anchor Bay's DVD of the film was excellent for the 90s, but the time has come to upgrade. And the serial has now gotten an equally impressive upgrade as well.  New, rewarding special features for both versions abound.  I was happy to double-dip from SC to SF for the additional features.  All these blus are a great way to remind yourself why Quatermass and the Pit, in each of its incarnations, was so impressive in the first place.