Halloween 4K UHD (1978)

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by russweiss1

Last night I saw this on a large screen at Regal. I've seen the film several times but this was my first theatrical viewing. The print was soft in spots but still looked good overall. The musical cues really stood out during this viewing.

This is the first time I found myself thinking Carpenter was kind of a pervert when he filmed this. All of the stalking scenes with Michael just staring at the various girls (including young Michael), Annie getting butter on her clothes so she has to remove them, Annie getting stuck in the window with her panties pointed to the camera, Lynda's sex scene and murder.

Are you still a fan of the movie? If so, your viewpoint is quite telling.

[KubrickKurasawa]

Originally Posted by Jay H.

Are you still a fan of the movie? If so, your viewpoint is quite telling.

TrIgGeReD.

[Show spoiler]

[jwp7d]

Just watched the UHD again tonight, and it has to be one of worst UHD discs I have seen in terms of compression. So much so that I popped in the accompanying BD for comparison and actually thought it looked better than the UHD, even though it also has mediocre compression and obviously lower resolution.

Hopefully we will get a new UHD in the next year or so with a better encode, because the transfer itself is by far the best the film has ever looked imo.

[K9 Mark V]

I've just finished rewatching the SF release of this in preparation for Halloween Ends and I was wondering if anyone else noticed this little oddity in the atmos mix. Around the half hour-ish mark, when Laurie and her friends are walking home from school and Michael drives by them before stopping, when he stops, I remember in previous sound mixes (can't confirm the mono at this moment, fairly certain it was in that mix, but I can confirm I remember it being in the 5.1 mix) when Michael stops the car, the music pitches up slightly higher. I'm not sure if this was for artistic effect or a mistake with the final sound mix. Either way, that change in pitch is now gone in the Atmos mix. Anyone else notice this?

[Zombie Dude]

Originally Posted by jwp7d

Just watched the UHD again tonight, and it has to be one of worst UHD discs I have seen in terms of compression. So much so that I popped in the accompanying BD for comparison and actually thought it looked better than the UHD, even though it also has mediocre compression and obviously lower resolution.

Hopefully we will get a new UHD in the next year or so with a better encode, because the transfer itself is by far the best the film has ever looked imo.

If that's the case then I can only assume watching it in DV fixes most of these issues as I don't recall it looking bad. I'm still not a massive fan of the colour timing but that's a separate issue.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Originally Posted by K9 Mark V

I've just finished rewatching the SF release of this in preparation for Halloween Ends and I was wondering if anyone else noticed this little oddity in the atmos mix. Around the half hour-ish mark, when Laurie and her friends are walking home from school and Michael drives by them before stopping, when he stops, I remember in previous sound mixes (can't confirm the mono at this moment, fairly certain it was in that mix, but I can confirm I remember it being in the 5.1 mix) when Michael stops the car, the music pitches up slightly higher. I'm not sure if this was for artistic effect or a mistake with the final sound mix. Either way, that change in pitch is now gone in the Atmos mix. Anyone else notice this?

Yeah they "fixed" that "error" for the Dolby TrueHD 7.1 track on the 35th anniversary BD release. It's still on all the other tracks though AFAIK. The Atmos must've either derived from that 7.1 track or they "fixed" it again. I still have no clue if that pitch was actually an error or an artistic choice originally though.

[JCRW82]

Originally Posted by K9 Mark V

I've just finished rewatching the SF release of this in preparation for Halloween Ends and I was wondering if anyone else noticed this little oddity in the atmos mix. Around the half hour-ish mark, when Laurie and her friends are walking home from school and Michael drives by them before stopping, when he stops, I remember in previous sound mixes (can't confirm the mono at this moment, fairly certain it was in that mix, but I can confirm I remember it being in the 5.1 mix) when Michael stops the car, the music pitches up slightly higher. I'm not sure if this was for artistic effect or a mistake with the final sound mix. Either way, that change in pitch is now gone in the Atmos mix. Anyone else notice this?

The pitch shift was most likely an error that they would have had no time to fix back when the film was originally released. John Carpenter was on a very tight deadline for the audio and sound of the film and they were forced to rush things to the finish line.

[JCRW82]

Originally Posted by jwp7d

Just watched the UHD again tonight, and it has to be one of worst UHD discs I have seen in terms of compression. So much so that I popped in the accompanying BD for comparison and actually thought it looked better than the UHD, even though it also has mediocre compression and obviously lower resolution.

Hopefully we will get a new UHD in the next year or so with a better encode, because the transfer itself is by far the best the film has ever looked imo.

For curiosity sake, what production companies are performing great encodes for UHD releases? This has become such a recurring theme for Shout Factory, you would think they would have switched over to another contractor to handle that work. That decision has to be boiling down to cost over quality.

[Brian81]

Originally Posted by JCRW82

For curiosity sake, what production companies are performing great encodes for UHD releases? This has become such a recurring theme for Shout Factory, you would think they would have switched over to another contractor to handle that work. That decision has to be boiling down to cost over quality.

Arrow, Second Sight, Synapse, BFI


Granted there is an insanely small sample size for the last two. I think Kino isn't far behind, for the most part. But some releases have some issues. Shout is an odd one, they have some really nice looking ones and they have some abysmal ones. The Fog and Lifeforce look great but then you have Halloween/II and The Craft.

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by Brian81

Arrow, Second Sight, Synapse, BFI


Granted there is an insanely small sample size for the last two. I think Kino isn't far behind, for the most part. But some releases have some issues. Shout is an odd one, they have some really nice looking ones and they have some abysmal ones. The Fog and Lifeforce look great but then you have Halloween/II and The Craft.

Their encodes have been coming out of Fidelity in Motion. Arrow uses them and this one other group I forget the name of. Second Sight and Synapse seem to be exclusively FiM though.

Shout Factory seems to use multiple encoding houses so I can't tell you what when. One of em is Duplitech and I'm pretty sure they're pumping out the worst discs.

[BluProofie]

I’m still kind of surprised this disc got so much hate. I rewatched a few nights ago and only noticed a few minor instances of macroblocking. Obviously not ideal, but far from a StudioCanal disaster IMO.

I actually had bigger issues with Kino’s Body Snatchers. To me, the chroma issues were much more apparent than anything on this disc.

[russweiss1]

Originally Posted by Jay H.

Are you still a fan of the movie? If so, your viewpoint is quite telling.

I gave the film an 8/10. Always thought it was a good film but not my favorite Carpenter.

[dylrichard02]

Just got back from a theatrical screening. My first time seeing a film by my favorite director on the big screen! I would also love to see The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China , and Assault on Precinct 13 to name a few!

Fwiw, they screened the 2013, 35th Anniversary master. It was a Regal cinema.

[PowellPressburger]

Does anyone know if John Carpenter's cigarette smoke was removed from the Hedge scene?

Asking for a friend. (I'd assume if it has, it was done years ago.

[BluProofie]

Originally Posted by PowellPressburger

Does anyone know if John Carpenter's cigarette smoke was removed from the Hedge scene?

Asking for a friend. (I'd assume if it has, it was done years ago.

No one ever has.

[moviebuff75]

The Blu Ray from the boxed set is still my favorite transfer.

[stvn1974]

[steel_breeze]

Originally Posted by moviebuff75

The Blu Ray from the boxed set is still my favorite transfer.

I can totally see that. TOtally. (Linda reference intentional) There's great texture and coarse grain on that transfer, coming from an interpositive instead of the o-neg. And of course it had the original mono, unlike the 35th Anniversary disc. I really dig it, as well. The new 4K disc just barely edges it out, for me, because of the improved color timing... but I've traded out the new Blu-ray and am keeping that older boxed-set disc you're talking about as the 1080p backup version in my 3-disc UHD case.

[stvn1974]

Halloween is my fifth favorite Carpenter film. It is still a 5/5 but it just goes to show how great a filmmaker he was/is and how great those other four films are.

[AllOuttaBubbleGum]

Originally Posted by steel_breeze

I can totally see that. TOtally. (Linda reference intentional) There's great texture and coarse grain on that transfer, coming from an interpositive instead of the o-neg. And of course it had the original mono, unlike the 35th Anniversary disc. I really dig it, as well. The new 4K disc just barely edges it out, for me, because of the improved color timing... but I've traded out the new Blu-ray and am keeping that older boxed-set disc you're talking about as the 1080p backup version in my 3-disc UHD case.

I almost upgraded the 35th from the boxed set, thinking it a wee bit desaturated and subdued looking, but I sweetened up the saturation a tad (it holds the color well), nudged the contrast up a click and...wango, everything dropped into place. That jack-o'-lantern frown was turned upside down. I think the IP texture of this transfer makes for a great pairing with Shout's '18 steelbook edition of Halloween II; a rich, "whole-grain" double feature.