Halloween 4K UHD (1978)

[gj217]

Originally Posted by Telemachus

Is there anything better or unique about the 2007 Blu? I put it in once since it comes with the Shout 4k, and besides the trees looking a bit different on the street scenes it just looked like an old Blu ray.

Unique? Yes. Better? Hard no for me.

The colors are grossly oversaturated and hot. People often look “cooked.” The brightness is cranked up too high in several segments, augmenting the grain and making it look clumpy. Some other parts are smeary, bordering on waxy. I’ve never found that transfer particularly good (hated it since the 2003 DVD version of it). Yet I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every transfer since.

Originally Posted by BladeRunner2007

Way different color timing. Daytime scenes look very hot and orange. Some nighttime scenes lack the blue color.

This.

Originally Posted by Diskmaster

It has the original colour timing.

Originally Posted by BobSimms

Isn’t the 2013 grade the one that turns the green leaves of Los Angeles into golden brown “autumn” leaves? I hate that. It most certainly isn’t closer to the “original color timing” (whatever that might have been) than the 2007 disc. It’s just a matter of personal preference for me.

No. The colors of foliage and things like that haven’t been directly manipulated since the 1999 DVD. The daytime scenes in the 2003/07 and 2013 transfers do have different color grades, but on a blanket level. The 2013 transfer (2018 and 2021 transfers are generally pretty similar to it, but the 2021 is more saturated) leaves the leaves and grass alone, but the color grade is “colder.”

Originally Posted by BladeRunner2007

Wrong. The 2013 transfer restored the original look of the original theatrical exhibition in 1978. This is how the film looked before all the DVDs and Blu-rays altered the film's colors in order to make it look and feel more like autumn.

I don’t think it’s totally accurate to the original exhibition, but I do think it’s a LOT closer than the 2007 disc or the 1999 and 2003 DVDs.

Originally Posted by DR Herbert West

I really hate that 2007 disc.

Same, man. Same.

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

The best thing about it is the legacy commentary with Carpenter, Hill, and Curtis.

Originally Posted by jess1581

Word. I'm still glad it's included in the 4K set.

You mean Lionsgate’s version? Because that commentary track absolutely not in the Shout set.

[Zombie Dude]

I haven’t watched that 2007 blu for quite some time now, but I do feel like the current 4K feels weirdly desaturated.

[Noir Black Schwarz]

Originally Posted by cuzzin

Neither of those statements is particularly accurate.

How? Please explain to me how a mono track could be better than an Atmos track.

[GeoffOliver]

I don't mind the desaturated look on the Shout 4K. I've never been to Illinois, but in Virginia where I'm from, mid-fall can look pretty similar to how it looks there. Autumn isn't always orange and brown. Sometimes it's grey and light green. I associate the orange leaves more with November and Thanksgiving. October can be very overcast, with only some of the leaves changing color. It depends on the year too.

And I adore the 1995 Criterion Laserdisc commentary. I literally just listened to it again. Not only does it have a wealth of information, but there's a lot of interesting analysis too from all three participants. I recorded an MP3 of it before I sold my boxset. I just listened to it with earbuds with the Shout disc on mute, syncing it as best I could (not a big deal for a commentary).

[DR Herbert West]

Originally Posted by Noir Black Schwarz

How? Please explain to me how a mono track could be better than an Atmos track.

I'm still waiting on an Atmos track that beats a mono track.

[gj217]

Originally Posted by Noir Black Schwarz

How? Please explain to me how a mono track could be better than an Atmos track.

By actually using the original sound effects and score recordings.

[DAT_JB]

Watched the UK 4K from LG last night again to start the season. I thought I had read everything important in this thread regarding the comparison between the Shout and LG 4K but apparently I never really did..

I've watched the LG disc twice now. Both times with the "Original mono track" and both times I wondered why the track is so muffled and why I have to turn the volume up so much. After finally coming back to this thread I now know what's up with the track.

Will have any eye on the Shout disc now but I'll wait for when it's on sale the next time as the slipcase is probably long OOP and my next watch of Halloween won't be until next year at the earliest.

[crissrudd4554]

Originally Posted by Noir Black Schwarz

How? Please explain to me how a mono track could be better than an Atmos track.

Revisions were made to the mix (new sound effects for example) that don’t reflect the original sound design we’re made when converting the audio to surround. It’s not just a matter of expanding the mix to additional channels. Other revisions were made.

[LSK]

Originally Posted by crissrudd4554

Revisions were made to the mix (new sound effects for example) that don’t reflect the original sound design we’re made when converting the audio to surround. It’s not just a matter of expanding the mix to additional channels. Other revisions were made.

So, Carpenter is not allowed to supervise a better sound mix for his film, if that's what he wants?

What you think sounds better, and what he thinks sounds better, are two completely different things.

[crissrudd4554]

Originally Posted by LSK

So, Carpenter is not allowed to supervise a better sound mix for his film, if that's what he wants?

What you think sounds better, and what he thinks sounds better, are two completely different things.

Did I say one sounds better than the other?? I was merely stating what was different for those who keep asking why people are so adamant about having the mono track.

PS the mono track is still included along with the Atmos mix anyways so whether Carpenter thinks one is better or not is sorta irrelevant.

[Geoff D]

Ah, good old "better". So much forums inanity is down to that one little word because it means something different to everyone.

[balthazar_bee]

Originally Posted by Zombie Dude

I haven’t watched that 2007 blu for quite some time now, but I do feel like the current 4K feels weirdly desaturated.

Originally Posted by GeoffOliver

I don't mind the desaturated look on the Shout 4K.

Isn't it the Lionsgate 4K that looks desaturated?

I don't have strong objections to either transfer, though I do prefer the Shout precisely because it has a more vivid colour palette, one that lines up with how I remember the film looking. The Lionsgate has chams of its own, but daytime stuff (particularly Loomis in the phonebooth at the train crossing) looks comparatively so dim and grey it feels a bit revisionist.

[Kyle15]

Originally Posted by LSK

So, Carpenter is not allowed to supervise a better sound mix for his film, if that's what he wants?

What you think sounds better, and what he thinks sounds better, are two completely different things.

lol

[vailsy]

Originally Posted by crissrudd4554

Revisions were made to the mix (new sound effects for example) that don’t reflect the original sound design we’re made when converting the audio to surround. It’s not just a matter of expanding the mix to additional channels. Other revisions were made.

stating the obvious but other revisions probably had to be made since those various sound effects were not clean enough to play separated out into specific speakers.. the futility lies mainly in even attempting to convert an old mono track into a modern surround or atmos one in the first place

a lot of the time i guess directors have pet peeves also about certain sound effects.. eg. the thunder in Halloween that was changed since the previous was very spooky castle retro sounding, probably a super recognizable old library sound, even though that original sound has charm and definitely fits Donald Pleasance's old school vocal delivery 'better'. the infamous changing of Obi Wan's krayt dragon roar in a new hope, again the original actually sounded like something that a person might vocalize and fit the texture of the rest of the soundtrack whereas the later one did not sound that way at all and stood out like a sore thumb:

Obi-Wan's Grunt Call Scene Comparison 1977-2016 - YouTube

countless soundtracks have been permanently butchered in this way, Terminator and Jaws spring to mind, and many directors eg. Hitchcock were not around to 'supervise' (very big quotation marks anyway) this process, eg. the Psycho shower scene

if we can have both then no problem, but if one is compromised to create the other as often seems to be the case, mainly to pacify a bunch of *cough audiophiles, that's a different matter

[Telemachus]

I just want a better Halloween

[GeoffOliver]

Originally Posted by balthazar_bee

Isn't it the Lionsgate 4K that looks desaturated?

I don't have strong objections to either transfer, though I do prefer the Shout precisely because it has a more vivid colour palette, one that lines up with how I remember the film looking. The Lionsgate has chams of its own, but daytime stuff (particularly Loomis in the phonebooth at the train crossing) looks comparatively so dim and grey it feels a bit revisionist.

It still looks a bit desaturated to me, but maybe I’m just used to the DVD transfer that I watched a million times. No complaints though. I’ve watched the disc a few times now and nothing about it looks or sounds off to me.

[Markgway]

Originally Posted by LSK

So, Carpenter is not allowed to supervise a better sound mix for his film, if that's what he wants?

Carpenter can create a 21-channel up yer bum out yer nostril uber-mix for all I care... as long as the original is included.

What you think sounds better, and what he thinks sounds better, are two completely different things.

And only one of those is important to me.

[LSK]

Originally Posted by Markgway

Carpenter can create a 21-channel up yer bum out yer nostril uber-mix for all I care... as long as the original is included.

If the original is a good one. Sure.

I've just seen Halloween 4 on UHD, and the Atmos track on that one is great. I switched between all the available tracks, and found the Atmos the best - impressive and very atmospheric. I don't need 21 channels and constant surround envelopment, especially not on the original, older, Halloween films; I would be fine with a nice stereo track on those, but I don't know if the original Halloween had one, or if it was mono only, up until it was mixed again for 5.1.

[gj217]

Originally Posted by LSK

If the original is a good one. Sure.

I've just seen Halloween 4 on UHD, and the Atmos track on that one is great. I switched between all the available tracks, and found the Atmos the best - impressive and very atmospheric. I don't need 21 channels and constant surround envelopment, especially not on the original, older, Halloween films; I would be fine with a nice stereo track on those, but I don't know if the original Halloween had one, or if it was mono only, up until it was mixed again for 5.1.

Halloween was indeed mono until 1999, when it was restored for DVD after the backlash on the initial 1997 disc. That disc was a doozy. Very, very murky and blocky.

It was remixed for the 1999 THX DVD by Chace Studios, with a wildly different sound for much of the score and some of the sound effects and stingers. Every remix since (TrueHD and Atmos) has been based on this mix. The only stereo track was a fold-down on said DVD.

[Zombie Dude]

Originally Posted by balthazar_bee

Isn't it the Lionsgate 4K that looks desaturated?

I don't have strong objections to either transfer, though I do prefer the Shout precisely because it has a more vivid colour palette, one that lines up with how I remember the film looking. The Lionsgate has chams of its own, but daytime stuff (particularly Loomis in the phonebooth at the train crossing) looks comparatively so dim and grey it feels a bit revisionist.

To me Shouts 4K still has a desaturated look to it. I grew up watching the old more colourful transfer so I think that’s just what I’m used to seeing when it comes to the film. Whether that’s a more faithful colour palette I don’t know. Last few times I’ve watched the film is the new 4K, so I’ve gotten a bit more used to it. Just can’t help but feel it looks more dull than it should.