Nightbreed: The Director's Cut (1990) (Limited Edition - SOLD OUT)

[RedIsNotBlue]

Great news. Will pre-order as soon as it pops up. As much as I loved the theatrical release it never felt like I was watching a complete film so can't wait to check this out. Hopefully there are more Dr. Decker scenes.

[tak_a_tak]

I attended HorrorHound a few years back here in Indy where they showed a work print with additional footage, it was really good. A ton of stuff that had been cut. Can't wait to see it (hopefully) restored!

[redrunner97]

The Cabal Cut was shown here in Charlotte, NC a couple years ago, at The Mad Monster party, but I didn't see it.

[Mr. Thomsen]

Fantastic news! Hope they manage to find the actual film elements.

[coldheart]

[thompsonjohn]

I need some help here from Cliff or anyone please. On the Occupy Midian Facebook page there seems to be a big debate that this release will be DVD only, can someone please clarify for me here and confirm what I already know, that this will likely be a BOTH formats release or a combo pack release.

Their logic is that, the footage isn't 1080p so therefore no way sir will this go onto a blu-ray disc.

[RedIsNotBlue]

Originally Posted by thompsonjohn

I need some help here from Cliff or anyone please. On the Occupy Midian Facebook page there seems to be a big debate that this release will be DVD only, can someone please clarify for me here and confirm what I already know, that this will likely be a BOTH formats release or a combo pack release.

Their logic is that, the footage isn't 1080p so therefore no way sir will this go onto a blu-ray disc.

Only the unreleased footage will look mediocre at best, but the actual theatrical cut would benefit greatly from Blu-ray. I mean I might be able to understand that logic from someone who has actually seen the Cabal Cut for themselves and finds the transition in quality to be jarring.

[thompsonjohn]

The stupidity going on over there on the Facebook page is killing me here's their argument for it not being a blu-ray release..

Someone credited this quote to the Empire article.. "For the record I haven't gotten around to upgrading to blu yet either."

I tried to explain that they can't put a film they aren't done cleaning up the print for yet onto a disc.. It's falling on deaf ears.

[neveser]

Originally Posted by thompsonjohn

The stupidity going on over there on the Facebook page is killing me here's their argument for it not being a blu-ray release..

Someone credited this quote to the Empire article.. "For the record I haven't gotten around to upgrading to blu yet either."

I tried to explain that they can't put a film they aren't done cleaning up the print for yet onto a disc.. It's falling on deaf ears.

It's ok. I haven't gotten around to upgrading to color yet either.

[zbinks]

Originally Posted by thompsonjohn

The stupidity going on over there on the Facebook page is killing me here's their argument for it not being a blu-ray release..

Someone credited this quote to the Empire article.. "For the record I haven't gotten around to upgrading to blu yet either."

I tried to explain that they can't put a film they aren't done cleaning up the print for yet onto a disc.. It's falling on deaf ears.

From Facebook:

Originally Posted by Scream Factory

We are VERY excited that you guys are so excited!! We see you have lots of questions but for now, we do not have any specific details to share - and mostly won't for awhile as this will be a 2014 release for us. We know its hard to be patient, but we ask that you will be and that we are working on delivering you the best we can.

Last edited yesterday.

I wouldn't put much creedence into either side of the debate until Scream Factory or Occupy Midian representatives have official details to reveal about the upcoming home video project. Honestly, I don't anticipate this being available until 3rd or 4th Quarter 2014, so there may be a very long wait before any firm details are available.

[Scott J]

http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=38217

The official statements have left a few questions unanswered however, so Cherrington was happy to fill in the blanks for Empire.

Firstly, the ideal scenario was always that the actual original film elements would be found for the purposes of the restoration. Sadly, this hasn't happened, so the DVD will be produced using the second-best option of restoring the VHS for the extra scenes.

"There's still no sign of the negatives," opines Cherrington. "We've had a few leads that have all been dead ends, although I really hope we can find more film elements. They found most of the original Wicker Man on film just today, so it could happen!"

Secondly, a Blu-ray to go along with the DVD doesn't seem to be guaranteed at this point. But, says Cherrington, "I've spent the last year researching what can be done with the VHS materials, and I know that with money and time this can look at least as good as the Alien3 workprint. I have every hope for 1080p!"

I believe he's referring to the Assembly Cut of Alien 3 which was mastered from original 35mm elements stored in the Fox vaults, not VHS. Or have I missed something?

Scream Factory has a challenging road ahead in the video department if 35mm originals never turn up and they have to use the two workprints on PAL VHS. Doing the best possible VHS to HD Up-Res is difficult because every bit of detail is extremely precious in the lower resolution realm. In general, the same strength setting of Digital Noise Reduction or Artificial Sharpening will destroy more detail in the low-resolution PAL VHS workprints than it would to a HD Source.

So just for fun and speculation, here is what I believe to be the basic roadmap that Scream Factory will have to follow in order to best up-res and present the VHS footage in 1080p.

1) Capture - The technicians will have to harvest an image from the VHS that is as true to the source as possible. They do that by performing an uncompressed, 720x576 4:4:4 capture from a VHS Player that does not add any noise-reduction or artificial sharpening. At this low resolution stage, either of these will destroy detail and add halos (or enhance pre-existing halos) that will look even worse and artificial when resized to 1080p.

2) Framerate Conversion - Once captured, the film's original 24p framerate will have to be extracted from the PAL VHS 50i framerate. Depending on how either workprint was transferred to PAL 50i, this could be either one of the easiest or most difficult tasks of the restoration. If this process is done correctly, the entire presentation will be more seamless when it transitions back and forth between the high-quality 1080p/24p theatrical cut and the workprints.

3) Resize to HD - With the 720x576 workprint footage now running at 24 progressive frames per second and with as much of the original VHS detail preserved as possible (video noise included), the footage is resized to 1080p using a high-quality resizing method such as bicubic, lanczos, or spline.

4) Enhancement - Now at 1080p/24, the true to the source digitized VHS footage can be conservatively DNR'd and sharpened with modern tools without destroying detail or adding ghastly halos. VHS damage/lines can be manually cleaned-up frame by frame. Color correction will follow.

5) Text Removal - I believe I read somewhere that one of the workprints contained superimposed text on one of the corners of the screen. Hopefully this disappears when the film is cropped to 1.85:1. If not, then there are logo removal tools that may fit the bill, but they essentially just blur out the text and may look terrible. If the restoration budget is large enough, perhaps there is a way use CGI to remove the text.

And that's basically it. All of this will be necessary if the VHS footage is to be presented at 1080p/24. And I really think it should. AVC compression at this resolution would better preserve and present the footage than compression-riddled MPEG-2 on a DVD. This is especially true considering the length of the Cabal Cut. But either way, I'll be glad that I finally get to see this thing!

[Sodslaw]

Will be picking this up in due course but I hope they find (or have already found) the film prints of this to work with.
The Cabal cut onscreen was good to watch but the jumping from theatrical cut dvd to vhs additional scenes was just weird at times.
Someone hoped there was more Dr Dekker in it, afraid not as his scenes were already expanded at the original studios request to have more of a slasher movie feel to it.

[RedIsNotBlue]

Originally Posted by Sodslaw

Someone hoped there was more Dr Dekker in it, afraid not as his scenes were already expanded at the original studios request to have more of a slasher movie feel to it.

Ahhh shame. I highly disapprove of the studio cutting so much for the theatrical release but I have to say I'm glad they pushed for more Decker if that is the truth. Every scene of Cronenberg as Dr. Decker is golden.

[The Debts]

Oh god, I'm so happy. Watched the original cut earlier this year and while it was obviously flawed, I found it to be something of a masterpiece. It will be so wonderful to see this film in its pure glory.

Bring it on Scream Factory! I'll be waiting!

[stevenesq]

Fantastic news just watched it again in fact along with re-animator .Thanks Warner there is hope for you yet never thought i would be saying that.

[keithvg]

Just read this. I hope it's region free or gets picked up by British distributor.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...-year-20130819

[Sodslaw]

Originally Posted by keithvg

Just read this. I hope it's region free or gets picked up by British distributor.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplayli...-year-20130819

As its a Scream release I seriously doubt it will be region free ( fingers crossed for those that want this title )

[Seymour]

No mention of the theatrical cut in the press release today.

[norse_sage]

Originally Posted by Sodslaw

As its a Scream release I seriously doubt it will be region free ( fingers crossed for those that want this title )

Why oh why would they enforce region coding at all, let alone on this release?!?

An extremely sizable chunk of everyone who supported the Midian campaign are based in region B land, and the vast majority of those will not be able to enjoy a Blu-ray release restricted to region A only. They'll seriously cripple theri own sales numbers by imposing the evil and archaic region restriction, in addition to flipping of any Clive Barker and/or Nightbreed fan not based in the US.

[redrunner97]

Scream Factory doesn't choose to lock their releases, the studio they license the films from is in charge of that.

I think it will be Region Free.

Mainly because it seemingly wouldn't have any contractual issues that would make it be locked.