Rock Shock Pop reviews Slaughterhouse: http://www.rockshockpop.com/forums/content.php?4803-Slaughterhouse 10K Bullets reviews Slaughterhouse: http://10kbullets.com/reviews/s/slaughterhouse-88-films-bluray/
It's probably not as big a deal when in motion I'd guess. I'll likely check out the film before making any purchase anyway.
It really didn't bother me much while watching it. If I wouldn't have seen the screenshot comparisons, I probably wouldn't have noticed. Hmm, that review has some technical inaccuracies in it. The bonus feature materials on the Blu-ray are 480i content (not 1080p) — except for the film's theatrical trailer and the 88 Films trailer reel...which are 1080p. I also forgot that the director has mentioned this before: "did not use any lamps to light scenes, since they could not afford them." — so a lot of the dark scenes are probably just overly dark by the very nature they were filmed.
got it today, and I prefer black to milky grey Still keeping the dvd though ( probably wouldn't get anything here in Norway for it anyway)
To anyone who has ordered directly from 88 Films to the US, how long did your order take to arrive? I signed up for an account and placed an order for 3 titles, which were shipped fairly quickly, but if it takes 3 weeks to arrive I'll just order from Diabolik as they become available. I'm very impatient when it comes to these things.
Shipping from the UK can be either fast or slow. I've had packages arrived within a few days...or take up to two months to arrive. Stuff normally on average takes about 1-2 weeks though, in my experience at least.
You know maybe that's it. It's really dark, VERY contrasty, and more damage on the print than I am used to. I'm surprised it is from the negative - but maybe they just used high contrast, grainy stock and didn't use much lighting equipment. I thought the last 30 minutes of the film rolled along nicely with a lot of mood, didn't love the real slaughterhouse footage in the opening credit sequence and could have done without the campy music… that's me though.
^ It also helps if your TV is properly calibrated in all areas. A lot of people just have their contrast set far too high, etc.. I use the Spears & Munsil HD Benchmark disc which helps finely tune just about anything. It's $30, but more than worth it to get the very best out of your set.
I can play around with it… but my other Blu's look pristine with accurate blacks and color levels. I did see one single shot, near the end of the movie, that appeared washed out, leading me to believe that you are right Katatonia, that the film is just very dark. If there was one main light source and/or high contrast stock it could just be that this is how the film looks. It's just unusual enough that it throws me a bit. I'm probably just spoiled with some of the Blu's I've been seeing come out lately. This was is just a less revelatory experience overall, but it may very well be what the film looks like.
For the record - I am down to support ALL of these companies. As long as they are delivering upgrades and giving these movies the respect they deserve, they get my support.
I also received Mother's Day in the mail earlier. It certainly blows away the Anchor Bay Blu-ray in all areas. The movie itself takes up 26+ gigs of space on the BD50, and the lossless audio definitely has more punch to it.
Who did you order from? Mine shipped directly from 88 Films last Wednesday. I'm just trying to get an idea of how long they usually take as this is the first time I've ordered directly from them.
I'm waiting on mine from Amazon UK, so with Kat and eric receiving theirs, I hope that bodes well for me getting it tomorrow.
Well dammit, so the upgrade is very noticable? I was hoping for one less double dip, but this is a favorite
It looked better to me. Not too surprising though, given the much higher bit-rate of the encode. I think the lossless audio is really the big improvement though, it sounded fuller and more defined.
Worth clarifying, there is no PAL content on the disc. All of the bonus material should play without issue in any U.S. blu-ray player, regardless of whether or not your TV / blu-ray player is PAL compatible. The extras are NTSC, and it's the same stuff from the old Program Power DVD. So even though it's from a 480i source, I'm assuming it's encoded on the disc as 1080p in order to avoid issues with NTSC / PAL, keeping it entirely region free. As for the transfer, it was a little dark here and there, and far from the greatest hi-def transfer I've seen. But it definitely didn't seem as dark as those screengrabs suggest, and I thought it looked very nice all things considered. I didn't feel like the darker scenes were dark enough to where detail was lost. To me, it seemed akin to watching a 35mm print (even noticed the occasional cigarette burn). If you're talking about the scene where he's standing in the doorway talking to the Sheriff, that definitely seemed like a stylistic choice. I'm pretty sure that was the same way on the old DVD, but unfortunately I sold mine so I can't check. I'm extremely happy with the 88Films blu-ray and have no regrets about selling my DVD, however I do wish I had grabbed the screenplay off the DVD-ROM before selling it. Oh well.
That's the scene. Could be a stylistic choice. Not sure I saw the motivation of him in darkness, but could have been a choice. It was just weird that the foreground was daylight, if I recall correctly. Beyond the credit sequence in a real slaughterhouse (I hate real animal violence), I thought the film was fine, nice mid-level 80s VHS rental type movie.
