Posted by TB on 09/06/05 21:37

Picked it up this morning and skimmed through a few movies, notably Brides
of Dracula, Curse of the Werewolf and Phantom of the Opera.

Basically so far, I have to agree with everything the rave review on the DVD
Drive-in website said about this set. (see link)

http://www.dvddrive-in.com/reviews/e-h/hammerhorrorseries6064.htm

With the exception of Night Creatures, I have the old laserdiscs of these
movies, most of which had fairly nice transfers for their time of these
movies and without question, the dvd versions blow the LDs out of the water.

A couple key things that I don't recall being mentioned in that review, one
being the dvds are dual layer, dual sided so the individual movies run just
under 4 Gigs per title. So the fear that these movies would be compressed
beyond belief on single layer, dual sided dvds is thankfully not true. In
fact, every movie's transfer just looks amazing. While not as
fantasmagorically color saturated as the laserdisc transfers, colors look
solid, stable and more natural without sacrificing the rich color schemes
the early Hammer films were noted for.

Also, the 16:9 framing doesn't seem to significantly crop anything on the
top or bottom (I noticed just a hair less video on the top and bottom on
CotW, but you'd have to really, really look for it) of any of the movie's
framing to accommodate the more severe letterbox format then previous home
video versions. Brides especially as a lot better framing revealing a lot of
previously unseen info on the sides.

I noticed on Brides of Dracula, the scene in which the Baroness gets staked
actually has a quick second or so more gore as the scene lingers on the
blood welling out around the stake unlike any previous version on home video
I've seen which quickly cuts to the curtains which actually is held as a
still frame to cover for the cut without a cut in the soundtrack before
Cushing's character pulls them down to cover the body.

Overall, while I still wish Universal at least put this out on one sided
dvds (making it a 4 disc set) to lessen the likelihood of scratched discs
from handling, etc, I have to say this set as it is is the dvd bargain of
the year for classic horror aficionados, especially for Hammer fans.

Quite honestly, I don't miss any possible extras that could have been
included in this set as long as the quality and fidelity to the original
releases of these movies has been honored, which it has, imo.

T.B.

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