The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971)
Horror • 1h 37m
Director: Piers Haggard
Cast: Patrick Wymark, Linda Hayden, Barry Andrews, Michele Dotrice, Wendy Padbury, Anthony Ainley, Charlotte Mitchell, Tamara Ustinov, Simon Williams, James Hayter, Howard Goorney, Avice Landone, Roberta Tovey, Robin Davies, Geoffrey Hughes, Anna Wing, Peter Ardran, Godfrey James, Yvonne Paul, Jason Twelvetrees, Milton Reid, Eric Mason
UHD tiers
(German Import) (best BDs are the Severin or Screenbound)
About the film
The accidental unearthing of Satan’s earthly remains causes the children of a 17th-century English village to slowly convert into a coven of devil worshipers.
Director: Lam Nai-choi
88 Films UK or Vinegar Syndrome US Blu-ray (preference)
Different color gradings, 88 Films disc is encoded by FiM but Vinegar Syndrome encode (by Marcus Johnson) is more than robust
Vinegar Syndrome potentially has better audio than 88 Films, due to VinSyn possibly having EQ'd the audio mix after Fortune Star scanned the track in a way that makes it sound too hot, whereas 88 left it alone without addressing that issue. However, no direct comparisons exist
Director: Iain Softley
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Both 88 Films and Germany Capelight are superior to the Shout! Factory in HDR10 but their FEL layer may even things out. Objectively, the Capelight looks best as they avoided the chroma blocking that’s visible in 88’s disc but they in turn included an Atmos mix. I have the Shout! Factory, love how it looks and the 4K transfer is spectacular. https://slow.pics/c/vPmFQSAH
Shout! Factory has the exclusive The Beauty of the Baud and the You Can't Stop Us All featurettes.
Germany Filmjuwelen 4K Blu-ray is disappointing with AI upscaling
Director: Michael Mann
Director: James Wong
UK 88 Films 4K Blu-ray in November encoded by FiM
Director: Deran Sarafian
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
MVD 4K Blu-ray beautiful remaster but with frame rate skips (encoding error)
Directors: Brian Taylor & Mark Neveldine
UK 88 Films 4K Blu-ray in November
88 Films and Vinegar Syndrome have different extras
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
UK 88 Films 4K Blu-ray See caps
DE Nameless 4K Blu-ray is an extremely poor AI upscale. See caps
More Horror on Blu-ray
4K restoration of the original 3D left eye and right eye camera negatives
Directors: Ernest B. Schoedsack & Merian C. Cooper
Director: Bernard Rose
Scream Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray or Turbine 4K Blu-Ray
SF and Turbine also have the 2004 Audio Commentary with Bernard Rose, Clive Barker, Alan Poul and actors Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd and Kasi Lemmons
Director: Peter Jackson
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Both will look identical in motion but the Turbine looks marginally better due to a higher bitrate allocation by each cut being given its own disc, whereas Arrow had FiM seamlessly branch the two onto one. However, Arrow has both cuts in Open Matte (on Blu-Ray) and corrected the opening Universal logo's aspect ratio. https://slow.pics/c/McvVcYDG
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Criterion 4K Blu-ray also includes exclusive "Reborn Cut"
Director: Tobe Hooper
4K Blu-ray has both the original Dolby Stereo mix and a 5.1 remix.
HBO Max Streaming includes the theatrical version with original credits, goofs. 1080p with the 5.1 remix
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Included in the Complete Kubrick box set with FiM encode of the same master from the WB release without the filtering, 1.85 ratio restored for US Cut; both US and International Cuts are 4K.
US Cut: 1999 WB DVD/Criterion 4K Blu-ray
No Blu-ray or DVD release until the Criterion 4K Blu-ray has presented the US in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The International Cut has never been presented in it's OAR of 1.66:1 in any home video releases.
The packaging on the back of the WB 4K Blu-ray incorrectly states it as 1.85:1 when the movie is actually 1.78:1 as is the original Blu-ray.
Director: Lewis Teague
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > disappointing US Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
Director: Alexandre Aja
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