Santa Sangre (1989)
Thriller, Drama, Horror • 2h 2m
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Cast: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell, Thelma Tixou, Sabrina Dennison, Adan Jodorowsky, Faviola Elenka Tapia, Teo Jodorowsky, Jesús Juárez, Gloria Contreras, Mary Aranza, Sergio Bustamante, S. Rodriguez, Zonia Rangel Mora, Joaquín García Vargas, Teo Tapia, Edgar E. Jiménez Nava, Jacobo Lieberman, Héctor Ortega, Brontis Jodorowsky, Valérie Crouzet, Óscar Serafín Álvarez, Billy Motton, Hilario 'Popitekus' Vargas, Guadalupe 'TNT' Aguilar, Arturo 'Rinoceronte' Contreras, Gustavo Aguilar Tejada, Roger Fayard Arroyo
Upcoming
Umbrella 4K Blu-ray, part of Alejandro Jodorowsky Collector’s Edition, scheduled for November 2026 release
UHD tiers
bad encode
About the film
A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his mother – the leader of a strange religious cult – and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name.
- Alternative Titles
- Holy Blood
Arrow/US remastered abkco Blu-ray or Germany Bildstörung Blu-ray depending on preference
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
Umbrella 4K Blu-ray, part of Alejandro Jodorowsky Collector’s Edition, scheduled for November 2026 release
Directors: Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom
Australia Umbrella 4K Blu-ray encoded by FiM
Director: Mamoru Oshii
US GKIDS 4K Blu-ray authored by FiM
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
US GKIDS/Australia Umbrella 4K Blu-ray authored by FiM with identical encodes
UHD vs BD comparisons
4K restoration includes a high-fidelity Dolby Atmos remix sourced from new transfers of original magnetic elements, with inconsequential content differences from the original mono mix. Umbrella 4K Blu-ray only includes a 5.1 mixdown of the remix, other discs have it in Dolby Atmos.
Umbrella/GKIDS 4K Blu-ray's 2.0 track is a stereo downmix. Older BDs and LDs have the original mono mix in varying quality, but are all inferior in fidelity to the new Dolby Atmos remix. The digital track on the Bandai/Emotion Japan LaserDisc BELL-942 is the best of the bunch.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23714400&postcount=159
Only the GKIDS 4K Blu-ray has the English dub.
Director: Hal Needham
2026 Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray, 2025 Umbrella 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Maybe Umbrella Australia 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode), Plaion Germany 4K Blu-ray, or Pony Canyon Japan 4K Blu-ray. All other existing 4K Blu-rays have terrible compression: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=21423337&postcount=173
The master is heavily DNR'd.
Director: Richard Stanley
Umbrella AU 4K Blu-ray, encoded by Fidelity in Motion
Original matrixed Dolby Stereo mix: 2018 Ronin Flix US Blu-ray / 2009 Optimum UK Blu-ray
5.1 surround remix: Umbrella AU 4K Blu-ray / Umbrella Blu-ray
The 2.0 on the 4K Blu-ray is a downmix.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Spain Selecta Vision 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · linkedin.com (opens in a new tab) · dvdcompare.net (opens in a new tab)
Collector's edition of a new restoration from Umbrella
Spain Selecta Vision 4K Blu-ray > other releases and old 2006 release - impressions of Selecta Vision release
Comparison of extras between different releases:
https://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=999
https://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=9670
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Umbrella/Arrow 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode but the mastering shows signs of DNR albeit only momentarily); all other BDs pretty bad.
But whether in the correct speed/pitch is TBC.
Director: George A. Romero
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Mono: 35mm scan, old Shout! Factory and Australia Umbrella Blu-ray sounds better than the rest of the discs, but has noise reduction
Stereo: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray has a transfer of the 1986 Japan LaserDisc Stereo
Director: Richard Stanley
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
AU Umbrella 4K Blu-ray > US Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
The US/Theatrical Cut on the Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray is AI upscaled and has DNR, along with Kino Lorber's usual poor compression.
Director's Cut uses a proper transfer but suffers from terrible compression, even by Kino standards.
The Umbrella with its FiM encode looks blurrier due to a slight low-pass filter, but is still far better than Kino.
AU Umbrella 4K Blu-ray and US Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray are the same.
The 5.1 track is a direct port of the lossy NTSC DVD track.
More Thriller on Blu-ray
Director: Roman Polanski
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
UK 4K teased by 88 Films https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=24252379
Carlotta France 4K Blu-ray > Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray (better encode on Carlotta without any low-pass filtering, more extras and English subtitles on Vinegar Syndrome)
4K restoration of the original 3D left eye and right eye camera negatives
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Arrow has a different grade and a better encode than the Shout! Factory, though the difference in either is not major. Imprint release, which leaves Shout! Factory's master and subtitles as is, is encoded by FiM. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24473097&postcount=56
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray (similar to Criterion LaserDisc, but less distorted)
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Arrow used the alternate mix, but with extra filtering and lowered dynamic range. The alternate mix has much better fidelity.
Imprint presumably used the Shout! Factory original mix and left it as is, though no official confirmation.
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Criterion 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
1991 Orion LaserDisc vs 2024 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
Director: Jonathan Demme
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: vitalpassenger.com (opens in a new tab)
FiM are mistakenly credited, one of the four known instances of this for a Cinématographe title (the other three being Thieves Like Us, Who Killed Teddy Bear?, and The Gambler). 4K encode was done by Vital Passenger. https://vitalpassenger.com/our-work
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed, Imprint minimally less so. Unfortunately, unlike with The Killing, Kino does not hold up at all, the grain is much rougher and the compression visibly struggles making for a much less pleasant watch, even if select stills look better.
All discs use the same source transfer. Criterion cleaned up some hums and hiss, but lost a little bit of high-end detail. Unlike The Killing, the difference's relatively mino.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed. The compression is better, but some of the grain is lost. Difference is pronounced in screen caps, but not likely to be noticed during playback, without a reference to compare it to. Comparisons
All discs use the same source transfer. It's not of the highest quality, and it includes some slight distortion, looping, clicks, pops, and hum. Criterion cleaned it up for their release, but unfortunately also lost a lot of fidelity in the process.
MGM NTSC DVD doesn't seem to have some of the more prominent distortion and has slightly different EQ but is otherwise the same.
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
WB 4K
Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)
An undeniably significant improvement from the BD yet still severely flawed. See DFIC's review.
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: Rob Reiner
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · instagram.com (opens in a new tab)
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Kino Lorber/Germany Capelight - caps and audio comparison on this page. Discussion is still ongoing about the 2.0 but as none of the three 4Ks seem to have the true original mix, I think it's fair to leave them all in the blue tier for now and only note that Kino Lorber has the worst PQ.
The initial release of the Capelight 4K mediabook had some playback issues with Dolby Vision on Panasonic devices due to an encoding error, the HDR10 apparently works fine, see Capelight’s official response here.
The 4K master has a shot at the very end of the movie (on James Caan's face) that looks incredibly soft and not good at all. This was visible on the DCP as well so it might just be a source issue rather than being the fault of Kino, Capelight or Arrow.
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