The Skeleton Key (2005)
Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller • 1h 44m
Overview
A hospice nurse working at a spooky New Orleans plantation home finds herself entangled in a mystery involving the house's dark past.
Director: Iain Softley
Cast: Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard, John Hurt, Joy Bryant, Marion Zinser, Maxine Barnett, Fahnlohnee R. Harris, Deneen Tyler, Ann Dalrymple, Trula M. Marcus, Jen Apgar, Thomas Uskali, Jamie Lee Redmon, Forrest Landis, Tonya Staten, Isaach de Bankolé, Christa Thorne, Ronald McCall, Jeryl Prescott, Lakrishi Kindred, Sabah, Joe Chrest, David J. Curtis, Tiffany Helland, Brian Ruppert
Director: Iain Softley
Capelight Germany 4K Blu-ray. 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 include an Atmos mix. I have the Shout! Factory, love how it looks and the 4K transfer is spectacular. https://slow.pics/c/vPmFQSAH
Director: Iain Softley
Capelight Germany 4K Blu-ray. 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 include an Atmos mix. I have the Shout! Factory, love how it looks and the 4K transfer is spectacular. https://slow.pics/c/vPmFQSAH
Director: Iain Softley
Director: Iain Softley
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Canada Blu-ray or Netherlands Blu-ray?
better than Constantin Germany 4K Blu-ray and Australia Imprint 4K Blu-ray
Australia Imprint 4K Blu-ray's encode is awful.
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Canada Blu-ray or Netherlands Blu-ray?
better than Constantin Germany 4K Blu-ray and Australia Imprint 4K Blu-ray
Australia Imprint 4K Blu-ray's encode is awful.
Director: Jack Cardiff
Director: Jack Cardiff
Director: Martin Scorsese
Imprint Australia 4K Blu-ray has slightly better compression than Criterion 4K Blu-ray.
The master in DV looks all but identical to the Criterion’s HDR grade. Detail-wise, FiM’s encode looks like it uncovered a tiny bit of extra high-frequency information that got filtered on the Criterion. See nicolas review
1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1993 MGM LaserDisc/2002 R2 MGM DVD are the best. See blah-ray https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/2018/01/raging-bull-1980.html
Imprint Australia 4K Blu-ray has better audio than Criterion 4K Blu-ray, from nicolas:
I believe that what’s on Imprint’s 4K is one of the good mixes MGM and Criterion released during the LaserDisc days. Music is powerful and detailed, dialogues have excellent fidelity and ambient sounds have perceptible depth. I compared the "new" 2.0 with the anemic 5.1 as well as the Criterion 4K mix and could clearly hear the improvements.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Imprint Australia 4K Blu-ray has slightly better compression than Criterion 4K Blu-ray.
The master in DV looks all but identical to the Criterion’s HDR grade. Detail-wise, FiM’s encode looks like it uncovered a tiny bit of extra high-frequency information that got filtered on the Criterion. See nicolas review
1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1993 MGM LaserDisc/2002 R2 MGM DVD are the best. See blah-ray https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/2018/01/raging-bull-1980.html
Imprint Australia 4K Blu-ray has better audio than Criterion 4K Blu-ray, from nicolas:
I believe that what’s on Imprint’s 4K is one of the good mixes MGM and Criterion released during the LaserDisc days. Music is powerful and detailed, dialogues have excellent fidelity and ambient sounds have perceptible depth. I compared the "new" 2.0 with the anemic 5.1 as well as the Criterion 4K mix and could clearly hear the improvements.
Director: David Lynch
Censored US version: Shout! Factory or Twilight Time Blu-ray
Uncensored version: old DVD
Australia Imprint Blu-ray upcoming included in After Dark Neo-Noir Cinema Vol. 4
2026 Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Censored US version: Shout! Factory or Twilight Time Blu-ray
Uncensored version: old DVD
Director: David Lynch
Censored US version: Shout! Factory or Twilight Time Blu-ray
Uncensored version: old DVD
Australia Imprint Blu-ray upcoming included in After Dark Neo-Noir Cinema Vol. 4
2026 Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Censored US version: Shout! Factory or Twilight Time Blu-ray
Uncensored version: old DVD
Director: Robert De Niro
Director: Robert De Niro
UK 88 Films 4K Blu-ray in October
Australia Imprint Blu-ray?
Germany Filmjuwelen 4K Blu-ray is disappointing with AI upscaling
UK 88 Films 4K Blu-ray in October
Australia Imprint Blu-ray?
Germany Filmjuwelen 4K Blu-ray is disappointing with AI upscaling
Director: Steven Shainberg
Director: Steven Shainberg
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Director: Elliott Nugent
Kino Lorber Blu-ray is a newer 4K restoration than Imprint Blu-ray and significantly better see caps
No information on French Elephant Films Blu-ray
Director: Elliott Nugent
Kino Lorber Blu-ray is a newer 4K restoration than Imprint Blu-ray and significantly better see caps
No information on French Elephant Films Blu-ray
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
UK ICON 4K Blu-ray (caps)
UK 4K Blu-ray has a slightly better encode than US Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray and Germany StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray
5.1 mix is flawed on Shout! Factory/ICON, a phasey upmix instead of the proper discrete surround. The UHD 2.0 tracks are downmixes of that track.
2008 Fox Blu-ray sounds great, very close to the original 70mm mix, only with split surround.
2001 DVD has the original mix as 4.1 and matrixed 2.0.
Imprint 4K has a 4.0 track. The StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray has a different 5.1, unclear if it's the same as Fox BD.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
UK ICON 4K Blu-ray (caps)
UK 4K Blu-ray has a slightly better encode than US Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray and Germany StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray
5.1 mix is flawed on Shout! Factory/ICON, a phasey upmix instead of the proper discrete surround. The UHD 2.0 tracks are downmixes of that track.
2008 Fox Blu-ray sounds great, very close to the original 70mm mix, only with split surround.
2001 DVD has the original mix as 4.1 and matrixed 2.0.
Imprint 4K has a 4.0 track. The StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray has a different 5.1, unclear if it's the same as Fox BD.
More Drama on Blu-ray
Director: S. S. Rajamouli
Zee5 Streaming has the original Telugu audio and English subtitles (albeit with English portions also overdubbed in Telugu)
Netflix Streaming only has the Hindi dub but better video quality
France Carlotta 4K Blu-ray coming in December
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray has original Telugu Atmos audio
Director: S. S. Rajamouli
Zee5 Streaming has the original Telugu audio and English subtitles (albeit with English portions also overdubbed in Telugu)
Netflix Streaming only has the Hindi dub but better video quality
France Carlotta 4K Blu-ray coming in December
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray has original Telugu Atmos audio
Director: Ivan Passer
Radiance 4K Blu-ray, though note its different color grading from the IP-sourced but poorly compressed Fun City Editions US Blu-ray (caps)
Judging from spectrograms at https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23933756&postcount=57, Fun City Editions US Blu-ray appears to have marginally less filtering than Radiance 4K Blu-ray (whose padded 16-bit depth is a non-issue). There are also loudness differences, though it's unclear whether dynamic range also differs. Caveat: need to A/B both tracks to confirm, but no one has posted actual A/B impressions.
Director: Ivan Passer
Radiance 4K Blu-ray, though note its different color grading from the IP-sourced but poorly compressed Fun City Editions US Blu-ray (caps)
Judging from spectrograms at https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23933756&postcount=57, Fun City Editions US Blu-ray appears to have marginally less filtering than Radiance 4K Blu-ray (whose padded 16-bit depth is a non-issue). There are also loudness differences, though it's unclear whether dynamic range also differs. Caveat: need to A/B both tracks to confirm, but no one has posted actual A/B impressions.
Director: Rob Reiner
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray release date September 21 2026
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray or Germany Capelight 4K Blu-ray no comparison available
Shout! Factory Blu-ray has exclusive extras the Kino Lorber/ Capelight release doesn't
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.
Director: Rob Reiner
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray release date September 21 2026
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray or Germany Capelight 4K Blu-ray no comparison available
Shout! Factory Blu-ray has exclusive extras the Kino Lorber/ Capelight release doesn't
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.
Director: Joe Wright
Director: Joe Wright
Director: Rob Reiner
Director: Rob Reiner
Director: Noah Baumbach
Director: Noah Baumbach
Director: Vincente Minnelli
Director: Vincente Minnelli
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