The Slayer (1982)
I realise what i'm about to say leaves me open to a lot of ridicule but i prefer the old VIPCO dvd release of
The Slayer to Arrow's sparkling new 4K print.
In all truth it's not a very good film and pales in comparison to many slashers of the time. The old VIPCO release wasn't bad in the picture quality stakes, in fact it was for the most part quite sharp especially when upscaled but at the same time it was also quite badly marked with a light sheen on it's right hand side during the darkly lit scenes. However this damage also gave the film a kind of mystical atmosphere which suited the films dream like premise, giving an impression of peering into a grotesque netherworld, an impression that the newly restored print totally loses. Arrow's release is polished and slick looking (Incidentally two words never usually associated with director
JS Cardone) with much of the atmosphere lost, leaving us with a distinctly average and rather talky slasher film which takes an eternity to get going and doesn't have enough murder set pieces to sustain it's ninety minute run time.