The CRITERION DVD and Blu-ray Thread

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

October Titles Announced!

THE CRITERION COLLECTION presents
Martin Scorsese's AFTER HOURS and Tod Browning's FREAKS
on Blu-ray™

Spirit Entertainment are delighted to bring you The Criterion Collection UK releases for October 2023

On 9th October comes Martin Scorsese’s Kafkaesque cult classic After Hours on Blu-ray™ and for the first time in the UK, also on 4K Ultra HD. The film stars Griffin Dunne and a scene stealing Rosanna Arquette in a darkly comic tale of mistaken identity.

Following on 23rd October, Freaks / The Unknown / The Mystic: Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers on Blu-ray™. The world is a carnival of criminality, corruption, and psychosexual strangeness in the twisted pre-Code shockers of Tod Browning, early Hollywood’s edgiest auteur.

MARTIN SCORSESE'S AFTER HOURS - OUT ON 9th OCTOBER
New Director-approved 4K Restoration Available on Blu-ray™ & 4K Ultra HD

Desperate to escape his mind-numbing routine, uptown Manhattan office worker Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) ventures downtown for a hook-up with a mystery woman (Rosanna Arquette). So begins the wildest night of his life, as bizarre occurrences—involving underground-art punks, a distressed waitress, a crazed Mister Softee truck driver, and a bagel-and-cream-cheese paperweight—pile up with anxiety-inducing relentlessness and thwart his attempts to get home.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY™ SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, approved by editor Thelma Schoonmaker, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack

• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features

• New conversation between director Martin Scorsese and writer Fran Lebowitz

• Audio commentary featuring Scorsese, Schoonmaker, director of photography Michael Ballhaus, actor and producer Griffin Dunne, and producer Amy Robinson

• Documentary about the making of the film featuring Dunne, Robinson, Schoonmaker, and Scorsese

• New program on the look of the film featuring costume designer Rita Ryack and production designer Jeffrey Townsend

• Deleted scenes

• Trailer

• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• PLUS: An essay by critic Sheila O’Malley

FREAKS/ THE UNKNOWN/ THE MYSTIC: TOD BROWNING'S SIDESHOW SHOCKERS - OUT ON 23rd OCTOBER
New 2K Restoration Available on Blu-ray™

The world is a carnival of criminality, corruption, and psychosexual strangeness in the twisted pre-Code shockers of Tod Browning. Early Hollywood’s edgiest auteur, Browning drew on his experiences as a circus performer to create subversive pulp entertainments set amid the world of traveling sideshows, which, with their air of the exotic and the disreputable, provided a pungent backdrop for his sordid tales of outcasts, cons, villains, and vagabonds. Bringing together two of his defining works (The Unknown and Freaks) and a long-unavailable rarity (The Mystic), this cabinet of pre-Code curiosities reveals a master of the morbid whose ability to unsettle is matched only by his daring compassion for society’s most downtrodden.

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

New 2K digital restoration of Freaks, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray

New 2K digital reconstruction and restoration of The Unknown by the George Eastman Museum, with a new score by composer Philip Carli

New 2K digital restoration of The Mystic, with a new score by composer Dean Hurley

Audio commentaries on Freaks and The Unknown and an introduction to The Mystic by film scholar David J. Skal

New interview with author Megan Abbott about director Tod Browning and pre-Code horror

Archival documentary on Freaks

Episode from 2019 of critic Kristen Lopez’s podcast Ticklish
Business about disability representation in Freaks

Reading by Skal of “Spurs,” the short story by Tod Robbins on which Freaks is based

Prologue to Freaks, which was added to the film in 1947

Program on the alternate endings to Freaks

Video gallery of portraits from Freaks

English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

PLUS: An essay by film critic Farran Smith Nehme

New cover by Raphael Geroni

[Justin101]

4k Criterion in the UK finally.
I wonder if the price point for the releases are going to change now that Sony are no longer involved.

[Justin101]

It seems it's still £22.99 for the bluray of After Hours and £29.99 for the 4k which is a shame I thought it would have dropped a bit for £19.99 maybe.

£39.99 for the Tod Browning box set seems quite reasonable though.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Justin101

£39.99 for the Tod Browning box set seems quite reasonable though.

I've only seen Freaks the one time a few years ago. I thought it was outstanding and was getting ready to watch my dvd again.

I haven't seen the other two films at all. Are they good?

However the next time i see it will now be on Blu-ray. It's released very close to my birthday.

[Rob4]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I've only seen Freaks the one time a few years ago. I thought it was outstanding and was getting ready to watch my dvd again.

I haven't seen the other two films at all. Are they good?

However the next time i see it will now be on Blu-ray. It's released very close to my birthday.

I really like the The Unknown. Only borderline horror imho. It's more of a freaky, off the wall melodrama with a really outlandish plotline.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Rob4

I really like the The Unknown. Only borderline horror imho. It's more of a freaky, off the wall melodrama with a really outlandish plotline.

Silent?

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

I've only seen Freaks the one time a few years ago. I thought it was outstanding and was getting ready to watch my dvd again.

I haven't seen the other two films at all. Are they good?

However the next time i see it will now be on Blu-ray. It's released very close to my birthday.

I've only seen Freaks and The Unknown, the former many more times than the latter, and rate them both very highly.

As I also like Tod Browning's Dracula, I'm keen to see The Mystic, so will preorder this release.

If you want to 'try before you buy',The Unknown is available to watch on YouTube, as is The Mystic.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Silent?

Yes, The Unknown and The Mystic are both silent films.

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Wonder if we'll see the 4K version of Shaft released here now.

[Susan Foreman]

'Blast Of Silence' (1961) - Pre-order available from The Criterion Collection direct for Blu‑ray ($31.96)

Release date: December 5

"Swift, brutal, and blackhearted, Allen Baron’s New York City noir Blast of Silence is a sensational surprise. This low-budget, carefully crafted portrait of a hit man on assignment in Manhattan during Christmastime follows its stripped-down narrative with mechanical precision, yet also with an eye and ear for the oddball details of urban living and the imposing beauty of the city. At once visually ragged and artfully composed, and featuring rough, poetic narration performed by Lionel Stander and written by Waldo Salt (both uncredited), Blast of Silence is a stylish triumph."

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration presented in two aspect ratios, 1.85:1 (widescreen) and 1.33:1 (full-screen), with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Requiem for a Killer: The Making of “Blast of Silence”
• Rare on-set Polaroids
• Photos of locations from the film in 2008
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Terrence Rafferty and a graphic-novel adaptation of the film by acclaimed artist Sean Phillips (Criminal, Reckless, Fatale)