BRIEF REMEMBRANCES OF THE RECENTLY RELEASED
VOL. 105
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 7-FILM COLLECTION
(1984-1994) - ROBOT CHICKEN: THE COMPLETE SERIES (2095-2021) - F1: THE MOVIE (2025) - THE ASSASSIN OF THE TSAR (1991) - TULSA TERRORS (2024) - ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975)
(1984-1994) 4K Ultra HD + Digital
The finger-knives nightmare that is Freddy Krueger has been a long time coming to 4K UHD, but it finally happened. Last year we got the film film as a standalone release, but now we have all seven film of the original films have finally gotten gorgeous 4K remasters with Dolby Atmos audio and HDR10 color-grading. Was it worth the wait, of course! The 4K upgrades look fantastic, blowing away the previous Blu-ray set with more depth and clarity, the colors are truer, the blacks are deeper, the whites are crisper, and the blood, gory special effects and Freddy's burned visage have never look better, it was literally like seeing these again for the first time, which is just a gift to horror fans. The set includes the uncut versions of A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Dream Child, the alternate ending of Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare with anaglyph 3D and complete with 3D glasses in the physical collection. We also get a full compliment of archival extras, plus new extras by way of the 8-min Boiler Room Confessional , the 8-min Freddy's Footnotes and the newly unearthed archival Becoming a Filmmaker with Wes Craven that was apparently never included on any other release. I do wish we got new audio commentaries and more substantive new extras, but the new restorations look terrific. The 7-disc 4K set arrives in a large black keepcase with flipper trays housing the seven discs, and we get a single pair of 3D anaglyph glasses branded with the Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare logo, plus a redemption code for a digital 4K copy all 7 films, and a slipcover with the same artwork.
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 91 Minutes 10 Second (Theatrical), 91 Minutes 19 Seconds (Uncut)
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (True HD 7.1), DTS-HD MA Original Theatrical 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Wes Craven
Cast: John Saxon, Ronee Blakely, Heather Langenkamp, Amanda Wyss, Nick Corri, Johnny Depp, Robert Englund
Synopsis: Can your nightmares be fatal? In this classic of the horror film genre that launched a movie franchise, a hideously scarred man who was murdered by a lynch mob returns years later in the terrifying nightmares of his killers' teenaged children ... And the dreaming teenagers are starting to die in their sleep. Read our review for the first film here.
Special Features:
- Ready Freddy Focus Points (18:13)
- Audio Commentary with Wes Craven, Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Ronnie Blakely, Robert Shaye, and Sara Risher.
- Audio Commentary with Wes Craven, Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, and Jacques Haitkin.
- Alternate Endings (4:58)
- The House that Freddy Built: The Legacy of New Line Horror (21:52)
- Never Sleep Again: A Nightmare on Elm Street (49:54)
- Night Terrors: The Origins of Wes Craven’s Nightmares (15:33)
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2: FREDDY’S REVENGE (1985)
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 85 Minutes 32 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (True HD 7.1), DTS-HD MA Original Theatrical 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Jack Sholder
Cast: Mark Patton, Kim Myers, Robert Rusler, Clu Galager, Hope Lange, Robert Englund
Producers: Robert Shaye
Synopsis: Freddy's back...and he wants revenge. When teenager Jesse Walsh moves to Elm Street, Freddy Krueger starts appearing in his nightmares. This time Freddy takes possession of Jesse's body whenever the teenager falls asleep, using Jesse to kill ... and there's nothing Jesse can do to stop him.
Special Features:
- Freddy on 8th Street (5:28)
- Heroes and Villains (6:22)
- The Male Witch (2:46)
- Psychosexual Circus (3:26:
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS (1987)
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 86 Minutes 22 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1), DTS HD-MA 2.0 Theatrical Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Chuck Russell
Cast: Heather Langenkamp, Patricia Arquette, Larry Fishburne, Priscilla Pointer, Craig Wasson, John Saxon, Dick Cavett, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Robert Englund
Synopsis: Freddy Krueger invades the minds of a new group of teens ... and the nightmares begin again. When local teenagers start dying, only Nancy Thompson knows the truth. Now a doctor at the local psychiatric hospital, she is the lone survivor of one of Freddy's previous killing sprees. Now, it's a fight against her co-workers' disbelief and a race against time to stop Freddy before he kills again.
Special Features:
- Behind the Story: Burnout (3:38)
- Behind the Story: Fan Mail (0:45)
- Behind the Story: The House that Freddy Built
- Behind the Story: Onward Christian Soldiers (9:01)
- Behind the Story: Snakes and Ladders (6:04)
- Behind the Story: That’s Showbiz (2:00)
- Behind the Story: Trading 8’s (4:09)
- Dokken Dream Warriors Music Video (5:05)
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4: THE DREAM MASTER (1988)
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 93 Minutes 14 Seconds
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1), DTS HD-MA 2.0 Theatrical Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Renny Harlan
Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, Danny Hassel, Tuesday Knight, Brooke Theiss, Ken Sagoes, Rodney Eastman, Andras Jones
Synopsis: Freddy Kreuger resurrects--hideously scarred--and returns to haunt the dreams of the teenaged children of the people who lynched him. It's just a nightmare ... but a nightmare that can kill in this tale of terror.
Special Features:
- The Finnish Line (2:27)
- Krueger, Freddy Krueger (8:06)
- Hopeless Chest (3:45)
- Let’s Makeup (2:20)
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5: THE DREAM CHILD (1989)
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 90 Minutes 2 Seconds (Uncut)
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1), DTS HD-MA 2.0 Theatrical Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox
Synopsis: For five years, a walking nightmare named Freddy Krueger has haunted their sleep--seeking revenge for the horribly disfiguring death he suffered at the hands of the children's parents. Now, through the dreams of an unborn child, Freddy has resurrected himself ... and he's looking for new victims.
Special Features:
- Behind the Story: Womb Raiders (6:25)
- Behind the Story: The Sticky Floor (5:44)
- Behind the Story: Take the Stairs (0:56)
- Behind the Story: Hopkins Directs (0:35)
- Behind the Story: A Slight Miscalculation (1:26)
FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL NIGHTMARE (1991)
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration:
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1), DTS HD-MA 2.0 Theatrical Stereo with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Rachel Talalay
Cast: Robert Englund, Lisa Zane, Shon Greenblatt, Lezlie Dean, Yaphet Kotto
Synopsis: In this sixth return to the horrifying world of Nightmare on Elm Street, the town of Springwood decides to forever end Freddy Krueger's deadly hold on their dreams. Freddy finally confronts the one person he has never been able to defeat, a psychologist who now learns the source of her lifelong nightmares, Freddy's daughter.
Special Features:
- 86’D (1:40)
- Hellraiser (:40)
- Rachel’s Dream (2:48)
- 3D Demise (2:18)
WES CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994)
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 112 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1), DTS HD-MA 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Wes Craven
Cast: Robert Englund, Heather Langenkamp, Miko Hughes, John Saxon
Synopsis: Ten years after writer and director Wes Craven brought his personal nightmares to the movie screen as Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street, the horrifying child killer returns, stepping out of his celluloid world to haunt the life of the actress who first defeated him on film.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary with Wes Craven
- NEW! Boiler Room Confessional (7:33)
- NEW! Freddy’s Footnotes (7:48)
- Becoming a Filmmaker (7:55)
- Filmmaker (4:37)
- An Insane Troupe (0:51)
- The Problem with Sequels (1:35)
- Two Worlds (2:05)
- Welcome to Prime Time: It Really Happened
- Welcome to Prime Time: A Childhood Memory
- Welcome to Prime Time: Sometime in the Early 80s
- Welcome to Prime Time: So It Began
- Welcome to Prime Time: Beauty and the Beast
- Welcome to Prime Time: Making the Glove
- Welcome to Prime Time: Shapeshifter
- Welcome to Prime Time: The Shoot
- Welcome to Prime Time: The Revolving Room
- Welcome to Prime Time: All’s Well that Ends Well
- Welcome to Prime Time: Talalay’s Tally
- Welcome to Prime Time: It Couldn’t Have Happened
- Welcome to Prime Time: - Alternate Ending Version
- Conclusion: Where Gothic Plots Come From
- Conclusion: Why We Like Gothic
- Conclusion: Sadomasochism
- Conclusion: Freddy vs. Pinhead
- Conclusion: Freddy’s Manic Energy
- Conclusion: Creating Lasting Characters in Horror
- Conclusion: No More Magic Tricks
- Conclusion: Monster with Personality
- Conclusion: Freddy as Sex Machine
- Conclusion: Campfire Stories
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ROBOT CHICKEN: THE COMPLETE SERIES (2095-2021)
24 -Disc DVD Set
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: 1
Rating: TV-MA
Duration:
Audio: English Dolby Digital with Optional English Subtitles
Video:
Yes my friends, all 228 episodes of the Adult Swim series, including iconic specials themed around DC, Star Wars, The Walking Dead, Archie Comics, Christmas, and more, are now available in one definitive 24-disc DVD collection! Created and executive produced by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich this nerd-gasm of irreverent lampooning of pop-culture is handcrafted with old-school stop-motion animation with some of the sharpest and sketchiest pop-culture send-ups of all-time. The 24-disc set arrives in a high capacity clamshell keepcase with each disc on it's own hub. It's very similar to the Epik Pak cases except the flipper trays are not free-gloating inside the clamshell, they are secured to the case itself, which I appreciated. We also get a cool Slipcover with metallic foil highlights. Unfortunately there is no episodes/extras guide included to help navigate the set, so I just committed to starting off with season one and I am still working my way through it, and loving every moment so far, I love that short attention span channel flipping aesthetic which emulates the sensation of channel flipping, the pre-internet version of doom-scrolling. I never owned the individual sets so I am unsure if this includes all the previous extras, but it looks pretty stacked, and includes some 20th anniversary special bonus content, which is only available on this DVD set.
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F1 THE MOVIE (2025)
4K Ultra HD + Digital
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region Free
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 155 Minutes
Audio: Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 4K Ultra HD Widescreen
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Damson Idris
F1, directed by Joseph Kosinki, is a fun enough popcorn muncher, but I am not the target audience for this sort of thing, I mean I have zero interest in racing films, unless it's a rally flick like Cannonball Run II, The Gumball Rally or Rat Race, so much so that I still have not watched Days of Thunder or Talladega Nights, but I will tell you what, I love me some Brad Pitt, and his admittedly one-dimensional turn as the washed-up racecar driver Sonny Hayes finds himself on the road to redemption was superficially fun, and it looks and sounds terrific in 4K UHD with Dolby Atmos/Vision. I found the story to be less interesting that the visuals and star-power, but sometimes you just need a fun flick to munch popcorn to, and this fits the bill. Not a high recommend to be honest but if you're looking for a slick, glossy flick with some big stars that you can just turn your brain off and watch for fun, you could do worse.
Special Features:
- Inside the “F1 The Movie” Table Read ( 5:05)
- The Anatomy of a Crash (6:23)
- Getting Up to Speed (5:00)
- APXGP Innovations (5:21)
- Making it to Silverstone (5:04)
- Lewis Hamilton: Producer (5:14 )
- APXGP Sets and Locations Around the World (9:17)
- APXGP and F1: How it was Filmed (5:53)
- Sound of Speed (5:10)
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Label: Deaf Crocodile
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 102 Mintes 33 Seconds (Russian Version), 104 Minutes 45 Seconds (English Version)
Audio: English or Russian DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullcreen (1.37:1)
Director: Karen Shakhnazarov
Cast: Malcolm McDowell
Actor: Oleg Yankovskiy, Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, Yuriy Sherstnyov, Anzhela Ptashuk, Viktor Seferov, Olga Antonova, Dariya Majorova, Evgeniya Kryukova, Alyona Teremizova, Anastasiya Nemolyaeva, Olga Borisova, Aleksey Logunov, Vyacheslav Mukhov, Denis Dmitriev, Vyacheslav Vdovin
Directed by Karen Shakhnazarov (Zerograd) is a gorgeous Russian psychological drama starring Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) mental patient as Timofeyev, a severe schizophrenic in a Soviet mental hospital who is convinced that he's the killer of two Tsars: Alexander II in 1881 and Nicholas II in 1918. The timeline would seem to disprove this, but he is deep into his psychosis, and the sympathetic head of the hospital, Dr. Smirnov (Oleg Yankovskiy) is determined to cure Timofeyev of his madness, using a very unorthodox method to pull him back to reality, which seemingly pulls him out the delusion as well. The film is wonderfully acted by McDowell and Yankoviskiy, and it gorgeously shot with terrific flashbacks to an earlier time period to the period of the assassinations of the tsars, It's a fascinating and beautiful film and should be of great interest to fans of McDowell. The Blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile includes the longer English-language version with McDowell's voice and a different score, and the 2-min shorter Russian version with McDowell's voice dubbed and the rest of the cast speaking in Russian. We also get new, lengthy, interviews with Malcolm McDowel, Karen Shakhnazarov, and a new commentary track by film writer and historian Samm Deighan, pus a booklet with writing on the film by film critic and historian Walter Chaw
Special Features:
- New restoration from the 35mm elements by Mosfilm
- Includes both English language and Russian language version of film with different edit and score
- New interview with star Malcolm McDowell (54:35)
- New interview with director Karen Shakhnazarov (68:16)
- New commentary track by film writer and historian Samm Deighan
- 8-Page Illustrated Booklet with New essay by film critic and historian Walter Chaw
- Blu-ray authoring by David - Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion
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TULSA TERRORS (2024)
Blu-ray
Label: VCI Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 80 Minutes
Audio:
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen
Director: Brian Crain, John Wooley
Cast:
Tulsa Terrors is a documentary directed by Brian Crain and co-written and narrated by John Wooley, that explores how Tulsa, Oklahoma became the unlikely birthplace of shot-on-video horror, when VCI's Bill Blair approached Christopher and Linda Lewis to make the film Blood Cult, the first film to me marketed as the first film shot-on-video flick made for the direct-to-video market. Other shot-on-video films were made before Blood Cult, like Boardinghouse (1982) and the mind-melting Sledgehammer (1983), but Blood Cult has the distinction of being the first marketed as an SOV made for the then thriving VHS market, and it proved highly successful, and inspired many other s to follow with their own SOV cheapies. Also discussed are Lewis' follow-up SOV flicks The Ripper (1985) and Revenge (1986), as well as other SOV horrors like Mutilations (1986), and later analog video flicks Party Crasher: My Bloody Birthday (2000) and The Stitcher (2007). Of course we get loads of rare footage and interviews with key figures from the golden age of VHS horror including VCI's Bob Blair, directors Christopher Lewis (Blood Cult), producer Paul Cowdin (Mutilations), Fangoria contributor John Wooley, composer, actor Rod Slane (Forever Evil), Harvey Shell (Mutilations), director Darla Enlow (The Stitcher), actress Dana Pike (The Stitcher) and more. If you're a fan of low-budget shot-on-video cheapies this is a pretty fantastic doc, I don't know if it's going to appeal to a general audiences,. but if you're into niche cult films, a direct-to-video junkie, or a lover of SOV oddities this is terrific stuff.
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ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975)
4K Ultra HD + Digital
Label: WBDHE
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 134 Minutes 4 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono, 5.1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Miloš Forman
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Flether, Will Sampson, Danny DeVito, William Redfield, Brad Dourif, Christopher Lloyd
Here's another classic that has been a longtime coming to 4K UHD, a classic psychological drama/dark comedy starring Jack Nicholson (The Shining) as Randle McMurphy, who pretends to have mental illness to avoid being sent to the work farm for statutory rape. There he becomes a Svengali of a sort on the mental ward where he starts to exert his influence over the other patients, including the towering, mute native American Chief (Will Sampson, Poltergeist II: The Other Side), the child-like Martini (Danny DeVito, War of the Roses), William Redfield, the stuttering young man Billy (Brad Dourif, Spontaneous Combustion), angry neurotic Charlie (Sydney Lassick, The Unseen), the thoughtful but repressed Dale (William Redfield, Conquest of Space) and Max (Christopher Lloyd, Back tot he Future). McMurphy antics rub the stern, and disturbingly abusive, Head Nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher, Strange Behavior) the wrong way. She does like his disruptive influence, but he keeps playing his games and causing outbursts, not realizing until it's too late that true stakes, his antics are leading him to a tragic fate. I've blogged about this before, but the first time I saw this film was, of all places, at the Willard Psychiatric Center in Willard, NY, where my dad was an orderly in the Hatch building in '80s. They screened 35mm movies at the asylum on Saturday mornings once a month for the patients, but we as kids of the staff would often attend as well, and considering that the nearest theater to me was over thirty miles away, it was rare experience for us to go to an actual theater, so from about 1986-'88 you would often find me at the psychiatric center watching projected movies along with the divergent masses. Dad would drop me off in front of Hadley Hall and I would walk up the stairs into the main auditorium and find a seat among the patients in fold-up chairs gathered in the center of the auditorium, or if I was feeling especially self conscious or awkward, I would find a spot on the Nautilus exercise equipment that lined the rear and sides of the auditorium. I saw a lot of strange things happening there, as you might expect. There would usually be a handful of other kids my age also enjoying the movies, most likely the offspring of other employees such as myself. In retrospect it may seem odd but at the time I wasn't all that alarmed to be watching movies with the "nutters" as I heard some older kids call them, sure, a few were a bit peculiar and prone to Tourette-style outbursts but it wasn't any more distracting than a typical Friday at the cinema these with annoying chatty teens texting away on their phones. The programming was pretty eclectic, a nice mix of repertory and second-run showings of comedies, fantasy-adventure and drama. A few of the movies I watched included Armed and Dangerous, Spies Like Us, Cloak and Dagger, King Solomon's Mines, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, King Kong Lives, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes, Foul Play, 2001: A Space Odyssey and, perhaps unbelievably, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest - which even as young kid I knew was all sorts of wrong, the irony was not at all lost on me even at that young age. I don't really have any specific memories of the viewing other than being self-conscious of how weird it felt watching it in that environment. Years later I remember being incredulous of my own memory of seeing it and asking my dad if it was a legit memory, did I see that film at the psychiatric center? He couldn't verify that it was true, but he said that knowing the guys who programmed the film series at the time he wouldn't doubt it, they just programmed films they wanted to see, which as an adult seems like such a cruel and potentially traumatic thing to do. Anyway, the new 4K restoration is terrific, having never upgraded from the DVD this was a stunning rediscovery for me, gorgeously restored with lush grain levels, the HDR10 color-grade is tasteful, and we get both the 5.1 mix with the added foley effects, and a truer 2.0 dual-mono track, plus some terrific new extras featuring actors Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, Brad Dourif, and producer Michael Douglas, the 86-min 1997 doc directed by Charles Kiselyak, and five deleted scenes. The 4K includes a slipcover and a redemption code for a 4K digital copy of the film. Highly recommended!
Special Features:
- New! Conversations on Cuckoo: Group Therapy: Producer Michael Douglas leads a star-studded conversation with Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Brad Dourif on the unorthodox casting process that launched the careers of the famous ensemble fifty years ago. (13:07)
- NEW! Conversations on Cuckoo: Moviemaking Memories: Memories of working with Jack Nicholson and director Miloš Forman and filming the Academy Award-winning film are shared by Producer Michael Douglas and cast members Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, and Brad Dourif. (10:34)
- Completely Cuckoo: A fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the making of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, tracing the path from Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel to the 1963 Broadway play starring Kirk Douglas to the 1975 film that would sweep that year’s Academy Awards. (86:17)
- Deleted Scenes: Pecking Party (2:17), Where are your Clothes? (1:50), Meet Nurse Ratched (1:39), First Group Therapy (2:36), Shaving Chief (0:49)
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