7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
The fictional Creepshow comic books come to life in this anthology series of terrifying tales hosted by the silent Creepshow ghoul.
Director: Greg Nicotero, David Bruckner, Roxanne Benjamin, Rob Schrab, John Harrison (I)Horror | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Fantasy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.78:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Has the world really run out of people deserving some form of comeuppance? That "moral of the story" ambience was something that
initially set another famed anthology series,
The Twilight Zone, apart from its kin (and/or imitators, as the case may be), and it has also been a recurring element in many of the
episodes in the three prior seasons of Creepshow. There still is comeuppance here, but it's kind of handled discursively at times,
and frankly some of the people getting "their" comeuppance may not seem like they're particularly evil or misguided. Like all the other
seasons, each episode in this season offers two arguably semi-linked vignettes, with the same whimsical comic book panel introductions that have
graced previous years, but once again without a lot of actual Creeper content.
For those wanting reviews of the previous seasons of Creepshow, please click on the following links:
Creepshow: Season 1 Blu-ray review
Creepshow: Season 2 Blu-ray review
Creepshow: Season 3 Blu-ray review
Creepshow: Season 4 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shudder and RLJ Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As with the previous seasons of this series on Blu-ray, this is another fine looking set of transfers that offers nice detail levels for what I've called this show's whimsical and gory aspects. The palette is once again nicely suffused almost all of the time, with nice pops of color throughout many episodes and some especially evocative gradings toward blues and yellows at various times. A wide variety of contexts in various episodes once again allows for a veritable glut of stylistic flourishes, which can also extend to things like production design, and fine detail levels are typically excellent on the wide variety of props and costumes utilized. Again as with several of the previous seasons of Creepshow, some of the practical creature effects are kind of hilarious, and the CGI tends to be effective. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, this season continues the series' tradition of offering "comic book" panels to introduce each episode, and some episodes have brief quasi-panel interstitials that can intrude for a moment. Line detail on all of this content is typically excellent.
Creepshow: Season 4 offers another nicely immersive DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that continues this series' generally nice approach toward sound design. The plethora of monsters and critters and other things that go bump in the night (or even day) help to regularly engage the side and rear channels, and certain selected moments, like the above mentioned flashback to the war scene in "Smile", can really erupt with considerable force and good discrete channelization of individual sound effects. The kind of Danny Elfman-esque score by Christopher Drake is also well presented and is clearly positioned in the side and rear channels. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English and Spanish subtitles are available.
The "law of diminishing returns" seem to be afflicting not just "comeuppance" with regard to Creepshow's Blu-ray releases. We haven't had a comic book included since Season 2, and now for the first time in the series' history on Blu-ray, there aren't even any on disc supplements. Maybe someone at RLJ needs some comeuppance. Per previous seasons, packaging does feature a slipcover.
I have generally hugely enjoyed the previous seasons of Creepshow, and while this fourth season has a number of interesting ideas and storylines, I can't help but feel a certain amount of lethargy is starting to intrude. This season has the typical assortment of "ooey, gooey" creatures as well as a mutant monster or two, along with the regular assortment of actual human beings behaving badly, but it also kind of curiously tends to focus on seeming "innocents" who continually have tragic things happen to them. Those qualms aside, the Blu-ray presentation is typically excellent, though RLJ and Shudder seem to be slowly but surely closing down supplemental material on these Blu-ray releases. With caveats noted, Recommended.
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WolfCop II
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