Happy Birthday to Me Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Happy Birthday to Me Blu-ray Movie Review

Mill Creek has released 'Happy Birthday to Me' to Blu-ray for the first time in individual packaging; it was previously released as part of multi-film bundles, one released in 2013 and the other in 2015. The film is also amongst the first wave of titles to feature "Retro VHS" slipcovers which mimic the look of classic 1980s rental copies (which often had vastly superior artwork compared to today's Photoshopped messes). See the 'Special Features and Extras' section below for more on the slipcover. The Blu-ray inside otherwise appears similar to how Mill Creek released it prior when it shared a disc with other titles. Nevertheless, because this is the first time the film has appeared on its own disc, quick and fresh A/V reviews are included below.

Happy Birthday to Me Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Happy birthday indeed. For its debut on-its-own-disc Blu-ray release, Mill Creek presents Happy Birthday to Me with a fruitful, very agreeable 1080p presentation. The image is by-and-large in very good shape, with very little print damage or encode artifacts present. Grain is fairly even and density fluctuates only slightly here and there, with a few deeper increases usually showing up in nighttime exteriors, lower light scenes, or darker corners. Textural efficiency is high, allowing complex facial details and clothing lines and fabrics to be easily visible and naturally complex for the duration. Environments are sharp and clear, whether nicely appointed home interiors or densely populated classrooms. Colors are nicely balanced with a pleasing liveliness and stability apparent across the board, including clothing hues, natural greens, and blood. Black levels are fundamentally sound though a little raised or red in a few places. Flesh tones appear fairly accurate. This is one of the better Mill Creek transfers on the market.

Happy Birthday to Me Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The included DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is surprisingly lively, opening with impressive, widely engaged music and a nicely balanced surround support. That's not to mention a well integrated low end that gives a necessary and positive weight and balance to the presentation. Music carries on with similarly impressive delivery for the duration. Sound effects enjoy robust depth and detail, including a dirt bike race in chapter six and the crowd noise around the edges of it, whirring drills and elevated heartbeats during traumatic visions of brain surgery, or various screams and crashes and slams during the more frenetic slasher scenes. Dialogue is sometimes -- infrequently -- a little muddy and forced to compete with some surrounding sounds, such as background singing and din at a pub in chapter three. Still, the commotion in that scene is fairly lively and immersive, with sounds emanating, in some semblance of harmony, from every active speaker. General dialogue is clear and focused in the front-center speaker.

Happy Birthday to Me Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Finally, a purpose for slipcovers! So often the collectible outer shell features the exact same artwork, front, back, and side as the Blu-ray case inside, making them largely ornamental at best. Occasionally embossing/debossing work adds a little variety but this reviewer has always pitched them in the trash, partly for that reason and partly because doing so saves precious (albeit finite) shelf space, critical when one's collection is in the thousands. Mill Creek has taken a step to make slipcovers a little more meaningful with this line of "Retro VHS" slipcovers that offer a shrunken-down approximation of a vintage rental store copy and also feature a portion of a VHS tape extending from the side of the case, even if most VHS covers were open at the bottom.

For Happy Birthday to Me, the cover is part of the "Silver Collection" which places a silvery border around the front cover artwork. A bit of fake wear (creases, a peeled-off sticker) and a genre sticker appear on the box. The VHS tape features the film's title mostly visible as it's partially pulled out from the side of the box. The sticker shows some handling wear, too, and a rewind charge notice sticker has also been slapped on. Of course these are not real stickers but rather part of the print, and there's no texture to the cassette, either. Still, it's pretty nifty, doubly so since the artwork is different, and much better, than the Blu-ray artwork underneath, which is a more generic Photoshop-y image. The rear slipcover side is a little less neat, keeping up with the vintage look at the top but showing a few necessary tech details on the bottom that correspond to the Blu-ray. The bottom side of the VHS tape is also visible. Humorously, a handful of Blu-ray disc logos appear on the front, rear, and spine to break the illusion (though not entirely); the one on the front, situated at the top, in large print, and in red coloring, is the worst offender.

What would be really cool would be if the entire box art mimicked the VHS cover and the Blu-ray artwork underneath entirely mimicked the VHS tape, which could have easily been accomplished. That would offer more of a seamless illusion of actually pulling a VHS tape out of the package rather than it simply appear printed on part of the slipcover.

As far as on-disc extras, there are none. No DVD or digital codes are included, either.

Happy Birthday to Me Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mill Creek might very well have a hit on its hands with these "Retro VHS" slipcovers, and that each of them has its own character, even if they all follow a similar pattern, is definitely a plus. They look cool but accomplish nothing else, and the concept might have worked better had the entire slipcover replicated the VHS box and the interior Blu-ray sleeve replicated the look of the VHS tape on both sides and the spine, but alas, it was not meant to be. This is a good way to own these films, the price is right, and those who don't normally care about slipcovers just might find these to be worth keeping. It goes without saying that slipcover fans and collectors will want to add these to their libraries. Recommended.