7.6 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.1 |
Former FBI profiler Will Graham returns to service to pursue a deranged serial killer dubbed "the Tooth Fairy" by the media.
Starring: William Petersen, Kim Greist, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Dennis FarinaThriller | 100% |
Mystery | 72% |
Crime | 62% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Same audio specs for both cuts.
English SDH
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (locked)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
In the annals of the modern horror film, there’s probably no actor more associated with a single role than Anthony Hopkins is with Hannibal Lecter. Hopkins famously won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, and then went on to reprise the role in Hannibal and Red Dragon. Fans of Thomas Harris’ source novels will know that Red Dragon was in fact a remake of the film that introduced Lecter (spelled Lecktor for some unfathomable reason) to audiences, Michael Mann’s 1986 opus Manhunter. As I discussed in my Red Dragon Blu-ray review, there are some fascinating differences between the two films which ostensibly are telling the same story, and as I also mentioned in my interview with Martha de Laurentiis (one tied to television’s Hannibal: Season One, a series which ultimately revisited Red Dragon for a third time), Manhunter is a personal favorite of mine. The film is relentlessly stylish in the typical Mann way, something that may seem to diffuse the inherent horror in the story of Lecter (Brian Cox) and FBI profiler Will Graham (William Petersen). Perhaps surprisingly, then, Manhunter is as disturbing as The Silence of the Lambs, albeit in a completely different fashion, and may well trump the efforts of Red Dragon, a reboot which is undeniably visceral and which benefits from Hopkins’ spooky presence but which never seems to generate the same general sense of angst that Manhunter does.
Note: Screenshots 1-9 are from the Theatrical Version. Screenshots 10-18 are from the Director's Cut.
Manhunter is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with AVC encoded 1080p transfers in
2.35:1. How you feel about the video quality of this package as a whole will probably depend on whether you consider the Director's Cut a
"supplement" or the "main feature", for the video quality of this version is distinctly inferior to that of the Theatrical Cut. That said, anomalies
like minor telecine wobble and some occasionally ungainly grain management suggest to me that this is probably not a new master for the
Theatrical Cut, though I have never seen the previous MGM release linked above (also available as part of The Hannibal Lecter Collection), nor the British release from a few years ago. That said, comparing screenshots between previous
reviews and this release suggests no huge difference, though the palette seems perhaps just a bit incrementally warmer on this Scream
version than the MGM (again, going solely by screenshots). As both Martin Liebman and Svet Atanasov have mentioned in their reviews,
softness is regularly recurrent, and there may have been some minor high frequency filtering applied, but there's still a rather heavy grainfield
on display throughout the presentation. Colors look natural, although a couple of really odd lighting choices, like the garish green of the first
FBI field office scene, often paint flesh tones with almost sickly looking hues (look at Farina's face in screenshot 2 for a good example). Detail
levels are generally fine if never overwhelmingly great. The bright outdoor scenes pop the best, as should be expected, offering a clear uptick
in sharpness and detail.
The Director's Cut, on the other hand, is a decidedly less pleasurable viewing experience, seemingly cobbled together from a number of
different sources, some of which are at the very least secondary (I'm tempted to say tertiary) film elements and perhaps even old uprezzed
video. Compare, for example,
screenshot 6 and 16 for one sign of the differences. There's more noise in this presentation and some very clumpy and unnatural looking
grain. At other times this version is for all intents and purposes identical to the Theatrical Version. The "good news", if it can be deemed such,
is that many will find the Theatrical Version the better film in any case, with the Director's
Cut an "alternate universe" that may not pay that many dividends in the long run.
Both versions of the film sport DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 tracks. The 5.1 version certainly ups the ante for the pulsing, very 80s sounding music (despite older source cues being utilized), and in fact there are times when I personally wished the score and/or source cues had been mixed a little lower. There's just a slightly phased quality to some of the effects in the 5.1 mix (listen, for example, to the "waves" in the opening moments of the film), but dialogue routinely sounds fine and there's decent placement of surround effects in several scenes. The 2.0 version offers what is probably a more balanced and better prioritized accounting of dialogue, effects and score, though it lacks the really fulsome low end of the surround track. Fidelity is fine all around, and dynamic range quite wide.
Theatrical Version (1080p; 2:00:03)
- The Mind of Madness: Interview with Actor William Petersen (1080p; 18:16)
- Courting a Killer: Interview with Actor Joan Allen (1080p; 15:54)
- Francis is Gone Forever: Interview with Actor Tom Noonan (1080p; 22:03)
- The Eye of the Storm: Interview with Director of Photography Dante Spinotti (1080p; 35:56)
If you only know Hannibal Lecter via Anthony Hopkins or the television series, you're in for a treat (so to speak) with Manhunter, though it should be understood that this film is less about the good (?) doctor than profiler Will Graham. Moody but unbelievably scenic, Manhunter develops incredible tension despite a hero who's loathe to show any emotion. Technical merits vary here, but as with most Scream releases, the supplemental package is excellent. Recommended.
2001
1984
Unrated Edition
2005
2004
2017
2013
2004
Hellraiser V
2000
2008
2016
2013
2012
2013
1991
2015
1987
Collector's Edition
1983
2006
2012
Collector's Edition | + Director's Cut on BD
1990