400-419 Jean Rollin

[tenia]

I can confirm review copies have been shipped recently, and that booklets are also locked (as I received all those in France).
Powerhouse's website states release dates are August 28th but Amazon talks of mid-september, though.

[reaky]

How the actual did the BBFC let those hardcore inserts on NIGHT OF THE HUNTED through?

[MikeFH]

I can confirm review copies have been shipped recently, and that booklets are also locked (as I received all those in France).
Powerhouse's website states release dates are August 28th but Amazon talks of mid-september, though.

I can confirm they are shipped. I received The Rape and The Night today (Netherlands).

[MichaelB]

How the actual did the BBFC let those hardcore inserts on NIGHT OF THE HUNTED through?

You'll have to ask them!

But they were submitted and approved (and in fact this is now checkable via the BBFC website, although they don't go into details beyond acknowledging that the alternative scenes were passed at 18).

Thus far, the BBFC has passed all Rollin materials uncut, so fingers crossed for the rest.

[MichaelB]

Final specs.

The Night of the Hunted:



The Rape of the Vampire:

[MichaelB]

The Beaver of the Vampire (UHD version)

This 2160P image has one of the highest bitrates we have ever seen and the image benefited extensively with beautifully rendered fine grain textures. It is darker than the Blu-ray as that BD was darker than the DVDs. Contrast is wonderfully layered with rich, deep, black levels and close-ups are impressively detailed. I think this image quality is absolutely gorgeous. Top marks!

[MichaelB]

Absolute rave review of the UHD of The Rape of the Vampire from CineOutsider, which makes the important point that the extras are unusually essential with a film that's extremely unlikely to make much coherent sense on a first viewing.

The film that effectively launched and shaped Jean Rollin’s feature film career is given the best of royal treatment by Indicator on this fabulous UHD release, The restoration and transfer are both terrific, and the special features have everything you could really want and more. The film may still divide audiences even today, but I wanted to hug it, and seeing it looking this good and with this level of background detail proved to be the perfect introduction. Highly recommended.

[MichaelB]

Night of the Beavered.

And Mondo Digital has reviewed both The Rape of the Vampire and The Night of the Hunted:

In keeping with their other Rollin upgrades, it's a stunning improvement with excellent detail, beautifully rich colors, and a completely clean, impeccable presentation without the visible damage present on the earlier transfers. The UHD is quite the viewing experience with HDR bringing out some punch in the colors like never before, especially those hellish symbolic reds that pop up throughout the film.

[jheez]

I just watched The Night of the Hunted on 4k and thought it looked spectacular - one of the most natural and gorgeous looking transfers I've ever seen. The wider color gamut really added depth to the reds and other colors. It's so sharp that every eyelash is visible in closeups (when in focus), but does not look processed. Kudos on the restoration, Indicator. I can't praise them enough. Bravo.

[MichaelB]

I just watched The Night of the Hunted on 4k and thought it looked spectacular - one of the most natural and gorgeous looking transfers I've ever seen. The wider color gamut really added depth to the reds and other colors. It's so sharp that every eyelash is visible in closeups (when in focus), but does not look processed. Kudos on the restoration, Indicator. I can't praise them enough. Bravo.

Thank you! We're all very, very pleased with this one.

It's quite a strange experience working on projects like this, because I kick off with a low-bitrate standard-definition SDR proxy for preliminary work like subtitling, then graduate to the HD SDR master for authoring the Blu-ray, and it's only after that's ready to sign off (by which time I've watched the lower-res versions multiple times) that I get to see the full 4K UHD HDR version in all its glory.

And I vividly remember watching the HDR version of The Night of the Hunted for the first time and going "wow!" - I'd seen the opening scene countless times over the previous weeks, but those headlights now really dazzled in a way that was both visually effective and wholly narratively appropriate - it made it that much clearer why Brigitte Lahaie's character was so horribly disoriented.

It may have been shot in a week on a tiny budget, but it was shot on 35mm by people who knew what they were doing, and Rollin's eye for colour and composition is as peerless as ever. I remember a wonderfully dismissive review of Eyes Wide Shut that pointed out that Rollin could have knocked out something more or less identical in a fortnight with considerably less hype and visible strain, and I can't say I disagree.

[swo17]

OCD Alert: Volume 1 and Volume 2 are not the same height

The third and fourth Rollin titles are similarly a little shorter than the first two

[MichaelB]

Lips of, erm, Beaver.

[rapta]

OCD Alert: Volume 1 and Volume 2 are not the same height

The third and fourth Rollin titles are similarly a little shorter than the first two

The only way to make everyone happy is to keep making them a little shorter with each successive release...the last Rollin release would be in CD-sized packaging.

[reaky]

Perhaps relate package height to film duration, which would make the 52-minute Lost in New York the tiddler.

[MichaelB]

Beavernation.

[MichaelB]

Final specs:

Fascination:



Lips of Blood:

[MichaelB]

Mondo Digital on Fascination and Lips of Blood.

[JSC]

Going through the filmography and find Rollin haunting yet another location from French cinema.

Pierre Etaix's Yoyo



and Rollin's Le vampire nue

[MichaelB]

Almost certainly not an accident; Rollin knew his French cinema, and the Etaix wouldn't even have been that long ago.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I'm a chump - I bought the 4K version of Fascination, not realising that 4K discs CANNOT be played on blu-rays. I could just return it I guess and get the blu-ray, but is it basically worth just buying a 4K blu-ray player now? Will enough films be released in this format to warrant it? And the difference between the 4K and the standard blu-ray releases are significant, right? It looks like a fairly standard 4K player goes for around £100 so not too bad.

[MichaelB]

It really depends on what you're watching them on. The resolution uptick ideally needs a screen of 50" and up to appreciate, obviously the bigger the better, but for me the biggest difference between 4K UHD and normal Blu-ray is the HDR (high dynamic range) grading, which essentially means that there's a wider range between pure black and pure white. And the results can be pretty incredible on a suitable setup - for instance, the opening of The Night of the Hunted takes place in a forest at night, illuminated only by the headlamps of passing cars, which are really quite startlingly and disorientatingly bright in the 4K version, far more vividly conveying the Brigitte Lahaie character's sense of alarm and confusion.

That said, some TVs and monitors are more adept at displaying HDR than others. My main family telly is a Panasonic LCD, where there's only a slight improvement (the problem with LCDs is that they're backlit, so they can't display pure blacks), whereas my office set is an LG OLED with Dolby Vision, where the improvement is really eye-poppingly impressive.

[tenia]

Will enough films be released in this format to warrant it?

As a whole, there probably are around 800+ movies available on the format in English-friendly releases, which should be plenty enough to think it's worthy in terms of "feeding the beast" but that then obviously depends on what you're looking for as movies. I'd argue there'll always be less movies on the format than on BD, simply because of the market, but from what I see, there seems to be enough to spend one's money on.

That said, some TVs and monitors are more adept at displaying HDR than others.

If thirtyframesasecond bought a UHD by mistake, I suspect he might not have a UHD TV, but possibly only a SDR Full HD one. In such a case, the matter might not be so much the TV but rather having a UHD player that properly tone-maps HDR to SDR to avoid mangling the presentation (and unfortunately, it seems like those UHD players aren't the ones at the lower prices).

[therewillbeblus]

You could also probably sell the 4K disc by itself on eBay in a sleeve or empty case, and you may even recoup some of the cost of the blu-ray price

[reaky]

I believe 4K players are all backwards-compatible, ie they play standard blu-rays, so if your machine is at all elderly, I’d consider getting an upgrade. I have one 4K disc (the BFI’s Full Circle, which came bundled with the blu-ray) so I’ll instantly have something to play when I make the switch.

[jheez]

I used a Sony X700 to play 4k discs on my 1080p plasma before I upgraded my TV. It gave me access to some new restorations that were huge upgrades and only available on 4k disc at the time (example - The Big Lewbowski). I did notice occasional pink fringing around high contrast areas using this setup, but it was better than nothing. Now that I've upgraded to a 4k TV, I'm happy I started future-proofing my collection around that time. I've heard Panasonic UHD players are better at converting 4k HDR to 1080p SDR and don't have the same fringing problem.

I don't think the UHD upgrade is worth it for everyone. As Michael said, screen size and viewing distance matters. On the best 4k discs, the grain is much more resolved and natural in motion, as well as the color and contrast (HDR) being better. But a solid scan of a film on blu-ray would look almost as good for most people and most setups.