4K Ultra HD – Edition FR – The Smoker Cat – 94 min – 10 November 2021
Video format
• Intermediate Master: 4K
• Standard HDR:HDR10
• Ratio: 1.85
Soundtrack
• EnglishDTS-HD MA 5.1
• English DTS-HD MA 2.0
Subtitles
• French
It is brought to the attention of our dear readers as well as theviewing equipmentspecified and used by each tester of the MaG team, the rendering may differ from one installation to another, whether or not it is calibrated, as well as personal preferences and expectations may influence the rating. Moreover, the images in the article are not representative of the edition tested.
WORK – Recreational acids, viciated sensations
In 1977, the City of Angels faced a wave of savage and inexplicable murders, guided by madness. The police quickly suspected a young man, Jerry Zipkin. In order to prove his innocence, the latter, assisted by his friend Alicia Sweeney, then conducts his investigation and finds that the various assassins have as common points to be bald and to have attended ten years earlier Stanford University. At that time, they absorbed an experimental drug called Blue Sunshine, the devastating effects of which occurred at a time. In the face of this threat, will Jerry be able to exonerate himself before it's too late?
At the frontiers of genres, this paranoid thriller with a suffocating atmosphere and hallucinating interpretation (the actors are on a freewheel) is a surreal trip full of mystery whose questions resonate especially today (is there a risk of side effects with vaccines against VOCID-19?). In fact, this rather original work bears rather well the weight of the years.
IMAGE – When the madness is watching
Resulting from a restoration carried out in 2015 from a 4K scan of the original negatives (by the German publisher Camera Obscura), this transfer UHD HDR10 whose new calibration was supervised by Jeff Lieberman in person allows to rediscover the work in all its singular beauty (due to the conductor op-Don Knight).
The copy, of great stability, has been cleaned with thoroughness (at a handful of white dots near, dusts and other scratches have been removed), the thick silver texture that has been preserved (no noise reducing on the horizon) displays with more refinement than in HD, the level of detail is just remarkable (cf. the rendering of faces and clothes of the era) with an additional touch of sharpness (imputable to the upper definition) and the contribution of the HDR, which undoubtedly revives the images, is evident all along...
The colours return to a second youth (more dense and lively here, especially at night-club), the contrasts are stronger than ever (abyssal blacks and immaculate whites) and the light sources rise to other skies (especially during the sequence of the operating block) without abusing too much intensity that would have been moved.
SON – Is that a bad doctor?
Proposed in DTS-HD MA 5.1 (and even in an ultra clean 2.0 mono original for purists), this soundtrack worn by the anxiogenic partition of Charles Gross uses appropriate spatialization (with some unfortunate echoes) that respects the spirit of initial mixing.
The front stage is dynamic, the voices (VO only) are clear, the score is enveloping and the added surrounds are active at the right times (the audience at meetings, the passers-by on the street).
CONCLUSION – Heat that can!
Limited to 1000 copies and bundled bonus (including filmMurders in VHSin Blu-ray), this edition 4K Ultra HD presented in a beautiful three-part digipack seems to be the best cure for hair loss! More seriously, « strange » Jeff Lieberman's feature film (published in 1977) represents himself to us with a technical care that he did not suspect existed.
Artistic note
7
Video quality
8.5
Audio quality
8
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