This Christmas is going to be extra naughty.
At Comic-Con over the weekend, Scream Factory announced a host of horror films they’ll soon be bringing to Blu-ray, including The Strangers and Drag Me to Hell. Most exciting for me personally was the reveal that 1984 holiday slasher Silent Night, Deadly Night is joining the Scream Factory collection in time for Christmas this year, and we’ve got some more details today.
First up, frequent Scream Factory collaborator Justin Beahm took to Facebook to announce that he’s working on the release, noting that he is “packing the disc with great new content, finally giving this film the deluxe treatment it deserves.”
This is especially great news, as Anchor Bays’s recent 30th Anniversary Blu-ray of the film was very light on special features. Aside from a new commentary track, the disc simply ported over the minimal features from previous releases, which was a huge bummer.
But what about the transfer? Anchor Bay’s aforementioned Blu-ray, like their previous DVD release, contained the “unrated version” of the film, and the unrated scenes looked as awful as they did on DVD. The poor quality of those scenes, in comparison to the rest of the movie, makes them stick out like a sore thumb, which is another reason why the 30th anniversary offering left much to be desired.
More good news? In a lengthy interview about all the upcoming releases with Blumhouse today, Scream Factory’s Jeff Nelson and Cliff MacMillan teased a better transfer than we’ve ever seen before.
“We do have the original negative, so we will be doing a new scan from the negative, so we will have a nice, beautiful new transfer,” said MacMillan. “We also have a whole slew of extras that are in production right now. I think what we’ll deliver is the ultimate version of a classic Christmas horror title.”
Nelson added, “Yes, the last Blu-Ray and DVD releases of this film left a lot to be desired. We see a path to be able to correct that.”
