NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Shout! Factory Blu-ray (May 2022): Shout! Factory have transferred Stephen Hopkins's The Ghost and the Darkness to Blu-ray. It is cited as being from a "4K Scan from the Original Negative". It looks quite good if occasionally waxy. There isn't much grain but colors are vibrant. The lion sequences always felt manufactured with quick edits but I my last rendition of the film was a non-anamorphic DVD from 1998 (I can't find it or I would compare.) Even if there is some digitization it still provides a pleasing HD presentation thanks to the stunning shots of Tsavo National Park, Kenya and Songimvelo Game Reserve, Mpumalanga, South Africa.  

NOTE: We have added 80 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Shout! Factory give the option of DTS-HD Master 5.1 surround or 2.0 channel stereo tracks (24-bit) in the original English language. The Ghost and the Darkness has aggressive lion attacks and growling snarls, screaming, a train as well as the mysterious rustling grasses. There were some less-deft separations to the rear speakers that add to the film's suspense, fear and intensity. It won the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing for supervising sound editor Bruce Stambler. The score is another good one by Jerry Goldsmith (Papillon, The Salamander, The Mephisto Waltz, Seconds, Hoosiers, The Blue Max, Breakheart Pass, The Omen) handling the versatile requirements of the film sounding consistent in the lossless transfer. There are a number of traditional African songs performed by The Worldbeaters with The Johannesburg Choir. Shout! Factory offer optional, bold, English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray.

The Shout! Factory Blu-ray offers only a trailer. The film deserves more, I think. 

Stephen Hopkins' The Ghost and the Darkness was written by William Goldman - who was not pleased with the final product. I have always liked it - a fictionalized account of the 1898 Tsavo man-eaters that killed 135 people. They were two male lions that attacked and often devoured workers in and around Tsavo, Kenya during the building of a bridge over the river Tsavo for the Uganda-Mombasa Railway in East Africa. The film's deaths are gruesome with the lions 'playing' with their prey at times taking them back to a lair discovered by hunter Charles Remington (Michael Douglas) and Col. John Henry Patterson (Val Kilmer.) I hadn't seen The Ghost and the Darkness for over a decade but still enjoyed the tense, creature-feature-esque story. The bare-bones Shout! Factory Blu-ray is good for a late Friday night viewing. It's very re-watchable so a keeper for me.

Gary Tooze