ADDITION: Shout! Factory - Region 'A' - Blu-ray - September 2018': The new Shout! Factory release is, in 1.78:1, dual-layered, in 1080P with a high bitrate. It has some fairly consistent grain, occasional depth, not substantial crispness but well-layered contrast. It seems like a suitable bump over the single-layered SD.

Shout! Factory use a DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel (24-bit) in the original English language. There are a few effects and screams but mostly notable in the score is by composer, bandleader, and conductor Van Alexander (The Big Operator, Castle production's I Saw What You Did, 13 Frightened Girls) with its appealing use of the electronic Theremin and it sounds quite impacting in the lossless. The audio is quite strong and there are optional English subtitles on the Region 'A'-locked Blu-ray.

There is an excellent audio commentary with authors Steve Haberman, Producwe/Director Constantine Nasr and David J. Schow who talk about a variety of details dealing with the film's evolution, the score, lots on Joan Crawford and how Castle even had small cardboard axes for distribution in the theatre. It's full of information like the 'Hagsploitation' genre and the discussion has a nice flow. There are also some extras that were in the William Castle DVD set plus others. There is "Joan Had Me Fired" a 7-minute interview with Torontonian Anne Helm and how she didn't make it into the film's early sequence. On the Road with Joan Crawford is a 6.5-minute interview with publicist Richard Kahn, "Battle-Ax" - The Making of Straight-Jacket is Jeffrey Schwarz's 2002 documentary with Diane Baker, Donald Glut, Michael Schlesinger and film historian David Del Valle running 1/4 of an hour. There are Joan Crawford's costume and 'Make-up Tests' plus the 'Ax-Swinging screen test', a trailer and an extensive still gallery.

There is value in this - and the commentary is a part of that enticement. It looks and sounds quite strong as compared to the old DVD and it remains a film you can revisit. Sure, Crawford, Castle and hagsploitation genre fans should indulge in this Shout! Factory Blu-ray.

***

On The William Castle DVD set: As with other Sony boxsets like Icons of Horror - Boris Karloff or Icons of Horror- Hammer Films collections, the feature films of this boxset - eight in this particular package - are shared, two each on four dual-layered, progressive DVDs. There is a fifth single-layered disc of the Castle documentary. All have original aspect ratios are 1.85:1, anamorphically enhanced, and each disc is coded for Region 1 in the NTSC standard. They have original mono audio (or 2.0 channel stereo) and there are no subtitles. The package (image above) is a three tiered Digi-pak housed inside a cardboard slipcase. Five of the eight films have been on DVD previously - some with extras - Mr. Sardonicus, Homicidal, 13 Ghosts, The Tingler, and Strait-Jacket.  Zotz! (1962), 13 Frightened Girls! (1963), The Old Dark House (1963) and the 5th disc award-winning documentary Spine Tingler! The William Castle Story (2007) make their debut on DVD.

Image quality: Although the previously released films-to-DVD are stated as being 'remastered' - this is a term that is easily thrown around and can mean very little. I already owned the single-layered Strait-Jacket with Joan Crawford and the image quality actually looks about the same despite the chronologically newer transfer. So, as these are all shared with another feature - we can consider each of them single-layered and not especially improved upon the previous DVD editions. The Tingler and Homicidal look quite good, the contrast on 13 Ghosts and Zotz! looks a little suspect, Straight-Jacket had some visible noise but overall despite some chroma - I'd say that these are all completely watchable. Certainly not pristine transfers but despite a move to Blu-ray - these aren't going to look dramatically superior. The modest appearance of these 8 films on digital is really no surprise. Sony's come-ons are the three previously unreleased (on DVD), the documentary - and getting them all in one package.

Audio was acceptable if unremarkable. It was consistent and clear enough but the dialogue is not supported with any subtitles which is a surprise as, I believe the individual DVD editions did have optional English, French, Portuguese or Spanish.

Gary W. Tooze