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

ADDITION: 101 Films Blu-ray - December 17': This appears to be from, the same 2016 2K scan of the original negative (1.85:1) on the first Shout! Factory Blu-ray. It has the same running time to 1/1000th of a second, but is transferred at a lower bitrate. This is probably more apparent in-motion, but the image still has excellent grain and is in the correct 1.85:1 aspect ratio. I thought the presentation was good if a notch below the Shout! Factory.

The big issue for some will be the sibilance audio issues on downmix of the original Shout! Factory that has been fixed in a replacement program - V2 printed at the end of text on the disc face - see below. To my ears the 101 Films Blu-ray linear PCM is different - and the stereo mix (no mono included) sounds tinnier (which is probably accurate) and doesn't share the sibilance audio issues, but is only 16-bit as opposed to 24-bit. The haunting score by Carl Zittrer (Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Blood Orgy of the She Devils, Porky's, Deranged, Dead of Night) sounds excellent - flat but creepy as hell - a significant part of the viewing experience.  I only briefly sampled the surround, but the corrected Shout! Factory seems to be a notch ahead with more resonance via the 24-bit rendering of both tracks. The 101 Films Blu-ray does not offer optional subtitles, and is Region 'B'-locked.

While the 101 Films does not have the, superfluous, 'Critical Mass' version, nor any of the valuable commentaries - it does have most of the Shout! Factory video supplements including the Film And Furs – Remembering Black Christmas 25-minute piece with Art Hindle plus Victims And Virgins – Remembering Black Christmas the 27-minute video with Lynne Griffin. There is also the 40-minute 'Legacy' featurette, TV And Radio Spots plus the 40th Anniversary Reunion Panel. The package has a second disc DVD and there is a folded Black Christmas poster inside.

Well, despite playing second fiddle to (corrected) Shout! Factory - this is still a decent Blu-ray package for Region 'B'-locked audiences and has plenty of value. I LOVE the cover... and I can't count how many times I've seen the film, yet it still has the same chilling effect on me.

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ADDITION: Shout! Factory Blu-ray - December 16':

NOTE: Fans are upset with the 5.1 bump and mono tracks (adding/altering effects, hiss - "S" distortion - and music!) - that have serious issues - and we expect Shout! Factory to make a statement.

Contact info@shoutfactory.com  How to Identify the corrected version: Corrected disc has V2 printed at the end of text on the disc face. Uncorrected does not.

The new Blu-ray 'Collector's Edition' of 1974's Black Christmas includes a new 2016 2K scan of the original negative (1.85:1) on the first Blu-ray and a ' 2006 Critical Mass HD Master' (1.78:1) on a second Blu-ray. It looks to me that the second disc transfer of the film mimics the Somerville House 2008 Blu-ray but I am not positive as we didn't do technical deconstruction of the discs back then. Both have low bitrates and are in 1.78:1. The new 2016 2K scan of the original negative (1.85:1) starts with this screen:

While the Critical Mass (2nd Blu-ray) starts with this screen:

You can see the differences below - the new 2K scan has much cooler skin tones and the colors appear more realistic to me. It is transferred to a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate and grain is rich and consistent. It is slightly cropped compared to the 2008 Blu-ray and the Critical Mass (both are 1.78 and, we assume, 'opened-up'.) Without going to the pixel-level on contrast and detail I think this 2K Shout! Factory is the best the film has looked on digital. It looks impressive in-motion - no noise, artifacts, or digitization flaws of any kind.

Shout! Factory don't hold back on the audio options with the choice of DTS-HD Masters in 5.1 surround (untested), 2.0 channel stereo (downmix of the surround) and 2.0 channel, original, mono. They are all 24-bit and the mono sounds tight and there is some depth notable in the effects but mostly the haunting score by Carl Zittrer (Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, Blood Orgy of the She Devils, Porky's, Deranged, Dead of Night.) Shout! Factory include optional English (SDH) subtitles - see sample below. Their Blu-ray is region 'A'-locked.

Shout! Factory totally stack the disc with 3 audio commentaries (only on the 2K restoration) - the first with director Bob Clark, a second with actors John Saxon and Keir Dullea and a third with Billy (actor Nick Mancuso). On the first disc there is also a 26-minute, audio-only, interview with director Clark.

The second Blu-ray - with the 2006 'Critical Mass' HD Master (1.78:1) transfer that only takes up 14 Gig - has plenty of supplemental material (it's a dual-layered disc) - over 5 hours worth. Highlights include Film And Furs – Remembering Black Christmas a new 25-minute piece with Art Hindle and Victims And Virgins – Remembering Black Christmas a new 27-minute video with Lynne Griffin. There is also a 'Legacy' featurette as well as On Screen!: Black Christmas, 12 Days Of Black Christmas, over 1 hour 40-minites worth of archival interviews With Olivia Hussey, Art Hindle, Margot Kidder, Bob Clark, & John Saxon, 20-minute following a Midnight Screening Q&A With Bob Clark, John Saxon And Carl Zittrer, the two scenes with a new vocal soundtrack as found on the 2006 DVD plus radio and TV Spots and alternative title sequences a, click-thru, stills gallery and more.

Shout! Factory have left no stone unturned and this is one of the most complete Blu-ray releases of the year. Fans of Black Christmas - and there are many - should be thrilled with this release! This immensely memorable horror via 2K Blu-ray restoration gets our highest recommendation! 

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ADDITION: Somerville House continues to produce digital versions of Bob Clark's horror classic 'Black Christmas'. This time it's on Blu-ray. Although only being 12 Gig - the feature improves in color and film grain looks very intact. Detail does not appear to dramatically advance from their dual-layered SE from 2006. The biggest bonus over their latest edition is that it is progressively transferred as opposed to interlaced - as both SD-DVDs that we compared below. It is quite probable that a vast increase in the file size, improving compression, may not overly benefit this 35-year old film's presentation on digital. The real star of this new is the grain - if you enjoy that - it is here in abundance. Minor noise still exists mind you but I have a strong feeling that this Blu-ray image looks precisely as it did originally.

NOTE: Alex says (in email) - "What I see in the shots is grain plus a very heavy amount of macro blocking. The bitrate was set way too low for a film with this much grain. You should have mentioned that. That they only used less than half the available space on the Blu-ray is a crude mastering error or oversight. There is no reason to cap the bitrate that much." (Thanks Alex!)

Dan says (in email): "Perhaps if he (Alex) looked at uncompressed bmp or tiff screenshots then he wouldn't see the heavy macro-blocking, which is actually jpeg compression in your screens. Black Christmas was professionally encoded and QC'd and as you know is about as good as it will look. There is no Macro Blocking in this release. It was a two pass VBR that took about 16-20 hours to encode. regards Dan" (thanks Dan!)

Aside from the improvement in the image - there is nothing really new. Audio has the same options and I noted no radical separations in the 5.1 although a few rear speaker experiences were noted. There are still no subtitles offered.

Although extras are the same as the SE - on this Blu-ray they are all in 1080P - even the 4:3 interviews.

Bottom line - I think you'd have to really love film grain and be a big fan of this, the original 'Black Christmas', to feel it being worthwhile indulging. Of course, if you haven't seen the film or don't own the SD, then this may be more appealing to horror aficionados. It remains a bona-fide chiller of a film and the high-definition presentation gives you reason not to be alone in the house during your viewing.

Eric says: 'Re: BLACK CHRISTMAS, its too bad that with the extra space on a Blu-Ray disc (especially with the too-low bitrate here) that they did not work in the two commentary tracks (one by Bob Clark, the other edited from separate sessions featuring John Saxon and Keir Dullea) from the earlier non-anamorphic widescreen release and the other extras on that release." (Thanks Eric!)

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ON THE SD-DVDS: The Eclectic DVD release from 2001 used the 'negative' ratio where the new Somerville House Special Edition uses the intended theatrical ratio of 1.85 (cropped slightly for anamorphicity at 1.78). You can see how much information you were missing with the Eclectic edition (and its not much) but more importantly the new Special Edition offers us the film in its intended theatrical ratio - certainly an important benefit. The new release is also brighter, but I suspect it has been artificially induced. Hence you can see some differences in the colors. Neither are progressively transferred (see last capture) but the 'combing' on the SE is finer and less intrusive - still this is a black mark on the DVD image quality. Artifacts are visible on both and I wouldn't say the newer release is extensively sharper at all. The older release is on a single layered disc and the new is dual layered.

The new SE offers far more supplements and they are fairly interesting for this campy cult favorite. I saw it fairly close to the time it was originally released and it's a film that definitely stays with you. Its reputation is deserved and it's is worth a spin when you are in the mood. 

Gary W. Tooze