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Originally Posted by PaulD  Watched Hellraiser last night. Had forgotten what a superlative and atmospheric slice of British horror it is.
Not to sound like the transfer police but did anyone else find it almost too grainy at times? Like, first print Arrow Tenebrae levels? Generally speaking it looked fantastic and but a few scenes were rather distracting when it came to the graininess. |
It's a totally different situation from the first
Tenebrae release, which for some unfathomable reason had been slathered with very obviously fake (and hideous) digital noise that I daresay was supposed to imitate natural film grain, but fell woefully short. That master would have been summarily rejected under Arrow's post-2012 QC regime.
Hellraiser, on the other hand, actually looks like that, as confirmed by cinematographer Robin Vidgeon, who worked closely with Arrow on the new 2K restoration. Previous releases smoothed out the grain either by dint of being on SD video or by applying DNR, but with the latter you also smooth out fine detail (a big deal when there's not that much fine detail on the more dimly-lit scenes in the first place), and Arrow's restorations are all about preserving as much detail as possible.