Village Of The Damned (1995) - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Remakes are a tough venture under the best of conditions. It doesn’t help when the original film is actually really good. Such is the situation master genre filmmaker John Carpenter found himself in with 1995’s Village of the Damned. While a well-mounted production anchored by a great turn from Christopher Reeve, the film also feels frustratingly flat and disinterested in itself. That bares out when you understand that Carpenter and Sandy King were far more interested in going after Creature from the Black Lagoon as their next effort and may have put the cart ahead of the horse. 

I reviewed Scream Factory’s 2016 Blu-ray when I was a young buck reviewer. I still pretty much feel the same way it, only nowadays I wouldn’t be quite so wordy about saying the film was mediocre. In recent years Carpenter has pretty much laid it out that it was more of a work-for-hire gig to fulfil a contract with the best thing going for it was Reeve. And I can see his point, but I have to admit I do get some enjoyment out of these halfbreed alien tots driving people to their deaths. And they are some creatively gnarly deaths! A middling effort going through the motions, it’s still a nice slice of 90s pulp Sci-fi Horror. 

If you want to read the wordy version of my thoughts, you can read my Village of the Damned 2016 Blu-ray Review

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
Creepy aliens come down from the stars to impregnate our collections with the first 4K UHD release of John Carpenter’s Village of the Damned. A new two-disc 4K + Blu-ray Collector’s Edition set from Scream Factory, the 4K is pressed on a BD100 disc with a Region A BD50 serving up the 1080p and Bonus features. The discs are housed in a standard two-disc black case with identical slipcover artwork.

While Village of the Damned is hardly Carpenter’s best effort, that didn’t stop the director and his longtime shooter Gary Kibbe from giving the film some flair. The film is filled with long wide shots for our pint-sized characters to populate. The opening “invasion” is quite something when you see dozens of unconscious people peppered throughout the countryside. Then we move into town and get to know our little cast and the seemingly “normal” world they live in. Throughout details are immaculate. Production design, 90s fashions, facial features, and the rolling California countryside look terrific boasting much improved clarity than the 2016 release. That disc wasn’t terrible but it had a pretty thick smash of edge enhancement and telecine wobble to contend with. All of that is cleared out with a new 4K transfer from the OCN.

The Dolby Vision grading also gives us a little warmer color pallet. Not a drastic shift in color timing, but it's enough to notice. Skin tones look a little healthier and primaries have a little more sparkle to them. Those kids still have the whitest hair this side of a Florida retirement village. All Film grain is in much better shape, and better refined without looking so thickened from the edge enhancement on that old disc. All around a nice upgrade. 

Doing the disc flippies thing, it sounds like this release of Village of the Damned sports the same DTS-HD MA 5.1 and 2.0 audio tracks from the 2016 disc. Listening through some key sequences I didn’t detect any difference there. Which isn’t a problem. Not the most dynamic or loud and boisterous surround mixes out there, the 5.1 mix is still solid creepy stuff. The Front/Center channels carry much of the heavy lifting, there’s still plenty of surround channel activity to keep active and immersive. It’s not a sound design that calls a lot of attention to itself but it’s a solid track all the same.

In a welcome bid for Scream Factory, we’re getting the archival extras with a few new bits and bobs thrown in. The first notable addition is a nice and interesting commentary track from filmmakers Jackson Stewart and Francis Galluppi. After that, we get a great interview with screenwriter David Himmelstein and a new interview with historian Daniel Schweiger. These new pieces help shed some light on the show, what worked, what didn’t, etc. Add in those archival bits and you’ve got a lot of extra content watching after the main feature. 

4K UHD Disc 

• Audio Commentary featuring Jackson Stewart and Francis Galluppi

Blu-ray Disc

• Audio Commentary featuring Jackson Stewart and Francis Galluppi
• Beware the Stare - Writing Village of the Damed (HD 22:04)
• March of the Children - Composing Village of the Damned (HD 15:01)
• It Takes A Village - The Making of Village of the Damned (HD 49:17)
• Horror’s Hallowed Grounds - Revisiting the Locations of the Film (HD 20:52)
• The Go To Guy - My Career with John Carpenter by Peter Jason (HD 45:13)
• Vintage Interviews & Behind-the-Scenes Footage (SD 24:41)
• Image Gallery
• Theatrical Trailer

Village of the Damned certainly isn’t Carpenter’s best, but it’s far from being his worst. The film has moments of flair and some of the gritty Carpenter gumption, but it also has this “work-for-hire” vibe. Carpenter openly was far more interested in revitalizing Creature From the Black Lagoon and this film was supposed to lead to that. Unfortunate events in Oklahoma City, bad reviews, and worse box office tickets imploded that other project. I still enjoy the film, Chris Reeve still stands tall as the hero, but there are a few other Carpenter films I pull off the shelf long before considering revisiting this one. Now on 4K, the film gets a welcome visual upgrade with a new Dolby Vision transfer sourced from the camera negative coupled with solid audio, and a healthy selection of interesting extra features. Fans and Carpenter completionists will want to pick this up. Recommended