Near Dark on Blu-ray Follow-Up: Choose Anchor Bay's 2-DVD SE Instead

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Back in August, I complained about Blu-ray.com being dumbasses and Near Dark looking like garbage on the high def format in reference to Optimum's British Blu-ray. Well, things frustratingly haven't changed with Lionsgate's U.S. Blu-ray. These reviews/screenshots over at DVDBeaver and Blu-ray.com screamingly show the domestic BD exhibits the same color drawn and muddy image plagued with detail destroying digital noise reduction performed by Studio Canal that presumably provided the transfer to both studios on each continent.

I saw this very Blu-ray (w/ that awful cover) on the shelf at Wal Mart this morning for a straight $10. Although tempting, if one doesn't already have Anchor Bay's extra-stacked 2-DVD set, I'd suggest seeking it out instead. It has a few more supplements and any picture quality jump that usually comes with Blu-ray simply isn't there due to shoddy authoring. Cheap copies on Amazon's Marketplace are plentiful as the set is now OOP.

Even with the Twilight-influenced cover, I would have definitely snagged this BD if the film was treated right. One thing I did notice and will praise Lionsgate for is including the film's original stereo track in lossless PCM along with a lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio remix. That's always nice to see with so many high def discs no matter the original mix either not including it or merely porting over the DVD's weak and lossy Dolby 2.0 track with a 5.1 lossless remix.

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