The Fog (1980) - 1985(?) Embassy Home Entertainment Japan LaserDisc

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Here's a fresh drop-off from a cheap eBay lot with a few other common domestic LDs, but unfortunately the presentation leaves much to be desired with a gamut of issues. Like the 1981 Magnetic Video LD (seen here), the picture is cropped to full screen. The difference being Embassy's cropjob being painfully panned-and-scanned. There's a lot of distracting motorized panning in still shots to capture speaking actors and other on-screen action otherwise unseen from the zooming. Magentic's presentation opts to keep the crop more balanced, doesn't seem to artificially move around, and manages to look much less butchered.

The overly blue-tinted and very dark image also suffers from blue or yellow chromatic aberration that produces heavy fringing along edges. This is very noticeable in the end credits as the white text is haloed in blue toward the top and bottom and then yellow when crawling upward center screen. None of this can be seen on the Magnetic LD. Otherwise the film is uncut with small white Japanese subtitles. I'm going to check the Magnetic again to verify, but this Embassy LD features that weird quick zoom during John Houseman's opening yarn (as seen on MGM's DVD as well). I love how the big still on the back looks taken with a standard Polaroid on flash.