// you’re reading...

Reviews

Friday the 13th Part 2 Blu-ray Disc Review

FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART 2 (1981, Blu-ray to be released June 16, 2009 - MSRP $34.98)

Friday the 13th Part 2 Blu-ray

    “Just when you thought it was safe to go back to camp…here’s even more heart pounding terror. Five years after the horrible bloodbath at Camp Crystal lake, all that remains is the legend of Jason Voorhees and his demented mother, who had murdered seven camp counselors. At a nearby summer camp, the new counselors are unconcerned about the warnings to stay away from the infamous site. Carefree, the young people roam the area, not sensing the ominous lurking presence. One by one, they are attacked and brutally slaughtered. Suspense and screams abound in this compelling chiller.”

I got lucky. The original Friday the 13th was on TV about a week ago and I decided to give it a go. Nostalgia often takes a heavy hand with me. But watching a TV version of the original shortly before getting to see a high-res Blu-ray transfer of the sequel, Friday the 13th Part 2, really helps to pinpoint where the differences are. The Blu-ray looks good. Not great, but good. A consistently clean, bright image with good contrast and only the occasional, obvious touch-up on certain scenes to give them a little extra “pop”, usually in the close ups. And I have to say, for a film that I thought would suffer from an abundance of softness brought about in the attempt to “clean up” film grain, it stood up well. Kudos to Paramount for an accurate transfer and for not killing small object detail and sharpness with unnecessary use of Digital Noise Reduction. On another positive not, the disc reacted quickly in my PS3, where, with some other Blu-ray titles, there seems to be some lag from time to time when you ask it to do something.

Now the sad part. While Paramount Home Video has been good enough to encode 4 of the 5 extras in HD, the bonus features on the disc are really nothing to get excited about. An awkward interview, some fan fic, convention footage and the original trailer (with a standard-def panel discussion) all look fine, but there’s not much meat on these bones. Notably lacking are the rumoured “Unrated Cut” of the film and any participation from the cast and crew, outside of convention appearances. Whether or not the studio has more to offer or not is unknown to me, as I am not much of a horror fan, but I feel like they could have put in a tiny bit more effort. I seriously doubt they have a “Super Slasher Extreme 16 disc Ultimate Blu-ray box set” in the works, so, as this will no doubt be the last release of Friday the 13th Part 2 for a while, I think it would have been nice to see more original content included

I’ll say that most of all I am looking forward to watching Friday the 13th Part 3, 3-D tomorrow! Having suffered through some other bad 3-D in the last few months, I have high expectations for this next chapter and to see how well 3-D and Blu-ray go together.

Bookmark and Share
  1. [...] from Friday the 13th Part 2 at the beginning of the film looks worse than on the Part 2 disc (read my review here.) All told, whether cleaning up the transfer couldn’t or just wasn’t done, the high-def picture [...]

    Posted by Friday the 13th Part 3 3-D Blu-ray Disc Review | The Blu-Ray Blog | June 17, 2009, 7:28 pm

Post a comment