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Natural Born Killers: The Director’s Cut Blu-ray Disc Review

By brenden ⋅ November 15, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

NATURAL BORN KILLERS: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT (1994, Blu-ray released October 13, 2009 - MSRP $28.99)

You know the film. You know the controversy surrounding it. And if you embrace all of its smut and fury, if you’re engrossed by Mickey and Mallory and the carnage and death they leave in their wake as they burn across America then you probably picked up the handsome digibook Blu-ray edition of the R-Rated Theatrical cut last year. It’s really nice! But I’m about to give you a handful of reasons to ditch that copy and upgrade to the newly released Natural Born Killers: The Director’s Cut Blu-ray Disc.

Natural Born Killers was a controversial hit for director Oliver Stone back in 1994. It was the story of a couple, serial killers in mad love and the media sensationalism that lifted them up as American gods, celebrating the rushing tides of blood all around them. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis give riveting, stomach churning performances as the twisted, modern Bonnie and Clyde, bringing life to every twisted perversion Quentin Tarantino put to paper in conceiving the story. There’s nothing understated in the film, with Stone going for the throat at every opportunity, drowning our heads in the festering porcelain bowl of his social commentary. Those with weak stomachs need not apply.

The beautiful digibook edition of NBK was released in June 2008. It sports the R-Rated, theatrical cut of the film, along with a nice collection of special features and the hardcover 48 page book. The transfer is solid, with a hefty, dynamic audio presence and an overall great use of the BD-50 disc space. If that old package is so darn good, why then would you ever want to switch up for this new Director’s Cut Blu-ray? Simple. It’s got everything the last disc had, adds a couple of additional extras and looks a lot better while doing it!

While a lot of reviewers are claiming that both discs sport identical transfers, the keen observer will note that the new edition, the Director’s Cut of the film exhibits a truer colour balance. Namely, fleshtones appear more accurate and there’s less red throughout. Detail appears to be the same on both releases, despite the newer encode being a slightly lower bitrate. Both editions share the same great Dolby True HD 5.1 audio.

The special features from the theatrical cut are carried over to the new Blu-ray edition, including the contents of the 48-page book. The book this time, however, comes in the form of an insert within the blue, plastic shell packaging. Two new HD featurettes have been added to the package as well - an 4-minute introduction to the film by director Stone and “NBK Evolution: How It Would All Go Down Now?”, a 20-minute series of interviews with Stone, the cast and new-media personalities who speculate on how such a serial killer rampage might play out now, in the age of Twitter and Facebook.

Tags: Juliette Lewis, Natural Born Killers, Oliver Stone, Tom Sizemore, Woody Harrelson