LATEST ADDITIONS

The DMP-BDT500 is a Blu-ray player designed for music lovers. While it doesn’t skimp on visual refinements and connected cleverness, it really sets itself apart from the rest through sonic engineering. In many ways, this is Panasonic laying claim to the more esoteric end of the Blu-ray market, typically the stomping ground of brands like Cambridge Audio, Denon and Marantz.

It’s easy to see why the likes of Bruce Willis and Forrest Whitaker were attracted to this debut feature by writer/director Aaron Harvey. Indeed, with its intricate plotting and tricky narrative structure, Catch .44 often feels like the bastard offspring of Elmore Leonard and Quentin Tarantino. Unfortunately, there are a few too many self-referential jokes (like the one about Bruce Willis’ album... Urgh!) that spoil the fun and take the edge off the film. The BD itself boasts an attractively detailed AVC 2.40:1 1080p encode and surprisingly forceful Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track. The disc also offers up an interesting chat-track from writer/director Harvey and editor Richard Byard.

Obviously created to cash-in on the Twilight-inspired trend for supernatural romance, this MTV-produced show should be awful. And for its first few episodes it teeters on the brink of failure. But then something unexpected happens – as the central mystery hits high-gear it starts to really embrace its horror roots and becomes downright enjoyable.

Cult label Arrow Video has pulled out all the stops with this three-disc edition of Lucio Fulci’s legendary shocker. The Blu-ray disc includes a restored AVC 2.40:1 1080p presentation of the film that suffers a little from the digitised look familiar to Arrow releases (but still marks a general improvement in this regard for the company) accompanied by LPCM 2.0 Italian and English tracks, two commentaries and a series of interviews (including a general piece celebrating the ‘Ladies of Italian Horror’). This content is replicated in SD on an accompanying DVD platter. A second DVD offers a Q&A, deleted scene and various vintage trailers.