Carry on Camping Dark Water

Carry on Camping

Dark Water debuts on the Blu-ray format courtesy of Touchtone Home Entertainment a division of Buena Vista Home Entertainment. The disc contains only the movies original theatrical cut, Carry on Camping the slightly rejiggered Unrated Cut available on standard DVD. That alternate version adds one scene but removes two others found here and actually clocks in a minute shorter. Like Buena Vistas other Blu-rays, the disc has no main menu screen, just Blu-ray pop-up menus accessible while the movie plays. This becomes an issue during the initial set-up if you wish to change your audio or subtitle options. Since the pop-up menus dont work while the movie is paused, you have no choice but to navigate through all the menus while the beginning of the movie plays beneath them, and then skip back to the start of the chapter when youre done. The interface is far from user friendly. Blu-ray discs are only playable in a compatible Blu-ray player. They will not function in a standard DVD player or in an HD DVD player. Please note that the star rating scales for video and audio are relative to other High Definition disc content, not to traditional DVD. The Dark Water Blu-ray is encoded in High Definition 1080p format using MPEG2 compression on a single-layer 25 gb disc. The movie is presented in its theatrical aspect ratio of approximately 35:1 with letterbox bars at the top and bottom of Carry on Camping 16:9 frame. The movie has a stark photographic style that emphasizes contrasty images, drab colors, and quite a lot of film grain. The daughters deep red coat is just about the only color that makes an impression, likely deliberately so. Shadow detail is disappointingly murky for such a dark movie. Edge enhancement artifacts are also visible throughout. The grain usually retains a reasonable film-like texture, though the effects of electronic sharpening render it quite noisy in spots. For example, theres a shot at approximately 25:50 thats relatively clean except for a computer monitor in the background that jumps with video noise. Real film grain wouldnt behave like that. The picture in general has only a fair sense of detail and many scenes look overly filtered. That said, despite these issues I was surprised to find that my impression at the end was of a decent film-like appearance. The heavy grain actually seems to clear up as the movie progresses, and colors turn warmer as well. This is neither the best nor the worst-looking movie available on Blu-ray to date. Id probably think a lot higher of it if not for the edge enhancement problems. The Blu-ray disc is not flagged with an Image Constraint Token and will play in full High Definition quality over a Blu-ray players analog Component Video outputs. The movies soundtrack is provided in uncompressed PCM 1 format or in standard Dolby Digital The PCM track is encoded at 16-bit/48 kHz resolution some of Buena Vistas other Blu-rays are offered at a higher 24-bit resolution. This is a very fine sound mix with pleasing fidelity. Dialogue is always clear and sound effects are crisply recorded. The surround channels are frequently active with water noises and other spooky effects filling the soundstage. The sound designers avoid too many cheap stinger scares, focusing instead on creating a subtly enveloping aural environment. The soundtrack is creepy and effective rather than bombastic, and sounds great on this Blu-ray disc. Optional subtitles English, English captions for the hearing impaired, French, or Spanish. Alternate language tracks French or Spanish DD The disc automatically opens with a lengthy Blu-ray promo and an anti-piracy ad that can fortunately be skipped but are a nuisance. The primary bonus features on this Blu-ray title are recycled from the DVD edition and are presented in Standard Definition video with MPEG2 compression. Deleted Scenes 2 min. Two brief scenes are available in Standard-Def video thats been compressed to hell. The footage is interesting but wasnt essential to the movie. Analyzing Dark Water Scenes 5 min. The films surprisingly young editor is interviewed about his techniques for building suspense during one scene from the movie. Next, a producer and the Production Designer discuss a major visual effects sequence that didnt make the final cut. This latter piece was reinstated for the movies Unrated Cut. Unfortunately, as presented here we arent able to watch the scene in its entirety without being interrupted by the interviewees. Missing from the DVD are three featurettes: Beneath the Surface 17 min. , The Sound of Terror 7 min.