New to Blu: January 31 – February 6

The Blu-ray of Victorian murder mystery The Limehouse Golem offers a “rich and faithful presentation of the film’s visuals”, reports AVForums.

Detail gives rich texture and nuance to the piece, picking up on the minutiae of the elaborate sets and costumes, highlighting the crags and lines on older cast members, and the wisps of hair out of place.

The Victorian sets are bathed in an appropriately misty haze, and the picture has a classic look befitting of the period style.

The accompanying DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is a surprisingly engaging offering, sweeping you along largely courtesy of the suitably effective score from Johan Soderqvist which, at its heights, pays somewhat derivative but still diverting tribute to the melancholy style of Morricone.

DoBlu thought the movie “crosses the grim styling of Seven with a sinister London” in 1880.

The period crime thriller oozes a dark atmosphere with its distinctive colour tone and palette. Using Todd-AO lenses, the film isn’t razor-sharp.

This is throwback filmmaking that pulls the viewer into its seedy setting. Rich black levels offer fine shadow delineation. There is a hint of teal to the colour palette in its darker textures.

Despite The Snowman’s bleak locations, the Blu-ray transfer has “plenty of complexity and depth“, Blu-ray.com said.

Colour saturation pleases in warmer light and more neutral locales, while frigid exteriors display a gray-dominant essence with ease. Black levels satisfy and skin tones appear true to any given scene’s lighting and limitations.

“While the cinematography dials back on the colour, there’s an appeal to the barren white Scandinavian landscape in many of this movie’s outdoor sequences,” High-Def Digest said.

“White dominates those shots, but the transfer never blows the whites out, allowing for pleasing visuals.”

Home Theater Forum rated Home Again’s transfer 4.5/5:

Sharpness is excellent, and colour saturation levels are strong but also completely natural … While contrast is usually consistently applied, there are occasional lapses where things appear a little milky reducing the otherwise very good black levels to merely average.

“Bullet Head is presented on Blu-ray with a nicely sharp and well detailed looking presentation, despite the prevalence of pretty shadowy environments,” Blu-ray.com said.

It described November Criminals’ transfer as “a good presentation, certainly just another fish in the Blu ocean at this point in the game, but viewers will find little worthy of serious complaint”.

Serpico heads the week’s re-issues: “For a film that is over 40 years old, the picture presented here is quite remarkable,” AVForums said of the 2014 UK release.

Also being dusted off are The Land That Time Forgot, Out of Sight, The Fan and the Bee Gees’ One for All Tour: Live In Australia 1989.