Stoker now out on Blu-ray

Jun 18, 2013- Permalink

We reviewed the theatrical release of Stoker earlier this year and were excited to get another crack at this Park Chan-wook film on Blu-ray. We were get stoked (yes, pun intended) when it arrived in the mail. Stoker is a story of family secrets, sexual awakening, mystery and murder. In her review, Christine Lambert said it should be included as a master class for film students to see how a psychological thriller should be made.

The Blu-ray features a near flawless 1080p transfer of the 35mm original. The work of Chung Chung-hoon makes the digital transition with ease and the details of woods and fabrics and the play of light and shadow is all there with nary a compression artifact to be seen.

Mia Wasikowska’s character has a heightened sense of hearing so a soundtrack that does justice to this is a must. The disc has a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track and the rear speakers are used to full effect, immersing the viewer in the unsettling ambiance of the scenes. There are several other soundtracks available including French, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Thai and Turkish tracks, all in Dolby Digital 5.1. The list of available subtitles is also longer than most others I’ve seen with English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Malay, Mandarin, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese. For a movie that film lovers the world over should see, the makers of this Blu-ray really have it covered.

The Stoker Blu-ray is also chock full of extras. You’ll get deleted scenes, a half-hour “making of” documentary, a gallery of photographs by Mary Ellen Mark, red carpet footage and more.

Stoker is a worthy addition to your Blu-ray collection.