The night he came home again….

We reviewed the latest addition to the Halloween series here, and there’s little to add in terms of the movie itself.

The 4K and Blu-Ray home entertainment discs contain the same content, which is unusual for most UHD releases (there’s usually a vanilla 4K disc, with the supplementary material only being on the Blu-Ray in the package). This does make the 1080 platter somewhat redundant, but there’s also a digital download code to enable viewing on further portable devices.

However, while it’s great that the extras are in HDR on the hero disc, there’s not a lot here. It feels a mockery that there’s the exclamation ‘Includes 30 minutes of bonus features’ printed on the packaging when that’s not an awful lot at all. Deleted/Extended Scenes make up 12.5 minutes, though these trims are nothing special. The remaining content is just too short and inconsequential – puff pieces and EPK 101.

‘Back in Haddonfield: Making Halloween’ (6:05), ‘The Original Scream Queen’ (2:32), ‘The Sound Of Fear’ (3:19), ‘Journey of the Mask’ (2:33) and ‘The Legacy of Halloween’ (4:24) are all fine, but feel like social media promos or snippets. Maybe one day we’ll get a commentary from the writers and director, sharing their influences and the many throwbacks to the 1978 original.

 Verdict: Far far better than we could have hoped for, this is a very adult horror film that doesn’t hang back with its slicing and dicing. It’s also very tense and by the time the two nemeses have their inevitable confrontation you might just be rocking in your seat. For a UHD-native film the picture on the 4K release is superb, it’s just a shame that Universal weren’t fussed about pushing the boat out for the collectors at this time. Watch out for a special edition at some indeterminate point in the future.  8/10

Nick Joy

Halloween is available now on Digital Download, 4K ULTRA HD, Blu-ray and DVD from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment .