Review Detail

Krausfadr has put together a very slick looking version of a low budget film, drawing from pre-made material from a few different FX artists. The colour grading is a welcome change and generally everything looks and sounds fantastic. I think, if anything, the score now sticks out as being a bit out of place due to the rest of the film seeming so polished.

Some nitpicks below:

- 20:29-ish - as Kyle wakes from his dream he cocks his gun and it's very quiet compared to the other replaced sounds. I'm wondering if this is an old sound that got missed in the replacement process?
- 32:15ish - the new gun sounds have a room reverb that doesn't sound realistic in the apartment where they take place. It's particularly noticeable on the last gunshot at 32:19, which has a much longer tail.
- The new eye-replacement scene works much better and largely holds up well as a result. Two shots still look very dated though. The shot of Arnie in the mirror at 55:51 I think should be cut entirely. It's so apparent that it's a dummy, and I think it's better to not have the shot than have the illusion of the scene broken. The shot at 55:40 is a bit trickier, due to keeping visual continuity, but if it's possible to trim the start of it where Arnie's head movement is very janky, I think having the shot briefly as it moves closer to the eye would still work well as we transition to the closeup.

I would also have appreciated the option of the original audio without newly added sounds, if only for the sake of comparison. The absence of subtitles is also disappointing, given how few cuts were made. I have family who require subtitles, so I am naturally a big advocator, especially if something is intended as a replacement for the original. That aside, I would consider this my go-to version. Recommended.