November 7, 2017 Update-
The new US release of Death Rides a Horse by Kino Lorber has fixed the framing issue! See comparisons below. Full review here
Click images below to enlarge-
Original October 31, 2015 Post-
While preparing the next batch of location reports, I have been working extensively with screenshots from the Explosive Media release of the Death Rides a Horse Blu-ray (previously reviewed here). When viewing the finale of the film, I noticed that all the shots were a lot tighter than I remembered. I compared the blu-ray against an older letterboxed DVD, and the difference was astounding. The entire end sequence was considerably zoomed in on the blu-ray.
Fortunately, this framing issue only seems to impact the last 8 minutes of the movie. As to the technical reason for this framing change, my first thought was there may have been print damage on left side of frame when they were making the blu-ray, however the below shot disproves that.
In the shot below the camera pans from left to right as JPL walks towards LVC. At the same time the Blu-ray image is pan scanned (an artificial pan within the film frame from the left to the right), effectively cropping JPL out of frame.
The new US release of Death Rides a Horse by Kino Lorber has fixed the framing issue! See comparisons below. Full review here
Click images below to enlarge-
Original October 31, 2015 Post-
While preparing the next batch of location reports, I have been working extensively with screenshots from the Explosive Media release of the Death Rides a Horse Blu-ray (previously reviewed here). When viewing the finale of the film, I noticed that all the shots were a lot tighter than I remembered. I compared the blu-ray against an older letterboxed DVD, and the difference was astounding. The entire end sequence was considerably zoomed in on the blu-ray.
Fortunately, this framing issue only seems to impact the last 8 minutes of the movie. As to the technical reason for this framing change, my first thought was there may have been print damage on left side of frame when they were making the blu-ray, however the below shot disproves that.
In the shot below the camera pans from left to right as JPL walks towards LVC. At the same time the Blu-ray image is pan scanned (an artificial pan within the film frame from the left to the right), effectively cropping JPL out of frame.
It is possible that there could have been damage at the top or bottom of the frame, or possibly that the last reel that was provided for transfer was 1:78 aspect ratio (for HD broadcast), and Explosive Media had to further crop the image to match the 2:35 of the rest of the film. I could speculate all day.
In conclusion, currently this is the only Blu-ray version of Death Rides a Horse available. Hopefully when the eventual US release occurs, a better HD master is provided, with a complete image.
