Home Entertainment Guide: October 2023 | TV/Streaming

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Special Features
Welcome to Barbie Land – featurette
Becoming Barbie – featurette
Playing Dress-Up – featurette
Musical Make-Believe – featurette
All-Star Barbie Party – featurette
It’s A Weird World – featurette

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“The Boogeyman”

Man, this one is a disappointment. On physical media and streaming already for Hulu subscribers, “The Boogeyman” seemed like a slam dunk for summer horror hit a la “The Black Phone” and “Smile” in Summer 2022. The small problem with that? It’s not good. Based on a short story of the same name by Stephen King from five decades ago, this Rob Savage film feels like it came too late in the “manifested grief” cycle of elevated horror, failing to rise above a structure that now feels too familiar. Chris Messina and Sophie Thatcher are doing their best, but you can do better this spooky season.

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Special Features
Into the Darkness Featurette – Open the door into the dark world of The Boogeyman as the cast and crew share how the terrifying tale, based on Stephen King’s classic short story, was crafted.
Outtakes – It’s not all just jump scares and bumps in the night. Join the cast for some lighthearted fun in the outtakes.

Now streaming on:

“Don’t Look Now” (Criterion)

The great folk at Criterion understand that horror sells, especially in October, and so all five releases this month are of the terrifying variety, and all are worth a purchase. Alphabetically in this feature, it starts with this 1973 stunner based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier. Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland are devastating as a couple who are traveling in Venice after the death of their daughter. When a woman claims that their daughter is trying to contact them from the other side, things get surreal and unforgettable. This is a film that really defined the “grief horror” genre that’s so prevalent nowadays, an unsettling film with jarring editing that messes with the perception of the viewer in a manner that’s more common now but was breakthrough a half-century ago. The film was released on Criterion before but it’s getting the 4K treatment this month and it’s worth the upgrade.

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Special Features
4K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Anthony Richmond, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
Conversation between editor Graeme Clifford and film writer and historian Bobbie O’Steen
“Don’t Look Now”: Looking Back, a short documentary from 2002 featuring Clifford, Richmond, and director Nicolas Roeg
“Don’t Look Now”: Death in Venice, a 2006 interview with composer Pino Donaggio
Program on the writing and making of the film, featuring interviews with Richmond, actors Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, and coscreenwriter Allan Scott
Program on Roeg’s style, featuring interviews with filmmakers Danny Boyle and Steven Soderbergh
Q&A with Roeg from 2003 at London’s Ciné Lumière
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by film critic David Thompson