The Bird with the Crystal Plumage 4K Ultra HD Review

THE MOVIE — 3¾/5

Quick Hit Review: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage is horror master Dario Argento’s feature film debut and while it certainly has its moments of questionable storytelling, mainly that of an American doing his own investigation with nearly full assistance of an Italian police inspector, does enter the realm of suspension of disbelief. Still, there are some wonderful scenes in the giallo form where even when the movie meanders, it still managed to keep my attention until the well orchestrated finale.

SPECIAL FEATURES – 4¾/5

This single-disc comes housed in a black HD keep case, and tucked inside are lobby cards, which side slides into a sturdy outer box. In the box are a 60-page booklet and a foldout poster. The cover artwork is reversible revealing the film’s original poster, which I frankly prefer.

Audio Commentary – Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo, talking about Argento in his directorial debut and on the giallo sub-genre. It’s a lively enough track that’s more on the academic side but still entertaining.

Interviews:

• Black Gloves and Screaming Mimis (31:54) – Critic Kat Ellinger explores the film’s themes and its relationship to both the giallo and Frederic Brown’s novel, The Screaming Mimi.
• The Power of Perception (20:57) – Author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas reflects the recurring theme of perception and the role of art in Dario Argento’s filmography.
• Crystal Nightmare (31:24) – Recorded in 2017, writer/director Dario Argento talks about the film and his early career.
• An Argento Icon (22:05) – Actor Gildo Di Marco discusses his role as “Garullo the pimp” and working under Dario Argento.
• Eva’s Talking (11:19) is an old interview with actress Eva Renzi recorded back in 2005.

Trailers:

• Italian trailer (3:11)
• International trailer (2:48)
• 2017 Texas Frightmare trailer (0:55)

VIDEO – 4¾/5, AUDIO – 4/5

Arrow Video releases The Bird with the Crystal Plumage onto 4K Ultra HD where its presented in the original 2.35 widescreen aspect ratio and 2160p high-definition transfer. The picture was restored from original 35mm 2-perf Techniscope negative, scanned and restored in 4K resolution. I presume this is the same restoration work done for the Blu-ray only upgraded to 4K. But even so, the transfer looks solid, detail is very sharp and well defined while colors appear nicely balanced without appearing blown out, while the film grain and noise is still present giving it a fairly theatrical feel to it, and would imagine might look better than the original film print shown in theaters.

The disc comes with the choice of either English or Italian PCM Mono tracks and although I did view with the default English language, I did switch over a time or two to the Italian. Both options are perfectly fine with dialogue coming through the center channel with clarity and while depth, even by 1.0 channel standards, could’ve been better, this is as good as it’ll ever get. (copied from my Blu-ray review)

OVERALL — 4/5

Overall, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage to me isn’t a great giallo movie but is notable being Dario Argento’s feature debut and has great style to it even when character actions aren’t entirely believable. Still, any Argento or giallo fans will get a kick out of this film.