It’s no secret that every member of the What Hi-Fi? home cinema team is a massive movie fan. Our love for movies is, after all, why we chose a career in testing and writing about the AV hardware that brings the movie magic to our living rooms.
Nowadays, that generally means focusing on new releases – both in terms of products and titles – that use cutting-edge audiovisual technologies such as 4K resolution, Dolby Atmos surround sound and HDR standards to deliver the most immersive home cinema experience possible.
Indeed, jump to our best movie scenes to test picture quality or our best films to test surround sound guides, and you’ll see we have collaboratively spent a lot of time, effort and love curating lists of titles and discs that look and sound gorgeous.
But, for me this week, it wasn’t a new title with any of these AV technologies that really got my cinephile blood pumping. Instead, it was a long-forgotten remaster of a nostalgic classic that is finally making its way onto video streaming services.
I saw the long-dormant 2015 remaster of the 1985 classic Vampire Hunter D, which I had written off as dead and buried, arrive on specialist services Hidive and Shudder to celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary.
What’s the big deal, you ask? There are two main reasons I'm excited.
Firstly, while it may not get the same attention as Akira, or any one of the multitude of Hayao Miyazaki's early masterpieces, Vampire Hunter D is a key piece of anime history and one of the finest animated horror movies of its time... in my humble opinion at least.
It's also one of the titles that hooked me on anime when I was a young sprog. I still remember bribing my older brother to buy the VHS, which I own to this day, as I wasn't rugged enough to pass for 15 at our local comic and video store.
For the uninitiated, the movie is based on a series of fantasy novels written by Hideyuki Kikuchi that were famously illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, an iconic Japanese artist who was, among many other achievements, instrumental in helping create the look and early style of Final Fantasy videogames.
I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but the swords and sorcery story has it all.
Awesome protagonist with a layered, badass back story? Check. Compelling villains and monsters that constantly put you on the edge of your seat? Check. Stellar story full of amazing, animated action and gore galore? Check. Truly awesome, unashamedly ’80s, synth-heavy soundtrack? Check.
If you’re a fan of Conan, Solomon Kane or old-school dark fantasy/horror movies in general, you will love Vampire Hunter D.
Secondly, it's been a long time since it's been readily available anywhere.
Despite Vampire Hunter D's cult popularity, the arrival of a completely new Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust movie at the turn of the century (which is also good) meant that the 1985 original has been ignored for quite some time.
In fact, until now, it has been incredibly difficult to watch it at all. After constantly looking for it for well over a decade, I had not previously found the original on any streaming service.
What's more, the digitally remastered version produced by Sentai Filmworks in 2015, and every other previous Blu-ray and DVD release of it, have been out of production for ages.
They're so rare that copies of Vampire Hunter D (1985) are something of a collector's item – look on most retailers' sites and the few you can find still sell for well over 100 bucks.
That has left me stuck with my original VHS copy for years, which isn’t ideal. The animation, while amazing for its time, has dated badly, with the format's limited dynamic range meaning that colours look particularly muted.
The audio is hit and miss, too. The mix on the original was outright terrible, with ambient noise and the soundtrack having an annoying tendency to overpower dialogue.
Despite owning a copy of the original cut, I’ve been hankering for the remaster to come back on sale for well over a decade. Now that it finally has, the launch has reminded me what a difference basic tweaks can make to older movies.
Colours have been retouched and made warmer, while the remaster’s improved contrast reveals several details previously lost. I compared the VHS and new streamed version, and entire sections that used to come up as pure black on the former are, on the latter, full of subtle colours and details. It's a pretty significant transformation.
The enhanced sound mix also gives the horror elements the space and depth they need to shine, without drowning out dialogue, to the point where I don’t know how I tolerated previous versions at all.
I can even enjoy the synth-heavy soundtrack, which expertly plucks at my ’80s nostalgia heartstrings on the streamed version.
Is it perfect? No. Will it be joining our best horror movies to test your system list? Also, no. Vampire Hunter D still looks and feels dated by modern movie standards, and besides, there are definite elements of the plot that haven’t aged well!
The remaster is also nowhere near as impressive as the upgrades made to other classics over the past five years.
The 4K HDR upgrade that Akira was treated to for its 35th birthday remains a pinnacle for remastering anime classics from the 70s and ’80s, and is superior at a technical level.
But it’s still a welcome development in my mind, and after seeing it, I can’t help but hope to see more similar titles get renewed life breathed into them via a quality of life remaster and release on streaming services.
Even if they don't get, or merit, a full 4K HDR upgrade, I’d personally love Amon Saga, the original Berserk and Blue Gender to get the same treatment as Vampire Hunter D.
There's also a treasure trove of old sci-fi and B-movies I'd welcome getting a wee spruce and streaming release. My DVD boxset of King Kong Escapes (sometimes known as King Kong vs Robot King Kong) is similarly showing its age...
If you agree, or have another classic you’d like to get a fresh lease of life on streaming, let us know in the comments below!
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