As 2018 comes to a close I thought it would be a good time to share my favorite physical releases of the year. I am a big supporter of physical media and will continue to support it. I like owning my movies that I can hold, not in some cloud somewhere. I love box art. This year was a great year for exclusive Steelbooks at Best Buy. Some of them will make my list. In deciding the number I fell on the most obvious one, 18.

Number 10 is a long overdue film onto blu-ray, Silver Bullet!

Silver Bullet makes its long awaited debut on blu-ray on a region free disc from the Australian label Umbrella. Umbrella also released the 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead that was really good as well.

Silver Bullet is an adaptation of the Stephen King Novella “Cycle of the Werewolf”, which happens to be my favorite King story. In the film, Corey Haim plays Marty a young man confined to a wheelchair. He also thinks his Uncle Red (Gary Busey) is one cool dude. Marty soon suspects that the killings happening around his town are not being committed by a person, but by a werewolf. Marty and his sister Jane set out to see who the werewolf is and the answer is shocking.

Made in 1985, Silver Bullet is a fun werewolf movie. Haim is great as Marty who doesn’t let his handicap stop him. Silver Bullet had always been a favorite of mine. Watching now, as oppose to when I was younger, it suffers a little bit from being really campy. There is a scene in the film where the locals go werewolf hunting. What starts as a cool sequence of the werewolf hiding beneath some fog, devolves into a scene where the werewolf picks up a bat, holds it up and then beats a hunter to death with it. The mystery is still fun too, I like to think if I was a kid in the film I would want to solve a werewolf mystery. As for the werewolf, it looks a little silly too, but I forgive the movie because there is some gory goodness and the performances are very good throughout.

The video on Silver Bullet is solid but nothing special. The picture is a little dull at night, but during the day it looks much better. The colors are sharp and there are no real issues with the transfer.

The audio is really good. Clarity of dialogue and sound effects are crystal clear. The awesome 80’s score is on point. This is a really good mix.

There are extras aplenty on Umbrella’s release of Silver Bullet. You will get four brand new interviews (I think, I have never seen a release of Silver Bullet with any special features) my favorite is with Everett McGill who talks about being the bad guy in Silver Bullet and working with director Daniel Attias. Also a fun one is the featurette with the special effects artists, which of course is part of what makes werewolf movies so much fun. There is a commentary with the director, a couple of trailers, radio spot and an image gallery. There’s also a pretty sweet reversible cover as well.

Film: B

Video: B+

Audio: A

Extras: A+

Overall: A